The incredible invasion of generic soldiers.
I'm a fan of toys, especially figures. If you want you can call it Action Figures, Toys Soldiers or Articulated Dolls, but for me they are really dolls for boys.
Soldiers, cowboys, astronauts or superheroes, whatever. I think they're fun. I always thought, since I had contact with the heroes of Gulliver, back in the late 70s, when they were vinyl figures with a dubious finish to the fantastic toys of today.
He-man, Thundercats, Commandos in Action, Falcon, Super Powers, Secret Wars, Playmobil, Justice League Unlimited and Spawn are some of my favorites.
GI JOE, or for us Brazilians, Comandos em A??o were luxury items. The Hasbro action figures that Estrela launched were fine products. Everyone wanted it. Some launched in Brazil, even became rare items, from collectors - but that is for another story.
I am not a collector of statues, I am a collector of toys, designed for children to take money from their parents and play until the paint fades or the thumb of the figures's hand breaks. Toys that come in the blister and are articulated and preferably plastic. I was also passionate about packaging, I even saved some. The charm was also in the illustrations that transformed those plastic dolls into real heroes.
The Brazilian toy industry sank, from the 90s onwards it was more interesting to be an importer of dolls than to be a producer. In the ‘law of money’, it either adapts or dies. In fact, almost all manufacturers died or went bankrupt. They try to stay as they can by defending old brands and a business model that no longer works.
There, the incredible invasion of generic soldiers began. Made in China, they arrived in containers at Brazilian ports for absurdly low prices. They were spawned in large centers, such as in the central region of S?o Paulo and quickly spread through neighborhood stores. Please understand that the sales volume of such an operation is huge, absurdly fast and profitable. It aims at immediate money and does not aim to create a future market, I am not judging, just illustrating the scenario.
In the beginning, the dolls were made of dubious plastic (did they "give cancer"? Every child in Brazil must have said that phrase!) Without refinement in quality, with badly finished weapons and equipment and ghastly vehicles, but time passed and slowly, very slowly, the figures of action were gaining quality. But everything was imported! Except for some attempts like S.O.S Commandos From Gulliver and perhaps a Bope’s Car, during the success of the movie Tropa de Elite, most of the products on the shelf were not produced in Brazil.
When I arrived here in Canada, I found that the reality is very similar to that of Brazil. The country is invaded daily with tons of Chinese products, which fill the shelves of several cool generic toy stores, but at least here they exchange stickers and paintings to create some identity with consumers, in Brazil, even this is not done.
In this scenario, a new wave of collectors of generic soldiers is appearing, the game is so serious that there are two companies that have created different brands and compete with each other. Soldier Force x True Heroes are an example of this. They look the same, they must have come out of the same mold and for me they were supporting characters that served for the G.I.Joe to defeat, but there is already a collector trying to complete the collection or competing to know who has the largest collection ...
For me these generic dolls start to be part of a personal hobby, the Custom Toy, or rather, the customization of a generic doll in a unique and differentiated character, another adorable addictive craze of the North American collector's market. We will leave this matter for the future.