Fit For Natalie

Actually, most of Takara's Collection Reissues have used original art by Hirofumi Ichikawa, the number 1 japanese TF fan and Takara art guy. Offhand, the ones that DID use Pat Lee's DW art were: #0 Convoy #1 Meister #2 Prowl Lambor (from here on I forget the numbers) Megatron Soundwave and Insecticons. The rest are by Ichikawa. I don't know if he did this, because its WAAAAAAAAAAAY below his usual talents and not really his style, either. And yes, reissuing Kup and Wheelie was a really stupid idea.

Alternators is doing fairly well for Hasbro. They claim to have another 5 or more new vehicles coming up. You guys sure about that? I have it on pretty good authority that they were quite the shelfwarmers in Japan - even our japanese friends might have a hard time justifiying the relatively high cost at regular intervals.

Its possible they might. Tomy has been known to make a profit, something that has eluded Takara, even though Transformers have been doing pretty well for them since Armada/Micron Densetsu. From what I understand, Tomy has better management in place than Takara, but are also more budget concious - look at Tomy's Zoids lines - most of them are retools and repaints, but they sell. Since Galaxy Force is ending in December, I think, if there is a TF mainline next year, we'll probably see something as cheap to produce as say, Car Robots. That is, repaint and retool a load of old toys, and introduce a few brand new ones. Though Car Robots was a total disaster that nearly bankrupted Takara...

Er... Is this a joke? That is the STUPIDEST company name ever. As for the TF merchandise, I admit that I have no interest in 95% of it, but still, I like to see TF becoming mainstream again. I have this hope that one day it will reach Gundam levels of recognition in Japan. 318860[/snapback] Erm, obviously a joke. Calm down, the company will most likely just be Tomy - Takara's creative staff will still work in the same building with more or less the same workmates. It is highly unlikely Tomy will dump TF, as it is one of Takara's better money earners, even though its relatively obscure in Japan. Takara may be the number 2 toy company in Japan, but it doesn't tend to post a profit. Because Tomy (number 3) DOES post a profit, it becames the winner in this merger. Regardless, Tomy still has deals with Hasbro, and Hasbro still part-owns Transformers. Tomy won't just give up the TF license as Hasbro manufacturers them under license from Takara (you'll probably see 'Manufactured Under License from Tomy' sometime next year). Unless the upcoming TF movie generates some major, major excitement in Japan, Transformers will never become as 'mainstream' as Gundam or Macross in Japan. One of Transformers shortcomings for the Japanese market (regardless of the fact the toys are engineered in japan and most of the shows are written and animated in Japan), is that its an obscure gaijin series. Much in the same way anime geeks in the west love anything japanese, Otaku geeks in Japan like TF for the same reason, but because its gaijin, it makes it more difficult for the rest of the geeky population to accept. Then again, mainstream isn't entirely accurate either. Gundam and anime is reserved as nerdy stuff over there.

As its a mass production, mainline toy, no die cast. Fan to Fan took a blurry photograph of GF Soundwave at the Tokyo Toy Fair a few weeks ago. Here you go:

Nah. The EZ versions plastic toys. They are simply better painted versions of Hasbro's Legends of Cybertron toys, which are tiny, cheap versions of the major players in the Cybertron line. The metallic EZ Galaxy Convoy that comes with Megalo Convoy is there to represent the cartoon scale.

The yellow-orange Shockwave, named SixShot, is Laserwave's younger brother. Galvatron tricks him by claiming Grand Convoy killed his brother. Hands down, the best Transformers series ever made was Beast Wars, due to its superb treatment as a serious scifi programme, powerful material, excellent performances by a cast that enjoyed their work and wonderful character development. Armada suffered from bad animation and poor early episodes that focused far too much on the kids - this I wouldn't mind in itself but the kids were written very badly in the dub. Apparently when the japanese redubed the show into Micron Densetsu, they went to pains to fix alot of things. Around episode 14, it gradually got better, with nice episodes focusing on Hot Shot's growth as a character, and Starscream's continuing development from Megatron's second in command into an honourable warrior in the mold of Beast Wars' Dinobot. Superlink started off with a bang, with lots of nice development and characterisations, particularly Demolishor's. But then it lost its way after episode 25 or so when they went to the other side of the universe and began to do nothing. The combiner teams, because they were developed late in the line, were kind of shoved in at the last minute, so Studio A-CAT never had time to do a proper combining sequence until the Special one-off episode. And the series had a terrible ending with Galvatron and Grand Convoy growing big and fighting each other. Really bad animation by the end, too. Energon's dub was a clusterfark. Most of the actors are very good on other dubs, but are terrible on this show due to the speed of which the shows were made, no doubt at the behest of the Cartoon Network and Hasbro. Galaxy Force is shaping up to be one of the best modern Transformers series. Gonzo's animation is excellent, and the writing, while not superb (the Speedia races were drawn out far too long), is the closest we've ever gotten to an american-style series from Japanese writers, in that its relatively serious, the humans are not the stars but actually helpful, developed characters who don't get in the way. And there's some great character development in certain characters that show there are shades of grey.

BT Prowl, BT Wildrider and Galaxy Force Autobot upgrades (not repaints) G1 Kup & Wheelie reissue, GF Soundwave sketch, bike dude and GF Chromia

Yeah he is. As he is fully painted, he is the Alt that is closest to its BT counterpart in terms of appearance (Grimlock coming second). Far better than Alt Smokescreen. Paint is also pratically indestructible, too - which is probably why I prefer painted plastic over painted metal.

If you're talking about Binaltech - judging by Grimlock, yes, there is less die cast content compared to 2003 BT Smokescreen. BT Overdrive isn't out yet so we don't know how much die cast it has. A good thing, if you ask me.

The Landcruiser is actually just a partial bootleg of Energon Ironhide

Ever since they stopped production of the MP Prime, it has been getting harder and harder to find. Unlike the Hasbro counterpart where only the difficult find is the gray gun version. I guess the long smokestacks, great box (along with the cardboard trailer), and un-"damaged" paint job makes it more popular than Hasbro's. Also Hasbro's production run for 20th Prime is a hell of alot higher, as they deal with a larger market. Really old question No word on those. Most like their toolings are busted, so you'll have to wait for them to fix it, like they did with Soundwave, Astrotrain, Hound and Blitzwing. The upcoming Takara Collection reissue is Soundblaster in March or so. No word on what the next Hasbro reissue is. Predaking was a special reissue as he was in (sort of) his original packaging, which they haven't done in years since they started Collection book style packaging.

Hey, don't backhand apologise to me. In the case of your explanation, your humour was rather unclear, but I am sorry for misunderstanding you. ManxoChu: Hasbro is unlikely to provide a giftset for them combiners so soon after they have been released (Energon will go on until at least May-June). Unfortunately, either buy them all now or pay through the nose for the japanese Superlink Superion giftset.

Sorry? At no point did Hasbro or Takara officially reveal Dead End's mold was Sunstreaker, nor were there any package pics of him called Sunstreaker. The only reason we know he was originally Sunstreaker (besides the head) was that old test shot with the molded 'bot symbol. This Wheeljack is way ahead of that. Oficially, Dead End stole Sunstreaker's BT body. That is why he looks like him. You would have thought that they would have at least taken the time to change his head. Especially since the raised Autobot insignia was removed. I have two Dead Ends on the way. (Local stores never got them in) One is being repainted back into Sunstreaker, the other is gettting his "ears" removed, and new head details added, so that he no longer looks like Sunstreaker. Again, officially, at no point did Hasbro or Takara refer to this as being the mold for BT Sunstreaker. Yes, its obvious that it was meant to be Sunstreaker initially, as Swindle was meant to be Trailbreaker, but officially, they never referred to either as such because fans bitched and wanted Decepticons. The Dead End bio story was written by Hirofumi Ichikawa - a fan and illustraitor at Takara. He even made references to GI Joe characters, so its not exactly an official explanation from either company, is it? My issue with the first quote was the wording appears to suggest that while this Wheeljack was retooled with WJ's head, has the name Wheeljack on his packaging and license plate, he's probably going to end up with another name like Dead End. GF Guardshell and Gaskett are out http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/thread65997.html

Sorry? At no point did Hasbro or Takara officially reveal Dead End's mold was Sunstreaker, nor were there any package pics of him called Sunstreaker. The only reason we know he was originally Sunstreaker (besides the head) was that old test shot with the molded 'bot symbol. This Wheeljack is way ahead of that.

People are making repros of that barrel all over the place now. Ebay guys charge the earth, while people who charge little prefer to not have their indentities known for some reason.

In G1, Prime's girlfriend and female counterpart was Elita-1, who led a small group of poorly designed female autobots who were left behind on Cybertron for some reason. So people are wondering if Hasbro will call her Nitro Prime or Elita-1

Once again, don't directly image link from other sites. Unless you have already seen the file at the original site, the Allspark replaces the image with their logo to stop this sort of thievery. Use tags instead of the tags everybody here is so fond of if the image file isn't on your own server.

You guys should to stop direct image linking to other sites - it saps their bandwith. Well, as you can see, his 15GB is already up I read older pages in this thread and saw image linking directly from www.bwtf.com - that's a big no-no in TF circles, because Ben Yee, the webmaster of that site, is a legend among fans, was the TF consultant on the almighty Beast Wars, and is just a really nice guy. Just link the pics/page, or attach the pic to your post, or, better yet, upload onto your own webspace and you can IMG tag it to your heart's content. Please be fair to other sites

There was no indication at any time he was a Supreme class toy like Unicron or Omega Supreme - only very early on did people who didn't know what the yen symbol meant thought he was a very large toy. His retail price is around 3000 yen, the same as Starscream and Landbullet, making him a Mega class toy. Supreme class toys cost 7000 yen. A tip in identifying how large toys are is to see how big the screws and, most importantly, how big his fist holes are - most modern TFs now have standardised universal fist holes if their hands are unarticulated. Vector Shame. Right...

Yep - Takara didn't have much to do with the TF fiction or characterisations until their Headmasters series. Its an official 20th Anniversary dvd set, but its possible a joint Hasbro-Takara license on it - as it gives an RM toy for free but advertises Hasbro's 20th Anniversary Optimus Prime within. BT Tracks - his doors, hood and car front body (including the side panels) are die cast metal.

There have been confirmed sightings of those two along with the two other Arielbots. Go check a Walmart or something.

Armada Sideways looked okay, but the toy was almost total crap. His gimmick was a variation of the Headmasters gimmick from G1 - his Minicons formed two different heads that can cause his faction logo to change from Autobot to Decepticon. Check out his review/pics at BWTF.com here PS - Reading through older posts here, I've noticed people imaged-linked directly from Ben Yee's site, www.bwtf.com, essentially leaching his bandwith. Not cool. If there's one thing we TF fans don't do is leech from Ben Yee, since he's such a nice guy, a super-well known fan and was TF consultant on the mighty Beast Wars

Man, you sure? Even one of the smallest of the original GI Joe jets, the Cobra Rattler, is at least a foot long - way too big if they're going to be up against the Autobot cars. Just so there's no confusion, Vector Prime is not related to Optimus Prime. He's a seperate character. Actually, I think Vector prime may be the only Japanese TF with 'Prime' in his name... I wonder if he'll keep the name Vector Prime when he comes stateside, or if Hasbro will give him a different name to avoid any Optimus Prime confusion...maybe they'll name him "Vector". During Micron Densetsu (Armada in Japan), Takara named Sparkplug, Convoy's minicon, Prime. Hasbro trademarked 'Vector Prime' shortly before pics of Galaxy Force appeared, which will make it confusing if Hasbro changes the other Convoys (Nitro Convoy, Flame Convoy) into Primes. Vector Prime, from what we know, is a time traveller of some sort that comes to tell Galaxy Convoy about the planet forces, made up of Primus' spark (Primus being the US comic's god and giver of life to the Transformers). There seems to be some sort of connection between Vector Prime and the upcoming figure Sideways. Last seen in Armada/Micron Densetsu, Sideways was an extention, or an avatar of Unicron. He was almost impossible to destroy without the help of the Minicons (because they were creations of Unicron). The Sideways toy (as the pic below shows) has a very similar Cybertronian knight feel that Vector has. His chest somehow retains the look of his Armada body's motorcycle/animal head design. He seems to keep his faction-swapping gimmick. Wolfx: Oddly enough, Armada Starscream can also do a gerwalk-like transformation.

If I remember correctly they are 1:24. Yep, all of the cars are 1:24 scale. MP Convoy (often associated with BT by some, but isn't a part of the line) is closer to 1:32. A 1:24 plane would be about as big as a GI Joe plane (which are traditionally out of scale with the 1:18 figures) such as the Cobra Rattler, which is abit impractical and expensive for TFs. As I recall, the original Diaclone/G1 jets were all 1:72 scale.