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| The covers of all 5 Lucky Yuckies booklets |
The Lucky Yuckies set came out in 1987, consisting of 12 different rubber mini figures and five mini booklets. The books contain bios and stories around all the characters, with the idea being that kids could make wishes on these little creatures. I assume you'd get one booklet along with each figure. There's no mention anywhere of GeGeGe no Kitarō, and all the characters were given completely different names. So as with other bootlegged capsule toys from back then, most kids probably had no idea these originated from something else.
I've come across a couple different versions of Lucky Yuckies. Some of the figures (including the full set pictured above) are made of a soft, flexible rubber -- even more rubbery than Monster in My Pocket figures. I also own a few of them in a firmer plastic that more closely matches MUSCLE figures. I'm not sure if they came out at different times, or if one variation is less common. Below, you can see that the firmer figures are a bit darker in color.
What I love most about this set is how bizarre and wacky some of the monsters are. I'm not very familiar with GeGeGe no Kitarō, but these little weirdos make me want to learn more about it. I also love the fact that the writing in the little booklets is hilariously strange (you'll see what I mean below).
Here's a closer look at all of the Yuckies along with their corresponding character bios:
