Category: Toys

Not-LEGO Apothecary

August 18, 2025

It’s time for another ‘brick toy’ set by a LEGO competitor. This times it’s this ‘Medieval Apothecary’ by a company called FunWhole:

I bought this a few months ago for about $60 on Amazon, although the price seems to have gone up a bit since then. I chose this because the reviews were excellent, it includes lighting, and due to its similarity to the medieval blacksmith set from LEGO.

Opening the box reveals a lengthy full-colour instruction manual, 21 bags of pieces, and a box for the light elements. As with today’s LEGO sets, this one is built in numbered stages so you only open two or three bags at a time.

The large instruction book is very nice. Heavily influenced by LEGO, the illustrations are clear and easy to follow, and include elements like alternate angles to make the fiddly steps of inserting the wires for the lights easier.

The light elements themselves are bricks with built in LED lights connected by very fine wires. The finished model has about ten lights in total, and I was surprised to see it’s a single circuit powered by three AA batteries.

While there are a lot of aftermarket sets to add lights to existing LEGO kits, LEGO themselves rarely includes light bricks. My guess is this is due to difficulty: I suspect younger children would find installing the lights in this set quite challenging.

The above shows how the wires are installed in and around the other pieces, and on the finished kit they are mostly invisible. The set contains male and female bricks with matching +/- terminals so the top floor of the building can be removed with affecting the wiring, which is impressive.

The above photo shows the (unfinished) top floor, and you can see three of the light elements have become candles in the chandelier and a flame for a stove.

Even more than the UFO set I reviewed a month or so ago, the bricks in this set feel exactly like LEGO. They have the same grip and are in most cases identical, although there are a few I’d not seen before including ones designed to allow the tiny wires to run under them.

The set includes a few stickers, and these were much better than LEGO. While LEGO uses simple vinyl stickers, this set had decals that are rubbed on and then almost seem like they have been printed on the piece when the plastic top layer is removed. This is exactly what LEGO needs to switch to!

It’s not all as good (or better): since LEGO still has a trademark on their minifigs, the competitors need to design their own and these guys just look a bit… wrong. I’ve chosen to display the finished building without them 🙂

Here it is displayed in our curio next to the LEGO Medieval Blacksmith, and you can see they are the same scale and match nearly perfectly.

The lighting is truly impressive and although I’ll never really use it as you can see it looks great especially in the dark.

Many of the lights are interior and illuminate the well-detailed rooms of the apothecary. This kit has a lot of play value for kids and I would have loved this when I was young.

This is a phenomenal kit. The instructions showcase other sets made by this company and they have some themes – like ‘steampunk’ and ‘wild west’ – that LEGO has barely touched. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if I buy more from this company.

The Fortress Of Necross

July 21, 2025

Rewind back to a typical day in the life of other me in Japan in 1987. I’d been playing Famicom Dragon Quest all day long and was heading to the game center near the station to play the new game Rastan that I’d read about in the latest issue of Comptiq. On the way I stopped at the konbini to grab a snack and saw this:

It’s called ‘Fortress Of Necross‘ and if the name alone didn’t win me over the art and words ‘Role Playing’ certainly did. I immediately bought it and found a little bag of chocolates inside as well as a smaller inner box containing cards and a plastic toy.

I quickly realized this was a heavily RPG-inspired toy series, and it reminded me of many of my other interests such as the Famicom games I was playing (Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy and Zelda) or especially my beloved TRPGs including Fighting Fantasy and Sword World. I quickly bought more boxes and built up a collection, learned more about the lore of the evil necromancer Necross and the heroes trying to defeat him, and even played the game utilizing the cards that came with the figures.

I was absolutely hooked! These toys seemed like they were made just for me.

Of course back in 1987 I knew nothing about what was being sold 7500 kilometers away and my snack choices never came with any sort of toy. I didn’t learn of the existence of these toys until almost three decades later.

The figures are about an inch tall, and include the good-aligned hero characters (about 8 per series) and many evil guys including Necross and his generals. The figures were packed randomly, and with 40 different ones available collecting them all would have been quite a challenge! They were massively successful, and over the next decade Lotte released 8 series – 320 figures in total.

As the line continued it began to include characters not restricted to standard sword and sorcery fantasy, including robots and gods, and the last set was even based around the Cthulhu mythos:

These are beautifully designed and sculpted little figures, and had these been available to 15-year-old me I would have gone mad for them. A few years ago I decided to get a few for myself as nostalgia for the other me that never existed.

This turned out to be easier said than done since these little guys are very collectible and prices can be eye-opening. Finally, during this past trip to Japan I found a few for cheap and finally began my ‘collection’:

Let’s look at each of these in order:

First we have Wood King (from the third series) who seems like a strong guy since his stats are high and his bio says he is a Demon King. The game involved drawing enemies randomly from a bag and getting progressively stronger as you defeat them, but I think this guy would be one you wouldn’t want to draw early! Each monster also came with an item that can be used to help defeat other monsters.

The Numelian (second series) is a weak monster that is apparently a ‘friend of the octopus’. He comes with a compass that helps defeat a Tengu monster. His figure is fairly small (about 2cm) and wonderful detailed for its size.

And lastly we have the Worm (third series) which is a giant worm that helps fertilize the magical woods. It seems to be of average strength.

As this toy line continued, various special features were introduced. This included some figures also being available in transparent plastic (such as my Wood King and Worm), to colour-changing plastic and eventually figures with removable plastic ‘gems’. It seems some of these fancier versions are especially rare and collectible, and I’ve seen examples well over $100 (for a single figure) in Japanese shops.

Necross toys are an example of keshi, or miniature plastic/rubber figurines. Many lines exist, and three are shown above: Kinnukiman (‘Ultimate MUSCLE’ in the west), Villgust and Monster In My Pocket. I actually recall one of the latter at Charlestown Square newsagent sometime in the early 1990s. I believe it was a dinosaur and I liked it, but I have no memory of what I did with it.

While these sorts of toys had their heyday in the 1990s, they’re far from dead. These days they have been returning in Japanese gacha machines – I’ve got some Ultraman versions – and there are blind-boxed Godzilla ones as well. Lots of indie creators make and sell them, and there’s even been some revivals in the west. Nostalgia for the old ones seems to be picking up as well, and here’s a (1 inch high) metal anniversary version of a Kinnukiman figure that I also obtained from a gacha machine:

I very much doubt I’ll ever buy any more Necross figures, but I’m happy to now own the three I do. They’re a glimpse into the memories of the other me that paradoxically seems to become closer the further away those years become.

Now excuse me; I’m going back to my other childhood, during summer 1987 in Japan. I’m home from the game center, my pocket full of Necross toys, and it’s time to watch the latest episode of Kamen Rider Black… long, long ago in the 20th Century…

Ramen Universes Beyond: Tamagotchi

July 13, 2025

Its been half a year, so you’ve undoubtedly been wondering when the next licensed ramen review was coming. Worry no longer; it’s time for Tamagotchi!

Tamagotchi are the original ‘digital pets’ that were first released almost 30 years ago. The toys are still available in many (including retro) forms, but the characters are also available on a wide range of merchandise. In Japan, Cup Star is using them to sell instant noodles, such as this soy sauce flavoured example:

Apparently there are 20 different lids, each featuring graphics from the 29-year history of Tamagotchi devices. I wonder if collectors are going mad trying to collect all of them?

Opening the lid revealed an impressive-looking product, generously filled with pieces of egg, shrimp and unidentified brown rocks. To my surprise it smelled good, and I immediately became curious about the taste.

I added hot water and let it steep for three minutes, and the above shows the finished product. It smelled even tastier cooked, and unlike most of the (over) 70 ramens I’ve tried these past years it was with no hesitation that I extended my fork…

My verdict: actually quite good! If I had cooked this up in my Hakodate hotel room I would have been perfectly happy with it, and it’s only due to me simultaneously preparing a chicken ramen that I didn’t eat it all. Special props need to be given to the tiny shrimp, which rehydrated well and were very tasty.

As mentioned I purchased this in Hakodate, at a large and impressive supermarket. It was part of a large endcap display with all sorts of standees and point-of-sale graphics, none of which I bothered translating. This was a mistake, since I didn’t know that buying one entitled me to a free sticker, which almost certainly would have gone on that day’s postcard. 🙂

Robot Claw