- Walter1965 wrote:
- Thanks !! these fellas here are my 1/6 cybernauts made by a company called Henchin from Japan..For those that are old like me you may remember the 3 3/4 figure called Micronauts...Same company....Their chests are supposed light up but they need new batteries...They sort of remind me of Mike Power/Atomic Man although he is tech a Cyborg part organic part machine....Walter
Those are actually made by Takara, including their Micronauts line later on. Basically, Takara got a licence from Hasbro to make G.I.JOE as 'Combat Joe', it was practically identical to 1964 Joes at first, then changed to a more 'anime' style face for their Joe and the line became more different. It didn't sell too well so they began making 'Henshin Cyborg dolls like the ones you have as well as his enemy 'King Walder and his own outfits, Walders came in blue, greenish blue, red and yellow, the outfits for Henshin Cyborg were based on live action superhero shows on tv at the time...this worked really well and they then made another figure called 'Android A', he was smokey black clear plastic with a missle firing chest feature and like the other figures of Henshin Cyborg and King Walder his limbs could be removed and replaced with alternate robotic legs, heads, arm weapons etc, all sold as add on kits separately...The line did so well that they reduced the scale to create MicroMan, and this led to a further line called 'MicroChange'....small everyday electronic style household things that became their vehicles...essentially, they were supposed to be 'real scale' i.e. 3 3/4 inch tall....this then led to changing robots and even smaller driver figures to put in the robots when disguised as vehicles, planes etc...it became known as 'Diaclone'....At around the the early 1970s, Mego Corporation in the US saw the possibility of a licence deal and bringing MicroMan to the West...this became...
THE MICRONAUTS...
Mego made their own mythos, character names etc...
By the late 1970s, Takara had added to Henshin Cyborg his 'son' 'SHONEN' (meaning kid) CYBORG in an 8 inch format, Denys – Fisher / Strawberry Fayre Toys of the UK was now owned by General Mills Corp (owners of many food brands, best known in the UK then for Nabisco, Huntley & Palmers, Jacobs to name a few) now owned them too via the sale of the company through the phenomenal success of Denys Fisher's (hence the company name) invention called 'Spirograph'...Denys Fisher / Strawberry Fayre (its sister company) were now a sister company to Palitoy, also owned by G.M. Denys Fisher / Strawberry Fayre obtained a licence from Takara to market their Henshin - Cyborg, King Walder and Android A figures in the smaller, 8 inch tall scale, practically identical in every way in all but size...
The titular hero of the series, Henshin Cyborg became....
CYBORG.
King Walder was only marketed in translucent purple and became the vile....
MUTON
Android - A, one of Japanese toy collectors heros became another evil threat for CYBORG to face...
ANDROID!
By the early to mid 1980s Takara was marketing 'NEW COMBAT JOE', a newly sculpted G.I.JOE / ACTION MAN style doll with his one line of outfits and accessory packs...
At around the same time, Hasbro in the US decided to obtain a licence from Takara to bring over disparate automobile, aircraft and handgun style Diaclone robots and created what became the phenomenal....
TRANSFORMERS...
They changed colours, gave them new names, created the Autobots and Decepticons...it was a runaway success that obliterated BAN DAI's own efforts with their Robo Machines toys...and Tonka's licenced GOBOTS...
Takara saw the opportunity and obtained a licence from Hasbro to create their own TRANSFORMERS...many identical to the US items but the Autobots became the CYBERTRONS, and the Decepticons...THE DESTRONS....There have been many Japanese exclusive items, cartoon series diverging from the mediocre (except the 1986 classic animated film!) US Sunbow produced tv show...
What is interesting is MICROMAN still is a big toyline in Japan today, with modern, hyper posable figures being made...in the early 2000's Takara even made commemorative 'Junior' Henshin Cyborg figures in the defunct 8 inch Denys Fisher scale with 'Shonen (Kid) Cyborg and a blue King Walder 'Jnr' two pack with retro style packaging as well as single packed retro style Shonen Cyborgs with different coloured robotic interior chests and heads as well as King Walder Jnr in yellow...(I own the two pack and yellow King Walder Jnr)...
Basically, G.I.JOE started it all in 1964...the rest as they say, is history...
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Subject: Re: Walt's Joes and others 
Mon Mar 18, 2013 9:17 am
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...Duke and the team are very proud of the hand carved dispatch table...Going to find two nice chairs.....Walter
..I'm trying to pick him up to give him the TLC that he deserves...I fixed on of my others that had the same problem.....Walter /size]
...Now just to wait for him to arrive.....Walter
