In honor of Jeremy Watson

So we're eating at a Japanese restaurant, right? And then Jeremy gets his miso soup, he dips his spoon into it, and brings up a single piece of tofu. Staring at it, he asks us, "What is this cube?"

And then this happens.

More Absurd Commercials

By popular demand, I have entered into the tangled mess that is YouTube and have wrestled from it SEVEN more Violently Awesome Japanese Toy Commercials For Your Enjoyment. Of course, by "By Popular Demand," I actually mean people telling me, "man, Luke, that Battle Convoy commercial was really cool."

I was actually going to pick only five, but frankly...that's just not enough.

We'll start with some familiar territory. The Diaclone "Battle Convoy," who would later become our good friend Optimus Prime, also had a brother-in-arms, called "Powered Convoy." This was a large truck which had the same cab as Battle Convoy, but the trailer was now a car-carrier with missiles. For additional greatness, the trailer could transform into a suit which Convoy could ride. This whole figure would later become the Transformer called Ultra Magnus, voiced by the late Robert Stack (in the 80s movie, at least).



Man. Firing missiles. Okay, we're going to navigate away from Diaclone for a while, and visit our friends the Micromen. This next pair of toys have some of the best names I've ever heard of: "Punch Robo" and "Death King." I actually don't know much about them except that I want to have their robot babies. By the way, yes, for some reason, the actual pronunciation of "Microman" is "MEE-kro-man."



Having fun yet? We haven't even begun. The next commercial is for Henshin Cyborg, the precursor to Microman and Japanese brother to the 1960s G.I. Joe. Pay special attention to when the figure transforms ("henshin" means "transform") into a weird bug-faced green guy. That guy is Kamen Rider, one of the most famous costumed TV super-heroes in Japan. I'm not sure why this happens, but I expect it might have something to do with Captain Action.



And now for something completely different. This thing is called "Spy Boy," and I really don't know anything about it except it, apparently, likes to terrorize ACTUAL CATS (TAKE THAT, PETA), and seems to have been part of the Microman line.



Now we're getting to the good stuff. This is another figure with an amazing name, "Death Cross." The figure was brought to the US in the Micronauts line. The creature he's fighting in the commercial is called "Machine-saurer." But whatever! Who cares! There are people IN COSTUMES acting out TOYS BATTLING. I'm going to try to hold back from using the phrase "best thing ever," because we haven't gotten to that yet, but seriously. It is one of the best things ever.



For second-best, we have another Microman entry. This is the Gunrobo, a gun which transformed into a robot. It's not Megatron, but it's from the same series, and was later brought to the Japanese Transformers line as Browning. Prepare to have a song stuck in your head. Also: the singer says "MIKUROMAN NO MISUTERI!" which is basically engrish for "Mystery of Microman." CHANGE CHANGE CHANGE!



And now for the real best thing ever. Really, though. I am ready to claim, without hyperbole, that this really is one of the most amazing commercials I've ever seen. I can't believe Japanese kids got to see these. Their toys are allowed to do all the same things Superman can do, while ours just get to knock over piles of cans. You'll want to watch this one more than once. By the way, this is what Microman looks like these days. He's more flexible than Stretch Armstrong. He can do YOGA. No joke. Anyway, here's the commercial...



Am I right? Now, I know I said I'd give you seven videos, but there's actually one more you should see. Its not as much a commercial as it is a movie. It's about eight minutes long. It stars the Zoids. Zoids are motorized/wind-up, animal-shaped, heavily armed robot vehicles from the 80s. This is a video starring them, made by Tomy. It is epic. Watch it. Watch it for the lulz.

I'm not sure what's up with that store commercial tacked to the beginning and ending.

A Sordid Tale of Action Figures

--Editor's Note: A big welcome to Luke Jones, the newest author for Hobson's Buffet! *applause* Luke is a fellow Harding-ite and an English major, so maybe he'll help our post average a bit. I know he'll at least have some interesting things to say.--

I'm going to be honest. I was asked to make this post over a month ago. My excuses are: Flying South for the Winter; Using an Off-Brand Controller; the Tunguska Event.

Now that that's out of the way, let's cut to the chase. I'm here to talk about action figures. Specifically, the best action figures, the ones that came out of the '80s. More specifically, G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero and The Transformers. I grew up with these guys. By the time I was coherent, though, it was already the '90s, which were not kind to these humble toy lines. Eventually, they crumbled, bowing to the more visceral forces of Nikelodeon, TMNT, and other slime and mucus-charged properties. Later they returned triumphantly, but that's another tale.

Before this defeat, GI Joe and Transformers languished in the hard-rocking '80s, often meeting each other halfway in both comics and cartoons. Poor Bumblebee was actually mistakenly blowed up by the Joes at least once. Cobra helped rebuild Megatron once, and much later on, the two groups actually met in the middle of WWII.

But did you know that these iconic '80s toy lines are tied up in each others' origins?

Get this. So my Dad grew up playing with the original '60s GI Joes, the ones that were 12-inch military replicas. Back in those days, mothers were still calling action figures "dolls." But Japan, because they can be awesome, knew they were more than just dolls. So in the '70s, they licensed the basic body of old Joe, and turned him into an awesome robot dude! Like I said, Japan can be awesome.

But Japan is only like 12 feet long, so that space didn't allow for too many 12-inch robot dudes for kids to play with. This necessitated the downsizing of big 'ol Henshin Cyborg to the 10cm short "Microman." His small size allowed for extra extravagance in the realm of vehicles and whatnot. Microman flourished! His line was successfully brought to the US in the '70s by Mego under the name of "Micronauts."

As the '70s came to a close, Microman started to wane in popularity. Takara's goal of a unified sci-toy line (including both "real" and "giant" transforming robots) of magnificence was becoming more and more difficult. Around 1981, they introduced a line called "Microchange," featuring household objects which transformed into vehicles and robots that Microman could interact with. Near-simultaneously, Takara also rolled out Diaclone, a toy line consisting of transforming vehicles, robots, and bases. They scaled Microman down to a minute 1-inch figure with magnetic feet for this line.

Meanwhile, across, the pond, Hasbro relaunched the dead 12-inch GI Joe line as "A Real American Hero" in 1982. They downsized the figures to 3 3/4", based on the popularity of Star Wars and--you guessed it--Micronauts.

By 1984 or so, Takara had manufactured a small army of transforming robots of various sizes and scales. But the '80s were already in full steam, and where were the transforming robots in the US of A? Not to be outdone, Hasbro scanned the wide world and found Takara's army of robots, bought the molds to many of them (and a few other assorted robots from more obscure places), and did their own thing with them. They removed the 10cm Microman and 1-inch Diaclone figures, focused solely on the transforming robots, and Transformers was born.

Ironically enough, Hasbro accomplished what Takara itself was trying to: create a unified sci-fi line. For that reason, Takara simply called it quits on Diaclone and Microchange, purchased the rights to sell Transformers in Japan, and did that. It was awesome. There was dancing.

These days, Hasbro owns the rights to dang near everything. I hope you know that there are Star Wars Transformers. Will there be GI Joe Transformers? Only time will tell.

I want to leave you with a vintage commercial for Battle Convoy, the Diaclone toy which would later become Optimus Prime. You will find that commercials for Japanese toys beat American ones by about 6000%.