Sci-Fi Revoltech Series No. 010
Woody (“Revoltech Woody”) was released for sale in Japan in July of 2010 as
part of a series of Revoltech figures modeled after Pixar characters. Of
course, Pixar's Woody is a computer animated representation of a cloth doll,
which is itself a representation of a wooden puppet from the fictional TV show Woody's Roundup. Therefore, when we talk
about Revoltech Woody, we are talking about a plastic representation of a
computer simulation of a cloth doll version of a fictional wooden puppet -
which is itself constructed to recall the cultural ideal of the Wild West
Cowboy. Strictly speaking, Revoltech Woody is an imitation of an imitation of
an imitation of a fictional imitation of an inaccurate portrayal of a semi-historical
group of human beings.
Kaiyodo has taken great care in
making Revoltech Woody an accurate representation of Pixar's movie character. As
the blurb on the back of the box states, “Pixar's CG toy becomes a real toy!” Care
has been taken to tie the toy to the movie character by attention to the
smallest details - Andy's name written on the right boot in a childish scrawl,
an empty gun holster. Perhaps the only major departures from the toy depicted
in the movie is a difference of materials (a plastic toy instead of a cloth
doll), size, and the lack of a pull-string voice box (although a non-functional
string is included).
"I'm a real toy!" |
Inside the flap |
A flap on the front opens, revealing the toy
itself (behind a plastic window). The
other side of the flap has an essay on Woody's role in the Toy Story movies by manga artist and essayist Yamamoto Naoki. Beneath the essay is a series of
images from the movies, with explanatory footnotes. The essay begins with a nostalgia-inducing
speech about the plastic models and toy robots of youth. Yamamoto uses the bulk
of the text to outline Woody's personality and important events in the Toy Story trilogy. Beneath the text are
images from the movies, with further explanatory text. Revoltech Woody is
placed side by side with Pixar's Woody, showcasing the iconic scenes which the
consumer can reproduce with the Revoltech toy.
Additional notes detail the
movies' release dates, director, production company, and other details of a
distinctly historical nature. This reflects Kaiyodo's concern with models as a
tool for transmitting “cultural heritage.” The box serves both to appeal to
potential consumers, but also as a vehicle for preserving and conveying
cultural information. So then, contrary to what we might expect from a toy
aimed at supposedly postmodern, animalistic otaku,
the box text takes care to record Woody's historical context.
The packaging does not just put
Woody (the character) into a historical context, it also takes pains to
establish the historic position of value of Sci-Fi Revoltech Series No.10
Woody. While Azuma's Third-Generation otaku
supposedly place no special attachment to the position of author, artist, or
creator, Woody's packaging proclaims the toy to be “sculpted by Matsumoto
Eichiro” no less than six times (four
times in English, twice in Japanese). Describing Woody as “sculpted” frames it
less as a toy and more as a work of art, echoing Miyawaki Osamu's “art
plastic.”
The concern with historicity
also manifests in information which assures the consumer of Revoltech Woody's
exact technical specifications. The box lists the toy's size, scale in relation
to the original character, and number of movable, posable joints. These posable
joints are a particular point of interest, since the box boats that Revoltech
Woody is a “realistic model with the ability to be put into any pose
imaginable.” This posability (along with the accessories) fulfills a historical
function, in that it allows the consumer to reproduce Pixar's Woody with the
highest possible accuracy.
The Revolver Join system |
As opposed to traditional
sculptures (or plastic models and garage kits), which reproduce a figure in a
single point of time in a static pose, Revoltech Woody has the ability to be
constantly recast as an almost infinite number of “Woodys.” It attempts not
just to reproduce an accurate physical likeness of Woody, but rather a dynamic
emotional likeness of Woody, mimicking the original Pixar character's full
range of expressivity.
However, the packaging does not
simply present Revoltech Woody as an accurate representation of Pixar's Woody.
It also takes pains to establish it as part of the Revoltech brand. This second
appeal is, if anything, more strongly made than the first. The word “Woody”
appears 17 times on the entire box (5 times in English, 12 in katakana),
including Yamamoto's essay and the captions for the accompanying pictures.
In contrast, the word “Revoltech” appears 28 times on the box (18 in English, 10 times in katakana), not including the usage of similar words such as “Revolver Joint.” The entire bottom and right sides of the box are given over to advertisements/explanations of the Revoltech brand, with no reference to Woody. In fact, the only surface on the box which does not prominently display the Revoltech name is the inside flap with Yamamoto's essay. The Revoltech brand name is even more important than the Kaiyodo company name, which appears only 10 times total.
This emphasis, this repetition
of the Revoltech name is not simple advertisement of a brand name, but an
attempt to emphasize the unique functionality of Revoltech toys. The bottom of
the box has a series of four diagrams and explanatory text on “How to make
poses like the ones on the package.” The right side of the box is dedicated to
a full explanation of the Revolver Joint system, specifically mentioning that
parts from one Revoltech figure can be swapped out for those of another.
The back of the box details all
of the different parts and accessories included with the figure - different
hands, faces, articles of clothing and so on which can be swapped out to create
the consumer's preferred version of Woody. This is the essence of the appeal to
Revoltech; it is not a simple appeal to brand loyalty, but a promise of
flexibility, customizability, and adaptability. To say that a figure is
“Revoltech” assures the consumer of a certain level of control over the
consumption experience, the ability to easily create and recreate infinite
versions of a character through the Revolver Joint system.
Options and accessories |
The toy itself provides any
number of examples of this. Revoltech Woody has fourteen primary Revolver
Joints (neck, right shoulder, left shoulder, right elbow, left elbow, right
hand, left hand, waist, right hip, left hip, right knee, left knee, right
ankle, left ankle). The hands can be removed and replaced. Revoltech Woody comes with seven different
hands, one of which “belongs” to Buzz Lightyear.
Revoltech Woody also comes with
two faces, one with a normal expression and one described as the “evil plan” face.
The faces can be removed and the positioning of the eyes can be adjusted to
“look” in any direction. Finally, Revoltech Woody comes with a detachable
cowboy hat, a microphone, and “Lenny,” another Toy Story character that Woody uses as a pair of binoculars.
What we have in Revoltech Woody
is a figure custom-made for the Third-Generation consumer. Whereas garage kits
come as a set of dissected pieces meant to be assembled into a pre-determined
whole, Revoltech Woody comes as a pre-assembled whole intended to be dissected.
The arms of a garage kit model must be carefully cut from a plastic frame,
painted, and glued into place. Revoltech Woody can be disassembled and
reassembled in seventeen different places with the absolute minimum of effort.
While the packaging presents Revoltech Woody as a vehicle for cultural
information, the figure itself resembles nothing so much as Dejiko - a
simulacra made up of database elements which can be switched around at will to
cater to the particular tastes of consumers.
In Millennial Monsters, Anne
Allison defines the “polymorphous perversity” as consisting of “continual
change and stretching of desire across ever new zones/bodies/products” (277). While
Allison points out examples of this in diverse Japanese media products from
Power Rangers to Pokémon, this quality of polymorphous perversity is perhaps
most clearly seen in the Revoltech line. Whereas a Tamagochi may be
gender-queer and Pokémon may take place in a deconstructed, ultra-fluid
postmodern environment, the Revoltech system has the capacity to break down
media properties that started with social narratives (such as the morality of
play in Toy Story) and convert them
into polymorphous perverse collections of database elements.
The Revoltech line is not simply
a brand to which consumers are meant to form an affective alliance with. It is
a physical database of moe elements,
the Tinami search engine rendered in plastic. While First and Second Generation
consumers may be attracted to the cultural and historical information provided
by the packaging, the toys themselves consist of continual change, of an
infinite variety of possible bodies which can be easily assembled and
disassembled.
Whereas a garage kit consists of
a limited number of parts intended to be assembled into a single “correct”
finished product, a Revoltech figure comes with too many parts. No matter how a
consumer puts together Revoltech Woody, he or she will still have “left overs,”
extra hands and faces. Revoltech Woody is not designed to be completed, he is
designed to be eternally “incomplete.” Like a split atom, his power consists
not in wholeness, but in the released energy of separation.
One of the main features of
Azuma's Database Model is that it has a “double-layer structure of information
and appearance” (33). The underlying information forms the database, which is
“read up” by consumers into individual small narratives. Kaiyodo Woody has the
exact same structure. First, Pixar's Woody was converted into the underlying
structure, the “accumulation of encoded information” comprised of the
individual Revolver Joint pieces (32). From these pieces, any number of small
narratives can be constructed, of which the “historical” one presented in the
essay or Toy Story are only one
option among many.
Whereas Toy
Story presented physical disassembly as an act of horror which destroys a
toy's ability to speak, the Revoltech system presents physical disassembly as a
means of creating any number of Woodys suited to the consumer's particular
tastes. Instead of destroying a toy's ability to communicate, the Revolver
Joint system, with its excess of hands and faces, allows for the toy to
“communicate” a much wider array of potential emotions than a traditional,
static toy.
Unlike Sid, who dissects his
toys from a position of egocentric non-recognition, postmodern animalistic
consumers engage in recombinative play because they feel an emotional
attachment to characters and to the moe
elements from which they are constructed. Like the gamers Azuma describes, who
“break” the code of their favorite visual novels so that they can create new
scenarios and engage in further play, animalistic consumers of Revoltech Woody
are able to pull him apart and reconstruct him in order to engage in an almost
infinite array of emotionally engaging play scenarios.
Like the toys in Toy Story, Revoltech Woody comes with a
pre-constructed corporate narrative. In Toy
Story, Buzz Lightyear internalizes the marketing blurb that appears on his
package, a short description of his role as a Space Ranger. Kaiyodo's marketing
blurb far outstrips this message both in length and in detail. However, while
Buzz Lightyear struggled to create a new identity distinct from his built-in
blurb, Revoltech Woody has had no such trouble.
In a sense, Revoltech Woody is a
microcosm of Kaiyodo and of Azuma's three Eras. He addresses Grand Narrative
concerns of historicity and technical accuracy while also functioning as a Database-driven
simulacrum. Here we see Miyawaki Osamu's concern for plastic models as art and
as vehicles for cultural heritage, Miyawaki Shūichi's concern for accurate
representation of fictional characters, and Third Generation concern for
polymorphous perversity in a single product. Consumers can relate to Revoltech
Woody in their own manner of choosing.
While Pixar's Woody was clearly
from the Era of Fiction, the international response to Revoltech Woody leans
more toward the Era of Animalization. By breaking down Pixar's Woody into a
series of Database elements, Kaiyodo transformed an Era of Fiction character
into an Era of Animalization toy. It should not surprise us that Third
Generation consumers were able to easily repurpose a toy with parts that can be
interchanged with hundreds of other Revoltech figures away from its original
corporate narrative to an original one. It may surprise us just what form this
new, consumer-driven narrative took.
Next: [DC012] Creepy Woody: Polymorphous Perversity
Next: [DC012] Creepy Woody: Polymorphous Perversity
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