I have always enjoyed Asian culture, with it's out of this world cartoons and superheroes. Asian movies (horror, monster) have also been played very heavily on my widescreen TV for years. I'm a big Godzilla and Gamera fan. I just love the utter chaos these movie bring when they light up the screen. I got a chance to see what Funko Funtastic Fridays brought at the 15th Philippines Toycon this year in way of Funko Pops, I was not disappointed.
I was treated to a couple very cool pops from the Legendary Creatures & Myths line that is released in Asia. This time they showed off a great horror legend in Kuchisake (onna), the slit-mouthed woman. The Japanese legend in-tales a woman that was mutilated by her husband and returns to roam the Earth as a malicious spirit. This legend popped up in 1979 when sightings started to be reported. Multitude of movies have been made about this legend, she even made her way into the US TV show Constantine, in episode 5, 'Danse Vaudou'. Let's get to the pop, this lady slit ear to ear wears a blood covered dress as she points ominously at your from inside the box. This is pop is not for everyone, But the people it is made for will love the look and feel of it.
Our next pop comes to us from Philippines-based mythology and is called Siyokoy. This Green scaled humanoid has scales fins covering it's body and really resembles a merman. The Pop has captured most of these features well and if you love myths and oddities, this is one pop you'll want to have.
Now onto Kappa from Japanese folklore. A kappa is a yokai demon or imp. This folklore is said to be used to warn children about the dangers of wandering around lakes and rivers. Kappa's are said to look humanoid about the size of a child with scaly skin ranging from colors green, yellow or blue. They have been reported to be seen with a beak, a shell, and a bald hairless spot on top of their head. They are said to spend the Summer in water and Winter in the mountains as gods. The pop figure is everything I would want it to be. It's metallic green, it has a beak, and it oozes Kappa from every speck of vinyl. My only wish is that this would get a North American release so I wouldn't have to pay 100+ dollars to own this little guy.
The final release that I was privy to in this Convention was the Aswang creature. This is not a new release as there's been many other versions of this pop out such as Halloween Aswang, Bloody Aswang, Flocked and so on. Aswang is a shape-shifting monster usually possessing a combination of the traits of either a vampire, a ghoul, a witch, or different species of werebeast in Filipino folklore or even all of them together. This version of the Aswang pop is completely black, with a giant red protruding tongue. To me this does make itself stand out from the rest of the Aswangs, but not enough to warrant another pop figure. Please Pop Asia don't go the way of the US pops and release the same figure over and over again, it screams cash grab. So there you have it, So ultra cool pops, so history, and a dash of my own opinion. Later Eh!