Collection Oddities: Zelda Bootleg Crossbow Toy

 Let me start off by saying this is NOT an official Legend of Zelda item. It is in no way associated with Nintendo or any other company that owns a license for making Nintendo products. Normally we do not support companies or individuals who deal in "unofficial" merchandise, but occasionally we see something that's completely unlike anything available officially (often for good reason, see the Sailor Moon Car Pencil Box) and we add it to our collection.

That in mind we bring you the Crossbow Training Crossbow.

Completely Generic (wink,wink) Crossbow Training!

 Now with the above "this is a filthy dirty nasty bootleg" disclaimer in mind, you do have to give this a bit of credit. It doesn't actually have the audacity to claim it's in any way associated with the legend of Zelda franchise. It just happens to have a blonde elf like young man in a green suit on the package, who just happens to be posed similarly on the official product. Most of us have probably encountered someone's Original Character creation who looks surprisingly similar but absolutely IS NOT LINK. (Kind of like how this character absolutely NOT Vincent Valentine from FFVII) It could also just happen to use the same lettering as the official release of Link's Crossbow Training on the Wii. So it's possible that the link between this item and the Legend of Zelda franchise is all our heads...but probably not. Regardless it's time to take it out of package.

Gun + Bow = Crossbow!

So here it is in all it's glory along. Though I forgot to take a shot of it with it's "quiver" of arrows, but there's not a lot to see there, it's a piece of plastic that holds plastic arrows yay! There was some assembly required, but it mostly consisted of turning the bow part sideways and sticking it onto the gun part. There was also a piece to help keep the bow straight on the gun, but I broke mine trying it put it in. It didn't seem to effect the performance at all though.

It's made of super lightweight cheap plastic with a weathered bronze metallic finish. It has surprisingly detailed and attractive molded designs all over it. Though as a point for the "this is an original creation, completely unlike Zelda." argument, the designs look like some sort of low brow steam punk knock off rather than the Crossbow link actually uses in the game:

Link's Official Crossbow

Functionally speaking it works, but it's not great. First to set an arrow you have to hold the trigger pull back the bowstring and the release the trigger while you're holding the string back to lock it into place once you've done that you can slide the arrow in, just make sure it's completely in it's proper groove or it will split the bottom and top pieces of the gun, like you'd expect with any quality piece of craftsmanship such as this. Once you've carefully set the arrow, you have to hope that all that nonsense about arrows being useless at point blank range is completely fabricated because you have about a 5 foot range and even then it flies pretty slowly, so you'd probably have trouble taking out anything stronger than a Keese made of paper. On that note, for a crossbow "training" toy, it's conspicuously devoid of targets or other training aids, so you probably will be making those paper Keese. Or you could always shoot at your friends and loved ones provided you aim away from the face and they're willing to stand approximately 5 feet away from you.

Locked and loaded for point blank mayhem!

Overall, it's an interesting oddity, but once it's out of the package it has zero identifiable connection to the Zelda franchise or link. Leaving you with a so/so cheap plastic toy. These have been floating around eBay lately for cheap, so if you're enchanted by the novelty of a Zelda bootleg that's not just a crappy rehash of an official item, get one. For most collector's though, it's not going to be worth the space it takes up on your shelf.

~Stephanie

Don't forget to stop by our shop:

Collection Oddities: Sailor Moon Shabonda Magic Bubble Blower

Today I'm going to take an in depth look at a fun little item we acquired last year. I actually gave this to Jen as a  present for surviving another year of college. She graduated this year with an  accounting degree and what says "fiscal responsibility" like a ridiculous Japanese toy?

So here we have the Shabonda Magic Bubble Blower featuring Eternal Sailor Moon. Note the official Bandai logo so you can differentiate the licensed crack items from the bootleg crack items. The very existence of this brings up some important questions right off the bat.

First, why can't you just blow your own bubbles? Isn't the fun of bubbles blowing them?

Second, why on earth isn't it a Sailor Mercury branded bubble blower? She's the one who's got the bubble attacks.

Third, they really did slap sailor moon on to just every item imaginable didn't they?

Perhaps these questions can be answered by the box. Actually, I can just answer that third question, without the box. Yes, yes they did.  I still think we should check out the box though so  let's get to it.

The side of the box seems to show that this is indeed a bubble blower, just in case I was confused. Not much else there other than some stuff in Japanese I don't understand.  My Japanese is basically limited to what appeared in the Utena game on the Saturn and what I need to know for cel buying. And this box doesn't say, Anthy, Kendo, Garden, Cel, Sketch, or Doujin. So I have no clue what any of this says.

The back of the box features even more Japanese text that I'm not smart enough to read.  Luckily,though warning labels are pretty universal so perhaps I can decipher something out of that.

It seems to say:

Do not become Pac Man while using this item
Do not Face Palm while using this item.
Do not become Fry Guy while using this item.
This item will make children and adults happy.

So seems simple enough avoid video games and the Internet and you should be happy. This is our house so avoiding video games isn't really possible and I'm posting on the Internet so this is a dangerous proposition, but I'm going to tempt fate and open up the box anyway.

So here it is out of the box, isn't it cute with that little SD eternal moon on top? It came with an instruction sheet, which was naturally in Japanese so I don't have the faintest idea what any of it was saying. There were illustrations though, so I discovered the following:

1. You need to put two double AA batteries in the bottom of it or you'll be stuck blowing your own bubbles like a sucker.

2. In spite of it being in larger canister shaped object, you don't actually fill the can with bubbles at all. You fill a tiny cup bellow the wand with bubbles which will inevitably cause you to spill bubbles on yourself and your toy, every time you use it...

3. Above the bubble wand is a little lever you can adjust which will allow you to change the size of the bubble. In theory you could make fairly sizable bubbles with this, but we could never make them work no matter how hard we tried. Maybe it's just our inferior American bubble solution, but trying to set it to anything beyond the medium setting netted us zero bubbles.


Here it is in action:




It makes an absolutely ridiculous sum of bubbles and can be a lot of fun to play with. Especially fun if you sneak up behind someone sitting in a room and minding their own business. (Though it's a little bit noisy so they either have to be rather engrossed in what they're doing or listening to something). Additionally it could be great at raves or weddings any place where you want bubbles but can't be bothered to use your own breath. The small cup though means you've only got a solid 2 minutes or so before you have to refill. So, if taking it out in public it's best to bring a back up stash of bubble solution.

~Stephanie

Collection Update: A Work in Progress Version 2

So last month I posted that we had been spending a lot of time going through our collections and properly organizing/displaying/loving them and while we've been greatly delayed due to some family things that needed attending to we've gotten a lot of work done on our collection room. It still needs a lot of work, but we're getting there.

First up, the doorway, because well, it's a small room so even the doorway needs to be utilized to display stuff.

In this Picture is: A Mario Brothers 2 clock, The Mario Brothers TV tray, The Link Mask, A Mario Transitor Radio, Rare official Nintendo promo pixel graphics,  A vintage (though unofficial) final fantasy 7 poster,  Nintendo Power Backpack with Mario and link (there's also a matching folding inside), Metal Gear 2 complete set of McFarlane figures, Kyo plush from Fruits basket, a unicorn puffkin, Some random unicorns plushies, a stuffed octopus and Matel Legend figure set of Matel and Emeraldas. Off to the left side you can see the first shelf which I'll be describing next.





Now on to the first Shelf MWA HA HA HA!

A LOT more geekery after the jump