Ok, we'll start with what's likely a sore point for many US collectors. While many a young fan in the late '70s had expected to receive one "rocket-firing Boba Fett" action figure through a mail-away promotion, they instead received a figure with an unmovable missile. The reason? Allegedly action figure producer Kenner got cold feet at the last minute after it was widely reported that a child had choked to death on a similar spring-loaded toy. The consequence? Japan got the first Star Wars missile-firing toy, a feature that has become ubiquitous across the current action figure and vehicle lines.
In the case of this Takara R2-D2, so what if the movie astromech doesn't have missile-firing capability (or does he?) -- since many Japanese toys at the time already sported this feature, it's no surprise they were the first to bring it to Star Wars. Technically, with or without a rocket-firing Fett, Japan probably still would have beat us -- the date on this box says 1978 -- Fett came out in '79.
