Yonezawa's Space Explorer is the grand-daddy of dozens of robots with the same name....

This lovely tin plate/plastic battery operated toy begins it's operational sequence as a rectangular TV red box, then rises up,his head pops-out with the two green eyes flashing, his torso rises up freeing his legs to do a lumbering shuffle.Then the gold and black checkered screen lowers down revealing a 3-dimensional space scene with a menacing astronaut in the controls....Trully fascinating !

Unfortunately most of the Space Explorers found today don't work, because their heavy bodies have stripped some of their internal gears.

There are 3 variants known : grey/black,red,and a tooling-altered rarer version with a secondary on/off switch on head

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A few toys can boast such clever and progressive operational skills,placing Yonezawa's Space Explorer at the top of Japanese toy designing.