Robotech
Premiered Mar 4, 1985
Much like Voltron the previous year, Robotech was pulled from already existing Japanese animation. Except in this case, it was three completely separate series woven into one 85-episode season. Contrasting the kiddie nature of Transformers, Robotech was a sci-fi space opera that dealt with adult issues like love, war, and death. But who are we kidding. Robotech is popular because of the robots, and one in particular, the Veritech fighter, is still ridiculously popular today. Toys at the time, were unfortunately very scarce. The only thing you could even remotely get was a Transformers Jetfire figure and even that was pretty limited. Thankfully, collectibles are readily available now even on Amazon. And right now, there are these 30th Anniversary 1/100 (6 inches) scale transformable figures available.