When I came home from work, who will greet me at the door first? A lady wearing apron? My two cats? Or some thieves who sneaked into my place while I was gone??
No, the answer is none of the above. Five 1/144 scaled models of fighting robots from my favorite animation "Gandam" greet me from the shelve of my place's doorway. These five figures are called "Mobil Suits". They are placed right next to the pot of Turkish Bellflowers on the shelve, from the right to left, "Rickdom","Zagu", "Gerugugu","Guff" and "Sugock". All of them are the most sophisticated robots of "Gion " nation. However, every once in while these high tech robots became the targets of two alive monsters (his cats) and, obviously, the robots were turned into just plastic toys for them.
My first meeting with "Gandam" was fifteen years ago. My parents bought me the Gandam plastic models, which triggered a huge Gandam boom, for my birthday. When I opened the Pandora's box decorated with beautiful animations, the smell of fresh vinyl and plastic came out. Since that day, I transformed myself to Gandam who was fighting against anti-establishment nation, "Gion" filled with the smell of fuel and gunpowder. Even after the boom was ceased, my interest to Gandam kept me going to the sequel "Z-Gandam". It was not just the passion for the plastic figures, but I became more attracted to the pessimistic and philosophical stories of Gandam.
Then, why Gandam now? Lately, I had many opportunities to experience special affect make-ups for "Akechi Kogoro" and "SMAPXSMAP Gorokumi". It was the meeting with Pierre Tsuda, who does my GOROKUMI special make-up, which re-trigger my interests to Gandam plastic figures. Tsuda is a very interesting guy who still uses old Nokia mobile phone and who is one of the top make-up artists for special affect make-up. He learned his trade under Rick Baker who did the special affect make-ups for the movie "Nutty Professor". One day, while putting the make-up for Gorokumi, Tsuda said, "I brought a magazine specializing in plastic figures. The figure I created is in there, would like to take a look while I put your make-up?" If he concentrates, he can put Gorokumi make-up together in less than a hour. But, when we keep talking, the make-up takes about 2 hours. I picked up the magazine, appropriately named "Figure Magazine", without any objection. All those plastic figures in the magazine, from a beautiful girl to Godzilla, are very realistic and alive. Fantasy and realityˇK The world of plastic figures has very vague borderline between fantasy and reality. May be, the reality and the fantasy should not share the same world. But I understand that each one of us wants to keep the magical world, which captured us, to ourselves. The world of plastic figures may be the magical world in which we can express our desires.
After 2 hours of the make-up, I am struggling to get out of the make-up room in Gorokumi costume and make-up. Then, I thought "Whose door way shelve will Gorokumi the giant figure sit after the show is over?"
