Diaclone - Microman Synergy and the rise of The Transformers. (by Paul L. and Bryan W.)

From the beginning, it was obvious that there was some kind of connection between the, then, Takara new Diaclone line and the relaunch 1981 Microman series. The recent research by my good friend Bryan uncovered these hidden synergy of the two line that ultimately became the Transformers. It all began in the late 1970's when Takara hold of sci-fi market was slipping.  Microman popularity peaked in 1977 and had since then been on steady declined since.  By 1980, Takara decided on new marketing strategy to take on the die-cast robot toys market dominated by the like of Popy. Takara planed was essentially to split their sci-fi series into two "scale" of toy lines. The action-figures line was left to the newly revamped Microman series called the "New Microman". The new Microman pretty much took the concept started with the 1979-1980 series and expanded it further. The new line now focus on Microman size  transforming robots and armored-suit that interact with the Microman scale figures. (Microman still retained their 1:1 scale).  While Microman line tackled the action-figures market, the new line called Diaclone was to take on the "giant robot" sector.  Diaclone too began as a concept expanded from the Microman toys.  By 1980, Takara already attempted to enter the giant robot market by introducing toy like Death King but this was not entirely successful due mainly to the fact that Microman at its core was still an action-figure line. So instead of introducing giant robot into Microman line, Takara stared with a new series that centered around giant robots. Diaclone shared much of the basis of late Microman design but the series was done on 1/60 scale with the "action-figure" only about an inch tall.  The focus of this line was of course on the giant bases and vehicles that could transform into robot for these miniature figure. (The figure had chrome head and magnetic feet and look much like a micro-scale Punch Microman). Diaclone was pretty much a Micropolis-realized something that Takara had long wanted to do for Microman but could not due to size. The robot and based literally formed a sci-fi world for these Diaclone figures.  The figures in Diaclone became the "accessory" instead of the main focus.

By early 1980's, both the toys and anime world were fast changing with the introducing of realistic robots with shows like Gundam and later Macross taking over the super-robot series. Takara designers seized on this "real" concept and spin it into their sci-fi lines. This was something that Takara seem to always excel at, taking the popular concept and adapted them to their line. Before 1983, most of the Diaclone and Microman toys featured futuristic designs, but that was all changed with the introduction of two new series - "Car Robot" for the Diaclone and "Micro Change" for the Microman.  The "Car Robot" featured realistic looking cars that could transformed into robots for the Diaclone pilot while the "Micro Change" (also known as Chameleon Good) featured realistic object that transformed into robots and vehicles that interacted with the Microman figures. These two new line were dubbed the "Real & Robot" line - a combination of "real" world object with the fictional "robot".  The "Real & Robot" would flourished for couple of years until Hasbro (a US toy company) took these two "Real & Robot" lines and combined them together and gave them a whole new story called "The Transformers" for the US market.  The new series proved immensely successful and Takara decided to imported the idea back to Japan.  It was quite ironic that Hasbro accomplished what Takara had been trying to do since the day of the Victory Project - a unify single line for all of their main sci-fi toys. To be fair, Hasbro did have one big advantage over Takara, it was able to start from scratch with new story something Takara could not do with their already establish brand.  This new "victory" for Takara however did not come without a cost.  With the successful fusion of the two lines under "The Transformers" banner, it was no longer necessary for Takara to keep neither the Microman nor the Diaclone line going.  By 1985, both line were canceled and replaced with the new single sci-fi line called "Fight Super Robot Life-form Transformers".