Them Old Bandai Toys Overload In The 1990s Philippine Toystores
It's almost the month's end in May, and summer vacation memories are coming to an END. The Super Sentai hiatus made me rewrite IBC-13's bad scheduling. I didn't realize that a short trip to Toy Kingdom suddenly reminded me of another childhood of lies -- them old Bandai merchandise overload in the 1990s! A trip to Toy Kingdom at my current age made me think of the Toys R Us jingle. I could talk about the older merchandise that hit the toy stores like the once huge SM Toy Store, the now-defunct Nova Fontana, and SM's very own Toy Kingdom.
It was the 1990s, and I thought about the toy overload. A 1990s child might remember the "joy" was that running and hurrying home to watch that Sunday kiddie show on IBC-13. One may have remembered screaming and crying over a missed episode. One may remember talking about the excitement that was the hero saving the day. Sadly, IBC-13 treated the shows like they were "forever status quo" even if the shows were meant to have a finale. Who can ever forget some shows were canceled so soon yet Cartoon Network aired them in a loop anyway? I remember when Galtar and the Golden Lance actually had the PROMISE that Galtar would one day beat Tormac. It seemed IBC-13 actually thought, "Well, kids will never notice!" and that's what happened.
A review of the 1990s TOY BLOAT
I could talk about the toys having been born in the 1990s. I confess part of me tends to relive the sourgraping era. Yes, I'm not gonna like but there are times I still wish I had a Super NES as a child, even if I'm enjoying Pac-Man World REPAC or that the PlayStation series gave me "greater joy" than the Nintendo system would. Yes, that's why I'm purposely putting this screenshot on, because I had that "Super NES trauma" even if we had played through all the PlayStation series and the Internet gave me walkthroughs that I couldn't access as a child. It made me think about how the Super NES was also that "must-have toy" in the 1990s, the 1990s Turbo Man, because people were compelled to buy it to play the REAL Super Mario World game -- which had a horrible bootleg by JY Company.
Now, to rethink the toy load. Maybe some people could remember some older stuff like the Transformers cartoon (1984) or the G.I. Joe cartoon (1983). One may think about the He-Man and the Masters of the Universe toyline along with the spin-off series She-Ra: Princess of Power. The same went for Toei and it was the 1990s. That means these were a series of AGING PLASTIC. These pieces of aging plastic would soon have to compete with trends like the X-Men toyline or the Marvel Action Hour action toys -- both shows done by Saban Entertainment.
I could remember the advertisement where Hikari Sentai Maskman was also called "Bioman 2".That was the analog age, which left me in total shock when the early digital age arrived. The show was dubbed over as Laser Squadron Maskman. Please, hikari doesn't mean laser. There was this cool Great Five robot was advertised alongside Regent Cake. I remember how some toy stores were still selling some Maskman and Bioman toys. There was still the Great Five robot where the Megazord was supposed to look cool. However, it was a Megazord from 1987.
Who can remember the Rider Hero Series, which I secretly wanted and openly denied. It made me think of how IBC-13 was endlessly looping Kamen Rider BLACK as Mask Rider BLACK. Yeah, that was before Saban created the even crazier disaster called Saban's Masked Rider. It was a show that even Haim Saban felt was too big a mistake! The toy stores sold the Kamen Rider toys, and they were mostly BLACK to BLACK RX. Not all the Kamen Rider toys were there like Ichigo and Nigo from The First Kamen Rider. Instead, we had BLACK and BLACK RX -- the latter never aired in the Philippines. Instead, the Philippines had Saban's Masked Rider aired in the Philippines in late 1996 on ABC-5. Saban's Masked Rider had a toyline that got sold alongside the Kamen Rider toys. The Kamen Rider SD toys were also sold in 1997 -- meaning the inventory was like FOUR YEARS OLD?! The salesperson even confused Kamen Rider with Masked Rider when both MEAN the same thing. Except these days, I prefer the term Kamen Rider now! I learned the term Kamen means Masked from a Questor magazine.
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What got funnier was how Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers toys were sold BEFORE the shows were aired. The 1994 era had ABC-5 air the Mighty Morphin' commercial during the runtime of Ucchu Keiji Gavan (and sadly, Kenji Ohba died this year) and Chikyu Sentai Fiveman (aired as Fiveman World Defense Force, which is actually more accurate than Laser Squadron Maskman). The toy commercial was given the sensation that made people go to Toys R Us. However, a timeline assessment would reveal that any toys linked to Mighty Morphin' Season 1 were, well, going to be a year old by 1994, and two years old by 1995. Mighty Morphin' Season 3 was in 1995! They were there at the mall before the show even aired on Philippine television!
The hilarious event was that Mighty Morphin' toys made it into the Philippines BEFORE the show aired. That means the toy stores were selling AGING inventory from Mighty Morphin' Season 1 was most likely sold at surplus. That was during the toy department days where the Power Rangers action figures vs. the Super Sentai older stock were side by side. Naturally, the action figures sold faster because children tend to care more about "being the coolest kid with the coolest toy" -- something Jingle All the Way made fun of.
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Of course, no one should forget the LOADS of Dragon Ball Z toys from the 1990s. Any 1990s kids might remember the Super Battle Collection series. However, a lot of the Dragon Ball Z toys sold back then were practically dead inventory. I remember Dragon Ball Z was airing on RPN-9 under that really SH*TTY SCHEDULING where 5:30 PM can mean 5:00 PM. By 1997, some toy stores were already filled with DEAD INVENTORY. The biggest culprit of the bloat was the Buu Saga. The Buu Saga released a lot of cool toys that ACTUALLY FAILED ON SCREEN. Who can remember the hype built up on the FUSION TECHNIQUE and the Mystic Gohan transformation -- only for Super Buu to absorb them and defeat them all? Also, most children probably never figured out that the Dragon Ball Z movies were purposely made non-serial films.
What happened was that toy stores began displaying a whole lot of items. It becomes a source of dopamine that made me think, "Why do I have to grow up one day? I want those toys!" It was an on/off frustration, as the toy display meant a DOPAMINE RUSH. Honestly, I wished my parents just bought me all that old inventory. Sometimes, I wish I could go back in time and get the ones I want while leaving the rest behind. If I'm not wrong, many of the older items were sold at surplus prices while Toy Kingdom (and other toy stores) were slowly adjusting to the newer era. As the old toys disappeared, I simply had to face the fact all over again that I can't keep singing the Toys R Us song. The lots of toys that kept entering were for the NEXT GENERATION.
Closing words
Right now, I feel that the toy bloat was over because marketing tools have become more predictable. Bandai probably realized they made lesser gains because toy stores had to buy at wholesale by the boxes. Toy stores in the Philippines were probably still "testing the waters". Eventually, the old stock was gone. I was forced to grow up under these circumstances.
These days, I pass by a toy store and say, "Childhood is over. You can't return to the past." The translated lyrics of BLACK's ending theme still speaks to my heart, whenever I miss the Bandai merchandise bloat with these words:
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