Macross / Robotech

The Super Dimension Fortress Macross (超時空要塞マクロス Chō Jikū Yōsai Makurosu) is an anime television series. Most of its animation (with edited content and revised dialogue) was adapted outside Japan for the first saga of Robotech. (Wikipedia)

In this category you will find all things related to both Macross and Robotech.

Robotech was one of the first anime released in the United States that largely managed to preserve the complexity and drama of its original Japanese source material. Produced by Harmony Gold USA, Inc. in association with Tatsunoko Prod. Co., Ltd., Robotech is a story adapted with edited content and revised dialogue from the animation of three different mecha anime series: The Super Dimension Fortress Macross, Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross, and Genesis Climber Mospeada. Harmony Gold's cited reasoning for combining these unrelated series was its decision to market Macross for American weekday syndication television, which required a minimum of 65 episodes at the time (thirteen weeks at five episodes per week). Macross and the two other series each had fewer episodes than required since they originally aired in Japan as weekly series.

This combination resulted in a storyline that spans three generations as mankind must fight three destructive Robotech Wars in succession over a powerful energy source called "Protoculture" (Wikipedia).

There have been many different manufacturers of Macross and Robotech merchandise over the years.

The first licensor was Takatoku, who produced the original 1/55 Valkyrie toys, which revolutionized the industry with their “Perfect Transformation” system. Later, Bandai would get the molds and begin to produce new toys of the series. Gakken produced merchandise for the Mospeada series, later to become Robotech the Next Generation.

Meanwhile, Harmony Gold was preparing to license the toys in the USA. The main company producing Robotech toys in the USA during the shows original run was the Matchbox company. They imported some of the smaller mecha, as well as the large SDF-1 battle fortress. Matchbox also created a series of original toys and 3 3/4“ figures, as well as larger dress-up dolls for girls.

After Robotech had all but faded into obscurity, Playmates decided to re-introduce some of the Robotech toys into their Exo-Squad line.

In Japan, Yamato got the license to make an assortment of Macross toys, starting with toys from the anime Macross 7. American distributor Toycom intended on distributing these in the states but could not because of an injunction by Harmony Gold, who claimed they had the sole rights to Robotech in the USA.

After that fiasco, Toycom split and became two companies – Toycom and Yamato USA. Toycom secured the rights to Robotech toys in the USA and has come out with several different toy lines based on the property. Bandai and Yamato remain the primary manufacturers of Macross toys in Japan.