It was in the early spring of 2018 I got into Gormiti. My son and I made a trip to our dark and messy addict to find toys to sell on a local flea market. By then my son was twelve, so most of the toys were gonna go.
Somewhere amid dusty old cardboard
boxes we found his collection of Gormiti. 114 little monsters in total. He had even
kept all the cards. We looked at the figures and cherished the memories – the
excitement! – of opening those blind bags and I found myself saying “These are
great, let’s not sell these”. It sounded like an echo. I guess I’d said it the
last two or three years when scavenging for toys to sell at the market!
This was
just around the time the first season of Netflix’s “The Toys That Made Us”
aired. I loved the show and was particularly impressed with Steve Sansweet’s GIGANTIC
Star Wars collection. His dedication to this ONE thing really got me inspired.
I wanted to
collect toys … and why not … Gormiti??
At that time,
I had never before considered collecting Gormiti for myself. I had enjoyed the
whole game with the blind bags. I vividly remembered picking my son up from kindergarten
and surprising him. “Theres a new line of Gormiti out, son, and guess what … I
got a couple of them blind bags for ya!”
But it
still seemed a bit odd starting a collection of toys my big kid had played with
in kindergarten, and I was 39 … really …? Oh yes, really. It was just meant to
be.
I started
buying big job lots of secondhand Gormiti and found they weren’t too expensive.
At first, I didn’t really know what I was doing, I just bought and bought.
Then, I fell in love – with the whole intricate system of Gormiti. I had never
really understood that – for example – series Atomic was repaints of series 2,
Mythos repaints of series 3 etcetera. Now I learned all the systems. I discovered
the Italian magazine editions and discovered how Giochi fooled
around with the colors, switching color schemes from one series to another. I
realized Gormiti was the perfect thing to collect for my semi-autistic brain! I
loved the strange Italian names and soon I only wanted the cards in Italian, because
they were the most ‘original’.
And all the
while this – my new “religion” – seemed very important to me … no one else
really cared! The whole Gormiti craze was long over when I got onboard. But, really,
it was a great feeling collecting something no one else really cared about and
there wasn’t – and isn’t – that much competition when bidding on even the rare
stuff (at least not in Denmark where I live).
And I didn’t
care if people thought I was crazy. “Why would you collect something that your son
played with, huh? You grew up in the eighties, man! Be normal and collect G.I. Joe
or Masters of the Universe!!”
As much as
I loved those toys … no. It would be too much of a nostalgia trip, just to
relive my childhood. As a kid I was a major collector of G.I. Joe, MOTU and
Star Wars, but the love for Gormiti had come in my adult years, and that made
it more tangible – not something illusive like nostalgia can be.
And Gormiti
rapidly became a lifestyle. A world I would dive into. When nothing else made
sense – and there´s a LOT in adult life that doesn’t – Gormiti did.
There will
be absolutely no chronology with this blog, it will NOT be a complete list with
pictures of every Gormiti every made, because that would bore me to death. It
will rather be my own little personal ‘Island of Gorm’. A place I can escape to
and get whatever Gormiti thoughts out that need getting out. I will be discussing
rare stuff, weird stuff, crazy bootlegs and much, much more.
Please tune
in every once in a while and join the discussion.
Regards!
Jonas
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