Shinto Gangu Online Beta wave was a big success!

Want to say a big thanks to everyone who took the time to participate on our Beta Launch over the weekend. Everyone seemed to follow the rules - there was no spamming or flim-flammery. We wish we could have accommodated everyones requests, but it shows for sure that you guys are hungry for the "Head" and there will be coming soon! Winners have been chosen and have been notified. There are still a couple of Mutant Heads and Mental Dental kitties remaining that will go back up in the store shortly. Thanks again!

THANK YOU!!!!

The Store is now closed.
Wow - want to thank everyone who stopped by. Almost everything is sold out. The competition for Chaos and Fly Guy look pretty fierce. We will hunker down and get mails out to everyone who took the time to be a part of this. There will be a couple of items that will go back online once all the lottery fun.
Thanks again!!!!

Also we would love to hear any feedback you have about the shop and the sales mechanism. And Stay tuned - there is more on the way!

Shinto Gangu online is GO!

The store is now closed.

If you are just tuning in - the shop will be open for one hour until 11PM EST. You can get all the details about how we're working the ordering here.
If you have any questions post them to the comments of this blog post - we will be monitoring in real time and are happy to help with any assistance you might need.
Happy Shopping. RHND!

Shinto Gangu Online

Alright you animals, we will be opening the Beta version of Shinto Gangu Online shortly. Mori has cooked up a pretty special bunch of figures for this initial offering.

After much deliberation and debate we have decided to use an e-mail application/lottery system for the initial offerings. Paypal and most other shopping carts are notoriously weak on handling bursts related with online figure releases (ask any Matty Online collector). By going this route we are hoping to provide a fair and democratic sales opportunity and avoid any major cluster-fudges of overselling or cart crashes. Any figures still remaining after the initial offering will be switched over to a Paypal shopping cart. Since we will be overwriting pages on the site when we launch make sure you refresh your browser.

The shop will open on Friday October 29th at 10pm EST.
That's 9pm Central, 8pm Mountain and 7pm pacific.
(and 2am in England in case anyone is wondering.)
No orders from Japan please (give the rest of the world a chance!)

You can apply to purchase 1 of each figure being offered but please put your applications in a single e-mail. Multiple requests for the same figure from the same user will be thrown out.

That's 1 application per e-mail address / household.


The initial offering will be open from 10:00 PM EST until 10:59 PM EST. That’s 1 hour, plenty of time. Any e-mail requests received before or after the time frame will be ineligible.

Once all the applications are in, Mori will draw the winners from the proverbial hat. There will be a separate drawing for each figure.

Qualified purchasers will be notified with Paypal instructions within 24 hours by e-mail. If anyone flakes we go back to the hat.

/////// HOW TO PURCHASE /////////////////////////////////////////

The e-mail address will be posted on the Blog and Shop pages at 10pm.


To apply for purchase send an e-mail containing:

Your Full Name:

Your Internet Handle (optional):

Your Shipping Address: (for shipping charge calculation)

Figure Name(s):

1)

2)

3)

4)

5)

6)

The e-mail address will be posted on the Blog and Shop pages at 10pm.

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Items will be shipped from within the USA via USPS priority mail within one week after receiving payment. no exceptions.

All payments must be made via Paypal. No exceptions.
No checks, money orders, galactic cubits or promissory notes.

Looking forward to a successful launch!

Q & A with Mori Katsura

(thanks for all the questions - we didn't get to them all but we will do this again. - d'dub)

Why open a Real x Head U.S.A.website?
In the 2 and half years since, I opened my own store in Japan, I have come to really enjoy being able to meet  and talk with my customers face-to-face. Many of my customers are now friends and some are even collaborators. Going to Comic-con this past couple of years, I have also enjoyed meeting my international fans and wanted a way to be able to bein touch more directly with them like I do my Japanese customers. I am hoping that the Real x Head U.S.A site will be one way to do that.

And even though my store is far away from central Tokyo, I have many regulars who come every week. Since people take the time to come I want to make sure that there is always a surprise, something new for them to buy. That has been the motivation behind the micro-runs of in-store exclusives. Its my way of showing appreciation for  loyal customers. And in a similar way I want to do the same thing for the international Real x Head community. And though everyone is spread out all over the world I am hoping that the website will make this possible.

So the site will mostly offer “in-store” exclusives that can only be purchase at Shinto Gangu online. It is my way to show my appreciation for my international fans. Not everybody will always be able to buy everything but we hope to put up new figures often enough that everyone will get a chance to buy something unique. It will take some time to figure out the best way to replicate the in-store experience so bear with us.


blakewest said...Mori has that great big Daruma behind him in the store photo. What is Mori's goal or wish for the Daruma? Is he still working on it, or has the other eye been filled in since the picture was taken?

I have always loved Engimono (縁起物) - traditional Japanese lucky items - so that large daruma was a present from a customer when I opened the shop. Its thought that these objects make for a happy and inviting space. I doubt I will ever draw in the other eye as it is an ongoing endeavor to make shinto gangu a great store.

Abe Lincoln Jr. said...As far as the new full-size series what is it called? Is the new guy inspired by Kamen Rider? Are there new characters in the works besides him?

The large series is called the Chaosman Series. Its influenced by my love of classic Japanese heroes - my favorite of course being Kamen Rider and others created by Ishinomori. I am happy by how well the line has been received - I really enjoyed collaborating on the Crossover series figures released at Comic-con this year. I will keep making characters in the series, next up are some villains. I will also be making more new figures in the same size.

Robert said... Will you create a Mutant Zone 4 series?
Actually Next Man is the first figure in the Mutant Zone 4 series. More to come!

joe said... who did mutant head fight when he lost the top bit of his ear?
Mutant Head lost his ear in a fight with Mutant Clone Evil - who is a clone of Mutant Head created by Akro Kaizer to kill Mutant Head. Afer the battle they eventually became allies in the fight against Akro Kaizer. L’amour Supreme did and amazing painting of this fight a few years ago.

When will the store go online? : )
The first wave of figures will go online Friday, October 29 at 10pm EST. More details later today.

Whats with all the Mohawks?
Mohawks are cool!

Got a Question for Mori?

Why open a  Real x Head U.S.A.website? Whats with all the Mohawks? When will the store go online??? Got  a burning question that you have always wanted to ask Mori Katsura the man behind Real x Head?

This Sunday we will have one our frequent site review meetings. Some genius (thats you Doughty!)  thought this would be good opportunity to put out a request for questions. Just leave them in the comments section of this post. I am sure we won't get to them all (at least this round) but if it goes over well we may do it regularly.

Before you post a question you should first check out this recent interview by Onwi over at SQDBLSTR.

Sunday Busy Sunday

This past Sunday, October 17th was a very busy day in the world of Real x Head. After a long night of full-on preparation and little sleep, the day kicked off in Shinjuku at the boutique of Kaiju Blue. Kaiju Blue is located on the ground floor of  Marui One Department Store in Shinjuku and has a small gallery space that hosts monthly exhibitions featuring the work of “Kaiju Artists”. The current show is called (SHIN)JUKU BATTLE ROYAL and  features Real x Head, his second exhibition at the shop, which kicked off on October 14 and runs until November 17. 

When the shopping center opened at 11:00am there was a blind bag sale of an amazing assortment of RxH figures that were representational of many of the collaborations and themes of RxH circa 2010. All 12 figures available were standard sized characters from the Mutant Zone Series most in old school style sprays with a couple of twists. ChaoQ (2 versions), Chaos, Chaos Fighter, Clone Mutant Evil, and Mutant Bigaro represented the old school with new Colorway Mashups of the Mutant Dokurocks crossover with Skulltoys, Oni Mutant crossover with Yamazakura and the debut Chaosman crossover with Mirock Toys. Rounding out the line-up were Rainbow specials of Kaizer Head and Fighter Chaos by Shef of Cha-iro Brown. The representative figures are still on display but a frown-inducing sold-out sign was added to the display around noon. The Kaiju Korner blog has some excellent pictures of the show online and there are more at this flickr set.

But no time to rest. Back to the Shinto Gangu for the second event on the days agenda, an in-store event celebrating the Katsushika Night radio show that Mori takes part in. The show is on the local radio station Katsushika FM with a rotating cast of interesting characters from the Katsushika City area. Its hosted by talent announcer Shinpei and actress Sasa Handa, star of such of underground hits as Attack Girls' Swim Team Versus the Undead and Kekko Kamen, who were on hand for the event. The event started at 3pm - there were official t-shirts available and exclusive Fortune Cat Babies signed by Sasa. Well over 100 people came through the shop shattering the old one-day record of 26.

It made for a long and busy but exciting day... but it wasn't over yet. The Katsushika Night radio program is on every Sunday Night from 9 - 11pm. After closing the shop and biking over to the studio, Mori launched a new segment on the show entitled: 『リアルヘッドの２号店への道』. The more enquiring minds among you can run that through Google Translation.

All this sounds exhausting but there is still tons more coming up. There are 2 more release events at Kaiju Blue before the show finishes, an exhibition right after at Parco in Shibuya; and the grand opening of the Real x Head U.S.A online shop before the end of October.

Whew.

10.10.09 "I MAKE EYES"

Superfestival 54

The Real x Head crew brought the heat to Superfestival 54. Mori got us an entire block of booths so you could go around and around and see all the new releases from the artists who part of the extended Shinto Gangu family. RxH had a blind bag lottery of OG Mutant Zone figures painted by Goto-san - the crush at the show opening reminded me of the Kaiju heydey of the mid-00’s - the bags sold out in minutes.

The Kaiju Korner has a great blog entry with a full run down of the event with tons of more pics.
(Welcome to Japan Andy!)

• Cha-iro Brown (Shef & Tama-chan)
• Uamou
• ArtDenka
• Goccodo
• Kaiju Blue
• Nerd One
• Dr. StrangeToys
• Refreshment
• Pop Soda
• Copy Robot
• Kowelly Town
• Spooky Parade
• Fig-lab
• Atom A. Armwrestler
• Mirock Toys
• Cord Viper
• Onell Design
• Rawshark Studios.