Series: Super Mario
Company: Goldie
Release: 2012
Size: 5″ / 13cm
Main distribution: AUS / USA / UK / Europe
These are the large Super Mario figures Goldie redesigned based of the old Banpresto 5″ figures.
In 2004 Banpresto released 4 5″ Super Mario figures for their UFO crane games, marketed for Mario Party. These were Mario, Yoshi, Donkey Kong and Goomba. They proved to be very popular, so they got repackaged as Super Mario Character Figures in blister series and they made more characters. The designs are based on the Gamecube and Wii era. These were only available in Japan, in UFO crane machines.
In 2008 PopCo made a deal with Banpresto and released 5 of these figures worldwide. These were Mario, Luigi, Yoshi, Toad and Donkey Kong. These came in bright red bubble packaging with a jumping Mario on it, and were called the Super Mario Figure Collection.
In 2011 Global Holdings released in the USA more of the 5″ Banpresto figures. They were now packaged in a red box with a different Mario render on it. Apart from the original 5 figures that PopCo had done as well, they added Fire Mario, Wario and 4 new Yoshi colour variants (light blue, red, yellow and pink).
In 2012 Goldie, who was already distributing these figures in Australia as well, decided to make their own figures based of the 5″ Banpresto figures and release them worldwide. These figures included redesigns of the original lineup of 5 (Mario, Luigi, Yoshi, Toad and Donkey Kong) and also added a Koopa Troopa and Princess Peach. These 7 figures were not made by Banpresto, but used the same red packaging all their figures were distributed in worldwide.
Here I’ll only list those 7 figures that are made by Goldie.
I got 1/7.
Yoshi
Yoshi is green coloured, and is posed with his arms up and close to his body. He looks slightly to his left. The only articulation is his head, which can turn.
The branding is under his left foot. It reads in printed black: TM & © 2012 Nintendo MADE IN CHINA Goldie. There’s also I13G printed under his right foot.
I always liked this Yoshi figure. It just looks so cute and full of trepidation to me. As Yoshi is one of my favourite Mario characters, I bought this one when I saw it for sale in the shops back in the early 2010s. He seems uniquely posed, until Nintendo released the Yoshi Amiibo on 20 March 2015 with this pose.
Although I will forever be a fan of Yoshi’s earlier design, this figure is nice to have in my collection and one of my favourite modern Yoshi’s.
Jakks Pacific has since been running a Super Mario line from 2014 onwards that has clearly outcompeted this line. But if you want some earlier Mario figures, Banpresto and Goldie’s are nice to have. Just be careful looking for them as they’re also severely bootlegged.
If you like Super Mario, you’ll like these figures.
Got any more details / information you think I should add? Or did I get something wrong? Do you own any of these figures? Which one is your fav? Do you agree or disagree with my findings? Let me know in the comments below!