Just a few tiny changes this time...


Clockwise from left: Tetsujin 28-go, Goggle-V, Godsigma, Daltanias, Godmars, Sun Vulcan, Combattler V, Golion, Gordian, Voltes V.

Otaku can skip the Introduction

Use any damn browser you want!

Title photo: Godaikins. Many Americans' first exposure to Cool Japanese Toys.

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A special thank you to Alen Yen, who persists in saying nice things about Mecha World on his own first-class website, Alen Yen's Toybox DX.

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A (long overdue) thank you to Doug Dlin and Darren Pierce for providing information on some of the older shows I haven't seen, and their mecha.
Thanks also to Tom Murdock for getting his Beta VCR fixed and making me copies of old anime shows!

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Gardian (or Gordian). No doubt you've seen this before, but it has special significance for me. In 1981, a friend took me to a museum show of vintage space toys. Mostly Buck Rogers ray guns, but off in a corner by themselves, there were a few anime-related toys. Amongst these was Gardian, displayed just as you see him in the left-hand photo above. I thought this was one of the COOLEST THINGS I HAD EVER SEEN IN MY ENTIRE LIFE and thus began my robot obsession!


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  In this picture above, the Godaikin version of Combattra (Combattler V); He was on display in a show called "Japanese Design - A Survey Since 1945" which was presented a couple of years ago at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. After seeing this, my wife said she was a bit less worried about my robot obsession.... The five parts of Combattra were sold individually by Mattel as "5-in-1 Shogun Warriors". It would be cool to have a whole set - I just have an extra pair of feet.

The Valkyrie, Kawamori's masterpiece; every mecha collector should have one. Left to right: the VF-1J (Miriya type) made by Takatoku; the GBP-1S armor mounted on the VF-1S Roy Fokker model, made by Takatoku; and the VF-1S as made by Bandai. These are all the 1/55 scale toys. The armor was sold separately and fits on the regular Valkyrie.

Bazoler is from the show Gaiking, which I've never seen but would love to, if only to see Bazoler in action. The jaws open and close and the red spines on his back open to form a door. He has rubber treads you can't see in this picture. The yellow things on his sides are little tiny Bazolers. You can press a trigger to make that large silver horn spring out forcefully. This particular toy was made by Popy (PA-84) and imported by Mattel as a "Shogun Action Vehicle". In the Mattel version the spring mechanism is glued for safety reasons, but a few minutes' work with an X-acto knife can restore its eye-gouging ability!

You can't have too many Shogun Warriors on a toy robot page! (Oops, I guess the 5" Combattler V isn't officially a Shogun Warrior. Oh well)

Raideen and Gaiking are transforming "2-in-1 Shogun Warriors"
Gaiking is just too cool.

Go to the next page!

Robot Links:

Just a few...I can't keep up with all the mecha pages any more! This is great!!

These first two sites are THE mecha sites! More information, links, and beautiful pictures than you can possibly digest!

Not only is Alen Yen's Toybox DX beautifully designed and enhanced by pictures of some great toys, but he credits Mecha World as his inspiration! I'm truly honored!

Tom Franck's Cool Japanese Toys page. Great toys! Great pictures! TRADING! Tom appears to be the Jumbo Machinder authority of the entire planet.

Vincent Leung's Gold Lightan Manic features pictures and info about Gold Laitan toys.
Andrew Chen's Super Robots page - if you haven't visited it lately - has TONS of Chogokins, including just about every Godaikin.
Tom's Microman Zone - Microman toys, obviously, and lots of pictures from a Japanese toy show that will make you go weak in the knees - but I was surprised to see that I actually have one or two of the items pictured.
SUPER MANGA ROBOTS land is an Italian site with some interesting pictures. Ever see a super-deformed Grendizer?
John Eaton's great Shogun Warriors page!
The Guyver's Page - Great info about 70s robot shows
Ted Terranova's Robot Page !
C. Jones' page has some nice photos of the Big Shoguns
Kimono My House sells anime goods by mail order. They don't list much in the way of older robots in their online catalog but they do have them. E-mail them if you are looking for something in particular, or go to an anime convention where they have a booth, they do generally have a lot of good stuff.
Supercollector has a few Shogun and Macross items for sale
Giant Robot Magazine is about Asian culture, sorta - but they sometimes write about toy robots. Issue #5 has a good robot article in it. NEW! Issue #11 starring Tom Franck & his jumbos!
Robot Wars ...not really toy robots but highly amusing!
Survival Research Associates - the closest thing to REAL mecha. Check it out.

GONE:
Darran Hight
Hardmedia Robots
Simon Chiu

Send me more links please!

Ryo-oh-ki was donated by Mr. Touru Miura of AIC! If you don't think he qualifies as mecha, then you haven't seen Tenchi Muyo! Stuff copyright Bandai, Tatsunoko, Toei, Big West, AIC, Pioneer, etc., etc. Please don't sue me.