Packages
There were two versions
of Microman Speed Jumper - a red and a blue one. The packages were the
same for both with just a small circle on the left side of the box
denoted the color of toy inside.
Unreleased Toys
Here are the pictures of unreleased
toys from 1979 Takara dealer catalog.
Build Hoist
Build Laser
Build Droid (top) and Speed Laser
(bottom)
The Build Series toys were probably
meant to be part of the Build Crane, Build Bazooka and Build Lancer. (A
Build toy for each of the remaining three Police Keeper members)
And Speed Laser was probably a
companion piece to Speed Jumper.
These toys were never produced most
likely because of low demand (i.e. orders) from dealers due to the
declining popularity of Microman line.
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Microman Speed Jumper was the only friction
vehicle released by Takara for Microman Police Keeper series. Takara
originally planed to release this vehicle along with its companion piece
call Speed Laser (a cycle) for MicroHoodman series, however, because of
declining Microman popularity several of the propose toys were cancel.
(Among them were Build Droid, Build Hoist, Build Laser and RCB Noah) The
Speed Jumper ended up being release for Microman Police Keeper.
Red and blue Microman Police Keeper
Speed Jumper. Interestingly, they started out as MicroHoodman toys in
the early dealer soliciting catalog.
Speed Jumper was a pretty basic Microman
style drag car along the line of the Cosmo Series with automatic ejection seat gimmick. The front of Speed Jumper had small button
which when hit a wall would eject the seat of the car (via tension loaded
metal bar). While this would seems like a strange thing to do to
a Microman, there actually was reason behind it. The toy was design
for MicroHoodman originally and their Hood gear actually would provide the
"ejected" figure with protection. The idea was to eject the
Hoodman who would still be protected by their Hood armor and perhaps
launched them into Arden. (Hoodman Hans did this in Microman manga
where he loaded himself into Robot Machine Z Cannon and had Akira fired him
a la human cannon ball at President Acroyear) The cancel Speed Laser
bike was also design along the same concept. MicroHoodman would lay
face down on the tricycle with their Hood acted as a ramming device.
Speed Jumper ejected its driver
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