1998
Daitetsujin 17 (pronounced "one-seven") was always one of the harder-to-find, expensive Japanese Jumbos, so I was totally juiced when I saw this knock-off being sold for cheap. (Actually, I was almost ripped off by a wonderful Hong Kong dealer [ the legandary "favorite HK dealer" -ed ] who thought he could sell me this as an original. Muchas gracias, shithead.)

What I've never quite figured out about this particular knock-off is WHY they chose to add the late-Seventies-rumpus-room stickers. While it's great that whoever oversaw this little pirate project decided to make their product distinctly different than the original licensed piece, their color selection leads me to believe that they were completely high on cheap Taiwanese liquor at the time. It's FUGLY, babe. No two ways about it.

Polyethylene is one of mankind's cheapest artificial products, and nothing emphasizes the utter sleaziness of the material than improper sticker selection. Don't believe me? Just check out how snazzy this bad-boy looks with a new set of repro stickers. (Thank Ron Meloni for taking the time and effort to backwards-engineer those reproductions, by the way. He didn't even have an original Daitetsujin to emulate -- he had to eyeball a photograph of the sucker!)

One of the great things about D-17, disco-tized or not, is the fact that he "transforms" -- folds, actually -- into a little base. It even launches tiny aircraft from those neon-green wings. Pinch me, I'm dreaming! (This particular knock-off is sold in a huge bag with a header card; there's also a variant with red wings instead of lime green.)

Matt Alt