Horikawa New Action Toy Super Television Robot with Original Illustrated Box, Showa Period Space Age, 29 cm

A television screen fills almost the entire chest of this Horikawa robot, beneath twin circular optical eyes and a deeply ribbed mechanical crown. Standing about 29 cm tall and accompanied by its original illustrated box, it fuses two symbols of the postwar future: the intelligent machine and the electronic image.

The Piece

The Super Television Robot combines Space Age imagination, television culture and mechanical toy design in one wonderfully eccentric machine. Rather than disguising its technology beneath a human form, it celebrates machinery: twin circular optical eyes project from beneath a deeply ribbed crown, small metallic terminals rise from either side of the head like radio or scientific equipment, and the torso becomes a dark cabinet for a recessed television-style screen with small control details beneath. Black bodywork and metallic details are grounded by deep red feet.

A compact neck leads into broad mechanical shoulders with circular housings, and long dark arms descend beside the rectangular torso. Viewed across a room the design reduces to a vocabulary of industrial geometry, circle, rectangle, cylinder, screen, machine, which gives it extraordinary graphic presence. It is not a robot attempting to resemble a person but an imagined appliance that has learned to walk.

Created in an era when television, automation and space exploration were altering perceptions of the future, Japanese robot toys translated new technologies into fantastic mechanical characters for the home. Television was then an astonishing object, a luminous window onto distant events and imagined worlds, while satellites, rockets and space exploration expanded the boundaries of popular imagination. By placing a screen inside the body, the designer fused the robot with the television age itself.

Horikawa occupies an important position in the history of Japanese mechanical and battery-operated robot toys, its designs exploring movement, illumination, sound and mechanical spectacle through the visual language of electronics, space travel and futuristic machinery. Television-screen robots are among its most memorable expressions, turning the torso into a stage, and Horikawa television robots are today represented in institutional and specialist collections as artifacts of Japanese industrial design and twentieth-century popular culture.

The original carton is part of the collectible. A predominantly black field evokes outer space, with vivid blue, white, red and yellow graphics placing the illustrated robot among stars, planets, orbital imagery and rocky extraterrestrial terrain. The packaging established the machine’s world before it ever left the box; robot and carton together preserve a concentrated vision of the technological future as it was once imagined in Japan.

Details

• Maker: Horikawa, Japan
• Model: Super Television Robot, “New Action Toy”
• Era: Showa period
• Origin: Japan
• Material: Mixed metal and molded components, painted, with mechanical and electrical elements
• Color: Black body with metallic details and red feet
• Measurements: Approx. H 29 × W 14 × D 11 cm (H 11.4 × W 5.5 × D 4.3 in)
• Included: Original printed and illustrated cardboard box
• Function: Untested

Condition

• Authentic age-related condition, retaining the surface character of decades of existence; presented and valued primarily as a display collectible with its original packaging.
• The robot shows scratches, rubbing, surface marks, oxidation, areas of rust and other wear associated with age and previous use or storage.
• The battery compartment has an area of material loss resulting in a hole.
• The original illustrated box shows substantial age-related character, including tears, staining and soiling, abrasion, edge and corner wear, deformation and general structural wear.
• Electrical and mechanical functions are untested and are not included in the condition representation.
• A surviving vintage example rather than a modern reproduction; the photographs form the complete visual record of condition.

Authenticity & Care

Presented as the Horikawa “New Action Toy” Super Television Robot of the Showa period, accompanied by its original illustrated carton; functions are untested. Every piece is examined and documented in Japan before dispatch and is offered with the Japonista authenticity guarantee.

Delivery from Japan

Packed by hand in Japan and shipped insured and tracked by EMS or an equivalent express service. Import duties and taxes, where applicable, are payable on arrival. Returns follow our published policy.

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