Robot Claw – Page 44 – “Life In The So-Called Space Age”

Berserker Armor Guts

May 7, 2025

I recently assembled the above model kit. It appealed to me not just because it’s a character from a manga I love, but because it’s designed to not require painting and has a cloth cape!

This is a Kotobukiya kit which means it’s got a slightly different design approach to Bandai, and from experience kits from this company are a little more finicky and difficult to assemble.

Appropriately, I used my new ‘GodHand’ nippers to make this kit. I bought these during the last Japan trip, and they cost more than a typical model kit! They are designed to produce a clean cut from the runners, which minimizes sanding and cleanup. They work very well, and I should have purchased a pair years ago.

There were no stickers and a tiny amount of pre painted pieces, but aside from these and the sword blade…

…everything else is black. This proved a bit problematic during assembly, since it was sometimes difficult to see the tabs and holes on the tiny pieces. Some parts are also very sharp, and I almost cut myself once or twice!

Overall I’d say assembly was a bit frustrating and a bit difficult compared to the average Bandai model. Aside from the reasons already mentioned, I was surprised to see some pieces required rotations when you assembled them, and others even required glue! The joints are also very stiff, and I even broke a wrist joint during assembly although the kit seems to consider this a possibility since the runner contained extras.

Here he is finished sans cape and sword arm. Incidentally – and unlike Bandai – the instructions contain no English.

The cape looks great and is threaded with wire to make it poseable, but it was a massive challenge to actually get it correctly on to the figure. A sort of collar device is supposed to lock it into place, but despite Herculean effort I never managed to get it working as the instructions suggested, so my cape is a bit ragged around his neck.

What’s interesting is while this is a model kit, once assembled it feels like an action figure. The seams are all but invisible in the black, and the stiff joints and excessive possibility mean you can display Guts into all the usual poses, including the crouching one I’m leaving him in.

And although it’s a kit (or action figure) once posed it looks like a statue, and will look nice on display. This may have been frustrating to make, and a little pricey, but I’m happy with it 🙂

Microcomputer

May 3, 2025

I bought the above at Miniso recently. It cost $10, and it’s a ‘construction block’ kit. Since LEGO no longer has a patent on their brick design, many competitors are releasing near-identical types of products, often at a much lower prices.

As you can see this series has six different ‘retro’ technology sets, and while I assumed they were blind packed (you didn’t know which one was inside until opened) mine had the computer on the front and that’s exactly what I found inside:

Over the years I’ve purchased many of these ‘LEGO knockoff’ kits and the quality varies wildly. Far too often the colours are weird, or blocks are miscast, or don’t fit together well This had none of these issues at all.

In fact if the pieces were given to me out of the packaging I would have just assumed they were LEGO. They have the same feel, and fit together the same as a LEGO brick. Even the strings used for the keyboard and mouse cables were the same as LEGO!

The only difference I could find was the instructions, which were a bit abbreviated compared to the average LEGO kit. This could of course have been since they needed to be printed small to fit inside the capsule, or because the build was very easy. At least they didn’t have any mistakes, something which I’ve found often in other knockoff products.

The final product looks great doesnt it? A tiny model of a first-gen Macintosh computer that fits nicely into the palm of your hand.

An attractive little model for a reasonable price. This suggests the LEGO competitors are no longer as second-class as they used to be.

Mousu Mousu

April 30, 2025

Mouse Computers is a Japanese company that makes high-spec computers for well-heeled customers. A bit like Apple for PCs. In 2017 they released this advert featuring members of the idol group Nogizaka46:

I only recently discovered this, and was immediately charmed. Not only are the girls very cute, but the song is catchy, the visuals striking and the premise absurd. It hardly matters that it’s got nothing to do with computers: it’s immediately catchy and instantly puts a smile on your face. This is an example of Japanese ‘kawaii pop’ at its finest.

The advert quickly went viral on the internet, and was far more successful than Mouse had expected. The group was riding high at the time and the ad featured some of their most popular members, so fans ate it up. Mouse capitalized on the popularity with a making-of video (which shows how much effort goes into getting the girls looking perfect):

They also produced a multi-part absurdist comedy series ‘Mouse Diner’ featuring the girls working at a cafe. This overflows with charm and made me laugh aloud many times:

A year later they followed it up with a new advert:

And they even made an animated version of the original advert and hired an Evangelion character designer to draw the girls! Alas this doesn’t seem to be on YouTube but here’s the key art:

Apparently the shops selling Mouse computers were inundated with requests for promotional material. Much of this is what you’d expect – mousepads and clear files – but I read there were also raffles for life sized standees and branded computers. You can find a lot of it for sale online these days at elevated prices:

Mouse Computers still exists, but I can’t find any mention of this campaign on their website. All the girls in the video have now left the band, and by now this ad has become just another piece of advertising history, albeit (apparently) a very successful one.

I even saw a pack of five promotional postcards featuring the girls in their mouse outfits! I’ll never find it, but you can bet I’ll be keeping my eyes peeled for that every time I’m in Japan 🙂