“Introduction”

Some more Diaclone from Joustra! Released in 1984 in Europe, as part of Ceji Joustra’s first wave of Diaclone toys, I present to you the Diaclone Kronoform! Now, what child of the 80’s does not remember owning or seeing one of these transforming wrist watches? I remember getting one for free as part of some toy store promotion here in the Netherlands somewhere in early 1986 or so. I can’t remember whether it was a true Takara product or whether it was just a knock-off. All I remember is that it was red and had the exact same transformation, so I’m pretty sure it was from the same mold as these Joustra Diaclone Kronoforms.

“Class of 1986”

Regular visitors of this site might remember my article on Beachcomber, which features a school class picture from 1986 with my best buddy wearing Beachcomber inside his chest pocket. For those that don’t remember here’s that picture again in full.

And here’s a close up of Beachcomber on that very same picture!

“Kronoform in da hizzouse”

Well, a couple of weeks after I originally published the afforementioned Beachcomber article, I had another long look at my class picture from 1986 and discovered something amazing! You see, it turns out that Beachcomber was not the only Transformer in this photograph! Another class mate of mine seemed to be holding something up to the camera. Upon closer inspection it turns out this is none other than the Joustra Diaclone Kronoform !! Check it out (click on the photo below for a larger view):

Holy crap! I have to admit I was über-excited when I found this out. Not only was this class picture basking in the glory of Beachcomber who was chilling out inside my best buddy’s chest pocket. But now, on the total opposite end of the photograph, we also have the Joustra Diaclone Kronoform kicking major ass while he’s being held up to the camera by another class mate of mine. Yes, life was THAT awesome back then. The photo is not too detailed, but just look at the closeup and have a look at the gold Kronoform below:

No doubt about it, it’s Kronoform!! How cool is that! After my mind came back to Earth I went to my collection room and dug out the Joustra Diaclone comic that was included with my Robocolt and had a look.

As you can see, Kronoform is pictured in the catalog in black. Joustra apparently did not only release this black Kronoform, because I have two Kronoforms in my collection. One of them is this black Kronoform that is pictured in the catalog above, but the other one is the gold variant that is also visible in the class photo above. There, possibly, also was a silver coloured Kronoform released by Joustra, but I am not sure, because I haven’t seen one yet in real life. Here’s a photo of both Kronoforms from my own collection (I removed them from the outer box):

Looking at the back of the box, a total of 7 different modes are depicted that little old Kronoform could transform into. Ranging from an interstellar launch platform to a lunar moon shuttle and everything you could think of in between. Wow! Well, not really. Most of these alternate modes were rather crappy, half assed transformations when you look at them. Have a look:

“It’s Kronoform Time!”

I have to admit I didn’t even realize Kronoform had these ‘advanced’ alternate modes when I originally had him in the 1980’s. It was a just a cool looking little watch that I could detach from its wrist band and easily transform into a neat little robot! I remember that I actually wore it to school many times (though sadly not in the above class picture, that would have been so cool) and would transform it into robot mode and put the robot on my school desk, feeling rather smug. As I now remember, Kronoform was quite the rage back then, because several class mates of mine had one, no doubt also as part of the same toy store promotion that I mentioned.

I originally wasn’t really looking to add these Joustra Diaclone Kronoforms to my collection. I picked up both the black and gold Kronoform as part of a lot that contained some other Joustra Diaclones that I was after. Now that I have them I’m really glad I did, because I had totally forgotten about owning one when I was 10 years old. Good times!

“Gallery”