Marmit Giant Robo

Marmit Giant Robo

Giant Robo (ジャイアントロボ, Jaianto Robo) is a Japanese manga series by Mitsuteru Yokoyama. The manga, which was first published in 1967, spawned a live-action tokusatsu television series of the same name, also known as Johnny Sokko and His Flying Robot in the United States.

 

From wikipedia:

Earth is invaded by an interstellar terrorist group, Big Fire (the Gargoyle Gang in the American version), led by Emperor Guillotine. Guillotine spends most of his time in a multicolored space ship hidden at the bottom of Earth's ocean, from which he issues his orders.

The group has been capturing scientists to create an army of monsters to help them conquer Earth. A boy named Daisaku Kusama (Johnny Sokko in the American version) and a young Unicorn peacekeeping agent named Jūrō Minami (Jerry Mano in the American version) are shipwrecked on an island after their ship is attacked by the sea monster Dakolar and subsequently captured by Big Fire. They flee onto an elevator leading to a complex where a Pharaoh-like giant robot is being built by captive scientist Lucius Guardian, who gives Daisaku and Jūrō its control device. Guardian helps them escape before he is shot to death; before he dies, he triggers an atomic bomb which destroys the base. The radiation activates the robot, which now obeys only Daisaku. The boy is invited by Jūrō and his chief, Azuma, to join Unicorn and fight Big Fire with Giant Robo.

Marmit is/was one of the larger independent toy manufacturers in Japan - to date they've only released one figure that's commonly collected by jumbo machinder enthusiasts - this is the Vinyl Paradise Giant Robo 24" Super Robot (called Johnny Sokko's Giant Robot in the US). There's also a bootleg that appeared shortly after the Marmit release that's an inch or two shorter (I'll soon add comparison shots to that page).

Marmit Giant Robo Right Side

Marmit Giant Robo Left Side

Marmit Giant Robo Back

The sculpt of this figure is remarkable and looks awesome on a shelf, if slightly short compared to other JMs (it's shy of 24 inches tall). It does bend forward slightly but not like the bootleg. The Marmit issue has a stamp molded into the right foot with "Marmit" and "1998" - as I recall there was some controversy amongst Jumbo Machinder collectors back when it was made available as to whether it should be collected or not with it's limited articulation and lack of the JM feel (it was considered too accurate when compared to the likes of Mazinger Z and others) - also the price was pretty exorbitant (you could still pick up boxed Shogun Warriors for around $100) - I don't remember the retail from Marmit - I think it around $150 but could be mistaken - I remember when the bootleg showed up it had gone up to around $300 but that might have been the retail price. Also the Marmits were very limited - something like 300-500 pieces total so they don't show up too often and when they do they rarely come with the bag or header card.

Marmit Giant Robo Copyrights

The header-card was stapled to the top and the bags I've seen get pretty gnarly - mine was stored separately and the figure was well taken care of so not much damage.

Marmit Giant Robo Bagged Front

Marmit Giant Robo Header Card

I purchased mine sometime after the original issue, having owned the bootleg for many years I decided I needed the original too.

All Mattel images and captions are copyright Mattel, all Popy, Banpresto, Unifive or Yutaka images and captions are copyright Popy/Bandai and used without permission. Same goes for Marmit, Mandrake (aka Mandarake) and anyone else I missed.  All other content, including images and editorial, is Copyright © 1997-2022 John Eaton and/or contributors unless otherwise stated. If there are any comments or objections, please contact John Eaton, by clicking here.