Yexel's Toy Museum: Anime Nostalgia Overload

Welcome to "Yexel's Toy Museum"!

Yexel's Toy Museum Entrance

This is a 3-story building that exhibits famous Cartoons, Anime, Manga, Comics, Video Games, and Movie character figurines, toys, statues, and dioramas. But what really interests people who come to visit is the Museum's last room, which is home to the largest Optimus Prime bust in the world!

The owner, Yexel Sebastian, opened the Toy Museum last August 26, 2012 and has costed him around ₱8 million to build it. Wow.

I have been obsessed with Anime ever since "Yu Yu Hakusho" was aired here in the Philippines. I'm sure that this is also true to most Filipinos as this was also the start of the "Anime Boom" in the late 90s. Many Shounen Anime, mostly Anime titles based on Shounen Jump's Manga titles (but I wasn't introduced to Manga yet back then), were localized afterwards due to the massive popularity of "Ghost Fighter". Dragon Ball, Hunter × Hunter, Lupin III, Flame of Recca, Gundam Wing, Detective Conan, Ranma 1/2, Trigun, just to name a few of GMA 7's line-up. They even had those silly "Anime Nation's Oath" commercials back then. This museum mostly displays toys of Anime shows from the 90s and some of the recent movies based on comic books.

A friend of mine invited me to go visit the Toy Museum with him last January (or was that early February...), and since I'm a big fan of Toys (And Anime. And Video Games.) there's really no reason for me to say no. That was actually the first time that I've heard of the Toy Musuem. The Musuem is located just beside (or was that behind) SM Southmall.

Near the Entrance where you have to pay the entrance fee, you'll be greeted by 'The Simpsons'.

The entrance fee is ₱300. A bit expensive in my opinion... But it's worth it since one figure/toy that's on display costs at least ₱2K-3K, and most of them, I believe, costs around ₱5K-10K. One of their toy shelves packs around 10-30 toy figures. Hmmm. ₱300 suddenly seemed cheap.

As soon as we entered the Musuem, I was already overwhelmed by the sheer number of toys on display! Looks like this is gonna be a long day for me, my friend, and my camera. So, I started shooting frantically!

First shelf. Mario Figures!

More Mario Figures. Sonic & Pikachu, too.

More Mario Figures. Doraemon's at the bottom shelf.

Close-up Mario.

One of the Mario Shelves.

Disney Figures. Is that Barbie (or Tinkerbell)?

Goofy, Stitch, Shrek, Nemo...

Mickey Mouse through the years.

The Seven Dwarves. Where's Snow White?

Beauty & The Beast.

More Classic Disney Figures.

Captain Hook! Where's Peter Pan?

The Muppets diorama.

Spongebob, Snoopy, Krusty the Clown...

Lupin the Third! *play Lupin III theme song*

"What's our next target, Lupin?"

Lupin III's crew. In black.

Fujiko... *AHEM* Sorry. Next Picture. *AHEM*

Lots of Dragonball Z Figures on display.

Pan to the left for more Dragonball Z Figures.

Figures based on "Cross Epoch", a Dragonball & One Piece crossover Manga.

Master Roshi, Goku, Goku, & Goku. (Vegeta, too.)

More Dragonball Z Figures with Chibi ones.

Bleach Figures. (I swear, I wasn't focusing the camera on Inoue... No, not on Rangiku, too. *AHEM*)

"Hi. I'm Ichigo Kurosaki. This is my Bankai." No, that's not his Bankai.

One of my favorite characters, Yami Yugi. Wanna duel?

Duel this guy instead. "Screw the rules, I have money!" Hah. Yu-Gi-Oh! Abridged references.

More, more and more Dragonball Z Figures. You just can't have enough of these.

...and more Dragonball Z Figures.

Dragonball Z Figures? Sure. Fortunately, it's villains this time.

More Cross Epoch Figures. Coolness.

Naruto Figures. Kinda disappointing how Yexel only has this much when there's a bajillion Naruto characters. Hopefully, he'll buy more in the future.

Yu Yu Hakusho a.k.a. "Ghost Fighter". The comic relief character's missing. Sorry, Kuwabara. (or Alfred.)

Now, here's a statue of Jack Skellington before we move on to the next areas within the ground floor.

The first floor is divided into 4 areas. We went over the first area with the first set of pictures. Next area's what I call the "Square Enix" area, just because I think the room is filled mostly with Figures made by Square Enix.

Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children Figures.

Pan to the left for Kingdom Hearts Figures.

Aim upwards. More Kingdom Hearts Figures.

More Final Fantasy VII Figures. "Estuans interius ira vehementi, Sephiroth!"

Lower Shelf. More Square Enix Figures.

FFVIII, FFX, Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy, more...

"Princess Zelda is in trouble, Link!"

"Not again! *sigh* I'm on my way."

"Snake, are you OK? Snake? Snake!... Oh, he's OK. False alarm."

Chibi... Shinku... Hadouken!! Less intimidating.

Street Fighter Figures.

More Street FIghter Figures.

Cyborg 009 Diorama.

Cobra Diorama. Not really familiar with this one. Although, I've played the arcade game once before.

Oooh. Special Edition Tamiya 4WD from the Let's & Go Anime.

Chibi Pacquiao, with his angry stare.

"The Incredibles" diorama at the very corner of the room. It's life-size, by the way.

The next area is what I call the "Lightning McQueen" room, because...

There's nothing inside this area except for a life-size Lightning McQueen, which can be viewed from outside the Museum.

Now, let's take a look at the last area of the ground floor. I call it the "One Piece" room, because most of the figures in this room are from the One Piece Anime/Manga.

Man, I'm jealous. One Piece miniature busts.

More life-sized statues. Oh my goodness, look at Fujiko's... Uhmmm.. Statue...

Naruto & Goku. Hope they'll have a crossover Manga, too.

I know what you're thinking, and I'll tell you that the POV is TOTALLY coincidental and is in no way made to accentuate.. uhmmm.. whatever it is to accentuate on this Nami statue. *AHEM* Moving on! *AHEM*

Little Chopper's statue. Awww.

Time for some One Piece Figures.

More One Piece Figures on display.

It suddenly auto-focused on Nami, I swear... *COUGH*

I swear, I'm not doing this on purpose... Yup.

Robin and... Princess Vivi?

More One Piece Figures. (Based on the movie?)

Pan to the right for more One Piece Figures.

Chibi One Piece Figures. Awwww.

No, those are not chibi. That's the Straw Hat Pirates kiddified.

One Piece Dioramas.

More One Piece Dioramas.

Princess Shirahoshi. And the Thousand Sunny.

More One Piece miniature busts. Probably didn't fit in the other shelf.

That's the last part of the ground floor! Now, let's climb up to the second floor! More life-sized statues!

"Super Mario 3DLand" Diorama. (And Yoshi.)

Mario & Wario. Life-size.

Scared/Suprised Luigi? And Princess Peach's empty stare. *Shiver*

Bowser. (Or Koopa, if you're Japanese.)

Right beside the Mario statues, Looney Toons. "What's up, doc?"

Pan to the left of the Mario statues, Toy Story statues.

You. Will. Never. Sleep. AGAIN.

Facing the Mario Statue from the other side, we have the Street Fighter diorama. Dragon Punch, anyone?

This area is dedicated to some of Yexel's life-sized statues. (Thanks, Jyuzou! Dude, Captain Obvious over here.)

Right... Ok, let's move on to the next area. It's what I call the "Movie Characters" area.

Iron Man greets us as we enter. Not literally, though.

Super Hero & Super Villain Busts.

Batman & his best pal, The Joker.

Superman. Yay.

More movie characters. Spider-Man, Rocky, Wolverine...

Life-size Spider-Man. "Spider sense tingling!"

Black Spider-Man. "No, I'm not Venom."

"Hulk smash.. everything!"

"Let's have an 'Angry Face' contest!"

One of the newer Batmobiles. Is that a bike? "Bat Bike?"

More Marvel Comic Figures.

"Proof That Tony Stark Has A Heart." Amazingly accurate to the movie.

More Iron Man Figures. Because we love Iron Man. For some reason. It's mostly because of his awesomeness.

Closer look at the Iron Man Figures. Statues. Figurines. Whatever.

The first Iron Man armor. (From the Iron Man movie.)

Tony Stark removes his Iron Man armor.

Captain America, throw your mighty shield for me!

Spawn. I know him. But really not that much.

Hellboy. or is that Hell Boy? Huh.

Look, it's Jack Sparrow. Don't worry, We'll see him again in Pirates of the Carribean 9.

E.T.. "Gojira"! Indiana Jones.

Jackie's drunk again. The silly little monkey.

One of the figures is trying to dodge a bullet, I think.

Lord of the Rings Dioramas.

More Lord of the Rings stuff.

Even more Lord of the Rings stuff.

"My precious..."

Sauron's helmet. See that staircase? That's where we're headed next.

We now go to the third floor of the building. this next area is what I call the "Star Wars Hall".

I feel like I'm in the Star Wars' studio set!

Star Wars Figures.

More Star Wars Figures.

All of them are Star Wars Figures. Really.

And now, Professor Darth Vader will teach you all about the Dark Side.

Walking down Star Wars Hall.

Stormtrooper helmets. And other Star Wars character busts.

Luke. Use "The Force". But not now.

A room behind the Star Wars Hall that's still under construction. Must be an extension of the Star Wars displays.

Then, there's one area where there's just Aliens and Predator busts. This is the room that I least like. But it's amazing how realistic the busts look. These must be one of the more expensive toys in Yexel's collection.

Alien & Predator busts.

You can even see the insides of its head. But I'd rather not look inside.

Then, the next area is some sort of rooftop. We saw some "work in progress" Super Robot Statues (and a Mickey Mouse statue), so this is probably where they make them.

Some work-in-progress Super Robots. And Mickey Mouse. Where's Voltes V?!

Finally, the Grand Finale! This is what you guys came in here for! Well, at least, that's what I think. This is the museum's main attraction. They say that it costed Yexel ₱2 million to build this one room alone. But, honestly, I came here for Nam... I mean, the Anime figures. *AHEM* Let's move on.

The World's largest Optimus Prime bust.

Let's walk down the staircase. Oh, that's my friend, Ed. I didn't include our pictures (except this one) because I haven't asked him permission to post his face all over the internetz. At least we can't see his face in this picture.

Optimus Prime from another angle.

Another picture of Optimus Prime before going down the stairs.

Facing the stairs, you'll see the Star Wars Hall and whadayaknow! Look, it's Yexel's name! I didn't notice that back in the Star Wars area. Quite Clever.

Closer look at Optimus Prime's head. Then, we'll go down the stairs. Promise.

Optimus Prime's bust from below. Yes, it has lights and sounds.

You can tell that the Museum is not that big when you can see Justice League statues in a room that's supposed to be dedicated to Optimus Prime.

Some Marvel characters found their way into the Optimus Prime room, as well. It's Mavel vs. DC!

The Silver Surfer. He's in there, too.

And that is Yexel's Toy Museum in its entirety. Right below Optimus's platform, there's a door redirecting visitors to the Super Mario Diorama room. Yup, that's right. The Optimus Prime room is so big that it occupies half of the 2nd and 3rd floors.

At this point, my camera ran out of battery. Lucky for me that we were done with our tour. I missed some of the toys on display, though. That's why I used my iPod Touch to take some of the photos that I've missed. (Like the museum's Entrance.)

I'm sure, by now, the museum has more toys on display. By the way, here's their FaceBook link, if you're interested:

https://www.facebook.com/yexelstoymuseum

I'm looking forward to my next visit, but I'll wait a little while to give them time to add more toys. If you haven't visited this place yet, now's a good time since summer vacation's coming.

Astro Boy bids farewell to the Otakus.

Well, that was a long post! I'll see you in the next post!