What is Chougoukin, Popi (or Chogokin as most spell it )? It is a japanese name for Super Alloy. Most kids in the 70s and 80s would be familiar with this brand name of die cast toys. The toy lines were based on the current japanese Anime TV characters or mecha at the time. Most famous one are Voltes V (five) , Combattler V , Mazinga Z , Mazinga Great , Raideen (which is the first die cast from Popi Chougoukin) and Danguard Ace, and my favourite , Robocon series etc . They are generally referred to as the Super Robot series as in the TV animation . These toys are not just pieces of metal combined with bit of plastic. They were really the ancestors for transformer type of toys. Most are robot type of toys , they can be transformed into a spacecraft, a truck or any transformation that appears in the anime series. Others such as Voltes V (one of the most popular and hardest to find chougoukin today, very expensive to get. ) forms a robot from the assembly of 5 individual vehicles . There is a lot of toy design engineering in these toys. The mechanics in which these toys can transform into something else still amazes me .
Chougoukin toys were also sold in North America under the name Godaikin imported by Bandai. The chougoukin toys under this label are identical to those being sold in Japan (under the label , Popi, or Popy) . I said identical because there is some minor difference for the same toy under different labels. for example, the stickers on the toys from each label can be different colour or text. In some cases, the accesories for the toy can also be different as in the case of the Voltes-in-a-box (a giant portfolio sized box containing all five vehicles and their accesories of the Voltes V chougoukin) . Generally , Popy is more expensive (as for collector items) than the Godaikin counterpart for the same toy in the same condition (mint , excellent and good) . This is mainly because of the preference of the collectors of Popy box over Godaikin box , and not because of the quality of the toy under each label.
Unfortunately , Chougoukin (Popi or Godaikin) toys was expensive to make (die cast metal, plastics parts and ingenius toy design engineering) and the company had a tight profit margin . It went bankrupt in the 80s . Today, Chougoukin toys are collector items , they are hard to find , in some cases , a mint condition chougoukin toy is very very difficult and expensive to get. They are purchased by most serious toy collectors.
Bandai has recently re-issued the Chougoukin for some of the most popular Super robots (Mazinga Z, Mazinga Great, Grandaizer , 5-vehicles-to-one-robot Combattler V and most recently , Raideen, a better scaled Raideen than the original, longer legs, etc). The re-issued toy line is sold under the label of "Soul of Chogokin". I have to say, the original chougoukins are better collector items than the newer design though the new toy lines have more accessories. The new Combattler V is ; however ; smaller. I have not seen these new toys in person, so I do not know the quality in which they are made.
There were over hundreds of chougoukin toys , and they are numberous web pages of collectors of these toys . Check out the the Other Links page of my web There are links to numerous collector web pages among other toys related pages.
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