Ryu was born and raised in Osaka, Japan (1978-1997). He came to the United States to attend the University of Oregon, studying English and Physics (1997-2000). In 2000, he pursued a degree at the Art Center College of Design — The same design school where Phil Riehlman, Mark Jones, Bryan Benedict, Jun Imai, and lots of others went to.
Upon graduation in 2004, he started he started his professional career at Mattel as a Matchbox designer where he designed and worked on (what he estimated to be) about 150+ diecast cars, among other things, over 8 years with the Matchbox team (2004-2012).
His very first Hot Wheels design was the Gearonimo (a 2009 New Model), which he design while still with the Matchbox team (working as a guest designer). He went on to produce three more Hot Wheels castings while still working for Matchbox: Formula Street (based on one of his school project at Art Center), Honda S2000, HW Jump Truck (both full size and 1/64).
In 2012, he joined Hot Wheels team and started to manage basic cars. His very first Hot Wheels project as an official HW designer was ‘67 Chevy C10 (a 2013 New Model). Since 2012, its estimated that Ryu works on about 20 to 30 New Models each year.
Just last year, the 1988 casting of the #Lamborghini Countach was revived for the Walmart Exclusive Lamborghini Series. This year, there is a new version of that famous 1980s #Countach design. For far too long, many collectors couldn’t tell where the wonky design of the original Countach casting […]
The small, but mighty Hot Wheels #’85 Honda City Turbo II made its #First Edition appearance earlier this year as part of the #2018 Hot Wheels “C” case assortment. Its a car that the team of Hot Wheels designers — mostly Jun Imai & Ryu Asada — had […]
Just last year, Hot Wheels collectors were introduced to “Mad” Mike Whiddett, a drift car racer from New Zealand. His Mazda REPU named “PITBUL” was featured in the 2017 HW Daredevils series. It was quite the debut for the Hot Wheels #Mazda REPU casting given its extensive graphics […]
The #2018 Hot Wheels #Night Burnerz 5-Pack hit the pegs back in January and even after a couple months at retail here in the United States, the 5-Pack seems to be selling (for just over its retail price) online. Collectors attributed the initial surge in secondary market value […]
Buns of Steel … yep, there is officially a Hot Wheels car named #Buns of Steel. …What I wouldn’t give the see the look on the face of the person in Mattel’s legal department when that name came across their desk. The ‘tooned burger truck known as #Buns […]
Sometimes as collectors, we get too caught up in buying and selling the latest Hot Wheels releases — so much so that sometimes we forget that the Hot Wheels brand once catered to us as kids. I get that some collectors only collect the replicas of their favorite […]
Is it a distant relative of the Hot Wheels Farbs? Is it Matchbox-inspired? Or is it derived from an old Japanese toy? Well, back in early January, when Hot Wheels designer, Ryu Asada, posted this car on his Instagram account, I immediately thought this could be a modern-day, mainline Farb — […]
