Apr 22, 2019
Glidoler "No Name" Robo Strux Mailaway [Sealed] - Tomy
AKA Zoids.
seen from Singapore
seen from Malaysia
seen from Singapore
seen from Finland
seen from Türkiye
seen from France
seen from T1
seen from China
seen from Türkiye
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Russia
seen from France
seen from Russia
seen from China
seen from Saudi Arabia
seen from China
seen from Slovakia
seen from Romania
seen from Angola
Glidoler "No Name" Robo Strux Mailaway [Sealed] - Tomy
AKA Zoids.
Here’s a real prize from the closet - Tomy’s Robo Strux was one of several abortive attempts to bring the Zoids franchise toys over to America. In the 80s a ton of stuff came out with only the designs licensed, separated from their original context - most of which never caught on except for a few stand-outs like Transformers.
Anyway, this big guy is sweet; he actually walks pretty well, if slowly, and some of the guns swivel. Also probably one of the first big robot-type things I put together from parts, so maybe I can partly blame this for my current Gunpla addiction...
Robo Strux - a commercial!
Zoids came and went in the USA pretty quickly in the early 1980s, although the Mammoth stuck around Radio Shack for a while. In 1985, Tomy put out recolored (and restickered) kits in the USA for reasons I don’t understand. Why change the colors for all-new-to-us toys?
I had three of these as a kid - Brox, Slithor, and Brutox. Since they were “models” I took extraordinary care of them, storing them in a dark drawer so dust and light couldn’t get to them. When I was 6. (This is where toy crazy starts.) They were simple little things requiring minimal assembly, but they were a great first model kit-meets-action toy. Sadly Tomy neglected to really incorporate what made most 1980s toys successful - story. Hasbro (with help from Marvel) really nailed this with Transformers and G.I. Joe, and of course Mattel’s He-Man tales are the stuff of legends both real and imagined. There’s a real magic in here, and few toy lines from this era succeeded without a successful television program and overblown media campaign.
Dinosaurs loomed large over the 1980s in wonderful, fantastical forms. Zoids and Robo Strux gave us war machines - with pilots. Dino-Riders gave us actual dinosaurs in armor. Transformers offered up the Dinobots, robotic creatures which changed shape to dinosaurs. Dinosaucers died on the vine, although some toys were released outside the USA the full Galoob toy line never made it out here - the TV show did, though. Dinosaurs also made appearances in numerous other lines - He-Man had Bionatops and other steeds, the Ninja Turtles fought Triceratron, and in Japan the Battle Beasts (Beastformers) had a few dinos as well - now expensive holy grails which I sadly do not have.
For whatever reason it seems dinosaurs dropped the fantastical war element in the 1990s and 2000s, with either realistic or cute takes on the ancient beasts lacking much in the way of action features until Imaginext pretty much remade Dino-Riders. And of course Tomy brought back Zoids via Hasbro as both Techno Zoids and Zoids. And then there were the Power Rangers too, with their Zords. So there were some, but not enough for my liking.
If you’re inclined to purchase toys, I’d strongly suggest trolling eBay for the lowest-priced Zoids or RoboStrux kits (with wind-up motors) you can find. They’re neat, fun, and some are cheap. New Masterpiece Edition toys are coming shortly - I pre-ordered both, and I am sure I will regret this.