So a few weeks ago some friends of mine asked me to run a Godlike game. Godlike, in case you’re not aware, is a World War II pencil-and-paper role playing game in which super-powered humans serve on the frontlines during the war’s various conflicts. The players take on the role of these so-called ‘Talents’ and most of their activities center around hunting down and defeating enemy Talents.

All of the Godlike games I’ve run in the past were set in the European Theater, so this time around I thought I’d try something different. A while back, Arc Dream Publishing (the publisher of Godlike) released a campaign adventure called Saipan based – as one would expect – on the Allies assault and capture of Saipan island. I’ve long wanted to run a Pacific Theater game, and this seemed like a good opportunity to do so.

The only hitch was that I had no suitable miniatures with which to run combat encounters. In fact the last game I had run was sans-miniatures, but after playing a fairly awesome game at Gen Con run by Arc Dream’s Kevin Pezzano which employed a decent set of minis I decided I’d go that route with my Saipan game. With this in mind I headed down to my local hobby shop and inquired about WWII-era Japanese army miniatures. After a quick discussion about the best scale to use (1/32 seemed to be the consensus) I was told that there was really only a single manufacturer that produced a line of Japanese soldiers – Glencoe Models.

I was a little concerned that 1/32 was a little large, but the price was right ($7.95 for a box of 20 minis), so I picked up a box of U.S. Marines and a box of Imperial Japanese Soldiers.

What follows is a description of the contents of these boxes, and what I consider to be an interesting idiosyncrasy of the Glencoe Models product.  This is not a product review, nor should it be read as such – as will be made clear soon enough.

First off, the boxes themselves.

As you can see, on the left you have the U.S. Marines and on the right the Imperial Japanese Infantry. Nothing out of sorts here, right? Lots of guys with guns – just as you’d expect when buying a bunch of toy soldiers. Opening the U.S. Marines box revealed the following.

Well, there you go. Lots of green army men. 1/32 scale turned out to be a little larger than I expected, but no matter. So far, so good.

Look at that. A prime specimen of American breeding and ingenuity, armed to the teeth with American know-how and a burning desire to put lead into Japanese people. He looks a tad under-equipped (gonna need some ammo for that rifle, son…) but hey. For 8 clams, I’m not in a complaining mood.

Here we go! This guy is all about the action – he’s probably running off to flank a Japanese patrol or something. Or making a head-call…who knows. Either way, he means business.

Oh yeah, a classic pose. Everybody who has ever played with army men knows this dude – although a friend of mine pointed out that since he isn’t crawling spread-eagle, you can’t turn him over and make a corpse out of him…true enough.

Check out this guy – he just hopped out of an LCVP, pistol in hand, and is ready to kill some motherfuckers. Preferably Japanese motherfuckers. He didn’t even take off his floatation vest. Go get ‘em, Captain!

Finally a guy with a grenade. And since he’s packing a Thompson I’ll assume this is the sergeant, or something. Plus he’s got another grenade strapped to his chest in case the first one doesn’t kill enough people. This is a man to be feared.

Okay, so that’s it for the Marines. The only omission I saw was that there is no flamethrower guy – which if you’re going to invade dug-in Japanese troops is pretty much a necessity. Plus, there’s a flamethrower guy on the box…so it’s doubly mysterious.

Next up – the Japanese…and this is where things get interesting…

And – uhm…hey, these guys are all yellow. Okay, maybe that’s a yellowish tan, which is kinda sorta the color of the uniform Japanese Infantry wore back then. It also happens to be what most Westerners think Japanese skin-tone is. Coincidence? Probably. Let’s put the race-card behind us and move along…

Okay, this guy looks pretty tough. He looks like could legitimately scare the crap out of some kid that just got flown in from Oklahoma, was  stuffed into a tin boat,  and subsequently dropped off on a rock he’s never heard of with lots of crazy foreigners shooting at him.

Here’s another Japanese guy who clearly has balls of brass. He’s not even carrying a rifle – just a Japanese flag which he plans to…well, I’m not sure what he plans to do with it. But still – no gun, plus that flag has got to make him the biggest target on the beach.

Finally – a heavily armed Japanese soldier. His technique is a little shaky, though – shouldn’t that bad-boy be mounted or something? I know those suckers can be fired from the hip in a pinch, but still – given the quality of Japanese weapons back then he’d be lucky to hit Godzilla at point-blank-range without a tripod. Maybe the next guy will have a little sense.

Or not – okay, so he’s throwing explosives. That’s a good thing. But man, what’s up with that stance? It looks like he’s throwing a live grenade mid-pirouette. I’ll give him points for style, but that doesn’t count for much when you’re fending off a bunch of murderous round-eye savages.

And what’s up with this one? You could argue that he emptied his last round into a wall of charging Americans and he’s going to his death in a blaze of glory – but the way he’s charging looks like he’s trying to secure a spot in the Ministry of Silly Walks.

If the previous guy is lucky, this is how he’ll end up. But seriously – a surrender-toy? How not-fun is that? I’d rather have a mangled corpse.

Ask and ye shall receive! So yeah, this guy’s catching some ordinance. I have to credit Glencoe for a decent sculpt, but man this is starting to look awfully one-sided.

So – my problem? One could claim that Glencoe is biased towards the Marines – which, okay – I can get behind that. But I need Japanese soldiers that my players can actually have a fight with, not a bunch of knife-wielding maniacs and corpses-in-training. Yeah, chances are they’re gonna lose – but give them a fighting chance, Glencoe!