Rarities - Kaido Figures

Back in June of 2020, my laptop power cord died.  I went about a month with no way to update the site.  I had plenty of posts ready to go.  But, not all that were published were finished.  One of those was the Rarities post on the Kaido figures.  I posted one picture and a small paragraph.  But, I had planned a much larger feature on the subset.  So, for this Rarities Month, I decided to revisit the Kaido figures and publish a more detailed write of what little I know about the Kaido figures.

I first learned of Kaido figures in 2019.  There was a random post with a weird Joe hybrid accessory that was identified as Kaido.  This lead me down a rabbit hole as I attempted to learn what other Joe gear might have been included in the line.  The line's manufacturer, Bikin, had taken both existing Hasbro gear from the Joe line as well as common gear from the Lanard CORPS! line and rehashed it into something kind of new, sometimes good and always odd.

The figures themselves are 3 3/4.  The arms feature construction very similar to Hasbro's.  The rest of the figure construction, though, then deviates.  The torso is one piece from the neck to the legs.  The legs then move forward and backward along the block crotch that is common on 5 points of articulation figures.  (Think vintage Star Wars.)  The legs feature knee joints, though, so the figures had a solid range of motion.  But, it was still less than Hasbro's.  This is the main reason these figures haven't caught on.  They are not Joe construction.  If they were, they'd be a lot more expensive and popular among collectors.

Like most lines of this nature, you see a lot of reused parts.  And, many of the figures have some drastic repaints.  However, I'm not sure of the origin of these other figures.  There might have been different series of figures.  There are also vehicles and playsets available under the Kaido name and the repaints could have been included with those.  Or, the repaints may have come from a different company getting a hold of the molds.  So, much more research to do in this area.

The figures were packaged in boxes.  You could see the figure through a bubble.  The artwork shows a speech bubble that denotes the sayings that will emanate from the electronic backpack.  There's even a slot on top of the package where the buttons on the pack are available for kids to test out the sound feature.

Here is a look at the packaging.  You can see the thick box that's reminiscent of the old cases that were used to store VHS movies.  There is a slot on top where kids could test the sound backpacks.  Each figure also included a booklet inside along with their accessories.

The cardback is interesting.  It gives a snapshot of the figures available.  There are some great names for the characters, here.  A bio card is also printed on the back so kids would know who Alpacko really was.  Finally, you'll see the printed accessories on the bottom right of the box.  This figure includes 2.  Once appears to be a hybrid between the rifle mounted on the Slugger with a barrel/bayonet from the Crimson Guard's rifle.    The other is similar to a shotgun produced by Lanard with early CORPS! figures.

Here is more Alpacko.  You can see his accessories and the figure construction.

Here is Slanders.  You'll see he includes the computer from Mainframe as well as an a relatively unmodified version of the 1983 Gung Ho's Grenade Launcher.  Note Slanders' grey hair.  You don't see grey hair on non-licensed action figures too often.  But, he is a professor.  So, the wisdom conveyed by grey hair is part of his character.

Here is Kanats.  Let's a take a second to look at that name.  It's something bizarre enough to make for a cool figure.  As this guy has a head that implies he's a robot, something like Kanats can work.  He shows that his accessories are a laser rifle that's based on a sculpt from the Lanard Space CORPS figures.

Kapawack (another great name!) includes a weapon based off of Crazylegs' rifle (with no stock to lose) and Psyche Out's pistol.

Tarkham includes two weapons.  The pistol is based on the 1987 Royal Guard weapon.  This is odd as the Royal Guard never appeared anywhere else and the weapon's usage here shows what potential the pistol had.  His second weapon is a hybrid.  I'm not 100% sure, but it looks like an amalgamation of the 1986 Zandar's rifle with the barrel being Dr. Mindbender's prod.  

Daiman is another interesting name.  And, the figure's artwork looks pretty nice.  He included a hybrid weapon featuring the back end of Leatherneck's M-203 and the front end of Baroness' rifle.  He also included a CORPS! shotgun.

Here is Molloch.  Again, great name for a character.  His gear is interesting as he includes a 1985 Eels speargun and a two piece weapon that looks like a mortar.  I'm not familiar with the origin of this piece.  So, you know it originated somewhere else, please leave a note in the comments.

Zorgev includes a huge rifle whose back half is from the 1986 Roadblock's machine gun.  I can not identify the front half, though.  So, please help out if you recognize it.

Tetrark features the weapon I'm most familiar with.  First, he includes a weapon that is twice removed from its source.  Lanard copied the rifle from the 1985 Lamprey and removed the side clip.  Tetrark includes a weapon based on the Lanard copy of the Hasbro original.  His second weapon is a combination of the 1986 Viper's rifle (back) and the 1986 Leatherneck's rifle (front).  A kind collector on Instagram gifted me two of these weapons a few years back.  They look great with a variety of Cobras and you can see them in various photos I've taken over the years.

Dr. Zargone:

Dr. Zargone has some great weapons.  The first is the pistol from the 1987 Cobra La Royal Guard.  It's a neat pistol and seeing it again somewhere else is fun.  His second weapon is a hybrid that uses the stock, handle and clip from the 1985 Crimson Guard weapon and fuses on the barrel from the 1986 Viper rifle.  It's awesome to see two classic Cobra weapons combined like this.

While you can see some of the accessories in the loose figure pictures above, here are some additional images.  You'll notice there is a combo of grey and black accessories.  Again, I'm not sure if individual figures included one color of another.  Or, if one color is from a different release.  If you have info, please drop it in the comments.

Kaido figures are very similar to the MPact figures that were made by Toymax in 1992.  It's possible that Kaido and Toymax were different entities under the same company as the figures seem to overlap quite a bit and use many of the same parts.  MPact figures include some different weapons stolen from Hasbro's Joes.  But, they appear on weapons trees.  You can see a couple of examples below.

There are more figures in the Kaido line.  But, this is a good start.  There are a ton of repaints that may or may not be Kaido figures.  I'll look into this more in the coming year with an update when I get some more info.  But, please share your info on these figures in the comments.  It's a great way to learn about some oddball and obscure releases with a tangential relationship to Joe.