"Taipei. Why'd it have to be Taipei?"
Takara MicroChange Browning Gun Robo purchased in a "Taxi Driver" esque hotel transaction in Taiwan last year. Yes: I now own what essentially amounts to Megatron's illegitimate stepson. For better or worse they just don't make transforming gun robot toys like this anymore. Ah, who'm I kidding? It's definitely for the worse. Because what budding young suburban thug -- I mean, nerd -- doesn't need a chromed, transforming .380 to shove down their waistband?
Incidentally, this toy was designed by Shinji Aramaki of "Mospeda," "Appleseed" and "Ex Machina" fame:
http://altjapan.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/11/shinji-and-his-.html
Posted by: Matt Alt | September 25, 2008 at 10:39 AM
Nice treasure trail.
Posted by: Roger | September 25, 2008 at 12:16 PM
Is this the treasure trail's debut on the blog?
Posted by: Alexander O. Smith | September 25, 2008 at 01:45 PM
That's no treasure trail. It's a hairy holster.
Posted by: Matt Alt | September 25, 2008 at 02:28 PM
I think I'm going to be sick!
Posted by: cae | September 25, 2008 at 02:59 PM
And don't forget, that was the model that was Fujiko's pistol of choice, at least during the first series of Lupin III...
Dunno why, the .380 is a rather punk cartridge, it must be because the shape is cool...
*brrrr* belly bacon strip. So very wrong.
Posted by: Steve Harrison | September 25, 2008 at 02:59 PM
I'm sorry. I should have labeled that last one "NSFW"!
Posted by: Matt Alt | September 25, 2008 at 03:08 PM
Great classic toy, but it's Microman MicroChange, not Diaclone. Even says so in that commercial. :) And Aramaki as far as I know only worked on Microman, not Diaclone.
Microman toys were all 1/1 scale to go with their 10cm tall alien cyborg creators (you can see a pair of "M-11 Salam" figures in the commercial near the end, known as "Pharoid" in the older US Micronauts toyline previously spun off the series), while Diaclone was all 1/60 scale (more or less) with inch-tall pilot figures. Microman dates back to 1974, while Diaclone and "New Microman" (a reimaging of the toyline which MicroChange was a later part of) were splintered off of it in 1980.
Posted by: Bryan Wilkinson | September 25, 2008 at 03:45 PM
I used to have one of those! They sold them at Toys R Us in the US around 1985. After making the long bike ride to the house that Geoffrey built, where I was actually hoping to score a 1/72 Diecast Dougram Soltic H8 Round-Facer, but finding them sold out, I settled for that guy instead. The best feature was the little yellow bullet-missiles that (barely) fired out. Pretty rare in US-distributed toys at that point. I think I sold it at a garage sale when I went through my week-long "too cool for toys" phase in high school. What a dummy!
Posted by: Mr.Dandy | September 25, 2008 at 07:12 PM
Mea culpa for the error. I fixed it above, and gave myself a penalty shot in the knee with the GunRobo.
Posted by: Matt Alt | September 26, 2008 at 02:02 PM
That's okay, we Microman fans are used to being an oppressed minority after years of submission to our Decepticon overlords... ;).
I love the Browning, it was among my first import Microman toys (okay, actually I have the Taiwanese knock-off one) and while Megatron/UNCLE-type MC-13 Walther P-38 had all the cool extras (the attachments were designed to seat a Microman figure as a standing cannon, in fact: http://mykooltoyz.tripod.com/images/16-s_bmeg_mc2.JPG ), I always thought this smaller gun robot had the better proportions. :D The best one though might be the Magnum S&W 44 revolver, which towers over all of them in robot mode...
Posted by: Bryan Wilkinson | September 27, 2008 at 04:41 AM