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Microman/Micronaut FAQ Page
Microman was originally a cultural icon of Japan from the early 1970's to the early 1980's, which has found its way to the US and other parts of the world over the years in a number of ways. Microman was amazingly popular and used a number of concepts that seem well ahead of its time. While many TV commercials, a long running manga (comic) series, record albums, candy, models, a sizable fan club, and much promotion was made, Microman never had an anime (animated) series during its original run, though it came close a number of times, making it possibly the most popular science fiction toy series in Japan WITHOUT a tv show tie-in, despite having many ideas on par with those of anime of its time frame.
The roots of Microman start with the introduction of the foot-tall GI Joe figures to Japan. Major Japanese toy manufacturer Takara picked up the license to the toys, made original Japanese character-based costumes for them, and later tried to make an original series of toys derived from the GI Joe toy molds. These figures are molded in transparent plastic with mechanical-looking parts inside them, and were named "Henshin (transforming) Cyborg #1". These striking-looking toys were a big hit in the very early seventies, and Takara licensed a large number of popular characters from TV shows such as Ultraman, Mazinger, Devilman, Casshan, and others to make costumes for the Cyborg figures to dress them as these famous heroes. However, Takara found they had a dilemna. Henshin Cyborg was just too darn BIG...to make vehicles or playsets for him would be costly and be too big to market well to small Japanese households. Some experimentation thus began with making different size toys, first with the smaller "Shonen (boy) Cyborg" figures.
Around 1973, Takara hit upon the concept of an easily produced 10 cm tall cyborg figure. No such small figures had been practical to manufacture before, and Takara set the precedent for later companies to imitate, including Kenner's Star Wars toys 4 years later. Because of its size, this new figure series of cyborgs was called "Microman Zone". Takara, still not confident with its new concept, cross-marketed it with the other Cyborg toys in a campaign called the "Victory Project". This campaign focused on the interchangability of the parts of the Cyborg toys...particularly ones using a system of 5mm pegs and holes as connectors. A few Microman vehicles were released and a foot-tall robot (called simply "Robotman" as english words of any kind were considered "cool" back then especially) the size of the original Henshin Cyborg but pilotable by a Microman figure seated in a clear cockpit in its chest. These Microman toys were a huge success and quickly eclipsed the other Cyborg toys in sales. Takara realised they had a hit.
Takara quickly invented a story for the tiny cyborgs. They were a race of miniture aliens who had emmigrated to earth following the destruction of their home planet, 30,000 light years away, known as "MicroWorld" (later "MicroEarth"). They have disguised themselves to look like toys to most humans, but are actually quietly dispersing themselves into our world. Why? Well, Takara invented a "bad" race of Micromen, whose capsules had crashed in Earth's oceans and been exposed to all forms of pollution, creating evil mutant Micromen called "Acroyears". The Acroyears were a fearsome enemy indeed, for while the Micromen had the ability to shrink things and return them to normal, the Acroyears gained the ability to enlarge themselves to monstrous proportions, making them a threat to human civilization. And so the Micromen must gather their forces, scattered over time in stasis all over the planet, to protect the humans from these enemies.
In 1975, a once-major US toy manufacturer, Mego Corporation, was looking for some new directions to expand its sales and came upon the popular Microman toy line. An exclusive deal was made, and in 1976, Mego introduced the deftly renamed "Micronauts" to the US as well as numerous other countries through other toy distributors with ties to Mego. The toys were a large success for the company until overshadowed a year or two later by the release of the less posable but more durable Star Wars figures from Kenner. While many now myopically remember Micronauts as some sort of cheap knock-off of Star Wars, they are conveniently forgetting that the toys well predate the release of the movie even in the US let alone in Japan, and with its cyborg theme and unique concepts of interfacing directly with mecha in a way that was Cyberpunk a decade earlier than the word, any direct comparison of the two do either a great disservice. Mego would eventually collapse due to some tactical errors, but marketed through the beginning of the eighties many repackaged Microman toys as well as some original spin-offs and hybrid toys as parts of the Micronauts line. A popular Marvel comic series was based loosely on the toys that ran for a good few years longer than the toys. Later, some of these toys would briefly resurface as Lords Of Light toys by a short-lived scion company of Mego, Phoenix Toys (AKA PAC toys). Mego's British sister company, Lion Rock, managed to sell a few stripped-down Micronauts in the US, while in Italy, a company called Gig continued production a while longer. The brother of Marty Abrams (who was the man behind the Micronaut concept and owner of Mego Corp.) tried to revive the toys out from under him with a fly-by-nite toy company named "HourToy", renaming the toys "The InterChangables", making them with inferior materials and garish colors to avoid resembling the Micronauts too close for legal comfort, licensing them directly from Takara.A second series was sold in Canada briefly in better looking metallic colors, too, but only lasted a month or so.
Meanwhile, in Japan, following the success of Star Wars and Space Cruiser Yamato, Takara licensed a manga to be published by Kodansha in its then-popular "TV Magazine". The manga was a hit at first and would run a few years before interest would wane as the ideas became less fresh and more dated in the late seventies as Bandai found a new path for popular mecha stories with Mobile Suit Gundam. So Takara went back to the drawing board. Demand was great for larger robots, vehicles and bases for the figures to use, and again size became an issue. Takara developed a new concept called "Inchman" based around tiny inch-tall figures with magnetic feet, which was renamed "Diaclone". These tiny figures were set at approximately 1/60th scale and the robots and vehicles were made with this scale in mind. Meanwhile the old Microman line was retooled and given a new start in 1980 as "New Microman". These toys would rely more on more compact and more sophisticated, gimicky hardware and robots to sell the toys, self contained transformations replacing interchangability as the core concept. This would become best exemplified when Takara shifted the New Microman toys into a new sub-series called "MicroChange". MicroChange introduced robots and vehicles that could transform into household items...a natural for the small scale of Microman hardware. At the same time, Diaclone hit upon the concept of normal cars, trucks, planes, and so on that could become robots.
Once again a US toy company sat up and took notice. Hasbro, already doing well in Japan with Takara due to the new 10 cm-sized GI Joe series being distributed there through them (based on the MIcroman figure design!), struck a deal for these "transforming" toys, and created for the US the hugely successful "Transformers" toy line out of these Takara toys. Takara soon tried reimporting the Americanized concept to Japan with great results, and thus canned the Microman and Diaclone toylines entirely.
Transformers was such a hit, Takara commissioned more series to be made in anime style, and eventually broke off with Toei animation and the ties with Hasbro for the animated series and started a spinoff set of series with animation giant Sunrise known as the "Yuusha (Hero/Brave) Series", each borrowing heavily from the ideas from Transformers but not in name. About 10 years later, a small mom-and-pop "Garage Kit" manufacturer named Romando successfully licensed the Microman series from Takara to do some reproductions and original takes on the old figures. These quickly became popular with collectors, and Takara seemed to begin to take notice. In 1997, the final Yuusha series began, ironically incorporating a remade version of Henshin Cyborg into the series, named "GaoGaiGar". Word began to have it that Takara was secretly developing a new Microman toy line and anime, fueled by the fact that Takara very suddenly pulled the plug on Romando's license. Meanwhile in the US, a new, fully computer rendered take on Transformers took off called Beast Wars. This of course was imported to Japan, and was very popular. Takara seemed to drop all other projects, and started developing a Japanese anime and toy spinoff series to Beast Wars, but the new anime series was not computer rendered and got a mild reception. Takara's hobby branch adopted the Cyborg design from GaoGaiGar in turn and reworked it into a revival of the original Henshin Cyborg series aimed at collectors.
Then in late 1998, almost 15 years after the end of the Microman series, a new series of events developed. At a toy show, Takara's hobby division announced it would start making replicas of the orginal "Microman Zone" figures and hinted more was on the way. Around the same time, the Kodansha-published comic magazine BomBom also made an announcement that a new Microman manga series would start soon. In the next issue, the manga began and a peek at the upcoming toys and anime in preproduction was previewed. And in TV Magazine, which now has become little more than a TV toy tie-in advertising magazine, a 2 page spread appeared, unveiling the first toys in the new series.
This would be the beginning of a two year-long explosive return of Microman into the Japanese public's consciousness. An anime by Studio Pierrot ran for a full year, taking much inspiration from the original Microman manga series. A new manga ran for about a half-year longer, but suffered from the artist not being able to keep up with the fast, almost desperate pace of Takara's new Microman toyline, at the center of the phenomenom.
The new toys had many similarities and differences from their predecessors of 25 years ago. The initial figures were constructed using a figure design Playmates used for their popular Exo-Squad series, but this design would later be abandonded due to lack of posability. The new Micromen were 2 cm shorter than the original ones, though the same height as a Microman spin-off series of the late 70's, called Micro Hoodman. Later a common origin would be vaguely explained. Much of the focus of the new toyline was on magnetic interchangability, which while used occasionally by the old Microman series, was more directly based on Takara's old "Magnemo" series of toys. The US Micronauts toyline had incorporated some of this line into its series and apparently Takara thought this was a good idea. The US series of toys and comics had several other influences on the new Japanese line (possibly Takara was shaping it in the hopes of selling the toys in America as well), including in some of the names and character designs. The first toys were inexpensive (about 5 bucks each) and of fairly cheap construction, but as the series continued through the year, The quality improved and Takara released some toys that could fairly be compared to the toys of old.
Takara also licensed a spin-off series called "Microman U-Borg" to publisher giant Media Factory. These toys are various school supplies designed to resemble various Microman weapons, wingpacks, and accesories that can be mixed together using the 5mm joint system of old to build vehicles and such lego construction set style.
Meanwhile, the hobby division wasn't idle either. After a slew of variations of the original Microman reproductions, they turned their focus to reproducing other figures in the series, both ones produced by Romando previously, and others that were not. A successful video game based on the classic toys was released for Playstation (as well as a less popular one based on the new toys). These replicas proved popular with collectors and continue to be produced to this date. Even the popular Robotman toy will be rereleased in early 2001.
However, while fairly successful in 1999, the next year would go badly for Takara, and for the new Microman series in turn. Due to financial troubles, Takara could not keep new development going on the new toys, and production slowed down and turned to recycling old Transformer toys into Microman ones, even as a revival of the Diaclone-style Transformer "Car Robot" series fizzled out as well for the same reasons. Currently, Takara's future is hazy, and it is not known if they will survive their current crisis, and no new plans seem in store for the new Microman series for 2001 other than a Game Boy game that merges elements of the new series, U-borg, and the old series into one continuity.
Meanwhile, thans to the efforts of Marty Abrams, it appears a new Micronauts computer CG cartoon is planned for release sometime in 2001. Unfortunately, due to various opyright reasons, it appears to have nothing to do with Microman and only bears some passable resemblance to the Marvel comic series. Fan response to info on the series has been lukewarm at best.
Why Microman?
Hopefully the Xmas photos below will help explain. These toys caught my imagination as a child with their science fiction premise and mixing of organic and mechanical forms in a manner that is a fusion of 70's design, retro science fiction, and futurism. As one person I described the toys to put it: "Cyborgs in bellbottoms!" ;^) The eccentricity yet subtlety and functionality of their design has never ceased to inspire my imagination. As I also became a young anime fan while still a child, I was led to discovering the toys origins in Japan, and this only stimulated my imagination further, knowing that what was in the US was the tip of the iceberg. Ever since I have associated the toys with anime and manga, long before I would learn of the original Microman manga series, let alone the advent of the anime series released in January 1999! Also there was the US comic series, with its own "Microverse" of characters and story, but I knew that as entertaining as it was, there was still an untold story behind these mysterious chrome-headed heroes. So these pages are my own dedication to these wonderful toys, and the universe they conspire to create with their imaginative playmates!
Xmas, 1977
Here are my first Micronaut toys!
"You can make Biotron's feet into jet-bikes!" My dad probably actually thought this was cute at this point. "Cute" would wear out pretty quickly, though, I suspect. Notice the possessed look in my eyes...yep, they swallowed my soul in that very instant!
"Oh nuts, where'd that Time Traveller piece go?!"
Xmas, 1979
"Cool, all three aliens..." (before series 5) The Membros I'm holding has a yellow brain. I would also get a Hornetroid and other toys that year... I think this year my grandparents got me the infamous (to my parents at least) Rocket Tubes. I wasn't supposed to be allowed to get that set.