Japan had a series of 12” G. I. Joes running from the 1970s-1990s. This particular series was titled “Combat Joes.” Now Japan had a very intriguing concept compared to their Western counterparts. In the West, they focused on themes of violence or adventure where Japan did some commissioning. Combat Joes had a huge variety of characters you would have never noticed unless you were into Japanese animation / anime.
Now a good chunk of these characters came from the studio Tatsunoko. Most people do not realize that they already know Tatsunoko, even with little experience with Japan. Tatsunoko is the company that brought us: Speed Racer, Battle of the Planets, Polomar, Casshen, Karas, etc. It is actually one of Japan’s most famous animation studios and they celebrated their 50th anniversary recently.
The company that licensed G. I. Joe in Japan, just so happens to be Takara. They were making anime based characters from the late 1970s-the mid 1990s. This being the case, it brings up the whole, “did Hasbro notice Takara because of Transformers” argument. In reality, Hasbro already had dealings with them in their G. I. Joe line, so it was pretty logical that they would use that connection to start a new franchise, which became Transformers.
Now Combat Joe did make other Joes besides the Tatsunoko anime characters. They made a Godzilla suit guy too! He is a 12” joe that fits inside of a Godzilla costume. Now they had two different versions of this toy but I only included one. It is a beautiful toy and comes with a nice decorated box too. They also made a miniature sports line up too with anime like faces. They had a baseball Combat Joe for instance as well as a boxer. Now these sports were extremely popular in Japan and sold like hot cakes.
We hope you enjoyed your view into the history of G. I. Joe! Come back again for another history lesson some time.
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