Maybe The Worst Thing This Wife Could Do

Cheat on her husband? No. Spend all his money? No. For one man, this just might be worse. Much worse.

From the advice column of Japan’s news source Yomiuri (translated by Matt Alt):

Before we got married, he didn’t exhibit much of this kind of behavior but I’ve really been noticing it lately. He collects these pathetic dolls. They’re called “Chogokin” robots or something, I don’t know. He seems to have been collecting them since he was a kid, and he filled like four cardboard boxes with them. Sometimes he’d take them out and gaze at them lovingly. It really grossed me out. So one day when he was at work I threw them all out.

When he came home, we got into a big fight. Getting angry about dolls… it’s so childish! How can I get him to admit he was wrong? Please give me some advice.

“Chogokin” means “super alloy” and used by Popy Toy company in the early 1970s for its die-cast robot toys that included the GA-01 Mazinger Z, a character from famed manga creator Go Nagai and one that was later spun off into video games. As Matt Alt, who wrote Super #1 Robot, points out that some of these Chogokin toys were sold as Shogun Warrior toys in the USA during the 1970s.

“If they are old Chogokin you are talking probably a couple hundred bucks a pop,” says Alt, “and the high end stuff can be worth a thousand or more.”

Some on the Japanese internet are saying that it’s possible the Yomiuri piece is not true — you know, shenanigans. (Surely no one could be so cruel!) The Yomiuri, however, is one of Japan’s most respected news sources.

The Chogokin line is currently owned by Japan’s Bandai Namco with its “Soul of Chogokin” line. Read more about Chogokin here and here.

夫がオタクで困ってます : 家族・友人・人間関係 : 発言小町 : 大手小町 : YOMIURI ONLINE（読売新聞） [Yomiuri Online via AltJapan]