Bat-Robô
From Transformers Wiki
- The Bat-Robôs are (possibly) an Autobot subgroup from the Estrela portion of the Generation 1 continuity family.
The mysterious Bat-Robôs have the capability to hit walls and become invincible robots. In that order.
The Bat-Robôs include:
Contents |
Toys
Transformers
- Pick-Up (Bat-Robô, 1986)[1]
- Turbo (Bat-Robô, 1986)
- The Bat-Robô are a pair of molds originally made in Japan with some very complicated origins (see Notes). Estrela licensed the toys to sell in Brazil, and included them as part of their unique Transformers range to fill out the ranks some more.
- The two toys feature a friction-driven motor, which, as part of their gimmick, is used to trigger their transformation. After pulling them back, they drive forward until they hit something with their front bumper, whereupon they spring up into robot mode and then will roll back the other way as a robot.
- Each mold was available in two different color schemes. It is unclear which, if any, coloration is harder to come across than the other; frankly, finding any of these is not exactly easy anymore.
Notes
- The name "Bat-Robô" is based on Portuguese for "crash", "bater" being the verb and "batida" being the noun.
- The Bat-Robô molds have a surprisingly complicated history, having been re-released countless times across numerous toylines all across the world.
- They were originally made in Japan,[2] designed by Masahiro Tao (田尾正弘) of Frex Co., Ltd. (株式会社フレックス)[3] and manufactured by Asahi Tsusho KK (朝日通商 株式会社),[4] otherwise known the Asahi Corporation. After being created in 1984, it seems the designs were shortly thereafter licensed by the Ertl Company in 1985 and sold as Pow-R-Trons in North America, the United Kingdom,[5] and Europe. Ertl's use of the molds included the evil Distroid (grey/black truck) and Fy-Ton (black/grey car) versus the heroic Zoomer (red/black truck), Turboid (yellow/grey car), and "Knight Rider" (black/red car, based on the TV show, possibly only available in the UK and mainland Europe).[6] The design company Frex notes the license agreement with Ertl on its webpage, and says the Pow-R-Trons sold a million units (although it misspells both).[7]
- From there, the Pow-R-Trons were sold in 1985[8] by Fujisho (株式会社不二商) - a sister company or subsidiary of Asahi with a large business as a toy importer[9] - who marketed Ertl's unchanged toys, minus "Knight Rider", as the "Fairlady 300ZX" and "Dattora Turbo"[10] in a short-lived Japanese toyline called Attack Change Machine Powertron (アタックチェンジマシーン パワートロン).[11] As far as can be discerned, Asahi seems to have made the physical toys for Ertl, then had Fujisho put the Ertl stock they were already making into localized packaging for Japan.
- While a 1986 Tokyo Toy Show catalog has the Powertrons being offered by Asahi Tsusho itself in unique decos,[12] all of the samples on the Japanese aftermarket retain Ertl's color schemes, stickers, and copyright stamps, suggesting the toys weren't sold in Japan either before or after Asahi's collaboration with Ertl.
- But the most surprising part? The molds were also released by Glasslite in Brazil in the 1980s as the Crash Tron Blocker and Turborg under the Mutante toyline, one of the country's localization for the GoBots - meaning that yes, within the Brazilian market, these molds were simultaneously Transformers and GoBots!
- To top it all off, the Korean Brave and Transformers licensee Sonokong released several Korean-exclusive Brave toys with the same gimmick and transformation scheme as the Fujisho Powertrons, often in police car decos. It is unknown whether these are directly licensed from Asahi / Fujisho.
- It is uncertain what company Estrela licensed the Bat-Robô molds from, as the only copyright stamps on them are for Estrela itself (which state the toys were physically made in Brazil). In any event, the color schemes Estrela used appear to be unique to South America.
- Due to the lack of faction symbols on the toy or packaging, it is not explicit what faction the Bat-Robô fight for. However, the toys do use Hasbro's Autobot style packaging, so we're going to default to Autobot. (The red Turbo Bat-Robô was used as a Malignus in the Transformers Collectors' Club "Withered Hope" text story, but that was 20 years after the original release...)
External links
References
- ↑ The Bat-Robô were not in Estrela's 1985 catalog, and were only advertised in Brazil's homegrown Transformers comics in issue 11 alongside the Optimus x Malignus toys, suggesting they were a later release.
- ↑ https://www.battlegrip.com/review-pow-r-trons-fy-ton-1985/ The Ertl Power-R-Tron packaging states they were made in Japan
- ↑ https://www.j-platpat.inpit.go.jp/c1800/PU/JP-S61-051893/FC7BD90B47AE8A95735A028C9B03860409B63703B49E7F7D8972A48DCDE299A6/23/en Frex Co., Ltd. patent for the toy that would become the Pow-R-Trons
- ↑ https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/64/52/b2/7b40ee9726bcc8/GB2164263A.pdf Asahi patent for the toy that would become the Pow-R-Trons
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJ5gAjVqgj4
- ↑ https://www.the-liberator.net/site-files/robot-toys/pow-r-trons-powertrons-ertl.htm
- ↑ 1984: ERTEL「POWERTRON」をライセンス契約。全世界100万個を超える販売実績のヒット商品となる。http://www.frextoys.co.jp/company.html
- ↑ https://ameblo.jp/56780-05/entry-12553017556.html
- ↑ Among the brands Fujisho were known to import included LEGO, Fisher-Price, Märklin, and Ravensburger.
- ↑ "Dattora" (ダットラターボ) is a Japanese slang contraction of "DATsun TRuck".
- ↑ https://plaza.rakuten.co.jp/butto/diary/201502260000/
- ↑ "南米展開でトランスフォーマーとなった奴が朝日通商のパワートロンとして発売されてる！？コイツ等、南米でトランスフォーマーになったのいつ頃なんだろう！？ https://t.co/LsCZNe24nH"—kyano13neo, Twitter, 2019/03/25
