GO NAGAI NO SEKAI

I usually dont like small figures, my big hands have a lot of troubles playing with them and the fact i need a magnifiying glass to look at the details fill me with anxiety but some are real fun and dosnt sacrifice the details for the scale. Most Gashapon looks kinda bad or plain but sometimes they go against that rule and the Go Nagai no Sekai serires is one of them.

Released 20 years ago by Furuta, this serires focused on a lot of artists to celebrate they work and the Go Nagai serires focused on his antire roster of characters. The box says they are 8 figures + many secret figures, since they came in blind box the procces of collecting them was really exciting, you could get a Cutey Honey or an Enma-kun or Mazinger soo getting the Devilman was quiet a challengue.

The very first figure that is on the actual cover of the box is Devilman on his anime look, green with red wings on a pretty heroic and stoic pose.This figures have no articulations soo he looks like a tiny statue and not only the sculpt is superb, but the paint is completelly flawless, the colors are strong and vibrant and perfectly applied, specially on his face and red eyes. I mean, he comes with a very simple base with the Devilman and Furuta logos, but even the floor texture on its is really masterfully painted and looks like stone.

The second figure is Miki Makimura, straigth directly from the manga pages, she looks perfectly faithfull to Go Nagai´s art style, from the cartoony face to the curvy body and provocative expression. I love her slippers and the carpet and wodden floor in the base, is evident she is on the Makimura´s house and the best part is Ghelmer hand coming out from the floor, just moments before graving her. The way the arm have bthe same color of the floor in the base and how that color changes dradually to a blue and greens is really beautifull.

The third figure is Akira Fudo, walking directly to the viewer, with one foot on the top of the base. Juts like Miki is is like a Go Nagai art on 3D, from his slim body tone to his face expression and eyes, tough unlike Miki, he is the most simplistic figure of the collection, just dressed in black. The base have a stone texture, with some wrird bones and rocks, is pretty difficult to find out were he is.

Then we got an Akira in middle transformation in Devilman. From the waist down is the same figure, but the waits up his black clothes are exploding and his face looks already more Devilman than Akira. Again, this figure is really simplistic but i love how good it works with the human Akira figure, put them together and you pretty much have him transforming while he walks.

The last figure is Devilman fully transformed and is the tallest of the collection since he have his wings spread and is levitatin on top of an spiral of smoke or clowds, with the help of a small metal rod. The image is really spectacular, despite the small scale and again, the sculpt follows Go Nagai art style perfectly.

This figures proof that scale dosnt matter, you can make something spectacular and good looking even in small size, i love how daithfull this is to Go Nagai´s original vision and how each figure trys to be a small diorama on its own and even conect with others like Akira´s transformation. It makes me wish i had collected the rest of the serires since each figure represent each character in a superv way.

GHELMER

The Fewture Model Devilman action figures series, designed by Yasushi Nirasawa, was a pretty difficult line to get. Specially the series one, since series two was much more popular. Each figure came with an extra piece for a figure that could be asempled once you get the entire line, but i am missing several pieces of this extra figure since some of this characters i got them outside of theyr blister/box.

One of the “rare” ones was Ghelmer, the water demon. I only saw him once in my life and never again tough i saw him appearing in some online stores sometimes.

This is the second biggest (not tallest) figure of the series since the shape of his body makes him pretty wide and space consuming. This is very anoying since he dosnt fit in many of my shelves but also makes him looks spectacular. He dosnt come on a blister but instead on a big windows box (like Jinmen).

Even with his impresive frame, he is pretty light and thin, almost spidery. He is skeletic with a pretty good scales texture mixed with fleshy details, like veins and tumors. He is pretty gross looking and his face is a 3D rendering of Go Nagai´s original design with the wings on his head.

The best detail by far, is his tail; a slug like creature made in soft plastic and owning of his own face, sharp teeth and four shining eyes. Once the belly of this slug is open you can find the only accesory of the figure (of the entire line!!!): the dry corpses of the victims of Ghelmer. A mass of mummyfied dead bodys mixed together in a grotesque dance.

Since the slug is his tail i dare to say this skeletal corpses are Ghelmer poop. Yes, his accesory is his own shit… and it glows in the dark magnifiscently. Is a shame this glowing look cannot be shown on pictures tough.

This is not the original color design but is a later release, a variant. The riginal design is totally dark blue in hard plastic. This version is called “poisonus swamps” and is cast on transcluscent green plastic (even his tail is transluscent). This makes some of the details a little hard to see, but at the same time it gives him a “watery” look that makes him stand out of the other figures.

The original one was just dark and dull, this one is much much better for me. The only paint on him are his emerald green eyes and white fangs (on both heads), the rest of the body is just shiny and clean green and i love it.

He is articulated on his head, shoulders, elbows and wrist as well as his legs, tough the articulations on his leges are better to be left alone since its a little hard to make him stand. The tail helps a little bit to stand him but since the tails can be removed very easy, sometimes he keeps falling over but this is not very common.

He is well articulated and thanks to his spider limbs, he have some dynamic poses to play with.

I admit the transparency and glow in the dark feature are very stricking buthe is not one of my favorites. I kinda feel he is too simplistic and his body shape is anoying, tough i could not pick a better design choice for him. Also, i think this is pretty much the ONLY Ghelmer figure out there, wich makes him extra special.