From as far back as I can remember, I've had a sincere fascination with things made from clear or transparent plastic. I could, and probably will at some point expand on that, but for now I thought I would run through a brief list of clear plastic toys that I have and really love.
It all began the first time I saw a MEGO Time Traveler back in the mid '70s. Up until that point, I'd been playing happily with MEGO 8-inch superhero and movie figures (Marvel, DC, Star Trek, Planet of the Apes), but when I saw that first little gemlike cyborg figure, I was awestruck. And not
just awestruck really: I can vaguely remember being at a friend's house who had just gotten some new toys for his birthday, and how I was unable to think about anything but his toys. The kid seemed to vanish, and in an almost dreamlike way I was there alone with those exotic little figures.
I don't think I was ever invited to his house again, as all I wanted to do was play with his new Micronauts, but honesty, I don't think it mattered. I remember how when I got home that night, I raved to my parents about the toys, and didn't stop until my father--about a week later, after a business trip--had brought me home a Photon Sled with orange Time Traveler.
MEGO had my respect before that, because of all the great toys that they'd made, but after they imported Micronauts into my world, they became legendary. Micronauts were more than just something that stimulated my imagination through play; they stimulated my sense of curiosity, because they hinted at a foreign world where robots with transforming vehicles and bases where the norm. In an entirely juvenile way, they gave me one of my first tastes of Japanese culture, and from there I was hooked for life.
Fast forward to around twenty years later, and all of those early memories have been rekindled by a number of great toy lines. In particular, there's the Transformers Beast Wars line that reminds me the most of why I loved Micronauts. Not so much because of theme, but because of the play value that the toys have. It should also be noted that like so many other people, the early '90s gave me internet access to information about Micronauts, Microman, and their link to the Transformers lines; information that I was only vaguely aware of before that.
Beast Wars was the first toy line that I collected with any sort of consistency, and I fell into a kind of casual obsession with trying to collect all of the Japanese or Takara boxed figures. I have many of them, but the "limited" clear version of C-16 Leo Convoy is one of my favorites.
In the mid '90s, I was also very lucky to have access to great shops that imported toys from Japan. I think the majority of the Takara Beast Wars figures that I have were probably bought on clearance from one place actually, which wasn't so strange at the time, as a number of things came into my collection that way. When the Neo Henshin Cyborg line started turning up, it was nice being able to find them either online or at a local shop for very reasonable prices.
The Neo Henshin Cyborg line, which launched in 1998, was a big deal for me. I'd been into collecting info on vintage Microman and Henshin Cyborg toys for a while, and while it was becoming obvious that the vintage toys were beyond my budget, the new figures from Takara promised the same fun as those older 12-inch androids.
I managed to find all but one of the Neo Henshin Cyborg figures (still need that copper colored Toys R Us cyborg I think), and I got my hands on most of the vinyl Walder villains. As much as the bad-guy figures were probably a disappointment to anyone hoping for articulated hard-plastic versions, I really love them. I'm a huge fan of vinyl toys anyway, and think that these are a great tribute to the vintage versions. (Shown above is a red Neo Henshin Cyborg with Walder Invader Alien O.)
If it wasn't cool enough that Takara was putting out new Henshin Cyborg toys, helpless addicts like myself were also being given a number of new Microman lines as well. I can't begin to explain how great it was to walk into a shop and find these little figures hanging there on the pegs. Once again, thanks to a mix of online distributors, and local shops, the late '90s turned into a kind of second childhood for me, which was made more relevant by the birth of my son in 1997. There was something about having a kid that made me start to look back at my own childhood, and consider some of the best times that I'd had; many of which involved toys like the ones I was now finding in stores.
The Microman Magna Powers line featured magnetic parts, and was geared entirely toward children. I found it to be charming, because it proved that though Magna Powers was a departure from the vintage Microman lines, Takara still understood how to make a fun toy.
Though less articulated, and frankly not built as well as classic Microman figures, Magna Powers made up for their shortcoming (no pun intended) with pure play value. Yet if you really hated them, and longed for a return to vintage style Microman figures, Takara had something for you as well. Released around the same time, was the Replica Microman series.
It was always easy enough to find figures from this line, but by around 2001 the shops that I'd been hitting were either going out of business, or had stopped carrying a decent selection of toys. It became pretty hard to track things down online at a decent price as well, so I had to be satisfied with the few random vintage style figures that I could find. And "satisfied" is about as good a word as I can use to describe the feelings that I have for Takara's replica figures. The build quality for those toys is excellent, and led me to enthusiastically follow everything that they put out for the next few years.
It should be noted at this point, that it wasn't just Microman or Henshin Cyborg toys that I was seeing at the Japanese markets, toy shops and book stores. It was some time in the mid '90s when I first discovered the miracle that is the Candy Toy.
Seen here are a clear plastic Baltan from some Bandai Ultraman series of toys, and a very nice Burning Godzilla figure from another series. Candy Toys gave me a quick fix of something from those great Ultraman and Kamen Rider shows, as well as something from the Godzilla movies that had helped me to waste many an afternoon as a child.
Another great find from just a few years back, was an exclusive that came with the 100th issue of Japanese Figure-Oh Magazine. This clear yellow version of EVA-00 from the Neon Genesis Evangelion show, was put out by the company Kaiyodo to promote their new Revoltech line of figures.
This little figure, and everything that Kaiyodo has done with this line, has had a huge effect on many other toy lines out there. It was shortly after these toys hit the collectors market that other companies started imitating and integrating the same sort of articulation that these small figures featured.
Next time... Part 2: Heroes and Spacemen.
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