Wednesday, 2 November 2011

Ever wanted to cuddle Seaman?

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No? Me neither. You don't really cuddle fishes as such do you? Especially fish with miserable ugly human-like faces on them. Still, the Dreamcast game Seaman, in which you raised said creature and had chats with it via a microphone, was big enough of a hit in Japan for it to warrant merchandise including a surprisingly large collection of plush toys, one of which I have got my mitts on because....I don't know, really. Why not I guess?

More photos of this thing after the jump..


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These were made, I assume based on the year written on the tag of 2002, around the time Japan got a Playstation 2 port, and there was quite a few of them up for auction on eBay a little while ago, but this was the only one I wasn't outbid on. Would of liked the main fully grown fish, but never mind. Can;'t remember what stage of the seaman development this is (boy does that sound weird) but I presume it's a baby one, maybe the baby ones your first set of fish give birth too before they all die. Yeah.

Now look into it's eyes!
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It's vacant, non caring, soulless eyes. Boy is this thing ugly, which is accurate I suppose. Simplified sure, but still pretty ugly. He has a big, Popeye like nose and the lips...I'm not sure how to comment on those other than it looks like it's after a smiley kiss. Eeewww.

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This is most likely the smallest (or second from smallest) of the set of toys that were up for auction, but thanks to it's tail it's still pretty long. It's surface has a very well done impressions of scales, and it's sort of shiny. The frankly disturbing antenna/sucker thing on it's head doesn't flop about, it's wired to stand so it's exactly how it looks on the creature from the game. Just don't let it stick it's sucker on you, it'll suck your life away.

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Seaman wants to talk to the Seaman in the game, but it has no hands!

So compared to some other cheaply made Sega plush toys from Japan this one is at least accurate to the creature it represents, wherever that is a good thing or not depends on how much you liked the bizarre game it's from. Personally it was one of my favourite games on the Dreamcast, just because there really is nothing quite like it anywhere else, so I'm glad I managed to pick up one of these ugly little bastards for pretty cheap, even if it means I'll get some weird looks for owning it.

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Reading up on the history of it's species..
To finish off here's a bit of artwork my girlfriend drew some time last year inspired by the game which she got just as fascinated with it as I did.

3 comments:

Barry the Nomad said...

Oh my god. That looks amazing. I've been meaning to get one of these someday. I came across a photo of the collection and was amazed by their freakiness. Good find!

Anonymous said...

Where can you get it? I really want one

Unknown said...

I know this is a long shot, but do you know of anywhere where I can get one of the Seaman plushies. The internet is being super unhelpful. Thanks!