A Look at the Robot Combiners from Tomica Hyper Rescue Drive Head




With the 2018 holiday season officially upon us, now is a great time to talk about toys. For this blog, that usually means robot toys--in this case, a series of robot combiners based on the 2017 anime series Tomica Hyper Rescue Drive Head Kido Kyukyu Keisatsu.

Up until a few weeks ago, I had no idea that Tomica Hyper Rescue Drive Head Kido Kyukyu Keisatsu even existed. I first heard about this line through a review of one of the combiner sets on the CollectionDX site. Since then, I've been looking around to see what the full line has to offer and if you're interested in transforming robot combiner toys, the Drive Head line is something you need to see.

According to Wikipedia, "Tomica Hyper Rescue Drive Head Kido Kyukyu Keisatsu is a Japanese anime television series made to promote Takara Tomy's long-running Tomica toy line of miniature toy cars. ... In the near future, to cope with various incidents and disasters as well as crime, the Mobile Rescue Police developed the Drive Head, which transforms from a vehicle form to the robotic Walker Vehicle form. Go Kurumada, the son of the Drive Head's developer, was discovered to be a suitable driver for Drive Head 01 Sonic Interceptor. He and the other children who were selected must bravely stand up to face incidents and disasters."


The Tomica Hyper Rescue Drive Head Kido Kyukyu Keisatsu anime series.


The way the Drive Head toys work is that a Tomica-scaled rescue / emergency vehicle combines with support vehicles to form giant robot mechs with different capabilities. The selection of support vehicles includes jets, helicopters, and semi-sized transportation vehicles. The transformations and combinations are very modular in nature, so parts can be removed and rearranged in a variety of ways to assemble different mechs. Regardless of how the vehicles and their components are combined with each other, the Tomica vehicle provides the head of the mech.

The general concept behind Drive Head sort of reminds me of the Headmasters, a series of Transformers toys where the head of the robot transforms into a smaller robot, which then serves as the pilot/driver/rider of the larger robot whenever it is in its vehicle/beast mode. However, the overall aesthetics of Drive Head really evokes the Machine Robo line, particularly its Machine Robo Rescue (MRR) series. Like Drive Head, MRR consisted of transforming robot combiner sets that were modeled after rescue/emergency vehicles and included sets of support vehicles that could also transform into robots. Furthermore, the original Tomica vehicle toys are very similar to Matchbox and Hot Wheels vehicle toys in the U.S.--namely, miniature diecast replicas of cars, trucks, and so forth. As such, making small, diecast vehicles as the centerpiece of a transforming robot toy line is very reminiscent of Machine Robo's original MR-600 series.

I did some additional research online and it appears that the Drive Head line is an extension of a previous line called the Tomica Hyper Series. From what I could find, the Tomica Hyper Series vehicles can also combine with different vehicles and can transform into robots, although I don't know if the Tomica Hyper Series vehicles and sets are compatible with the Drive Head vehicles and sets.


A police car/mech combiner set from the Tomica Hyper Series.


From what I've seen of pictures and demonstration videos on YouTube, the Drive Head line of robot toys look like a lot of fun and a great buy for both kids and collectors alike. Below are some pictures of the different Drive Head vehicle sets, and some of the episodes of the Tomica Hyper Rescue Drive Head Kido Kyukyu Keisatsu anime are still available on YouTube. You can also check out the Tomica wiki for more information about the Drive Head series.

















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