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Saru No Gundan – Police Chief Geba
As Saru No Gundan was one of my gateway drugs into Japanese toys, so it was only fitting to honor Geba in Mego-style. Had to mine photos for a long time to get decent references, and over the course of the show his make-up/mask and costume changed adding some additional challenge.
This mad-love project is three years in the making… many fabricated and sculpted components including his signature pistol and laser whip (baton), lots of little details from his spurs to his leather-lined removable helmet, one heavily manipulated trench coat, on a Type-S body.
As he's obscure by most tastes, except for Ape-freaks like me… here's a background summary: The Planet of the Apes movies were hugely successful in Japan; Japanese audiences were treated to an extended cut of Conquest of the Planet of the Apes because of their devotion to the movies. In response to the popularity of the movies, a Japanese company, Tsuburaya Productions, created a TV series consisting of twenty-six half-hour episodes in 1974-75, with a storyline remarkably similar to Planet of the Apes but without actually making any reference to the franchise. 'Saru no Gundan' (literally 'Army of the Apes') concerns a woman and two children who wake up in a world populated by sentient apes. Although reportedly not a hugely popular show, it nevertheless completed its 26-episode run, unlike either of the Apes TV shows being made around the same time in the US. The original series has never been translated in its entirety into English, but in 1987, Sandy Frank Entertainment re-edited and translated them into a 97 minute movie and released it in the US as 'Time of the Apes'.
Geba is the head of the ape police force and displays many similarities to Urko from the TV series Planet of the Apes showing in the US at the same time - the head of ape security who shows a single-minded determination to exterminate the human fugitives, with little regard to his superiors. In the heavily-edited and English-dubbed version, 'Time of the Apes', he was renamed 'Gebar'.
In short, Space Apes Rule!:
… note to self, avoid using Japanese characters in posts; the server doesn't like 'em!
This mad-love project is three years in the making… many fabricated and sculpted components including his signature pistol and laser whip (baton), lots of little details from his spurs to his leather-lined removable helmet, one heavily manipulated trench coat, on a Type-S body.
As he's obscure by most tastes, except for Ape-freaks like me… here's a background summary: The Planet of the Apes movies were hugely successful in Japan; Japanese audiences were treated to an extended cut of Conquest of the Planet of the Apes because of their devotion to the movies. In response to the popularity of the movies, a Japanese company, Tsuburaya Productions, created a TV series consisting of twenty-six half-hour episodes in 1974-75, with a storyline remarkably similar to Planet of the Apes but without actually making any reference to the franchise. 'Saru no Gundan' (literally 'Army of the Apes') concerns a woman and two children who wake up in a world populated by sentient apes. Although reportedly not a hugely popular show, it nevertheless completed its 26-episode run, unlike either of the Apes TV shows being made around the same time in the US. The original series has never been translated in its entirety into English, but in 1987, Sandy Frank Entertainment re-edited and translated them into a 97 minute movie and released it in the US as 'Time of the Apes'.
Geba is the head of the ape police force and displays many similarities to Urko from the TV series Planet of the Apes showing in the US at the same time - the head of ape security who shows a single-minded determination to exterminate the human fugitives, with little regard to his superiors. In the heavily-edited and English-dubbed version, 'Time of the Apes', he was renamed 'Gebar'.
In short, Space Apes Rule!:
… note to self, avoid using Japanese characters in posts; the server doesn't like 'em!
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