Popy - Outside Japan

Outside Japan

Popy designs were used in a variety of lines outside of Japan, usually without the company’s name being used. In the late 1970s, Mattel had licensed a selection of figures for their Shogun Warriors range with qualified success. Bandai’s American and European arms distributed a number of figures under the brand name Godaikin (with the latter later using Robo Machine umbrella) in the early 1980s. In 1983, Tonka licensed Machine Robo designs for their Gobots franchise – most of the major characters such as Cy-Kill, Turbo and Fitor were based on Popy designs. Perhaps the best known 1980s export of Popy was World Events Productions’ Voltron series, which used the Popy figures Golion, Dairugger XV and Arbegas as the Lion, Vehicle and Gladiator Voltrons respectively.