Bandai – Real Scale Model (1985)

A line born with the anime

The printing codes on the instruction sheets date the releases precisely: February 1985 for the first kit (code 0285/ON), March 1985 for the second. Bandai was keeping pace with the television series, which had just wrapped up the Shin arc and was broadcasting the Rei arc. Each box features the adversary of the moment, and the text printed on the box side changes from kit to kit, summarising the corresponding story arc.

The instruction sheets carry the full publisher panel, 発売元 株式会社バンダイ ホビー事業部, Bandai Co., Hobby division, at the Komagata address in Taitō ward. The copyright line, ©武論尊・原哲夫／集英社・フジテレビ・東映動画, joins Fuji TV and Tōei Dōga to the authors: the licence ran through the anime, as it did for the Battle Model sets and the Zenshin Kadō Kenshiro from the same year. The ST seal appears on the box side: a plastic kit, but an approved toy.

The line has four references, numbered Series No.1 to No.4 on the advertising strip shared by every box side. The first two are 1/20 duos, the next two are larger, solo Kenshiro kits at 1/12.

The 1/20 duo kits

Each duo pairs Kenshiro with an adversary, each on his own display base. The sprues are separated by character and the instruction sheet details assembly part by part.

Series No.1: Kenshiro + Shin (Computer Number 0503566-300, instruction sheet dated February 1985). The box is the only one in the line to feature a female presence, with Yuria in the background of the artwork. Shin is presented as the master of Nanto Seiken, frozen in his characteristic stance, purple uniform and shoulder pads. The paint guide specifies the mixes: Shin’s outfit in violet (80%) lifted with wine red (20%), fully matt finish, while Kenshiro’s leather calls for semi-matt.

Series No.2: Kenshiro + Rei (Computer Number 0503567-300, instruction sheet dated March 1985, sprues moulded in white). Kenshiro strikes the Hokuto Sei Kyoku Rin pose (北斗聖極輪) and Rei the Nanto Koha Ryū (南斗虎破龍), the two techniques from their first confrontation at the Fang Clan’s stronghold, whose chief looms over the box artwork. The paint guide breaks down Rei’s mauve outfit zone by zone, down to the shoulder pads and the fur collar.

Kenshiro at 1/12

The last two references drop the duo format for Kenshiro alone, at 1/12 scale, considerably more imposing. Beware the double numbering, a source of confusion among collectors. While the advertising strip calls them Series No.3 and No.4 within the full line, their boxes read ‘No.1’ and ‘No.2’, the numbering specific to this 1/12 sub-series, called ‘Real Figure Kenshiro’ on the included cards.

No.1: Kenshiro ‘kamae’, Kukyoku Ryūbu (空極流舞, Computer Number 0503568-500). Kenshiro on guard, in the stance of the evasive technique seen against Colonel of the Golan. The kit is moulded in two colours (flesh and blue), supplied with a brick-wall base and a sticker sheet to recreate the wrist wraps, which the instructions recommend winding in three layers for added realism. A clever bonus: the jacket is an optional part, so the model can be built bare-chested or dressed.

No.2: Kenshiro ‘keri’, Hokuto Jūha Zan (北斗柔破斬, Computer Number not recorded). Kenshiro bare-chested in a high kick against a backdrop of flames, the technique used against Heart, the giant from Shin’s gang. The paint guide recommends a skin base mixing orange and white, matt finishes and dry-brushing for the trousers.

The price, which we do not know

No 定価 appears on the boxes or the instruction sheets, and no source we consulted gives a retail price. The Computer Numbers printed on the box sides end in 300 for the 1/20 kits and 500 for the 1/12, and that suffix corresponds to the price in Bandai’s numbering. It is a consistent reading, but a reading: we would rather leave the field empty than print a figure that no document prints.

Painting your kit: Bandai’s teaching

This is the most interesting angle of the line. Alongside the assembly plan and the colour-by-colour paint guide, each instruction sheet includes an illustrated leaflet called ‘Figure Technique Kōza’ (Figureテクニック講座) that teaches the fundamentals of figure modelling: sanding away seam lines (400, 600 then 1000 grit), making a fine brush for faces, dry-brushing, and painting facial shadows in a gradient of three skin tones according to the direction of the light. The course is serialised: the leaflet in kit No.2 is marked PART 2 and deals with shadows, which suggests one part per kit, one more reason to buy the whole series. The instructions recommend water-based paints, safer for the young audience, and forbid any open flame nearby.

The instruction sheets mention the spare-parts service at Bandai’s Shizuoka factory, in Shimizu. In case of a defective part, the buyer was invited to cut it out and post it for exchange. Another era.

Hiken cards and bonus sheets

Each kit includes collectible cards numbered continuously across the line, one card per character. Cards 1 and 2 for the Shin kit, cards 3 (Kenshiro, Hokuto Sei Kyoku Rin) and 4 (Rei, Nanto Koha Ryū) for the Rei kit, card 5 for the kamae and one card for the keri. The series is titled ‘Hiken Card’ (秘拳カード). The back of the duo cards presents ‘battle data’ (戦闘データ) over a sepia illustration: location of the fight, martial school, techniques and a narrative summary of the character.

The 1/12 kits add large-format bonus sheets. The kamae contains the ‘Hokuto Shinken Hikō-zu’ (北斗神拳秘孔図), a double-sided diagram of the human body’s pressure points, mapped onto the silhouette of a mohawked punk, with the customary regulatory warning never to attempt these dangerous techniques. The keri includes the ‘Dai-Akunin Retsuden’ (大悪人列伝), the gallery of the early series’ great villains: Shin and his four lieutenants Spade, Diamond, Club and Heart, the Colonel’s God Army, the chief of the Fang Clan, Jackal and Devil Rebirth. A nice touch: Heart’s biography notes that he was defeated by the Hokuto Jūha Zan, the very technique the kit’s figure reproduces.

Finding them today

Never reissued, the line is found mainly on the Japanese second-hand market: Yahoo! Auctions and Mercari for auctions and private sales, Suruga-ya for shops. Sealed examples are getting rare, and the condition of the box makes all the difference; the thin cardboard of 1985 has rarely survived forty years unscathed. Always check for the Hiken cards and the bonus sheets, often missing from opened examples, as well as the kamae’s sticker sheet. Sometimes an instruction sheet carries a first owner’s handwritten notes, their own colour mixes copied in pen onto the paint guide: Bandai’s lessons were put to use. The same year, Bandai took the licence in an entirely different direction with its snap-fit soft figures, the Battle Model sets.

Sources

• Series No.1 and No.2 boxes, 1/12 No.1 kit: fronts, sides, Computer Numbers, ST seal.
• Instruction sheets of the four kits: printing codes, publisher panel, paint guides, Figure Technique Kōza leaflets.
• 秘拳カード cards and the 北斗神拳秘孔図 and 大悪人列伝 bonus sheets.