TV Land
TV Land was a Japanese children's magazine published between 1973 and 1997. It was published by Tokuma Shoten; the initial publication was in partnership with Toei. As the name suggests it was largely based on TV shows aimed at children, particularly the Kamen Rider and Super Sentai franchises as well many of the biggest cartoons of the time, including Spaceship Yamato, Mazinger Z, Cutie Honey, Getter Robo, Captain Harlock, Lupin III and many more. As such it had a tremendous reach to children and was the ideal tool for Popy and later Bandai to reach their primary demographic for the Machine Robo toys.
Machine Robo, 1982-1986[edit | edit source]
Machine Robo first appeared in the March 1982 edition of TV Land, promoting the first toys which would come out the following month, and it was one of the main sources of media for the length of the original Machine Robo franchise, featuring manga comics, story pages alongside news and information on the toys - even including inserts like the Machine Robo Book.
Machine Robo returns, 1988[edit | edit source]
With the beginning of Machine Robo: Revenge of Cronos in 1986 the franchise ended its' association with TV Land, instead switching to TV-Kun - possibly as a result of the new cartoon being made by Ashi Productions, a competitor of Toei. After the second and final 1980s Machine Robo cartoon, Battle Hackers, was cancelled the franchise again returned to the pages of TV Land for material mainly focused on the Winner Robo.
