Pro-Gressa The Great Sasuke Deformed Sofubi figure review

For our next entry, we'll be partying like it's 1999. Blog #198 focuses on Pro-gressa's highly-
obscure and very collectible Great Sasuke Deformed Sofubi figures.

Known in Japan as "みちのくプロレス ザ・グレート・サスケ DEFORMED ソフビ人形"
(Michinoku Pro-Wrestling The Great Sasuke Deformed Sofubi figure), this funny looking
fellow was originally released in 1999 by a company in Japan called PRO-GRESSA.

As the name suggests, the Great Sasuke figure is a soft vinyl figure and stands at 60mm
(2.3 inches) in height.

Fans of this particular figure will be pleased to know there are several different figure variants
beyond Sasuke's natural mask colours to collect. Variants such as:

Silver mask variant.

A special bronze type colour variant which was released in 2001. The included packaging
mentions "限定" (Limited edition) in the top right corner while the text at the bottom reads:

"(祝) 2001 ザ・グレート サスケ               ( (Celebration) 2001 The Great Sasuke
みちのくプロレス (C) PRO-GRESSA"    Michinoku Pro-Wrestling (C) PRO-GRESSA)


And, if three variants weren't enough for you. How about:

The clear and gold versions?

The gold version is extra special as it's another event exclusive.

The gold version was only available exclusively at the Wonderland Market Antique Toy
Show back in 1999.

Talk about predating Funko and their slew of Comicon exclusives 11 years in advance!

The bottom of each figure contains Pro-Gressa's stamp and "Made in Japan".

A look at the packaging the Sasuke figures come in. Again, the packaging reads:

"みちのくプロレス                     (Michinoku Pro-Wrestling
ザ・グレート サスケ                   The Great Sasuke

DEFORMED ソフビ人形"        DEFORMED Sofubi Figure).


But, there's still two more variants remaining:

The Super J Cup coloured & translucent figure exclusive.

Right off the bat, the Super J Cup version contains a beautiful gold foil label on the front
of the packaging.

The provided text was promoting the scheduled dates for Super J-Cup tournament which was
organized by the Michinoku Pro-Wrestling promotion on April 1st and April 9th, 2000.

What sets the J-Cup variant apart from the other translucent Great Sasuke figure is the added
colouring for Sasuke's waistband, eyes and nose portions.

Sadly, a common problem with clear figures is the chance of discoloration. In the above
case, certain parts of the Sasuke figure have turned tan in colour.

In the past, I've noticed similar instances with clear white figures made by Toukon Shop/
Character Product such as: Genichiro Tenryu, Akira Maeda and Jushin Thunder Liger.

Again, the specific is added as a graphic of this event exclusive variant.



The Super J-Cup also had a second exclusive variant in the form of a glittered version!

At first, I thought the glitter version was a custom figure, but....



...the glitter version also contains the Super J-Cup 3rd stage event decal on the back of the
figure.

I assume the packaging was strategically blind-box style, so, you never knew which exclusive
you were going to get (and, thus, enticing the consume to purchase more boxes).

Chronologically, the figures release dates would be:

1999 - The Great Sasuke
            The Great Sasuke (silver ver.)
            The Great Sasuke (clear ver.)
            The Great Sasuke (Gold ver.)

2000 - The Great Sasuke (Clear J-Cup ver.)
            The Great Sasuke (Glitter J-Cup ver.)

2001 - The Great Sasuke (Bronze ver.)


Closing thoughts:

Seven different versions of the same figure, three event exclusives (that I know about) and
one figure line made in a design similar to today's Funko Pops. Would you collect them all?

Though, one company still wins the variant game: Character Product's Great Muta action figure
with a staggering nine different versions of the same mould (and about 19 if you count all of
the matching Mini Big Head Muta variants)!

We still have lots of Pro-gressa figures to look at. So, stay tuned...