To commemorate its 10th anniversary, the highly popular robot toy project "Shinkansen Henkei Robo," launched by Japanese toy company TAKARA TOMY, has announced a collaboration on a new toy project with Mr. Shoji Kawamori, an authority in animation mechanical design who has worked on numerous productions including "Macross." This collaboration will result in new products under TAKARA TOMY's T-SPARK brand's finished toy series, 'TOYRISE.'
"Shinkansen Henkei Robo" is a cross-media IP project launched in 2015. It combines Japan's proud technological marvel, the "Shinkansen," with the "transforming robots" commonly seen in sci-fi anime. Under the supervision of JR East, numerous actual Japanese trains were designed as robot characters. Shogakukan and TAKARA TOMY, also involved in the project's production, repeatedly designed the transformation mechanisms for the Shinkansen Henkei Robo to ensure their applicability when launching future TV anime and toy products.
Notably, the toy line leveraged TAKARA TOMY's past expertise in producing the "Transformers" and popular "Plarail" railway model series, achieving designs where multiple slender train cars transform into cool, well-proportioned robots. With the official broadcast of the TV anime, the toy product designs also evolved, developing diverse play patterns such as link combination, cross combination, and ultimate cross combination, achieving tremendous success.
Regarding this collaboration project, TAKARA TOMY has not yet revealed detailed product information. They have only released a silhouette of a mecha design, distinctly in Shoji Kawamori's style, along with Kawamori's congratulatory message for the 10th anniversary of "Shinkansen Henkei Robo." In his message, Kawamori mentioned that as an elementary school student, he spent days traveling across Japan, photographing steam locomotives and express trains. He expressed his surprise that the young railway enthusiast he once was now has the opportunity to participate in a new toy project for "Shinkansen Henkei Robo."
via： T-SPARK 公式