Toy of the week, Monday, July 6, 2009

"It's like Star Wars for Japanese people"-- At least that's how a friend once explained the Japanese anime series "Super Dimension Fortress Macross". The series originally aired in Japan starting in 1982. The story uses Earth's first battle with an alien species as a back drop for a love triangle between the main characters. I think when my friend equated the 36 episode series to Star Wars, he was describing the pop culture phenomenon that it started, more than the actual story. Indeed, Macross has a tremendous, almost cult-like, following in Japan, but what is more remarkable is what Macross did for American audiences.

In 1985 Harmony Gold launched a new series on American television called Robotech. Robotech was composed of three different anime series that had been compiled into one large story. The first installment, known as "The Macross Saga" to American audiences, was one of the first anime series on U.S. television and certainly the first to touch on more "adult" subject matter. Robotech not only described adult romantic relationships and the many issues that can accompany them, it ws also the first U.S. animated series to paint a vivid picture of the real cost of war. Robotech did not glamorize war. Instead we were able to see that soldiers can actually die in battle. In fact, in a tragic twist midway through the series, one of the main characters actually dies.

For mechanically minded folks, like myself, Robotech presented a feast of fantastic machines. Of course many of these wondrous designs were made into toys. Most of the best toys were Japanese imports. Robotech toys were actually one of the first series of toys that I ever collected. Starting around age eleven, I bought up most of the Japanese import toys that were released in the U.S. Most of those toys are still in boxes in my parents attic, so the vintage Robotech toys will have to be added to the Cabinet of Curious Frivolities in the future.

Today I present an incredibly sophisticated Japanese imported toy. This toy was produced in 2006 for collectors. It is an intricate and complicated model of the "veritech fighter" which was the standard fighter used in the Macross Saga. The veritech fighter (Valkyrie in Japan) transforms into a giant humanoid robot, convenient for fighting the aliens in the series, who happened to be a race of giants. This toy is intimidatingly complex and there are many details, movable parts, and opening hatches that I cannot fully discuss here. I advise you to tiptoe into the Robots Gallery of the Cabinet of Curious Frivolities and sneak a peek at the Macross Veritech Fighter.

Full steam ahead.