TokyoVigilante wrote:matsumoto mephilas wrote:''let me point out that error sir'' keizer ghidorah is more popular than monster x cause he even had a plush of himself made by toyvault and a bandai vinyl figure so you better think twice before you say keizer ghidorah isn't popular.
Using that same logic,
GODZILLA must be hugely successful and popular also. Did you see all the toys they made out of GINO? Crazy. That movie is totally getting a sequel on account of its merchandise.
It's all too true that movie tie-in merch (much of it produced before the film hits the screen) is often grossly over-done, so that unwanted toys of GINO, characters shown in
Green Lantern for two seconds each, etc., end up as landfill in the Bargain Bins of Doom. So that's not a reliable way to gauge the popularity of a character or monster.
Over time, the number of garage kits and toys of a particular monster produced by fans / small semi-pro companies in Japan selling to the specialty market might provide a very rough index of how popular the monster is with collectors there. "Very rough" is the key phrase, there... My guess is that some kits and vinyls get produced just because one or two guys wanted to do it, and they have no objection to breaking even or making a little money in the process (if they're lucky). One or two data points (like the Keizer Ghidorah from (U.S.-based?) Toy Vault plus the Bandai figure) wouldn't reveal a whole lot, either.
But when multiple specialty market-oriented companies in Japan end up producing literally dozens of vinyl figures (in multiple color combinations for each) of a monster (e.g.,Godzilla '62; Hedorah), it does seem like some index of the monster's popularity with dedicated fans / collectors there.
Another indicator might be secondary market prices on mass-released figures: especially high resale prices on figures that weren't all that rare to start with.
From this perspective, the fact that Bandai made a Monster X wouldn't, by itself, count as an indication of his popularity with fans. But if secondary market prices on that figure went up substantially, and if it was released in large numbers to begin with, that might be one indication. (Did they?) As for figures by companies that produce for the specialty market: GigaBrain produced a Monster X; did anyone else?
No offense intended, if you like him... different strokes. I remember some of my friends in Tokyo shaking their heads when I said that I liked Titanosaurus, and was hoping that someone would produce new figures or kits. (This was back in the early 90s.)
And I bought one of Bandai's Monster X's myself: not because he's ever going to be one of my favorites, but because I like the figure, and it adds variety / off-beatness to a Ghidorah display.
from being used as a punching bag in final wars by the real goji 
who everybody like me loves.
.