Interested in learning how you get from this:

To this?

Check out my photodocumentary, detailing the process of playing with my incredible new Soul Of Chogokin giant robot toy. What does this have to do with Capcom? Nothin'. But it's pretty rad if you're a toy/anime/video game/robot fan. Hit the More button to see the entire process

While in Tokyo for TGS, I hit up a couple amazing toy stores, but ended up spending most of my toy dollars at a BIC Camera near Tokyo Station, which is a bit like doing all your toy shopping at a Best Buy or Fry's. Thankfully, Japan loves its toys and models, so even an electronics retail chain like BIC carries a huge amount of robot-y goodness. I'm only going to post a few key pics here, as it may become overkill quickly. If you're a masochist and want to see the entire process, check out the entire pictorial here.

As soon as I saw this box, I knew I needed to own this toy. For those not in the know, read up on the high quality, insanely detailed Soul of Chogokin toys here. This particular set features two robots, Dygenguar (blue) and Ausenseiter (black), who, it turns out, were created for the Bandai Super Robot Taisen series of games. I had no idea who these two robots were, but BIC had them in a glass case and I was immediately sold. The set was pricey -- no PSPGo for me in the near future, for sure -- but the quality of the Soul of Chogokin line makes it worthwhile.

Straight out the box, you can see there's no foolin' with the packaging. These two robots are practically in jail. Note the careful packaging of all the additional pieces.

Step 1 was freeing the two robots. Dygenguar was moved to the side, as there wasn't really anything to do with him for almost an hour.

Next up was beginning the Ausenseiter transformation from robot to horse form. Thankfully, there's an incredibly detailed manual, which shows every step of the process. Unfortunately, it is in Japanese. Time to follow the pictures and make a lot of somewhat-educated, slightly panic-y guesses!

The head pops off (literally) and the chest piece is removed. Then the arms and shoulders swing out, down and back. There were lots of scary cracking noises at this step. Visions of 1000 Yen bills with wings on them flew out of my terrified head.

The legs bend back and fit into a clip-on piece that holds them together, while the entire top half of the robot flips out, down and backwards. Getting the legs clipped together was a bigger pain than I would have expected.

The head, legs and mane piece are added. While it looks really cool, this is definitely not a toy that encourages people to touch it, as the parts are pretty wobbly. And pokey -- those am some pointy knees.

With shields and stirrups attached, Ausenseiter is connected to the stand for a dramatic, rearing pose. Love the flowing plastic mane and tail. Drama!

At this point, I'd been sweating away on this project for about an hour. Randy Reyes (Double-R) dropped by to see what I was up to and ended up basically taking over from this point on. There was much nerdy laughter between the two of us as we fondly remembered attempting the awkward transformation of the Mospeada (Robotech) Cyclone motorcycle armor.

Good, but not yet finished. Dygenguar really needs something to complete his formal battle wear.

This rubber cape and collar should provide just the extra awesomeness needed!

Yep, that did it. Randy and I then decide to switch Dygenguar's hands so that he could hold a giant (sharp!) sword with his right hand while gesturing dramatically with his right. This process has now taken so long that Gerald and Sven have wandered into my office and begun playing Monster Hunter Freedom Unite and yelling at me to hurry up so I can hunt with them.

Done! Incredibly, this toy comes with a base that holds EVERY SINGLE PIECE that comes in the set, allowing you store all additional swords, hands, guns, bits and bobs together. Notice Sven does not care, as he is mining for ore. Dork.

Dygenguar and Ausenseiter join the much more forgiving Yatter-Wan and Yatter-Pelican on my desk, next to my helpfully labelled Xboxes.

It's got nothing to do with nothing going on here at Capcom, but if you grew up with Tatsunoko's Battle of the Planets, you probably also fondly remember Star Blazers, aka Space Cruiser Yamato. There have been a number of Yamato movies and TV shows in Japan over the years, but this new one looks pretty cool, incorporating CG space battles alongside traditional anime artistry. When I was younger, I had an incredible Yamato toy that was over a foot long and had a firing Wave Motion Gun, but my ditzy girlfriend at the time bumped it off its stand and smashed it. *sigh* I actually remember that toy more fondly than the girl.

Thanks to awesome sci-fi blog io9 for pointing this out!

Subcribers to EDGE Magazine recently received an amazing gift with their latest issue: a poster of a pixelated city being overrun by various video game characters, vehicles, monsters and settings. There are a ton of Capcom references in this poster, as you can see in the image above. While perusing the unfortunately low-quality image on their site, I also picked out Sir Arthur, Viewtiful Joe and Frank West. This poster is proof positive that there will always be a place for printed magazines. Mebbe you should subscribe?

Kenzo Tsujimoto, founder and president of Capcom, is has recently begun applying his talent for managing development of digital entertainment to managing vineyards. iStockAnalyst has an article on Mr. Tsujimoto's newest venture, noting that his winery shipped 600 boxes of its first wine last year. Check this article out, as it gives a whole new perspective on the man behind your favorite video game company.

Morrigan. Dontcha just lurrrrrve her? Considering there hasn't been a new DarkStalkers game in years, it's amazing to me how popular Morrigan and Felicia remain with gamers and anime-heads alike. But I guess near-porn statues like this go pretty far in explaining their ongoing popularity.This PVC statue from Max Factor will set Japanese pervs back $130 when it is released in July. Fire up your hentai import search engines posthaste!

Thanks, Kotaku, for pointing this piece out!