Amazon Box Robot Figure on Sale in Japan
Amazon Japan commissioned this custom toy (designed by the creator of one of my favorite anime* Azumanga Daioh!), designed to appear as if it were a golem brought to life from discarded shipping boxes. It's sort of brilliant, acknowledging the stack of boxes dedicated Amazon users amass, while injecting a little bit of whimsy. It's only 2200 yen, too. I'd get it if I thought my Amazon Prime would let me ship it from Japan for less than the cost of the figure.
Bring a few over to North America, Amazon!
Catalog Page (Japanese) [Amazon.co.jp via Hobbyblog via Gadget Lab]
* I know it was a manga first, but I didn't read it.
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The Box Robot is from Yotsuba&!, a Manga that is just good plain fun, and it is cool that Amazon.jp is doing this.
Um. It's a little guy made rather crudely out of cardboard boxes. What exactly is so cool about this, again?
I want one!!!
@1: It's "Cardbo". One of the volumes in Kiyohiko Azuma's Yotsuba&! series has a great little story about two older girls making him as a costume and then fooling the titular character into thinking that he's real.
So I suppose the point is that it's for fans of the series. He's even got the coin slot that the girl in the costume was using to extort money.
Cartman did it first!
(see "awsome-o")
It reminds me a bit of the "Office Robot" that a coworker of mine built a couple of years ago. Golem-wise, he even had the word "אמת" written on a sticky-note stuck to his forehead. (He never did move on his own, though. As far as I know.)
Pic of Office Robot @ Flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jackbunny/243807329/
@zombiefodder
'Golem-wise, he even had the word "אמת" written on a sticky-note stuck to his forehead.'
I appreciate your coworker's attention to detail.
¡¡¡¡OMFGBBQ!!!!
this is the robot costume Miura uses to harass little Yotsuba!!! so funny!!
Revoltech has a figure out of this robot:
http://www.jlist.com/SEARCH/yotsuba_danboo/1/
Kiyohiko Azuma's comic "Yotsuba&!" is one of my personal favorites. (The "&" on the end is because each story arc is titled "Yotsuba and the XXX".)
Yotsuba is a young girl of about age 4 to 6. When asked her age, she'll hold up some number of fingers, then say another number. When asked where she's from, she'll say, "Way to the left!...And a little to the right." Her hair (green on the color covers) is in four identical pigtails pointing in the four compass directions. In Japanese, Yotsuba means "four-leaf", as in four-leaf clover.
Cardbo, here, is classic Yotsuba&!. Yotsuba&!'s motto might well be, "Yesterday, this day's madness did prepare."
The strip sure isn't for everybody. It's about as far from edgy as it's possible to get. "Ghost in the Shell" it's not. I love it.
Well, except for Yanda. He's obviously evil. :-)
@Mr. Protocol: Edgy or not, it's the spiritual heir of Calvin & Hobbes. I love it to bits.
The Cardbo story, the fishing story, and the one where she draws on her sleeping dad's face are exactly what little kids are like. I remain amazed how well they translate; unlike a lot of other manga they rarely descend into culturally derived incomprehensibility.
"That elephant is huge! Look, he's pooping! His poop is huge!"
My favorite Yotsuba story is the one where she takes her water pistol next door and massacres the neighbors Yakuza style. The cutest story of revenge and mass murder I can think of. And she learns a valuable lesson as well.
Hey Joel, I'm planning on ordering one of these little guys and I'm happy to ship it trans-Pacific if you'd like. He's pretty small and pretty light so it shouldn't set you back more than about ￥1000.