We get to look at some figures from another Kaiyodo series, this time a bottlecap series with Glico drink company. There were two limited-time sets of Aquatales figures, featuring a variety of oceanic animals familiar to Japan. Today will be the figures that I have from series 1, which came out (and ended) in 2002. I don’t have the whole range, which figured 13 figures plus a secret (so…14); the figures I do have were picked since they are interesting to me, or somehow I didn’t have good representatives of them yet. Or maybe opportunity didn’t present itself. Maybe that’s why I only have the three? It’s all fish though, probably not surprising. Just to keep things confusing, the series are also released as the Kaiyodo Aquatales Kurosio Komekko collections (but all of mine have the Glico paperwork).
08 Japanese Flying Fish
I’m just going to go through them in order of their series’ number. The first one I have is number 08, the Japanese flying fish. It’s a pretty faithful reconstruction, although possibly not to the level of the Colorata version. Not really surprising in some ways, as the Aquatales is several years older. Like the Colorata, this figure is in a few pieces. Specifically, the big pectoral fins are removable…and kind of loose. It does help that the material for these figures is a softer PVC, rather than the brittle plastic of the concurrent AnimalTales and Dinotales figures. It is a nice figure, smaller than the ColoratA, and is posed nicely. I think I have this one because it was available for some reason…nice enough to have.
09 Potato Grouper
And here we have a grouper figure, specifically a Potato grouper (or potato bass…or potato cod…something about the species screams ‘potato’ I guess). It’s a very nice figure, and the bit of rock work (a separate piece) gives it a little more life than the pelagic fish figures. The paint and sculpt also looks more dynamic as well. I do recall specifically trying to get my hands on this particular figure, as groupers are surprisingly uncommon for some reason (not unheard of, but not that many). But it is my most recently obtained figures from this series, I believe I just hadn’t noticed it before or something. Of the three I have this is probably one to track down–just because there aren’t many options. But it is really well done.
10 Great Barracuda
Finally, the first figure I got from this particular series, early upon my discovery of the great figures out of Japan! I recall wanting to get hold of it since a well-done Great barracuda figure hadn’t been available, and making that happen as soon as I could. This is a really nice figure and would scale well with many oceanic animal figures. The figure is a single piece, and being pelagic has no extra base pieces (just like the flying fish). Another figure that is definitely worth getting for a collection as well.
So that was a quick look at some excellent Kaiyodo figures. Of course, these are long unavailable. And that’s considering at least a couple of releases (the Kurosio collection was sold in little boxes! I only know that for sure since that’s how I received series 2). Fortunately, it appears that these figures are relatively common on auction sites, and not even that expensive…other than maybe the secret figures, but I don’t know for sure. Obviously more than they’d have been originally (you know, included with the purchase of a drink…) but there’s likely some species within that set that would be of interest to many collectors, and I definitely recommend tracking down the ones that appeal to you.
