Japanese Toy Commercials

The first of these commercials is for what we would call Rock Lords, an '80s Gobot tie-in toyline which was a subline of Machine Robo in Japan (hence dudes shouting "MASHEEN ROBO!" at the beginning).



I have to admit, I have always loved the "dishonest" Japanese toy commercials.

Here's another one, whose only special effects seem to be explosions.



I seem to very dimly remember seeing commercials for something like these way back in my childhood. (There were a lot of vaguely similar toys, admittedly.) This commercial, though, makes the toys look a lot better than most US commercials.

My point? Japanese toy commercials are frikkin' awesome.

...What, you were expecting more of a point than that? Sorry.

-Signing off.

And Now I'll Go On About Robotix Again...

I just can't help it. I don't get why nobody mentions this series. Well, aside from the fact that it was incredibly short-running, had a very unsuccessful toyline, had ugly characters... Never mind.

Let's take something I would have blogged about already in my previous post on the series (just use the little label thing to find it, doggone it) had I had a less tetchy computer or twenty hours to devote to the post.

Series main villain Nemesis, and his lieutenant Tyrannix (who is only occasionally treacherous despite his name), are having a little talk because Nemesis's power supply is good for the moment, but Tyrannix's batteries are pretty low. (They had neither Duracell nor Energizer. Shame, shame.) Tyrannix, in a previous episode, had tried to bury Nemesis, so Nemesis was lording it over Tyrannix over the reversal in their positions.

Uh-oh, who are these guys? They're not from the toyline!

MUAHAHAHAHA! Ahem. These are a group of pretty much nameless rock monsters who inhabit... whatever the name of the planet is. (The series is fast-paced. I mean, it's fast. It's about an hour and a half long, and it has almost as much story as the first season of Transformers.) Pretty much all of them live in a mountain which happens to be in the area where the Robotix must find the energy crystals which are used to power Robotix, which the Robotix are clean out of, hence their travelling there.

In many respects, they're pretty similar to the Granites from Inhumanoids. This isn't surprising; the cartoon was made by the same folks. They had the power to seemingly materialize from nowhere for ambush purposes; I suppose this was a poorly animated way of suggesting they were concealed as piles of rocks and coalescing. Or maybe they could phase intangibly through solid rock. I dunno.

They also proved strong enough to defeat energy-depleted Robotix, and posed a decent threat to full-powered ones at short range, although the Robotix were able to easily defeat them with their powered weaponry.

You might be asking just how the Robotix were able to recharge in order to fight these guys. Well, behold:

That's right, the rock creatures eat the same kind of crystals that Robotix use for energy as food. Oh, and that glowing thing you probably thought was an eye? It's a mouth.

I love these things. Their facelessness and mouths that look like eyes probably would have creeped the heck out of me when I was a kid, but they're awesome now.

-Signing off.

"Come Along On The Grand Adventure!"

(There's probably no way to make my regular readership lower. Only one way to find out, though...)



(In response to the trailer's last statement, and the title of this post) Um, no thank you.

You know, I watched this movie as a kid. But I never, never, even in my wildest and most fever-inspired dreams, actually suspected that it was a theatrical release.

Lots of people express disdain, to put it gently, for the Rock Lords (stronger even than their disdain for Gobots). Little wonder:



(Sad fact: I've got more than half of those toys.) Yes, the Rock Lords get around by climbing hills, turning into rocks, and then rolling down them. (They actually do this in the film.) Yeah, Megatron's useless altmode looks less bad now; at least he changes to a convenient carrying size.
Of course, since they lived on a planet made entirely of rocks, covered in nothing but rocks, they could use their rock forms for camoflage. (Seriously, they did this too. You'd think that the other guys would learn to recognize what all their enemies looked like, but noooo...)

Despite this, I still mostly like the Rock Lords movie. While the Gobots cartoon in general is far inferior to Transformers (even G1), the Rock Lords movie is thoroughly watchable. I mean, it's not like it's super awesome or anything...



...but it's completely tolerable. I mean, the Rock Lords are actually sort of interesting (for some reason I've always really liked the Fossil Lord-the combination of a bone theme and a codgery, hissing voice is pretty unique, especially in a good guy), and while the good guys come out on top, it actually feels like a real (as opposed to a fake) desperate battle. The Gobots are practically (as indicated above) minor cameos for much of the film.

And while the film lacks either Pathfinder or Buggyman, Bugsie is present (and it seems to be his only appearance), so that rather makes up for it.

Failed '80s toy franchise cartoon week is a go.

-Signing off.