Friday, November 26, 2010

[Microman / ミクロマン] Amazon Acroyear


Microman - Blue Amazon Acroyear and Mushikeller (1979)

While this definitely deserves a thorough photo shoot, I am too jazzed about finding one of these to finagle with things like f-stops and QUALITY at the moment.

Micro-nuts will immediately recognize this jungle-dwelling duo as the blue Amazon Acroyear set from the 1979 lineup of Rescue Microman. (For those wondering, the popular Kamen Rider Amazon series was long gone by then, having aired nearly 4-5 years prior.) While I am not much of a Microman guy (only a few boxes of those), the Amazon Acroyear has pretty much everything you could want in a toy. Mechanical parts and chrome. Yep. Clear bits? Yes, and AMAZING head sculpt that makes me want to roll it on the table for a saving throw. There's even a little vinyl monster henchman in the set to satisfy the sofvi heads.


Microman - Blue Amazon Acroyear and Mushikeller (1979)

Microman - Blue Amazon Acroyear and Mushikeller (1979)

In the box... and all the parts on the table. When you find one, be certain that the little plug bit is in the box. It is very easy to miss and without it, the back fan will not attach to the Acroyear figure. Unfortunately, whether or not the plug is in the box is not visible from the outside (but if the seller shows the figure with the back fan attached, you're good).


Microman - Amazon Acroyear(1979)

Great manga-style box art.


Microman - Amazon Acroyear (1979)

One side of the box has the name and catalogue no. of each Amazon Acroyear and its henchman monster:

A371 Blue Amazon President [ブルーアマゾン総統] - Mushikeller [ムシケラー]

A372 Red Amazon President [レッドアマゾン総統] - Tokageras [トカゲラス]

A373 Green Amazon President [グリーンアマゾン総統] - Urokoman [ウロコマン]

Of interest is the President ('Soutou') designation- Amazon shares body parts with its forerunner, the President Acroyear. I don't know what the official relation is between the two.


Microman - Amazon Acroyear (1979)

Another side of the box has a neat cutaway drawing of Amazon with some specs:

Head --> Crystal Head [クリスタルヘッド]

Spear --> Mad Spear [マッドスピア]

Left chest --> Amazon Kaiser [アマゾンカイザー] (I will never understand the Japanese fascination with this word.)

Chest --> Some sort of condenser device (Shukoushi souchi)? [集光子装置] (Someone help me with the proper terminology.)

Back fan --> Cutter Wing [カッターウイング]

Crotch --> Deathmad Transmitter [デスマッド発信器]

Hand --> Punch Booster [パンチ倍力装置]

I didn't get any of the paperwork with this one.


3 comments:

Doc Atomic said...

The problem with reading blogs about toys is that I'm turned on to new stuff that I'd really like to own. So yeah, thanks for that...

This is an awesome, awesome looking Microman. Thanks for the pics and break down.

John K. said...

My god, so beautiful. Congrats on picking up the Amazon.

Storyline-wise, I consulted the only English-language authority, Microforver (thanks Paul!):
http://www.microforever.com/A37Xamazon.htm
The Amazons are rebuilt President Acroyears, modified by Ardens to lead the Amazon Monsters and build "Acrotopia".

The chest weapon is translated on MF as Amazon Geyser.

Again, great figure. I wish Takara had popped out a reissue while the reissue line was running.

RobotXMonster said...

John- Thanks for the info; you are always a great resource for knowledge.

Doc- Haha, yes. That was my reaction when I first saw this toy a few years ago... wasn't even a fan of the toys back then. I guess this is the gateway drug for Microstuffs.