My First Furious Five

It was 1984. The Japanese toy boom is in full swing as Nippon toy companies produce a smorgasbord of toy lines month after month. The tsunami of diecast and plastic nouveau toy designs have just hit the North American west coast with small mom and pop Asian stores importing Poppy, Takatoku, Imai, and Arii toys and model kits. Factories in Taiwan and China have already started bootlegging these cool gems in their native regions. The American big box toy retail chains start taking notice of Japanese toys as the Transformers children's cartoon series hits the afternoon TV block like a megaton nuclear explosion. Takara's designs become the most sought after toyline for the holiday season as Hasbro toys makes meteoric financial rise to dominate the western toy market.

Mikado Kid's Corner - Image Courtesy of Bottle Cap N. 

For me, it all started in 1984. My first exposure to Japanese toys started with Machine Robo No. 09 Dump Robo. My mom's best friend took her children to visit Japan town center mall in San Francisco. Each child got a Machine Robo from Mikado Kid's Corner as a reward for good behavior during the trip. Thinking I would be sad to be left out, they bought me Dump Robo as a gift since I didn't get to go on their family trip. 

Mikado Kid's Corner was a legendary children's toy shop in San Francisco's Japan town. This place carried Japanese stationary, pens, Sanrio items, Tamiya model kits, and a bounty of Japanese mecha toys. Later on the store became a focal point for Japanese import videogames in the 1990's. Sadly, Mikado Kid's Corner closed in 2008 after 25+ years of business. I will always remember the friendly owner's smile.

Anyways, I remember opening the plain style Machine Robo box with the image of the truck on it. It looked like any other diecast vehicle from the outside of the box, but inside was a whole new experience. I recall standing in our living room sliding the styrofoam out of the box, removing the foam bar that secured the toy in place, and pulling out the diecast plastic toy.  I could already see this was something alien and different. As I folded the legs, arms, and head out a new level of awesome entered my life. The robot toy was simplistic and had minimal articulation but the cold diecast cab and the slick design represented by the details in the arms and the foil sticker decal blew my little prepubescent mind away. Dump Robo was awesome!

My first furious five.

Hasbro'sTransformers hit the shelves over the next few months and I was able to beg and plead for a small cast of Japanese robot gifts over the 1984 holiday season. Since the series was the hit toyline of the holiday season, these toys were extremely hard to come by although I distinctly remember an entire end cap at Toys R Us of the Rumble Ravage cassette combo pack warming the shelves that year.  Soon Windcharger, Mirage, Rumble and Ravage would join my growing legion of awesome. The card backing for Windcharger actually became the image on my birthday cake that year. This was my first furious five and the initial wave of toys that spawned an undying compulsion to collect them all.