Monday, 30 July 2012

Model Society

This beautiful set of assembled models recently appeared on Noppin in Japan. The bright colours, sleek designs and gloss sheens really caught my eye, like a SWORD fleet would. I recognise the SPV and Trailer Truck from Captain Scarlet but not the others. The translated description mentioned 'Tester'. What's that?

6 comments:

  1. Great photo.
    Could the term "tester" refer to a test shot of a model, a pre-production version?

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  2. It's from the early 70s Japanese anime TV series 'Zero Tester'. On the left the large red and orange ship is the show's equivalent of Thunderbird 2. The silvery blue and yellow ship is a submarine that can also fly, the yellow ship at the back is a spaceship and the small green ship with yellow fins in the middle is the scout ship.

    http://www.animevice.com/zero-tester/11-5081/

    http://www.brookhursthobbies.com/Product-Listing.cfm?C=2&D=13&N=10&S=&M=BANDAI&SD=ZERO%20TESTER

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  3. like you andy, i thought it was a test. thanks for clearing it up yorkie. they are beautiful ships. was the tv series any good?

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  4. Yep that big baby on the left is O-Tester 4. Here's my version:

    http://www.japansuperfantasticmodel.com/otester4.html

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  5. You can see a bit of it on Youtube. I like the mecha designs. The animation is very 70s. Think Marine Boy meets Thunderbirds. Bandai made model kits of the machines and a big kit of their island base (very Thunderbirds again!). There were also toys so it must have been fairly popular in Japan.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tohj8ay-NA4

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  6. Beautiful Rob. Just beautiful.

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