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Transformers Thread 2


Dangard Ace

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That's really funny that the Alts were more loved over there. What were the reasons?
Well, cost is a major factor. Even with the comparitively high income of the japanese workforce (to go with a high cost of living), Binaltechs are expensive luxury collector toys that are released at a rapid pace.

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Since the Alternators have to be imported through independent retailers in Japan, thus driving the price up, I have found that there is no difference price-wise in the end.

With regards to the show, both the Japanese and American incarnations of the TF shows had their ups and downs: G1 -- "Magic" subspace garbage; Masterforce, Victory etc -- ridiculous hyped-up flashy transformation scenes, and calling out the name of weapons or TF modes, a la Mazinger et al.

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Since the Alternators have to be imported through independent retailers in Japan, thus driving the price up, I have found that there is no difference price-wise in the end.

Then is it just the same 'hey, its foriegn, and thus cool' mentality over there, the same that many people in the west have for Japanese versions of toys they have locally?

With regards to the show, both the Japanese and American incarnations of the TF shows had their ups and downs: G1 -- "Magic" subspace garbage; Masterforce, Victory etc -- ridiculous hyped-up flashy transformation scenes, and calling out the name of weapons or TF modes, a la Mazinger et al.

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It is interesting to note Takara aims their Transformers mainlines at a younger agegroup than Hasbro, hence ridiculous amounts of 'Look at this toy gimmick!' stock footage and chibi/SD comedy.

Edited by Fit For Natalie
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Since the Alternators have to be imported through independent retailers in Japan, thus driving the price up, I have found that there is no difference price-wise in the end.

Then is it just the same 'hey, its foriegn, and thus cool' mentality over there, the same that many people in the west have for Japanese versions of toys they have locally?

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I don't think so.. More like "hey, it's foreign, thus tarnished with the barbarity of those uncultured gaijin." Actually, I really don't think they care for the most part what goes on outside, but having said that, Alternator Decepticharge is going for a lot in second-hand shops here because it's "rare" (no BT was released). Therefore, it would be interesting to see what's gonna happen with Mirage: at least with that one I am sure Japanese fans will be gladly paying a lot to get an Alt version in their hands if indeed no BT arrives.

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from f2f

. This issue special was on "Koeda-chan & friends", a classic line from Takara, inside the special there was an article on interviews with all the developers from all the lines Takara carries, under the Transformers section, it was stated that 2006 is the year where the Transformers line will be "officially" aimed towards grown-up market. Currently new releases are planned on an almost bi-monthly frequency, focusing on quality than quantity.The team hinted that while they are unable to give away anything yet at this time, they promised "big suprises" to come from Summer to end of the year...

And then Raijin optimus from f2f chimed in again

It was a lengthy article, but the focus was not on the the merger or transformers, TF only like covers 1-2% of the whole article, as reported the special was on Koeda-chan & friends, another line from Takara, highlights about TF were picked up and report on fan2fan but it's not much really so don't get your hopes too high up

not mention in the report was that one of the TF developers admitted he did not know about TF was "going on" until he joined Takara, his exposure to TF was limited to the G1 series where he watched on TV while he was a kid... after been assigned to TF line, he learns to re-appreciate the line and loving it now... sigh...good or bad...only time will tell...

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By my understanding, they won't call them 'Alternators', but they'll be real world jets that fit in the same line as the Alternators, but in a different scale because, let's face it, if they made real world jets in the same scale as the current Alternators they'd be BIG.

Like ham.

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if they dont call them alternators and if sega lets them use the name what about afterburners :lol::D

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Got the reissue waspinator and tarantulus (a..s u..s whatever..)

I like the paintjobs on both. Looks show accuarte. Don't have an original to comare it to...

Transmutate paint job is pretty lousy in some places on the parts... almost pathetic..

Oh well, I guess the only way you can like these toys is by liking the show..

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Somewhat directly related to the above post:

For BW, a lot of the toys were liked/bought BECAUSE of the characters. The show itself was great, but many toys sucked. But you bought the toy anyways because you liked the character.

For a lot of recent shows, you bought the toy IN SPITE OF the character. (pretty much anything on Toonami). The toy was neat, but the show was so stupid you tried to keep it out of your mind.

Alternators sell because there's no inane poorly-animated pokemon-esque show to go with them. :) Smokescreen's cool because the toy is cool--if he was on TV he'd probably be the ultimate boy-racer personality and an idiot.

Finally--I wouldn't worry about not getting a license for jets. No military jet company has issues with "our products being depicted as weapons" like Volkswagen etc. :) Also, they have NO standards for accuracy. They could send Jetfire in to Northop-Grumman, and it'd get approved as an F-14... If you pay, you get the license, that simple. Boeing is apparently incredibly anal about color though, but for fictional schemes like Thundercracker I doubt they could complain about the accuracy---ironically window color is the #1 thing they tend to comment about, I'd love to hear what they say about bright orange cockpits. :) (Yes, Boeing will refuse a license because of dark grey vs medium grey windows on a 747, but will approve a Super Hornet model with non-existant 10-foot tall airbrakes)

PS---we can HOPE that the planes will be to scale with each other (there's not THAT much difference between the F-14/15/16/18) but I wouldn't be surprised if they're all exactly the same size.

Edited by David Hingtgen
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Somewhat directly related to the above post:

For BW, a lot of the toys were liked/bought BECAUSE of the characters.  The show itself was great, but many toys sucked.  But you bought the toy anyways because you liked the character.

For a lot of recent shows, you bought the toy IN SPITE OF the character.  (pretty much anything on Toonami).  The toy was neat, but the show was so stupid you tried to keep it out of your mind.

Alternators sell because there's no inane poorly-animated pokemon-esque show to go with them.  :)  Smokescreen's cool because the toy is cool--if he was on TV he'd probably be the ultimate boy-racer personality and an idiot.

Finally--I wouldn't worry about not getting a license for jets.  No military jet company has issues with "our products being depicted as weapons" like Volkswagen etc.  :)  Also, they have NO standards for accuracy.  They could send Jetfire in to Northop-Grumman, and it'd get approved as an F-14... If you pay, you get the license, that simple.  Boeing is apparently incredibly anal about color though, but for fictional schemes like Thundercracker I doubt they could complain about the accuracy---ironically window color is the #1 thing they tend to comment about, I'd love to hear what they say about bright orange cockpits.  :)    (Yes, Boeing will refuse a license because of dark grey vs medium grey windows on a 747, but will approve a Super Hornet model with non-existant 10-foot tall airbrakes) 

PS---we can HOPE that the planes will be to scale with each other (there's not THAT much difference between the F-14/15/16/18) but I wouldn't be surprised if they're all exactly the same size.

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For what its worth, the best thing going for beast wars was its consistency. EVERY figure was fully articulated with ball joints as a standard. Sculpts were decent, in comparison, beast machines could not match it at all. EVen with articulation. To my knowledge this is the ONLY mainline that ever had full articulation per figure as a consistent standard, beast machines, armada, RID, cybertron, and energon did not do this, though RID in the beginning, and cybertron were pretty close. Theres some cases where the beast wars toys had more weaponry and better aesthetics than the actual animated counterparts, but if anything the differences were not as glaringly bad as the beast machines toys.

I gotta be honest, as far as a consistent toyline with good storyline. and some damn well done toys, I gotta say IMHO that beast wars was probably thee best of the mainline tf lines.

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Saw the new Tenth Anniversary Beast Wars figures at the local Walmart in the frozen north, and I picked up Waspinator.

All in all, not bad, but geez, $20? I'm gonna be very very selective at that price... But hey, the figure still holds up well, and the modification to the paint job so that he looks more like his show counterpart is nice.

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There's a gallery of some of the Transformers "Titanium" line of figures up at TFW 2005. Give 'em a look-see here:

http://www.tfw2005.com/gallery/Titanium-Un...scream-Alt-Jazz

Any thoughts? I have to admit that I'm kind of unimpressed, and it looks like Unicron's getting ready to play dodgeball.

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There's a gallery of some of the Transformers "Titanium" line of figures up at TFW 2005.  Give 'em a look-see here:

http://www.tfw2005.com/gallery/Titanium-Un...scream-Alt-Jazz

Any thoughts?  I have to admit that I'm kind of unimpressed, and it looks like Unicron's getting ready to play dodgeball.

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Man, who is comming up with this poses? Wow, they really suck :( They look like they 're about to take a $h!T!

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down south in VA they are 14.99

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Yah, but I'm in Canada, so uh... THERE!

Seriously, while the 10th anniversary figures are nice, they're rather overpriced for what they are.

I'm hoping for the Robot Masters Megatron and Opimus Primal come out as "Tenth Anniversary figures".

And I can't wait to get my hands on a Dinobot.

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Not really interested in Titanium. Has anyone else pointed out Starscream's upside down wings?

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I'm guessing nobody cares either way because it's such a terrible looking toy no matter which way the wings are placed. Man, I hope the longevity/success of the transforming Titanium figures doesn't hinge on these icky little things. :ph34r:

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Yeah, they are pretty terrible, Eriku. The sad part is, these are pretty much sculptures. There's no reason for how terrible they look. There are no concessions to be made for the transformation to work, few joints to work with, and yet the molds are terrible. Aren't these supposed to be display pieces?

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oh god that's lame. WHO would buy that?

It should be called "The League Of Extraordinary Transformers"

<_<

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The designs are cool, but come on, if the Insecticons turn into a train and not bugs, how are they INSECTicons?

Overall though I think these guys look more interesting than most of the mainline transformers since, oh, G1.

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