hide & X-Japan

Updated 7/25/2001

Introduction:

Believe it or not, it was the catcher toys that introduced me to the work of hide. I was at the Otakon in the summer of 1999, looking for plushes to add to my collection when I came across the cool little plushes of a pissed off little guy with bright red hair and colorful clothes. It wasn't until a few months later that I found out that he was a musician, and out of curiosity, I picked up his best of CD, Psychommunity. I was very surprised by what I heard. Hide's high energy music incorporates many different styles and influences, and never falls into the typical self-indulgence that you might expect from a guitarist's solo material. 

For visitors who may not be very familiar with hide, I've written a short bio, which you can view here.

News Update 11/3/01 - The newest set of hide plushes were sitting in UFO catcher machines in Japan throughout October. You can overpay for them on eBay now, or look for them to start popping up in US stores in about a month or so. Two of the three new plushes are recreations of the limited edition plushes from the hide Museum, so you can finally get your own Santa hide or New Years hide at a reasonable price. The first set of hide figure keychains are out now and they look awesome. I can't wait to get them myself! Another set is planned for early next year.

** The following toys are here for display purposes, and are not for sale. **

s usual, just click on any of the thumbnail images to see a larger picture.

X-Japan Most collectors are familiar with the recent hide plushes, but the first hide catcher toys were actually based on X-Japan. There were full size plushes, keychain mascot plushes, and a set of watches with anime style renditions of the band members.
hide	Pata / Yoshiki	Toshi / Heath
The X-Japan plushes command high prices on the secondary market in Japan. The complete set of five is shown below. Each doll measures around 8 to 9 inches tall, depending on the hair. Hide, Pata & Heath each come with a cardboard guitar which is sewn to their hands. Yoshiki is holding plastic drumsticks, and Toshi has a plush microphone. If you look closely at the hide plush, you'll notice his eyes are yellow. This is intentional, and not caused by age. Hide occasionally wore yellow contact lenses!

Seth & Holth	Electric Cucumber	Psyence
This next set, from late Spring of 2000 was to commemorate the opening of the hide Museum. The first plush represents hide from his big, teased hair days. He wore this outfit while promoting his first solo album Hide Your Face. Another fan emailed me to say that hide wore this outfit in the 1993 film "Seth & Holth", a story about fallen angels starring another J-Rock star, Tusk, from Zi:Kill. The second plush features the space suit and dread-style hair from the only Zilch video, Electric Cucumber. The third has him wearing an outfit he wore for a photo shoot promoting his Psyence CD. He's wearing a bullhorn on his back, and the microphone is connected with a string.
Beauty & Stupid	Doubt	Zilch
This next set of 3 was available in March of 2001. The first features hide in his hip street clothes and knit hat, which you get a glimpse of in the Beauty & Stupid video. The second plush has him dressed in a black suit and carrying a briefcase. He wore this for a TV performance of "Doubt", taped just days before his death. The third plush has hide sitting, wearing camouflage pants and a t-shirt. He wore this outfit during a photo shoot with his US band Zilch. (The actual t-shirt he wore had the "fuct" logo, but Banpresto opted to leave the logo off the toy.)

A. Hide Your Face	B. HOP Tour	C. Final X-Japan Tour
	Fall, 2000 - These 5 inch figurines depict hide in an anime style. Each comes in a window box and comes with a black display base. You can see what the boxes looked like in the picture in the top left corner. A. A leather outfit he wore when promoting the Hide Your Face CD, and the mask seen on the cover. The front piece of his hair can be removed, and you can place the mask on hide! B. Stage outfit from the Hide Our Psychommunity tour. He comes with a bullhorn. C. hide wore this green suit during X-Japan's Dahlia tour. D. An outfit used for a photo shoot to promote the Psyence CD. The little box next to him looks like a pack of cigarettes, but it's actually supposed to be a large battery. E. There are pics of hide wearing this outfit in Hideo Canno's excellent hide photobook. This outfit comes from the '93/'94 period.
D. Psyence
E. Hippie hide

	Dec, 2000	This 20 inch tall plush is a limited edition item sold only at the LEMONed Gift Shop in December of 2000. There were just 1300 made, and they retailed for 7800 yen. This is not a catcher toy item, but it was produced by Banpresto. The Santa beard is attached with velco and is removable. Unlike the recent small plushes, hide is smiling.
	2001	You can use these tiny, 1 inch figures to add some style and flair to your clothes or bookbag by attaching them to your zipper pulls. They're packaged in pairs, and there are 5 sets. All 10 are shown.

May, 2001

Another DX set of 12" plushes! Like the first DX set, these are large remakes of earlier plushes.

There have been a few other recent catcher items that aren't listed here. (At least not yet.) There were two sets of cel-phone straps, each of which had both a guitar pick and a reproduction of one of hide's many custom painted guitars attached. There was also a set of two 5" hide speakers. Each speaker had a base which looked like a small stage and came with a 3 inch figuring of hide, so it looked like he was playing in front of a giant amp. More hide catcher items are planned throughout the year, including more plushes, and more keychain figurines.

Here's some other items that are worth mentioning. The hide Museum offered two limited edition hide plushes for sale in their LEMONed Gift Shop in December of 2000. These twenty inch tall (!) plushes were limited editions of 1300, and retailed for 7800 yen each. They were produced by Banpresto and are similar in style to the smaller plushes, but with the noticeable difference that they are smiling instead of frowning. The first limited edition plush was wearing a Santa suit, and has a removable white beard. The second limited edition hide was wearing a new year's kimono.

[hide Biography]

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The words and scans are © Kane, aka spooky@voicenet.com, who freely admits he spends way too much time thinking about toys. The toys shown are © Banpresto, Inc., a subsidiary of Bandai, Inc. This site is not endorsed or affiliated with Banpresto, it is just a hobby that I enjoy working on. The toys on this site are part of a personal collection, and are NOT FOR SALE. Thanks for visiting. Cheers.