We looked at the figure a while back and I
arbitrarily decided the figure was more Chinese than Japanese and more
nationalist than Maoist, but I hadn't got the whole thing - now I have! Note
that the silhouetted-figures in the artwork are Airfix Commados, Para's, German
and Russian Infantry.
It was a 'design' piece by a Reiko Kaneko back in 2008 when it
retailed for a tenner! The original publicity blurb going like this;
"Egg Soldier
Eggcup
Battle On
The Breakfast Table
It's early
in the morning..... Having been for a dip, the EGG quietly prepares for another
day. Suddenly, from the end of the table, an army of BREAD SOLDIERS starts to
approach. The MODEL SOLDIERS, fearing for the safety of their EGG, close in.
They work hard to protect the EGG but one after another, the BREAD SOLDIERS
just keep coming....
How will it
end?"
Yeah!
I didn't have an egg to hand!
Now, if you want to buy real 'designer'
stuff, say Fendi handbags or
pool-side chairs by Renzo Piano you
need to be awarding yourself Philip Green sized amounts of folding
trouser-stuffing, so I guess a designer-thing for ten-quid is not to be sniffed
at, but . . . it's a bit naff!
The plastic mirror base is very naff, the
figures flexibility is naff-enough to annoy, as they don't hold the egg up
properly, the lack of a definite nationality for the soldiers is naff to the
sort of people who might be considered its main customers - war-gamers,
modellers, toy soldier collectors, historians and the denizens of similar assorted
geek-categories! While the construction - as a whole - is cheap, placky-tacky
and err . . . a bit naff.
Then
I got an egg-full of dinosaurs;
it
was a bit small!
Which is not to castigate it completely;
it's a fun thing, but I think less of the 'designer' in the original hype
(several 'influencer' sites seem to have picked it up at the time) would have
been a bit more honest, and a £6.99-point would have been fairer for what you
got.
Was someone to do something similar again,
maybe three or four figures a'la the Iwo Jima 'flag-raising'
would be a better execution of the idea? You know - make it about the egg, not
the toast soldiers, which they aren't really engaging with their swords anyway.
Make it three or four US Marines struggling to hold the egg up and I recon
you'd sell tens-of-thousands of units in the USA alone! Construction workers
could work too, or firefighters; holding a ring to hold the egg?
Original
publicity shots
We had close-ups of the figure last time,
but at least the original shots have the right sort of egg to hand! I think
some of that yolk has been photo-shopped? If my egg looks like that in the
middle I've learnt to get it to the compost-bin before I find the dark feathery
bit in the centre; proper 'free range'!
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