Jabba the Hutt Tsum Tsum Plush (Mini and Large Sizes)
Tsum Tsums are little stackable plushes in the shape of Disney characters. They started out in Japan as a sort of spinoff of a video game, but have taken on a life of their own. Now they’re available in many places in the US, including the Disney Store and places like Target (although the ones you can get at normal retailers are limited — many of them are really only available through Disney). While they started out just using classic Disney characters like Mickey and Minnie Mouse, they soon branched out into other Disney animated characters, and from there to Marvel characters like the Avengers, and most recently to Star Wars. You can see the entire first wave of 12 characters above, and they have many more in the works. But of course I’d like to look closely at Jabba in particular.
The Tsum Tsum style works better for some characters than others, but I think it works very well for Jabba. He’s really quite cute!
He has a tail while most of the figures just have a rounded bottom. And he only has two “feet” to represent his arms, while a normal humanoid character would have four. The primary size that all characters come in is “mini,” which you can see in the photo above, but for some characters they also make medium and large sizes. For Star Wars, Chewbacca and Jabba are available in the large size as well as mini. I was quite happy to see that, since several of the characters are only available in the mini size. Here are the two sizes together:
The large size could double as a small pillow.
My kids and sister are both big fans of Tsum Tsums so it seemed natural for us to get the first wave of Star Wars characters (and my son chipped in some leftover Christmas money he had been saving). But I don’t expect to be buying large numbers of these. Still, we’ll have to see… I made a video covering all of the Star Wars Tsum Tsums that you can see below.
Star Wars Rollinz Jabba the Hutt (From Italy)
I don’t cover many Italian-exclusive products on this site, but that’s what this is. It’s part of a series of 20 small figures apparently being sold by the store Esselunga. I’m not sure if they’re blind bagged or not, but one would assume so.
They are weighted on the bottom so they won’t fall over, Weebles-style. They’re fairly small though, as you can see below. I wouldn’t say the sculpt is the greatest I’ve ever seen, but it doesn’t look that bad in person due to the small size.
There is apparently an app that goes with them, although I’m not sure what it consists of, since it’s only available on the Italian app store. There’s also a Millennium Falcon-shaped case that my friend Rodders is hoping to get. I kind of like these little guys, but I don’t think I really need to collect all of them.
Vegetarian Jabba the Hutt Shepherd’s Pie (Inspired by Yukitchen)
I recently saw on Twitter that Yuki over at Yukitchen.com had posted a very intriguing kind of Jabba the Hutt shepherd’s pie. On her website she specializes in making food that’s both cute and heathy, so Jabba is naturally a perfect fit! 😀 My wife has been making kyaraben (boxed lunches in the shape of various characters) for our son to take to school for a while now, so I figured we had to give this a try too. As you probably know, a shepherd’s pie is generally mashed potatoes over a filling made of meat and vegetables. I’m a vegetarian, so we stuck with the vegan recipe she posted, but I did mix mashed carrots and green peppers into the potatoes to get Jabba’s coloring.
The details are added using nori (dried seaweed) that you cut up and attach with tweezers. It’s a bit fiddly. My wife has been doing this for a while, but it was my first time. Still, I think it turned out relatively well.
And we all thought it was quite tasty! The kids actually asked for seconds.
Now on YouTube: “Jabba’s Palace Roll Call #3: Oola”
It’s been a little while since I made the last video in this series, but I plan to continue with it. These videos cover characters from Jabba’s palace (particularly the minor ones), outlining their backstory from Return of the Jedi and other things like short stories, and then introducing the merchandise that has been made for that character.
Kirin in Japan is currently selling a line of Star Wars-themed cans that have various characters on them (you can see them on the Kirin website here at the moment, but I assume this will go away at some point). I imagine that these are mostly sold in convenience stores, where you would be able to pick out a particular character, rather than in vending machines, but I’m not sure.
Canned coffee is a big deal in Japan. There are dozens of brands that range from super strong black to sickly sweet, and you can buy it cold or hot from vending machines just about anywhere. In the winter, you can use the cans as hand warmers. Since they are often served hot, they’re made of steel, which gives them a nice heft. But as you can see in the picture below, they are generally quite small (to American eyes, anyway).
Anyway, it was cool to get another Jabba can in my collection (the first being the Jabba Pepsi can dating back to the days of Episode One).
Now on YouTube: Jabba the Hutt Hat Collection!
Here’s a YouTube video that I made showing off all of my Jabba hats, including the New Era ones I just posted about.
Jabba the Hutt Fitted Cap by New Era (Hatland.com Exclusive)
I first posted about New Era’s Jabba the Hutt fitted cap almost exactly 6 years ago, in February of 2010. It was part of a collection of Star Wars caps that were exclusive to Japan, so that made them hard to get to start with. But the Jabba hat in particular was much rarer because they discontinued it almost instantly due to some unspecified manufacturing issues. At that point, they had only made a small number of them (and only in size 7 1/2). I was lucky enough to have been in Japan on business right when they came out, so I was able to get one. Since then, it’s been one of my favorite pieces, since very few people have one and it has a sort of story attached to it. I’ve been offered a fair amount of money for it on multiple occasions (not crazy money, but still many times what it originally cost).
So I was very surprised when I saw this hat appear on eBay. I did a little research and found that it was actually being sold by Hatland.com as their exclusive, so I that’s where I got mine. They also have a variety of other characters, including some from The Force Awakens. This hat is clearly pretty different from the original design, but it’s also clearly inspired by the original. I’d say the new version is probably the better one in most ways. The embroidery on face of the old version is too close in color to the fake “snakeskin” they used, so you can’t really see the detail. The pleather used for the other parts of the new hat is also quite nice compared to the plain cloth of the old one. The eyes on the new hat are covered in a plastic covering that makes them look a bit more realistic.
The old hat did have a nice picture of Jabba on his throne on the underside of the visor, while the new one has a plain visor, but two pictures of Jabba inside of the hat’s dome. One is here:
And the other is here:
It also has a “STAR WARS” logo in some nice raised embroidery on the back.
I really don’t have any complaints about this hat, except that it’s a little too tight, despite the fact that I measured my head in an attempt to get the right size. I don’t actually plan to wear the hat, though, so it’s not a big deal. It retails for $59.99 although it seems to be on permanent sale at Hatland for $53.99.
Upcoming: Star Wars Tsumtsum Plushes Coming on February 16th?
This post from Tsumtsumtsum on Instagram indicates that the new Star Wars Tsumtsums will be released on February 16th (although this is apparently for the UK, so we can’t be absolutely sure the same will be true for the US). Not only that, but the Star Wars Tsums will be available in three sizes: small (the “original” size), medium and large. Just look at that gloriously large Jabba! Apparently only the small sized ones will be coming on the 16th, while the larger sizes will follow on the 23rd (I swear Disney does this kind of thing just so they can charge us more for shipping…)
Also, here’s an article from Yahoo about the new plushes. They have nice photos of all of the small versions, like the one below. I take issue with their suggestion that the name is pronounced “soom-sooms” though. I suppose that’s Disney’s attempt to make it easier for English speakers to pronounce, but in Japanese the “t” is definitely not silent.
This mug was only available at the “Star Wars Visions” exhibition that was held at the SOGO Department store in Yokohama Japan in November and December of 2015. The exhibition had some original props and other items on display, although my hunch is that it was pretty small in scale. They also had a “pop-up shop” that accompanied the exhibition, which had a fair amount of Star Wars merchandise, some of which — like this mug — could only be purchased there. They even had a little cafe where you could get Star Wars-themed smoothies, including a “Jabba Jabba Sweet Potato Smoothie” that I wish I could’ve tried.
The mug uses the Fire-King brand, which was made in the US many years ago, but was discontinued in 1976. However, it has remained popular since then and in 2011 the brand was resurrected in Japan, where you can now buy stacking mugs like these in a variety of designs. The artwork they used is the usual artwork that appears on so many vintage Jabba products, which seems appropriate for a retro-styled item like this.
I lived in Yokohama for a year and love the city, so when I found out about this mug I knew I had to have it, even though I knew I couldn’t attend the actual exhibition. These are not cheap, though. Plain Fire-King mugs go for almost $30, and the asking price for the Star Wars ones was 5,000 yen at the exhibition, or around $42. And of course I had to pay more than that to get it from a reseller, so this was one expensive mug! Needless to say, I won’t actually be using it.
Here’s a video that The Japan Times posted about the exhibition.
Now on YouTube: Walmart-Exclusive Jabba’s Throne Set Review
Here’s another video I did recently, covering the Walmart-exclusive Jabba’s Throne set.
Mighty Jabba's Collection 
