Toy links
Japan and the oil crisis.
“The question I ask myself is whether Japan can survive.” (Spoiler: it did.)
Tags: article
Toy links
Microman Zone catalogue.
“With the crisis of the great ‘oil shock’ in 1973, the large clear cyborg toys were getting too high-cost for manufacture, so some new scale formats were tried out …” (Parts 2, 3, 4, 5.)
Tags: catalogue, Microman/Micronauts, Takara
Toy links
Microforever.
“Microman Zone proved to be popular and by its second year Microman line began to take on its own identity and separated itself from the influence of the Henshin Cyborg line.”
Tags: Microman/Micronauts, site, Takara
Toy links
Ogawa Iwakichi interviewed.
“… when we manufactured Jaguar, we used 3mm joints of ABS plastic for attachments. … Since the 3mm pegs seemed to break easily, I figured, okay, let’s go with 5mm. From that point onward, Takara has used the 5mm gauge for all their product’s molds ever since.”
Tags: designer, Interviews, Microman/Micronauts, Takara
Toy links
Marty Abrams interviewed.
“We were making action figures, we were making playsets, and making toys of multiple figures within brands. Micronauts had all of the above, plus one additional piece of the pie, which was construction and building. … You could take characters apart and put them back together again.”
Tags: Interviews, Microman/Micronauts