Astro Myu, or Astro Mu – depending on who you ask, is hands down one of the most obscure toy lines to have ever been produced. It was a short lived in-house design series from the Nakajima brand around 1974-75. After some commercial success producing mostly Tatsunoko Production’s licensed merchandise, Nakajima branched out on their own to release original property concepts. Most notable being the Astro Myu-5 line.

The bodies are made by injection molding, and are this very hard translucent tinted polystyrene like material. The long posts in the abdominal region, combined with the material they are made of shrinking and expanding over time, often accompanied by over-tightened hardware, usually results in stress fracture marks at the least, and sadly with broken bodies being even more common. Making this one of the most difficult lines to find in “museum” quality.

The rarity of these toys is from the shear cruelty of their very intentional design flaws, and unintentional rejection from toy buyers at their release time in Japan. This results in very few existing specimens due to constant breaking, and that just not very many were produced, bought and preserved.

In spite of this, even with damage and missing parts, they are regarded as case study design and color theory examples. While they may not have had the most durable engineering per materials used for the torso, the almost ludicrous amounts of colors and details used allow even severely damaged pieces to retain remarkable value. This is combined with very durable Japanese soft vinyl limbs, and outer accessory layers, an internal mechanism that allows for a unique type of play: the “Yes / No” doll. Commonly referred to as “Nodder” toys, Japanese translation quite literally refers to them as “Yes No” Toys. Pushing on the front button nods the head up-and -down, or “yes”. The rear button is a side-to-side motion, with the resulting “no”.

There is a tremendous amount of appeal in scale, color, form, and overall design. They are sheer beauty and vanity in excess. The 10 inch or so figures, are filled with a “skeletal” like set of metallic pipe cleaners. A design aesthetic from Popy toys “Henshin” character lines, meant to depict a cyborg skeletal system. While at first glance it seems cheap, the metallic sparkle and kitsch of it is undeniably clever and fitting.