Kabaya

Kabaya Foods Corporation (カバヤ食品 Kabaya Syokuhin) is a Japanese confectionery company. In business at least since the 1960s, they are well known for their candy toys: a variety of figurines, model kits and other widgets that come packaged with a variety of different candies and gums. And they make a lot of them, with boy-oriented products alone ranging from plastic dinosaur kits to a broad variety of LEGO properties to Transformers toys and model kits.

Kabaya's relationship with Transformers began in the Generation 1 era, when they consistently produced figures and model kits of various size from 1985 to 1990. The dawn of Beast Wars saw the relationship reignite, and continue through the Unicron Trilogy, with Generation 1 themed products still being released today.

Generation 1

Classic products Jigsaw Puzzle Transformers Choco Transformers Gum Transformers Milk Caramel Transformers Ramune Parody Deformed

Modern products Transformers Wafer Choco Generation 1 Figure-Collection Transformers Gum (2009 series) Gaiacross Gaia Guardian Gaia Scramble Transformers D-Collection Transformers Block Wars

Kabaya is best known for their snap-together model kits, which were released in two separate series: the small-scale, single-color Transformers Choco, and the larger, multi-coloured Transformers Gum series, the latter being the premiere line for which Kabaya is most widely recognised. Both types of kit were fully transformable, but the Gum kits went the extra mile by preserving many of the gimmicks from the original toys they were based on.

Kabaya also released a variety of soft rubber figures (similar to the Decoys, a type of figure known as keshigomu in Japan) through their Transformers Caramel and Transformers Ramune lines; Ramune was also home to a variety of other candy toys, including PVC figurines and keychains.

When Generation 1 surged in popularity in the early 21st century, Kabaya got in on the nostalgia act with a series of "bottlecap" figurines. Later, they revived Transformers Gum to celebrate various eras of the Generation 1 franchise, spinning it off into a separate lines of candy toy models dedicated to new characters.

Beast Era

Beast Wars Beast Wars Gum Part 1 Beast Wars DX Gum Part 1 Beast Wars Gummy Beast Wars Choco Beast Wars Ramune Ju-C

Beast Wars II Beast Wars Gum Part 2 & 3 Beast Wars DX Gum Part 2 & 3 Super Beast Wars Choco Part 1 Beast Wars Ramune W Beast Wars II Choco Beast Wars II Holder Beast Fighters

Beast Wars Neo Beast Wars Gum Part 4 Super Beast Wars Choco Part 2 Beast Wars Selection Ramune Beast Battler Beast Wars Model Choco

Beast Wars Metals Transmetals Dash!! Choco Metals Hero Ramune Metallic Beast Ramune Hyper Beast Wars Choco

The formula employed during Generation 1 was faithfully replicated during the Beast Era, with the assorted Gum and Choco lines offering variously-sized model kits. Later waves of the Gum series along with the numerous Ramune lines offered fully-painted PVC figurines, while the Beast Fighters and Beast Battler lines took things in a super deformed direction.

Car Robots

• Ju-C
• Transformers DX
• Transformers Gum
• Trans Kit

The three lines produced for Car Robots were all quite small, with only the Transformers DX figures being capable of transformation.

Unicron Trilogy

Legends of the Microns Big Transformers Transformers Mini Car Collection Change Micron Transformers Card Transformers Wafer Choco

Super Link Jigsaw Puzzle DX Transformers Transformers Hyper Transformers

Galaxy Force Micron Galaxy Hyper Galaxy Blockformers Change Galaxy

Model kits were fully abandoned for the Unicron Trilogy product line, in favor of a wide variety of transforming miniature figures, and PVC figurines.

Adventure

• Transformers Adventure Gum

Notes

• This is actually the most extensive English-language article about Kabaya Foods on the internet, sadly.

External links

• Kabaya homepage (Japanese)
• Checklist and gallery of Kabaya Transformer kits
• Kabaya at Wikipedia