threezero Interview

SDCC 2024

July 25, 2024

Rey Taira: President of threezero Corporation.

Interview by The Articulation Series

 

 

Established in 2000, threezero has collaborated for over two decades with international brands and world-renown designers, successfully navigating changes in the toy industry to pioneer new technical advances and nurture the growth of the collectibles medium with properties such as Hasbro’s Transformers, Tsuburaya Productions’ ULTRAMAN series, AMC’s The Walking Dead, HBO’s Games of Thrones, and Tencent’s Honor of Kings. In recent years, threezero has further expanded its licensed properties with an increased focus on iconic popular products, including Marvel Studios’ The Infinity Saga, Netflix’ Stranger Things, Evangelion: New Theatrical Edition from Khara, Mobile Police Patlabor from HEADGEAR, Hasbro’s G.I. Joe and Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, and many more. As of 2022, there are more than two-hundred projects in development behind threezero’s doors.

 

 

THE ARTICULATION SERIES (TAS): I'm here with the Rey Taira from threezero. Rey, would you like to share a little more about yourself and your company before jumping in?

 

REY: Yes, my name is Rey Taira, I'm the president of threezero corporation, which is the US subsidiary of threezero HK Ltd., which is based in Hong Kong.

 

TAS: A lot of collectors are anxious to hear about this new figure by threezero. However, before we get to that, could you tell us a little bit about threezero? How long the company has been established? What kind of products does threezero specialize?

 

REY: Absolutely. We've actually been around for almost 25 years. In fact, next year is going to be our 25th anniversary. Threezero started with Kim Fung Wong, and he was actually in the street art movement. That’s the reason we have custom art vinyl’s is because of his crowd. He's from that generation. He started threezero and then very quickly worked with Ashley Wood to form threeA to make Ashley Wood's toys. And then we went on our own to do licensed products. So far, it's been amazing because our forte is anime and robot figures. Not to toot our own horn, but people have been calling us “the hot toys of anime and robots” and we’ll take that! Currently, we create high end collectible action figures and our philosophy is not to flood the market. What that means is we do limited editions. I mean, they're not too small, but they're not tens of thousands. The reason for that is because we want our collectors to be happy with their purchase and they keep their value over time. For our brand, I have to tell you that as soon as these things sell out, they jump two, three, to five times in the aftermarket. That said we're not into people flipping or anything, we just want the people who purchase the figures from us to be happy with their figures.

 

TAS: Yeah. That's the constant struggle as a collector, especially those that are playing catch up in an established product line. To elaborate, when we define these products as collectibles, they’re not mass-produced like toys found in your local Target or Walmart. It's a little bit different. So, with collectibles, limited quantities are made available to accommodate the buyer pool which is usual business.

 

REY: Absolutely. And we don't generally rerelease products willy-nilly. Here’s an example, like these Berserk figures here on display. Those are ten, maybe twelve years old, and we only rereleased them this year because we released a Griffith figure last year which sold out of 300 preorders in three minutes. So, we thought, oh, it's kind of good now to do a rerelease. We even read some people who even have the old figures were planning to pick these up too. Like I said, we want people to be happy with their purchases and we want to retain the quality and the purchase price. There's no point in making awesome figures if your fans can't afford it. So, with that in mind, we would rather starve the market than flood it.

 

TAS: Thanks for the intro to threezero. What inspired you to get involved with the Godzilla franchise?

 

REY: One of our lines is called ROBO-DOU. In that line, we do Japanese anime/manga inspired robots from TV shows. The technology for ROBO-DOU, which we also have in the DLX line, is that all of the figures have an internal frame with diecast, zinc alloy, and high impact plastics. These materials are used because we want the posing to be firm. We don't want poses to sag over time, right? With that said, we've dominated the robot market, what else can we do? The next logical step was Kaiju. So, we’re introducing KAIJU-DOU, a sister line to ROBO-DOU. This line employs the same technology.

 

TAS: This will be used in your first figure of the line, Godzilla (1974) from Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla?

 

REY: Yes. This Godzilla has an internal frame. He has seamless silicone skin at the elbows, torso, and knees. He's got interchangeable hands. His jaw is articulated, which not a lot of figures do at this size, so it was important to make this a feature. His tail is poseable. And to add more value, he comes with a title plaque and you can play sounds on it like his roar, the heat ray sound, and more.

 

TAS: As far as the hands go, how many hands are you looking to have swappable. Is it just one set?

 

REY: It’s still in development, but our average number of pairs are three to six, depending on how many iconic hand poses there are in the movie.

 

TAS: Very cool. With regards to the title plaque, is that this poster on display or something else?

 

REY: No, we're still developing it because it is electronic and that's done to keep the cost of the figure down.

 

TAS: Makes sense to me. S.H.MonsterArts created a figure that implemented LED and SFX into the figure and it was nearly $200. While it was a really cool feature, it limited points of articulation in order to house a chip board. 

 

REY: Yeah, with this figure, we wanted to prioritize dynamic posing. We didn't want to lose that with this Godzilla when factoring electronics and SFX. So, it was a trade-off. Did we want it to look cool with limited poses or did we want silence with more range? The compromise was to put the sound chip on something else that collectors can also enjoy. 

 

TAS: Will the figure need to be in proximity to plaque in order to activate it?

 

REY: No, you can enjoy both separately.

 

TAS: Just to clarify, the sound effects that folks will hear are going to be the roar and heat ray, are there other specific sounds?

 

REY: We’re still in the planning stages, but yes, we plan to have those and we're going to have a couple of other sounds, maybe a little bit of a theme… I believe we're allowed to do that. Yeah. It’s not finalized yet but it's going to be very fun and exciting.

 

TAS: Let’s talk more about the articulation engineering. Since we can’t see most of the joints, where are they exactly implemented?

 

REY: So, we have an articulated head at the neck. His jaw is articulated so it can open and close. It can twist at the neck. Although it is seamless in the area, we wanted it to look cool and not have a collar effect. He's got joints at the shoulders. Seamless joints on the elbows and seamless joints on the torso. The tail is kind of an optical illusion where it's segmented, but it's still one piece. So, it's poseable and the frame extends into that. He's got the exposed joints on the hips and also the feet just so they can have rotation and tilt. Additionally, since we wanted to do a few hand poses, he comes with interchangeable hands. We can't do articulated fingers at this size because that would be too expensive.

 

TAS: That was quite thorough, thank you for that. Speaking of size, what is the scale of this figure?

 

REY: Generally, threezero products always have the words “non-scale” in the description because we don't follow or ascribe to other companies’ scales. What we prioritize is a size that works for us, financially and for the character.

 

TAS: I guess I’m specifically asking about in terms of the general height for this line. For example, S.H.MonsterArts is the six-inch scale, Hiya Toys is in the seven-inch scale, and Super7 is in the eight-inch scale. It looks like threezero’s Godzilla will be in the nine-inch scale?

 

REY: You guys are more than welcome to define it that way, but yeah nine-ish is where it’s at. And, you know, should this Godzilla be really popular, then that'll enable us to do more Kaiju in the line. We're definitely going to have them be in scale with the Godzilla that they're with. So, their size will be canon with each other. Just another example, and we’re not doing this at this time, but if we did Godzilla Minus One, he’s a different size altogether. We wouldn't make him a canon scale to Godzilla (1974). He would be around nine-inches, because that's what works for us and looks better in your displays.

 

TAS: Are you able to share who sculpted this Godzilla?

 

REY: I can't because I am not part of the creative process, but we do have a Japanese sculptor for this.

 

TAS: What is it like working with Toho and the Godzilla license?

 

REY: So, because we are in the US and we're the ones to license it for our Hong Kong office. we had to go through Toho International here, and then Toho in Japan. Working with Toho is great, they've been excellent partners. Not just with the figure, but also carrying this on godzilla.com because they wanted something from threezero. They recognize the brand and they recognize the level of quality. Because of that it's been amazing working with them.

 

TAS: Are you open to concept characters that never made it to the movies like Bagan or Super Godzilla? Poster variants? Hyper Color variants?

 

REY: This is part of why Toho is such an amazing partner, is they basically gave us carte blanche on what we would do with any Godzilla. And you know what? We kind of need that because as you can see with our Transformers line, we really lean into the exclusive variants. So, to be able to offer an exclusive variant, Toho has made it super easy for us to do that with any of their characters with any year, painted from any other year. Like, if I pitched this Godzilla to Toho and wanted it painted in Spacegodzilla colors, they would approve it.

 

TAS: Wow. That's a different Toho from what I remember.

 

REY: That's why they're wonderful to work with.

 

TAS: What’s the reason for starting with a Showa Godzilla first? The popular choice these days generally is a rep from the Heisei series, so it was surprising to see a Showa Godzilla be a debut figure.

 

REY: Originally, I wanted to start with Godzilla (1954). However, as we were developing that another company put out a release of their Godzilla (1954) figure. So, to kind of distance ourselves from that, and since we had access to a few different iterations of Godzilla, we decided to do a fun one. So that's why we decided to do Godzilla (1974).

 

TAS: Very cool. I just noticed, there isn’t a price listed here at SDCC; do you have a general estimate for the figure?

 

REY: Well, for context, our ROBO-DOU on average is about $150. That said, depending on the size, can go up to about $250. Our Voltron goes for $330 because it's a special edition. So, it would follow the same pricing structure. I don’t have a definitive number to share at this time because we don't know yet. The cost of materials and labor can change by the time it goes up for preorder. So, stay tuned for official pricing as it gets closer to release.

 

TAS: Very cool. And just to clarify to our readers at home, there's no other gimmicks like LED on the figure?

 

REY: I'll say, not on this one…

 

TAS: Well, that mysteriously segways into the next question: As you mentioned, depending on the popularity of this Godzilla, if it does well, can we look forward to more?

 

REY: Well… I actually got approval from Toho to display the movie poster of where this Godzilla comes from… So, you can take your cue from that.

 

TAS: Now that’s really exciting… Well, I’m definitely looking forward to seeing more.

 

REY: Yeah, we revealed this Godzilla for the first time at San Diego Comic-Con and the reaction has been so overly positive that we look forward to this figure being on preorder, because I think the reception is going to be amazing.

 

TAS: Is there an estimate on when it will be available for preorder?

 

REY: The plan is to have it on preorder sometime in November 2024.

 

TAS: You mentioned you have a headquarters in Hong Kong with threezero corporation based in Burbank, California. When folks order figures from threezero, what’s the best way to do so?

 

REY: There are two ways to get your figure. We’re a B2B business. That means we don't sell directly to customers. So, when your B2B order is ready, you can either arrange pick up with your own courier in Hong Kong, or you can wait for my LCL (Light Container Load) to come from Hong Kong to my warehouse in California. If you choose the LCL, that takes about four weeks. I service the Americas with threezero corporation, so when it arrives in California that's when I inform my customers that your figures are here.

 

TAS: Is there anything else that you want to share about this Godzilla?

 

REY: I just want to say keep an eye on this Godzilla. Even though it's the first figure in our very new line, the success of this will absolutely dictate whoever else we make for the line. I really want to go deep with the franchise. Additionally, folks can follow us on our website threezerohk.com and also our social media: Instagram, Facebook, and X.

 

TAS: Any fun trivia about yourself and your love for the Godzilla franchise?

 

REY: Here's a funny thing, you know, I consider Godzilla as one creature from 1954. Like when he started, to me, he was like maybe an infant and through Showa he became like a toddler. My favorite is Heisei Godzilla where he's an angsty teenager. He's got a mad face with his tiny little ears that are like a cat where they're always pointing backwards. So that's why Heisei is my favorite.

 

TAS: My favorite incarnation is also Heisei, specifically Godzilla (1994). Well, thank you so much for your time and we look forward to seeing the final product!

 

REY: Thanks for having me!

 

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