It feels a little reductive to just call ARTMIC an “animation studio,” or even an “animation design studio” because their work stretched beyond the direct-to-video animation titles we most often associate with them. The design skill of their staff were often requested for a variety of projects—ranging from PC commercials to logo design—and such was the case when Takatoku Toys came knocking.
Takatoku is best known by overseas fans as the company that created arguably the greatest transforming toy ever made: the Takatoku 1/55 VF-1 from Super Dimension Fortress Macross. Plastic models may have dominated during the early ‘80s gunpla boom but Takatoku attempted to stay in the game with toy lines based on Macross, Orguss, Sasuraiger, and finally, Dorvack. Before closing their doors in 1984 one of the last toy lines they produced was Armored Insect Corps Beetras, an original toy series not based on an existing anime series but featuring mechanical designs by—you guessed it—ARTMIC.
Specifically, designs by Shinji Aramaki. In an interview with Matt Alt, Aramaki described the origins of the project saying, “A toy company called Takatoku approached Artmic and asked if we had any interesting designs that they could merchandise. We asked them if they were interested in something insect-themed. They liked it and asked us to go with it. I designed them.” While the toy line from Takatoku would only contain three toys (with more designed but never released), additional merchandising came in the form of model kits by Imai and cheaper tie-ins like a coloring book and a short-lived comic.
Aramaki was apparently inspired a bit by Takara’s earlier Insect Robo toys, or perhaps inspired to do better than them, because those toys, as he put it, “don’t really look like insects.” What started off as a bit of one-upmanship by mechanical designers (Aramaki also did work for Takara on Diaclone) took a turn for the ironic when both Insect Robo and Beetras toys found their way into Hasbro’s Transformers toy line overseas.
The full potential of Beetras was never realized, no doubt because of Takatoku’s waning fortunes and impending closure. While the company going out of business meant that many of their molds would end up in the hands of their larger competitor Bandai (who continued on with the 1/55 VF-1 series with new designs for the 1984 film Do You Remember Love? and later licensed them to Hasbro for Transformers), it also left the toy line incomplete. At least a couple of designs were finished but never released. A TV commercial—the closest thing Beetras would get to a proper anime—was storyboarded but never completed. And there are hints that there was even more.
In what has become a bit of fandom legend, friend of this site Roger Harkavy literally stumbled across a few boxes of unused mechanical designs that once belonged to Imai. He’d later dub these the “Imai Files,” as they were packed full of mechanical designs for ARTMIC’s Genesis Climber Mospeada and Tatsunoko’s Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross that went unrealized when both shows were cancelled prematurely. Roger was able to preserve the unused designs for these shows and they later showed up in Udon’s Robotech Visual Guide book series, but he also has said alongside the boxes of Mospeada and Southern Cross artwork there was one for Beetras. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to make scans of those designs and the collection is now believed to have been sold.
The unfinished Beetras commercial was documented in the ARTMIC Design Works book, which reproduced some of the storyboards and designs created for it. The character designs for the commercial were handled by Shinichi Kuruma, an ARTMIC employee who had worked on Mospeada but later became a manga artist and member of the design studio Strawberry House. Founded by lolicon artist Usagi Morino (one of the founders of the group Studio Awake, best known for creating the opening animation for Uracon III), Strawberry House did design work for sentai series like Hikari Sentai Maskman and Choujyu Sentai Liveman.
Confusingly, Kuruma wasn’t responsible for the six chapter Beetras manga series that ran in Terebi-kun magazine, because that was illustrated by animator-turned-mangaka Gaku Miyao.1 Miyao worked on designs and animation for Megazone 23 but may be best known for creating Devil Hunter Yohko. More recently, he contributed an original comic to the AnimEigo blu-ray of Megazone 23.
ARTMIC seemed to never really find its footing during the giant robot boom of the early ‘80s, with only one TV series making it to broadcast despite heaps of projects and ideas. The staff at ARTMIC were unquestionably talented and it speaks to the challenges of a small design studio operating in a challenging industry. Beetras isn’t quite anime—but it’s unquestionably related—and remains yet another case of “what could have been” from the design studio in Kichijoji.
Zimmerit’s ARTMIC Fan Book is still available for purchase on garagekit.club.
Further Reading
- Insect Art: Transformers and Other Insect Media
- Beetras website [Japanese]
- Beetras Collection Blog Post [Japanese]
Notes
- It didn’t last long, running from March to August 1984. [Source]