I am kind of amazed...

[chris514]

I started feeling Nostalgic about Zoids recently and started looking to satisfy my nostalgia when to my surprise I found there are still zoids being made even today apparently.

I remember having some of the old Hasbro Zoids models when I was younger, but unfortunately those all got destroyed in a flood a few years back (T-T)

Seeing some of the Kotobukia models has gotten me interested in them again. I definitely have an interest in the Lifer Zero and it's three counterparts. As well as Leena's Gun Sniper of course. Fortunately I have found a site that I can order those from, but I am curious about some things.

It looks like Kotobukia isn't the only company making these. In fact it looks like there are a number of different companies making zoids these days. I know Tomy was the company that came up with them so I am left to wonder what exactly happened? How come so many companies are or have been making them? Did something happen with the intellectual property rights to the models to bring this about?

Also I remember back in the day there were customize parts available. Is that still a thing?

[Maethius]

Welcome, Chris!

Takara-Tomy decided to diversify (likely so they could continue to make money on the Zoids IP while not having to siphon any development capital into it). They have authorized Revoltech, Yamato, and, of course, Kotobukiya, to develop action figures and model kits.

As for customize parts, you can scrape some up for the toy kits sometimes, but the new ones are all Kotobukiya HMM versions (most of which are just chromed standard kit parts). They tend to integrate their custom sets into full kits (Saber/Great Saber, Command Wolf/Irvine, Molga/Molga Cannonry, Red Hord/Dark Horn, etc.)