Compoboy - The Original Transformer

October 29th, 2005 · No Comments

Alen Yen’s Toybox has an article on an old skool robot that transforms into a stereo set (for those of you wondering, yes it IS a toy):

Compoboy, Product of Popy. It’s not a Chogokin, however. It falls into the same grey area as the Kikou Gattai Dairruger XV. As a matter of fact, it shares a lot of engineering characteristics of that toy.
Compoboy is from Batten Robomaru, which I know absolutely nothing about. Seems to be a weird show along the lines of Robocon. Compoboy looks to be an upgraded version of the DX CompoSensei, which is a darker blue version with a different head. There are some other accessory differences as well, but since I don’t have a CompoSensei for reference, I’ll just have to guess.

So what is compoboy? He’s an old school Hi Fi, straight out of 1982. Back when Reel to Reel was a valid format, tape decks were just getting introduced, and of course vinyl was king. Interestingly, the speakers are tiny; less than half the size of the enormous racks that hold the audio components.

These components are what make up the accessories: Tape decks, reel to reels, turntables, eq’s, amplifiers, VU meters, and more. The reel to reel players can even launch the reels as missiles. There is also a strange, inexplicable feature that involves shoving little strips of white cardboard into the main component of the toy. A hatch opens up to facilitate removing of these strips. It seems like they went to a lot of trouble for the feature, so I’m obviously missing something here.

Sweet toy that the Comic Book Guy inside me (and every geek) is begging me to get.