Machine Robo (fiction)

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The Machine Robo (マシンロボ Mashin Robo) franchise was the first iteration of Machine Robo, running from 1982 to 1986.

The fiction for the franchise was disseminated in three main ways - a storyline told intermittently through text in toy catalogues; stop-motion and animated segments on toy commercials and manga strips and story pages in TV Land, a popular children's magazine. Two distinct iterations of the Machine Robo ethos were used by Popy and later Bandai.

1982[edit | edit source]

The first began in March 1982, when the first material was published in the March 1982 edition of TV Land.

Backstory[edit | edit source]

The Machine Robo's human ally Takeru Akiba.

3.2 billion years ago Earth was populated by a hugely advanced species who came under attack from the vicious Dogra aliens. Only 182 of their people survived the attack, and they spent many years wandering before settling on Romulos, the eighth planet of the Vega Nebula. There they rebuilt their civilisation while always keeping an eye on Earth. They had left seven capsules of powerful white matter on the planet, which eventually came to the notice of the Dogra. In order to protect Earth from a second Dogra attack they sent the highly advanced Machine Robo to defend it. They rapidly made an ally in the 17-year old computer engineer Takeru Akiba, who worked with them against the invaders, utilising his supercomputer Buddy.

Use[edit | edit source]

An example of an instructions manual strip, featuring Shinkansen Robo.

This version of the story was used for the TV Land stories, some stop-motion commercials (though most were abstract) and the instruction leaflets for the toys in the range, which showed the figures' conversions in a brief narrative fashion - usually along the lines of their vehicle mode coming under attack from a Dogra, causing them to change to robot mode and destroy it. As no toys of the Dogra were made they were presented as a series of oversized mechanical monsters and insects. It remained in use when the line switched from Popy to Bandai as the change in manufacturers was a nominal formality.

1985[edit | edit source]

In response to the release of the Devil Invaders, the Machine Robo mythos was rebooted.

Backstory[edit | edit source]

In this version, Romulos was a peaceful Earth-like planet in the Cygnus constellation, with a highly advanced society thanks to the discovery of Ionoid and Romtron energy. This allowed the Machine Robo dwelling there to convert into vehicles and grow up to 600 times their original size. However, their civilisation was wrecked by the unexpectedly rapid collapse of the system's star, becoming a black hole that distorted the entire area. This killed most of the population, with the survivors escaping. However, some were dragged into the black hole and found themselves in the Casmozone - a completely different dimension, containing the Devil Planet. Those trapped there had to evolve massively in order to simply survive, and were left with a huge thirst for energy as a result - being transformed into the Devil Invaders. After wandering the universe for centuries, the Machine Robo who managed to avoid the black hole settled on Earth, where they formed an alliance with the humans.

Toy artwork of Jet Robo battling Falgos.

However, the appearance of Stargates between the dimensions disrupted this peace, as the Devil Invaders were able to predict their seemingly random openings and used them to attack both mankind and the Machine Robo. In order to prevent a damaging battle taking place on Earth the Machine Robo built the Techno Planet with help from their human allies. From here they were able to use Warp Delta technology to rapidly respond to any Devil Invader attacks, with the artificial planet, packed with energy facilities, also intended to draw the Devil Invaders away from Earth.

Use[edit | edit source]

This revised version of the storyline took over in the pages of TV Land and was referred to in several commercials, as well as a promotional video for Machine Robo produced by Studio Pierrot. It was then superseded by the all-new Machine Robo: Revenge of Cronos, which was the first Machine Robo cartoon, in 1986.


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