Chicago's Rotofugi Gallery works on increasing their good "Toy Karma"

by Chris MaGee

There are quite a few things I'd love to collect if I had a disposable income: vintage Japanese movie posters, fine handmade pottery, and possibly retro Japanese toys if only for their great kitsch value. Sadly what little extra money is left after paying bills, rent and feeding myself pretty much goes to collecting Japanese DVDs, which isn't anything to complain about really. Why do I bring this up? Well, after catching this article at Sci-Fi Japan the subject of Japanese toys popped to mind.

Apparently the Rotofugi Gallery in Chicago is mounting an exhibition titled "Toy Karma 2" running from September 5th to 20th in which nearly 80 artists and designers have contributed works inspired by classic Japanese toys from the 50's, 60's and 70's. The last "Toy Karma" show took place in 2007 and even though I'm not familiar with any of the artists listed at Sci-Fi Japan I am at least vaguely familiar with the yokai and kaiju monsters that they've based their pieces on... like these darling female kappa by Sunguts (above). You can check out more work from "Toy Karma 2" by checking out the site that the Rotofugi Gallery has set up for it here.