Takara Rocket Firing R2-D2 with Alternate Box: I believe this piece is an earlier release of the more commonly released Rocket Firing R2-D2. While the later releases had Artoo in a blue window box with a still of the famous Droid couple, this release was in a normal box with just the figure shown. Japanese consumers did get a bigger bang for their buck as R2-D2 came packaged with very phallic firing rockets!

The Back is pretty normal; it shows the other Takara releases at the time and seems to show the earliest released Takara Star Wars toys.

The figure itself originally had three silver rockets on the plastic tree, plastic base, styrofoam insert, sticker/instruction sheet and an insert depicting Takara's Star Wars toy line.

Description: Steve York
Photos: Steve York
From the collection of Steve York