This is a 1/12 vinyl garage kit of Goku from Dragonball. Originally released in 1992, this kit is now 20 years old. Takao Taniguchi 谷口タカオ is the sculptor. Produced by Kaiyodo. Original retail price was 1800 yen. I got mine for 3000 plus 1200 EMS shipping, which was about $53 at the time.
I usually do not go in for 1/12 kits. I am afraid that they will be too small. Usually comparing retail prices for 1/12 to 1/8, its more cost-effective to me to get the 1/8 scale. Kaiyodo actually did make a 1/8 scale vinyl kit of Goku and Piccolo that I am aware of. But I got this 1/12 kit of Goku specifically because I thought it would match in scale to my 1/12 scale Vegeta kits.
The kit box is only 15cm tall, which is very small compared to my other kit boxes. The instructions show parts partial greyed. The greyed out sections represent the excess vinyl that must be trimmed for the kit parts to fit together. The inner side of the box shows the 亀 kanji, which reads kame and means turtle. Goku’s symbols on his clothes change a few times during the series. This one is for completing Master Roshi’s training. 
This kit was featured in the 1993 Hobby Japan Extra Summer Issue. You can see that the painter designed their own symbol instead. No decals are included with the kit, so the symbol must be painted or drawn freehand, unless you make your own decals. 
This kit was never opened before, so it really is still “brand new”. I got some old kits before, but this is the first time ever that the part bag felt as if it was actually started to degrade. It felt slimy almost. I throw out the bags and just keep the parts loose in the box.
Here are the parts. You can see the kit is only 6 parts. A simple build. 
This is a vinyl kit, which is different then working with resin. Immediately you can see that the greatest thing is the absence of seamlines!! Vinyl casts are produced differently from resin, so there ends up being no seamlines on the casts. But there are still air bubbles to fix. 
The kit is filled with copyright information in a number of places. But unfortunately that information will just get recasted along with the rest of the part. For resin recasts its possible quality wise to get pretty close to the original. But for vinyl the difference in quality is very stark.
I’ve completed an elfin kit of Madoka Ayukawa from Orange Road that my hobby shop carried over 10 years ago. I painted and built her wrong. I painted with enamels, which you are never suppose to use on vinyl because they do not dry. I don’t remember perpetual wet paint, but some colors stayed tacky. I also did not fill the kit and it literally snapped at the legs when the kit fell from my desk. Elfin, Phantom, Sol, etc are actually recast companies, even though USA hobbies sometimes will carry their kits.
The quality of this Kaiyodo vinyl is really fantastic!!!I was actually in awe of it because I was expecting the elfin vinyl I previously worked on. Needless to say, I want to complete this one correctly. 
You can see that the vinyl parts have extra vinyl that trims to be trimmed, as shown in the directions. Of course, it’s not too hard to figure out without them. Vinyl kits are also hollow inside. I will be filling this kit with plaster. 
I got this Vegeta kit first. I knew nothing able it, other than it was a convention kit via the seller’s auction description. I figured it must be 1/12. I was aware that Kaiyodo made quiet a few Dragon ball kits in 1/12 scale, so I figured the sculptor wanted their Vegeta kits to match. But as you can see, they don’t really look in scale to each other, even though Vegeta should be shorter. Their faces look in scale, but Goku’s arm is practically half the size of Vegeta’s body…
Trunks SSJ is 1/8 scale. This 1/12 scale Goku does not look too bad scale wise, if you disregard that Goku should be taller. Maybe If Goku was Trunks’ height and Vegeta was Goku’s, I think this would work. But I was never too good with scale…
Pyramidcat's Garage kit and Anime Sculpture 