If you are reading this blog, you probably share my love affair with toys. They come from so many places in the world. Movies, comics, video games, anime, and the list goes on. It is not often when one of the toy lines covers many areas that I love.
In this case, these toys cover my love affairs with cars, animation, Pixar, Japan, and really well made toys. I am talking about the Cars Toon series based on the short film, Tokyo Mater. Now this is one series of short films that makes me laugh. I cannot get enough of them. One of my favorites was Tokyo Mater. Looking more like something from Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, this brought us into the Cars tuner world like nothing else. Early on in the Cars movie, Boost, Snot Rod, Wingo and DJ were the culprits who got Lightning in trouble in the small town, by playing with Mack, his transport.
Even then I know Pixar was onto something with the cars blowing beautiful flames of different colors. Then with Tokyo Mater, we got to see what it was like in the car’s version of Tokyo. Boy was it bright and fun.
Kabuto was the leader of the street racing scene, being outfitted with everything a drift car could want. Facing off against the loudmouthed Mater, the looser will be… stripped to stock. Oh no, not stock! I am looking for the stock version of Kabuto.
One of the great things about the Cars line is the retooling of the cars. Kabuto is apparently the same model car as Boost. But there are a lot of differences that really make them stand apart. Fins, eyes, mouths, subtle body changes. Unlike many toy lines where characters are just repainted to create a “new” character, they are taking it to a new level and creating a similar character, but not really the same.
They went all out in the line for Tokyo Mater. There are a lot of characters showing up that were only in the crowd. I think they created such great vehicles for the story that it was easy to see them getting translated into the toys. I have been hearing rumors that we are going to get to see more of the Tokyo cast in Cars 2 when it comes out this summer. Since Lightning and Mater are going to be traveling the world, we are going to get to see a great big world… not to mention some great explosions.
I can’t wait. 🙂
My Life in Scale 