02 Sep 2016

Diaclone Change Attacars / Gig Trasformer Destroy Cars

These curious finds entered my sphere of attention about five years ago, when a junker lot from a car-boot sale yielded an interesting result; amoung the usual detritus of broken Bayformers was a small Nissan Cherry Vannette, in pre-Transformers Diaclone black, but smaller, and with no robot mode. Immediately I checked the copyright stamp to see Takara, and a tatty remaining sticker on the front bumper informed me this was indeed Diaclone.

Somehow they had escaped my attention to that point (probably because my focus up until that point had been on completing my US / European G1 collection), but once they were in my field of vision, and with a little research informing me that this was quite a small sub-set known as Diaclone Change Attackers or Attacars, I set out to find the other two to complete the set. They were also distributed as part of the Ceji Diaclone Joustra line and as part of Gig’s Trasformers line.

I managed to score the red Turbo 2000 (a Mitsubishi Stallion) from Maziar himself a couple of years back, and have been on the look out for the final piece – Cheetah – for a few years, making him an absolute priority at this years Botcon. Although I did find one at Botcon, he was top dollar, and I continued my search hoping to find a loose one at a more reasonable price so I could finally finish the set and write this article.

A few missed eBay auctions, including one where I set the alarm for 4:30am only for the eBay app to freeze whilst loading an advert in the final 7 seconds of the auction, and my frustration eventually led me to pay more than I wanted to for a MIB example.

Lets take a look at them.

As always, these toys have different names for the Japanese and European markets, I’m not particularly fussy about which versions I have as I collect molds first and foremost, the packaging (whilst beautiful) is always secondary to my collection concerns. Its the only way I can keep my collection slightly manageable. From left to right we have the boxy looking Lamborghini Cheetah in yellow (simply Destroy Car Cheetah for the Italian market), Nissan Oneboxcar Vannette (Destroy Car Van in Italy) in black, and Mitsubishi Stallion (Destroy Car Turbo 2000) in red.

The Japanese versions of these came with Diaclone Drivers, and they’re a really fun part of the set, especially with Turbo 2000, as the Driver is more visible in the disguised mode than in the Attack mode. It’s a shame as this wasn’t carried over for the other releases of these toys, because without the drivers you do lose half the fun of the attack modes. Owning a few Diaclone Drivers now, I feel much the same way about the first two years of Transformers now, especially as Hasbro could have surely made cheap little Spike’s and Sparkplugs very cheaply, and I remember my brother and I insisting at the time the toys had been designed with pilots in mind, with no concept of pre-Transformers in our young brains – the way information was exchanged made the world a much bigger place back then.

These are fairly small toys, smaller than G1 Ironhide and Ratchet as I said earlier, slightly bigger than a Matchbox car, but a similar size with fixed axles on the rear to help the “pull-back and go action feature”. This feature means they can “transform” from terrestrial vehicle to an Attack Car mode automatically, similar to the quick release feature on the Jumpstarters and Battle Chargers.

DestroyCar (53)
As you can see, the attack modes are fun enough, and the addition of chrome pieces make them feel like very classy toys, which is odd as they were clearly marketed at the lower end of the price-range spectrum. Back then, even cheap toys seemed well manufactured.

But as I mentioned earlier, it’s with the Drivers that these come alive. For some reason making them piloted makes then hugely more fun! Especially with that tiny head poking out at the top of Turbo 2000’s Drill tank mode.

With drivers, these make a great companion set to the Power Dashers.

So yeah, I paid way too much for a MIB Gig version of Cheetah, absolutely Mint with an unused sticker-sheet. I keep saying I’m not a box collector, but evidence to the contrary keeps piling up all around me. I’m also really tempted to apply the stickers!

One of the worst things about getting a figure from a smaller subset in a condition as nice as this, is it really makes you want to go and get the other two in equally nice condition. However, as with a lot of my collection, I like the stories behind them and how I acquired them, as that fits into the greater story of how and where I’ve collected toys over the years, and in the past when I’ve replaced old favourites for a MIB specimen, I have often regretted it later.

Of course, in an ideal world I’d compile a complete set of Joustra. If only for that fantastic Brizzi Bros. boxart!

So, why were these never considered for the Transformers line? I think the answer lies quite simply in the fact that they don’t transform into robots and drones were not considered for the line, after all, even the cassette minions were fully sentient. Of course, we seem to have come full circle over the years with the DOTM-era Stealth Force subline coming very close to this concept, almost more MASK toys than Transformers.

However, given that IDW are making moves towards their aligned continuity with MASK and Transformers coming under the same canonical roof for the first time, maybe there will be a place for these awesome little designs yet, even if only in the background of a panel, or as failed attempts at reverse engineering the technology. It would be nice to see these guys take a bit more credit, as they are part of the grand tapestry of Takara’s design history.

12 Aug 2016

MC11 Gun Robo Magnum 44

It may seem weird to us now, either as people who grew up with Beast Wars, Unicron Trilogy or even the 10 year old Movie franchise, or even as 30/40 year old adults who’ve just gotten used to tank-mode Megatrons, but there was a time when gun mode was all the rage.

Growing up, I had to make do with Galvatron, running around and making electronically provided “pew-pew” noises, but before that, and before Transformers even, there was Micro-Change, and they gave us not one, but three distinct gun mode transforming robots to choose from.

Although MC12 / MC13 made it over to the Transformers range as Megatron, and later MC07 received a release in the Japanese line as Browning, one of these molds never made it across to the Westernised Transformers brand. That figure was MC11 Gun Robo S&W Magnum 44, otherwise known as MC11 Pistola Robot 44 Magnum in the Gig distributed Trasformer line, but affectionately known by most as simply Magnum 44.

This was my birthday treat to myself this year, once again an expensive toy justified for my collection as a “future blog article”, when really I just wanted it for myself. The box isn’t amazing, but it’s more than good enough for my collection, especially seeing as I’m supposed to be a Loose collector anyway (owning a unique Takara mold is the important bit for me), but I must confess to really enjoying any of the Japanese or Italian pre-Transformers releases, as I feel the packaging mitigates the risk of depreciation in the unlikely event of a reissue (legitimate or otherwise). Sure, value is not why I collect, but all the same, it is good to protect your investment. And damn, does the packaging make the idea of becoming a boxed collector appealing!

MC11diaclone
Of course, there are many box variations for this guy, including a very similar Japanese text box, and of course the obligatory high-end KOs, including this most interesting and very Kingdam looking packaging featuring new character art.

This is probably how this piece looks best. Removing the outer packaging really lets this mold shine; with the lovely sleek black weapon and wooden-effect gun handle, this really is the colour toy guns look best in. The chrome weapon also looks great, but we can see one of the parts-forming weaknesses of this mold, with the arm extension and fists packaged separately. All bullets are included (actually includes four extra!), but for me the highlight of this version is the pack-in cardboard targets, which feature what look like Waruder bad-guys, unusual, seeing as Microchange and Diaclone were considered separate lines.

Update: Thanks to Bryan Wilkinson for pointing out the card artwork is of the AcroSatans (amazing name) from earlier in the New Microman line circa 1982, just before Microchange started. There is a similarity to the Waruder designs, because these too were designed by legendary Takara designer Kohjin Ohno.

Small cardboard targets might not look like much, but they’re the kind of thing that are not looked after and are easily damaged or lost, and for me go one step beyond, reminding jaded adult collectors such as myself that these are toys, designed to be fun for kids, not just sit behind glass on a shelf.

Lets do gun mode first, as we’ve already teased that in packaging. This is arguably his better side; cleaner, with the metal arm pin hidden. The little S&W sticker is an amazing detail, from a more innocent time where not everything was licensed because many companies simply didn’t have licensing wings and Intellectual Property lawyers. As a gun, you could probably fool a few people with it, although less so with this version and it’s EU friendly orange plug (I blame Brexit!) which was absent from the Japanese releases. Although I daresay it would be easier to convince US police that this is real than in other countries, but would you really want too?!?

You can pull back the hammer and that locks into place, waiting for the pull of the trigger, which is presumably what makes these fire, just like a real firearm! However, given the delicate nature of some toy’s firing pins after 35 years, I am reticent to try! The only real negative with this alt. mode as a disguise, is that the head doesn’t really go anywhere, and just folds down, hiding the face from view. At a glance, and in pictures, you can’t really notice, but in hand, it is glaringly obvious – as much as you might try and justify it as a sight for targeting – and the first indication that maybe this toy isn’t as perfect as it first looks.

The rounded multi-slug chamber in the middle of the gun really is the most convincing part of this toy, because it’s very hard to imagine how that transforms into a robot in a convincing way.

The transformation is very clever. The legs are pretty much the same as Megatron’s; flipping forwards, stretching out and unfolding feet. For the torso, you slide and rotate the mid-section, then there is a tiny trigger release on the back of the robot which you need to activate in order to release the chamber, you fold that down and push the metal pin which somewhat amazingly reveals an upper-arm hidden INSIDE the chamber!!! This is brilliant, and by far the genius moment of this transformation. Unfortunately, there is not enough space in the chamber for an entire arm, hence the arm extension and plug-in fists are necessary. A shame, but for a toy from the early-eighties, you cannot really complain.

Every holds together nicely, but I wish the chamber could click back into place just a little more on the right hand side of the body, and the shoulder joint coming mid-way down the left shoulder / mid-torso is a little odd, as seen below.

The head detail is stunning, just a fantastic and interesting sculpt, which might make you think of this toy as Rumble or Frenzy’s Dad, as there is a bit of family resemblance there! Colour wise, this guy is actually a little bland, and you can see how the flash or red and blue on the inside of the Megatron / Browning figures made a big difference to the robot modes.

Everything feels great, and the figure is sturdy and displayable, but in hand, this guy just doesn’t look as nice as it does in pictures, and I think it’s purely because you never see pictures of this guy from the side, where you can see how slightly awkward the body shape is, the slightly floaty head, and how much leftover gun just sits behind the figure’s torso. I included one above to help people make an informed choice when considering purchasing him, because this piece is a bit of a grail item these days, and was on sale at Botcon 2016 for as high as $750 for a MIB version!

That’s not to say this guy isn’t worth picking up for your collection, and certainly, I needed to buy him and he looks great on display with the other guns! He’s an amazing little figure for the time and an excellent piece of history, but he’s definitely one for Microchange and pre-TF collectors, and perhaps one that G1 collectors who might have considered picking up to boost their G1 Decepticons might want to evaluate, because I think Hasbro definitely made the right choice when it came to picking their Decepticon leader out of the three gun molds available.

So, just who is Kiloton? Never let it be said that the awesome chaps and chappettes over at the TFwiki leave any obscure reference untapped, and they like to associate the obscure Kiloton character and Megatron mentor as a reference to this unused pre-TF mold. Not for me, personally, but I always enjoy attempts to integrate unused molds into TF lore.

Sadly, there have been zero official or third party updates to this character. Ever. So it’s difficult to show comparisons to how he might look in 2016, or to include links back to Kapow, but just go check out the site and look at their selection of Megatrons and third party versions to see whether you prefer gun modes, or modern updated modes. What do you think, has the time of gun mode passed? Did G2 Megatron get it right? Comment below, and thanks for reading!

15 Jul 2016

Pre-Transformers Power Dashers

Most people know I have a fairly extensive G1 collection, but there are a few bits conspicuous by their absence, Pretenders for one.

I’m quick to say I have a near complete Euro / US collection, but way back when my goal was simply to collect 84-86. I completed that set a while ago, but along the way there was one set that got away. That set was the mail-away Powerdasher set.

Released as part of the Transformers line in 1984, they were only available via mail-order for $3 and two robot points, with the catch being you didn’t know which one of the three you were getting. As well as transforming, the big gimmick with these was a pull back and go motor.

So after putting off buying this set for decades, I recently purchased a very nice Italian Diaclone set, as distributed by Gig. But why did I put off buying these for so long? Was it because of price, condition, or rarity? Read on and find out.

F1 Dasher / Dragster / Aragon / Powerdasher Car*

(*format: Japanese Diaclone name / Gig Diaclone name / Joustra and Trasformer name (adopted by TFwiki) / lame US name)

These are fairly simple figures, as you can see. The robot mode for F1 Dasher is Optimus Prime coloured, but that is where the similarities end. His massive “spoiler” becomes the legs and feet for the robot, and the front of the car folds down to make the arms / hands.

20160705_204402
The vehicle mode is slightly more interesting in that there is room for a Diaclone driver (included!), and the toy features a pull back and go motor that has survived all these years. You might note in the example pictured above, the robot head is clearly visible in alt. mode, it is supposed to rotate and hide away, but thirty years in packaging has left the head a tad stiff, and I didn’t want to risk breaking it for this shot.

I’ve not seen a Spoiler this big since Jon Snow died

Edit: The head doesn’t rotate, which would explain why it wouldn’t move. Don’t try that at home kids!

It might be of note to some that the Transformers release has black legs instead of blue, and you might have seen yellow headed “variants” too, but that’s just chrome wear.

Note that the original Diaclone names are included on stickers on all three toys.

Drill Dasher / Perforer / Zetar / Powerdasher Drilltank

Another pretty basic figure. A lot of this guy looks backwards, especially the feet (see trio photo below), and I still think it’s an odd choice in this range to keep the cockpits prominent in robot mode and alt. mode, when they could have detailed the underside. I’m not sure if they did this because the underside had to remain flat for alt. mode, but a few stickers could have pepped it up.

Look at that face!

Transformation is insanely simple, to the point that the Gig release don’t include instruction sheets, just two pictures on the side explaining it. Actually, the entire packaging is simple, the front of the box is just a shell that covers the polystyrene inner, no rear packaging so to speak. They come with a sticker sheet, a tiny and very folded Diaclone catalogue, and a very small character card.

The alt. mode for this guy is cute, who doesn’t love a Drillformer? It;s a shame the legs cover the awesome Drill Dasher side stickers.

The colour scheme is very nice. Overall, this is my favourite of the trio, especially with the colour-matched Diaclone driver sat on top.

Sky Dasher / Dragster / Cromar / Powerdasher Jet

An inversion of the colours on the F1 type, these bright primary colours aren’t enough to help this very basic robot mode. Note the stickers for a face that all three of these guys had, something that wasn’t seen on another Transformer other than the much derided G1 Ratchet / Ironhide (we’ll come back to that in a minute).

The transformation is very similar to the F1 type, with the arms swinging over the head and the legs swinging around, this time to the side not over the figure, the wings are cleverly hidden inside the legs and act as the thigh joint for the legs in the process. Ironically the most dangerous to pilot vehicle has the least convincing cockpit for the driver.

It’s a fun enough vehicle, as a kid I can imagine punching things as I fly the vehicle into them. Which might explain the chrome wear a lot of these figures suffer. As with the F1 type, the Transformers release has a black chest section rather than blue.

Overall

So why didn’t I buy them before? Well, because of the complete lack of personality or media support growing up, I had no affinity with these characters, it’s also quite hard to find them in the UK for a decent price. Even if you CAN find them in the UK, the chrome is usually damaged. I mean, badly damaged. Like the Drill type has a yellow drill for a head, not a chrome one damaged.

But that isn’t why I didn’t buy them. I continually skipped these for years, because I think they are BAD TRANSFORMERS, and I stand by that. Even a “completest” has limits (I’m not a completest, and I think it’s unhealthy to try).

But that’s not to say these are bad toys.

It’s a similar thing to G1 Ratchet and Ironhide, I think they are amazing toys for their time, but they are lousy Transformers and crap renditions of Ironhide and Ratchet if you know them from the cartoon or comic. Like these Diaclone Dashers, they are also at their best when they are interacting with little Diaclone drivers as part of inhabited world in a completely separate toyline divorced from Transformers. At least the Cherry Vannettes had the advantage of blending into the world thanks to the real-world alt. modes, which made them fit right alongside Sunstreaker and Trailbreaker, but these guys are an odd fit, as they don’t really look like anything, Earthmode or Cybertronian, and as such seem slightly out of place in both Diakron and Transformers.

I don’t want or need these for my Transformers shelf, as I don’t believe that sticking an Autobot logo on something is enough to bring a toy into that world. Indeed, it took the combined efforts of Hasbro, Marvel and Sunbow to make the Takara toyline an intellectual property and brand to be reckoned with, but along the way the first humble mail-away offer, the Power-Dashers, never really found a place into the heart and soul of the line, which is why thirty years on we’ve had no homages of these characters – official or otherwise – not even as Mini-cons.

Which is why I’ve finally found a place for these in my burgeoning Diaclone collection after decades of Transformers collecting.

But it just shows that everything has a place, and even the oddest of toys can find a spot in a collection, when put into the proper context. For me – in this case – it meant looking at toys I’d ignored for years in a different light, and I’m very glad I did.

Thanks for reading, be sure to check out the Kapow site for all the latest toys and pre-orders.

24 Apr 2016

MC17 and MC18 Trasformers (not Transformers)

Over the last few years, I’ve enjoyed branching out evermore into the Takara design back-catalogue, rather than just collecting Transformers branded items. This has opened the door to my love of big, bulky Brave toys from the nineties, and to the early 1980s Diaclone and Micro-Change figures that were not utilized in the Transformers line.

As a subline to the New Microman line, Micro-Change figures avoided all mass-shifting complications by existing in a 1:1 scale. Hence they were real world objects such as cassettes, guns, microscope, and Penny Racer deform toy cars. Only Browning held this scale over into the TF line, transforming into a tiny robot sidekick in the Japanese cartoon.

A quick look at a catalogue reveals some familiar faces, the shot below is of the 1984 Gig Trasformer releases.

Not pictured in the catalogue above are Perceptor and Blaster, and a few more releases that didn’t make it into Transformers.

I could write articles about each of these releases quite easily, and spend weeks just discussing some of the other Diaclone toys that never made it to the Transformers line, but today, our focus is on these two:

MC17 Con Combinazione

This guy is a working combination lock, known as Dial Man in Japan. I wouldn’t want to use it to secure any valuables because I imagine it wouldn’t take much force to tear it open, and I’d be more concerned about the damage to the toy than most “valuables”.

Packaged in alt. mode, it’s another one of the Micro-Change “common things beside you”, an every-day household item that also transforms into a robot defender. The combination for the locks varies, but due to its transformation the middle number is always 8, reducing 1,000 possibilities down to a mere 100. Like I said, you shouldn’t really be using it as a lock anyway, but as a kid I’m confident I totally would have. The “secret” combination is stickered on the back, and for the sake of completion and minty freshness that is where it will stay.

Shush! Don’t tell anyone.

The transformation is great fun, starting with unlocking it which pops up the robot head in the process. From there, it’s a few familiar twists and turns to get this into that familiar Takara bipedal form. It works exactly how you want it to. The metal hoop is very obvious, but Takara try to mitigate this using it as a missile holder (unshown, as I am keeping my missiles on the sprue).

He’s a lot of fun. He does come with a stickersheet (unapplied), but the simply factory-applied chest sticker screams early Transformer to me, and he’ll absolutely fit in with the rest of my curiosos and unreleased figures, squeezed in with the e-hobbies somewhere.

MC18 Magnetico

Released in Japan as Magneman, Magnetico is a working key lock, with a magnetic twist (the name might have given that away). Again, I would want to use the lock to secure a factory full of Aston Martins, but as a kid I would have had great fun with this. The lock mechanism is actually quite strong, with a metal lock coming up out of the foot into the hoop lock, put to the stress, I think the plastic would fail long before the metal mechanism.

No, he’s not just a Mini-Blaster.

Unlike MC17, this guy comes with a little handgun which can be stored in his opening chest cavity in either mode. The magic comes when you open the foot panel and jam the handgun into the open hole, this allows a release on the lock mechanism meaning you can pop it back down into the unlocked position. Quite genius, and like a lot of the Micro-Change, feels very ahead of it’s time (considering it’s now 33 bloody years old!).

Free to transform him, you’re in for a treat, transforming like a slightly more intricate Blaster. He makes a fun robot, and again the metal hoop can be used as a missile holder. The slide-down hands are similar to what Astrotrain nearly received before Hasbro cost-cutting nixed that idea. You can see the hole with magnet reactive metal in his right shin, and the magnet in the end of his handgun; this is what is used to unlock him in lock mode.

No doubt had they been released as TFs they’d have been Decepticons due to the way Hasbro / Marvel split the 1984 range, but I like to think of them as classic enemies to each other rather than a sub-group within a faction. If I was in charge of naming them I would have made MC17 a Decepticon called Lockout, and MC18 an Autobot called Secure. But I’m not and they aren’t.

I’m no expert on the Micro-Change line at all, and I’m still collecting them and discovering more about them every day, but for my money there is no better collection of Micro-Change than in Ras’ collection. Check it out if you want to see some amazing bits.

In conclusion; these are not the most expensive toys in the world, nor are they the hardest to find. I bought these in the last five minutes of Botcon this year on a complete whim, offering a dealer much less than he was asking for on my way out of the dealer hall and to my surprise he said yes! Score. On tone with what I was saying above, they’re not the most expensive toy I bought at Botcon, or the rarest, but man are they fun!

Two original Takara molds from 1984 I have had no prior experience with, how could I say no? Easily my favourite purchase of the show.

Thanks for reading,

-Sid / CZH / Ceno / Another name I made up for no reason.

Posts Tagged: Gig