Hyper Blue Police Carrier Runner
Review by siningy
Josh’s Tomica Hyper City Storm Runner review in 2012 got me really interested in the US Hyper City Rescue releases and while I was able to track down a few sets, the coolest Tomica Hyper Rescue sets never came to the US. While looking for Tomica on craigslist, I found a nice lady who was selling a Hyper Blue Police Carrier Runner for her son and was trusting enough to accept paypal and mail it to me. While the Carrier Runner had many missing and uneven stickers, I was happy to finally grab one at a great price.
Like the Storm Runner, the Carrier Runner is actually part of the “Runner” line of Hyper Blue Police vehicles, with the Super Sonic Runner as number 1, Carrier Runner 2, and Storm Runner 3. As the name suggest, the Carrier Runner is a large transport truck capable of carrying eight Tomica scaled vehicles. Four vehicles are stored on top while another four are stored inside and can be launched using the Carrier Runner’s firing gimmick.
The roof of the trailer holds four cars and simply slides out to become a ramp for deployment. To launch the other four cars inside the trailer feature, the internal tray must rotate and slide to the right. The gate is then lifted and turning the handle on the left of the trailer will kick in a gear that automatically slides the platform towards to the left. A spring firing mechanism inside then launches each car out of the trailer as it passes the internal trailer ramp. Two smaller ramps, one that pulls out the rear of the trailer and another that flips out inside the trailer allow the cars to launch smoothly.
The two cannons on top of the trailer can be removed and rearranged in various ways using the clip system by the Hyper Rescue toys. The platform that the cannons rest on can also slide back and is necessary when combining with other Hyper Rescue vehicles.
The cab of the Carrier Runner actually features a detachable vehicle called the Carrier Sky. The cockpit of the cab can hold up to two Tomikids and can rotate around the base of the cab. When detached, the Carrier Sky can attach the cannons from the Carrier Runner while the base of the cab becomes a small vehicle that fits a single Tomikid.
The base cab vehicle can still pull the Carrier Runner trailer, but also rotates underneath to connect to the Super Sonic Runner or other Hyper Rescue vehicles.
The connection tabs that the Tomica Hyper Rescue toys use also allow for lots creativity, allow you to connect all sorts of things together. While the Carrier Runner and Storm Runner were both designed to combine with the Super Sonic Runner, they have no official combinations with each other. The Cannons from the Storm Runner can attach to the Carrier Runner and the Storm Runner’s large wing containers also fit on the Carrier Sky. One interesting thing to note is that while the US Storm Runner actually has identical stickers the Japanese version, they did change the Hyper Blue Police Tomikid to a Hyper City Rescue police officer. The only difference seems to be the lettering on the helmet.
The Carrier Runner is a really awesome toy and it’s a shame that Tomy handled the US release of Tomica so poorly that everything ended up on clearance in discount stores. I never even knew that Tomica were released in the US or saw any in a Toys R Us until the line was completely dead. The Carrier Runner probably isn’t for everyone, but I love the Hyper Rescue designs and was really glad to get one of the releases unavailable in the US. While my Tomica collection is still rather small, I’ve found that the Carrier Runner acts as a pretty handy transporter for my Cyber Formula Collection vehicles.
Comments
6 comments postedIMO the reason the line tanked was too much emphasis on the train element. Trains are huge in Japan but they're an on and off fad in the States. That's also why I'm fairly certain Toqger won't be adapted into Power Rangers and they'll skip to Ninninger instead. (It doesn't help that Toqger is just plain weird on top of being train-themed).
If Tomica had concentrated on the trucks and helicopters, we would be getting the Green Ranger stuff (which I still badly want to order).
I didn't even get time to consider what I wanted to buy from this line, honestly. I DID see it, at least, but like you said: it lasted within the blink of an eye. Looked so cool, too! Hard to imagine how they botched something this cool, though Atom's theory makes a lot of sense. The train stuff sat around the most, it seemed (though, not long enough for me to find the one I had wanted).
I kind of just seems like Tomy messed up the Tomica release from every possible angle. Tomy's Thomas the Tank Engine stuff seems to do fine the US and I see those Jakks Power Trains stuff at Target all the time. They should have split up the lines so everything wouldn't be mixed up.
I usually throw in a Tomica or two to my monthly AmiAmi orders because I think they are nicer than Hot Wheels and generally have more interesting vehicles than all the weirdo HW stuff yet they only sold Tomica cars in two packs with Tomikids. Why not target the toy car collectors with single/multi packs instead?
They also seemed to have released a lot of the larger train/town combined playsets yet only released a few of the Tomy Town things. I would have loved to grab a bunch of various Tomy Town sets and combine them. Then you have the Storm Runner. Why release only the 3rd set in the line without the other two when the Super Sonic Runner would probably be the most popular.
If they can have Thomas train tables at TRU's for kids to play with, why didn't Tomy set up Tomica tables to expose kids to the line? It's such a cool line and feels like such a waste that it died so quickly in the US.
Great to see this review. I've got a bunch more sets from the US release that I need to review. Love this line.
This is the first time I've seen this line, and it looks like exactly the sort of toy that my four-year-old and I would both love. Are they going to be prohibitively hard to find at this point?
They are pretty easy to find on ebay/amazon. Prices aren't too bad for a lot of the sets, but they can be pretty big. I've seen some Ollies still carry whatever remainders they have from a couple years back.