Artist: Produced by Medicom Toy
Series: 400% Star Wars Kubrick (Han, Luke and Boba Fett)
Date Purchased: 2013-2014
Price purchased: $150 (set of Luke and Han) $150 for Boba Fett (Bounty Hunter Edition)
Story: Medicom is a Japanese based toy company that produced a line of Lego style figures called Kubricks. The figures were slightly larger compared to Lego figures at 6cm, but they had a similar block like body. Although they sort of mimicked Lego style figures, they were the originals to get really good licensing agreements of franchises such as Aliens, Bruce Lee, Astro Boy, Bape and even Star Wars. Not only did they have really good characters to work with, they put quite a bit of quality and detail into their figures as well. I started collecting various Kubrick sets for a few years, beginning in the late 90’s, eventually slowing down in the 2000s (I’ll write about this collection later). By the time they released their Star Wars collection, I pretty much stopped buying Kubricks. That’s until I came across their larger sized Star Wars figures that were 24cm instead of the usual 6cm (they call these 400% Kubricks) while on a trip to Japan in 2005. They were playful but detailed and “serious” at the same time that I had to pick one up (not one of these ones). From there I wanted to collect all the 400% Star Wars figures and started hunting.
There’s no great story with these figures. They were Ebay purchases over the years that I thought were fair prices. I do recall finding the Han figure while in Japan in 2007. It was at a basement store in Shibuya, Tokyo called Mandarake (one of Tokyo’s largest vendors of used anime and manga-related products). It was on sale for about $60CAD which was a lot at the time for me. I passed on it that day and after thinking about it for the night (and not finding anything else that day), decided to go back and drop the hammer. I went back with my wife the next day and shit was already gone. I’m glad I was eventually able to get one with the Luke version on Ebay a few years later, but I think it’s that feeling of letting it slip through that charged my interest. The Han and Luke figures were released in 2005 and 2000 of each were produced.
The Boba Fett figure is an exclusive release from the Japanese fashion/toy brand Bounty Hunter. It was released in 2005 with a production run of 1000. What’s crazy with the Boba Fett figure is that there are two other versions. There’s an Empire Strikes Back (ESB) version released in 2005 with a production run of about 2000 and a Return of the Jedi (ROJ) version which was released in 2007 – also with a run of about 2000. The figures look similar but have slight differences in packaging and gun accessories. Looking on Ebay, I believe the Bounty Hunter version is the priciest.
nicabBY 