I’m not especially familiar with the 1976/77 Toei tokustatsu property Ninja Captor, but I do like the character design.
The elemental-themed costumes combined garishly decorated crash helmets, superhero utility belts and go-go boots with primary-colored mesh that evoked ancient armor. I also like the fact that there’s a fat guy on the team…
These 5.5″ vinyl figures manufactured by Popy were contemporary to the 43 episode TV run back in the day. They are articulated at the shoulders and waist, and included a red plastic handheld signature weapon. While the figures, often in beater condition, and somewhat common, those little red daggers and ray guns seldom survived some Japanese kid’s childhood to today.
In addition to these, there are brown, green and orange figures I have yet to score. Being a very cheap line, they all use the same body mold, even for the girl, the short guy and the chocolate chunk.
Check out this fantastic pop-up book over at A Japanese Book. You get a better notion of the notion of that futuristic superhero ninja motif from this art. The TV show seems more concerned with the transforming giant robot stuff…
Matt
Nice colorful set aand review! I don’t know this show either. Are these figures hard to find? Expensive?
krainville
They’ll run $30-50 loose, $75-ish in the bags. Not uncommon though, so eBay is an easy place to find them.