Thanks to Tama for this bit of information about the "Generation One" Shockwave toy, who had a short Q&A with ToyCo who was a vendor at Tokyo Toy Show 2008 "At Tokyo Toy Show 2008, I discovered the booth of ToyCo, who primarily manufactures model cars now, was the company that originally developed the "Astro Magnum" toy a quarter of a century before the original "G1" Transformers which was developed into the character Laser Wave." Read the Full News Story Here

Shockwave was a pretty cool toy. Although I've only seen reviews of him, he still looks awsome. I thought that RadioShack owned the mold and just didn't want to let Takara/Hasbro use it.

Good info, thanks, there's a little typing error about the 25 years span "a quarter of a century before the original "G1" Transformers which was developed into the character Laser Wave", maybe a missing comma, anyway, this is not misleading because we all know

Shockwave was a pretty cool toy. Although I've only seen reviews of him, he still looks awsome. I thought that RadioShack owned the mold and just didn't want to let Takara/Hasbro use it.

 

I dont think so they just had an exclusive colour pre-transformers

 

any ways it seems like Hasbro/Takaratomy could make a reissue similar to how they did sound wave... if theirs demand

I am curious to know about Toyco. I wonder who they got to do the tooling of Astomagnum? I know that Studio Nue was tapped for some of the diaclone toys and microchange toys like perceptor. I met the toy designer of perceptor at Botcon this year. For those of you who dont know, one of the employees at Studio Nue, was Shoji Kawamori. He designed the original Battle Convoy toy. He is also the creator of everything Macross.

 

A friend of mine pointed out uncanny similarities in Astromagnum's tooling to Takatoku's 1/55 Macross valkyries.

 

 

Carefully look at Shockwave's leg. The Silver/grey panel and look at the panel lines.

 

Then look at this Bandai 1/55 elintseeker, based off of the takatoku mold. Look at the leg panel

 

Now look at Shockwave's upper arm/bicep area.

 

And look at the elintseeker's arm.

 

Not only are they similar, the ratcheting design in the arm is similar to the 1/55 toy technology.

 

I dont think it just a coincidence. unless one company blatantly ripped off designs from the other.

they could easily do a new mold if someone was willing to send them their old one in to take apart and cast a new one.

they could easily do a new mold if someone was willing to send them their old one in to take apart and cast a new one.

 

I think if they really want to reissue the toy they could spring for a few beaters off ebay

recasting off a product is a recipie for disaster. Now if they had the original pieces they made the molds from...

recasting off a product is a recipie for disaster. Now if they had the original pieces they made the molds from...

 

hey thats how they made sound wave again