MEDICOM

Medicom Toy, Inc. is a Japanese toy design company. They are the creators of Kubricks and Be@rbricks, a line of collectibles block-style produced in three scales, designated as 100% (six centimeters high), 400% (24 centimeters high), and 1000% (60 centimeters high).

Tatsuhiko Akashi, founder and president of MediCom, developed the basic Kubrick with a former employee of LEGO. The first Kubrick figures were representations of characters from the manga and anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion, released in 2000. Since then, hundreds of Kubricks have been produced.

"Kubrick" was chosen in honor of filmmaker Stanley Kubrick. Also, by linguistic coincidence, the name Kubrick may also be seen as a hybrid word of the Japanese word kyu, meaning the number nine, and the English word brick.[citation needed] Nine is the number of tools (a toy industry term for parts of a figure) used in a standard Kubrick and Be@rbrick figures: head, torso, hips, arms, hands, and legs; These nine tools allow eight points of articulation: swivel head, swivel waist, ball joint arms, swivel wrists, and ball joint legs.

The basic Kubrick figure design has a body that resembles an extremely simplified human form, somewhat similar in appearance to Playmobil or Lego figures. Produced in limited numbers and not re-released, Kubricks are highly sought-after by collectors. Kubricks are predominantly collected by adults; the packaging recommends the figures to collectors 13 years or older.

Be@rbrick name is derived from the fact that the figure is a cartoon-style representation of a bear, and that it is a variation of MediCom's Kubrick design. The figure is an anthropomorphized bear with an extremely simplified form and a pot belly.