Current Events > Is Transformers more American or Japanese?

(+) Yeah! (+)

The original toys were part of two separate toy lines previously made by Japanese company Takara Tomy, but they were combined and rebranded for the Western market by Hasbro, being released as "Transformers".

@Airhammy probably knows the answer

Canadian
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Cullen

Three words.

Michael fucking Bay.

It's pretty damn American.

At this point don't Hasbro and Takara Tomy work together?

Cybertron. Transformers come from Cybertron.

Remember, if you like Transformers, you like anime.

So back in the early 80s there were a number of transforming toylines in Japan and Korea. US toy company Tonka headed over and talked with Bandai. They got the rights to license their Machine Robo toys for the west. At first they marketed them as is, and sales were poor. They changed the name to Machine Men, but much the same happened. Then they went a totally different direction and split the figures into two factions (Guardians and Renegades), appointed a figure to each as leader, gave them all new names, and developed a story tie-in with a comic. Thus the GoBots were born.

Meanwhile Hasbro saw what they were doing and headed east as well. They spoke with Takara to license their Diaclone and Micro Change lines, Bandai for their valkyrie jet, and ToyCo for their Astro Magnum. They teamed up with Marvel and split the figures into two factions (Autobots and Decepticons), leaders, new names, story and comic, etc. The Transformers were born.

Tonka then worked with Hanna-Barbera to produce a cartoon they titled Challenge of the GoBots. Hasbro continued to work with Marvel along with Sunbow and Toei (among other studios) to create their animated series. Challenge of the GoBots premiered on September 8, 1984 and The Transformers on September 17. Both began with a mini-series to test the waters, and then started up proper in October.

Both brands later had a theatrical film in 1986. GoBots: Battle of the Rock Lords came out on March 21 with Transformers: The Movie hitting August 8. Battle of the Rock Lords sadly retained the same budget as the televised cartoon. Same look, same music. They had 3 celebrities come in to voice new characters. Margot Kidder as Solitaire, Roddy McDowall as Nuggit, and Telly Savalas as Magmar. The movie was meant to premier the Rock Lords for a new toyline and spin-off cartoon. While the toys did hit stores the cartoon never came to be.

Transformers on the other hand had a much bigger budget with an amazing soundtrack, and Toei putting out some of their best animation. Celebrity voices included Judd Nelson as Hotrod, Leonard Nimoy as Galvatron, Eric Idle as Wreck-Gar, Robert Stack as Ultra Magnus, and Lionel Stander as Kup. The movie acted as a bridge to the third season of the cartoon, and staple actors from the show would take over the celebrity roles from then on.

Overall GoBots had 65 episodes over 1 season while Transformers had 98 over 4 seasons. The G1 Transformers brand would continue in Japan with 6 more seasons (3 of which were told through magazine), while GoBots faded away. In 1991 Hasbro bought out Tonka and obtained the GoBots characters along with it. The G2 line from 1993 had a Go-Bots sub line. There was a figure simply named Gobots which was marketed in Europe, and since then there have been a number of figures sold through Transformers as an homage to GoBots, and some of the characters have appeared in the comics in some form as well.

Arguably more American, their conception started with GI Joe, no I'm not joking.

I've had that post typed up for a while if I ever had to use it. This seemed appropriate heh.

The point is the Transformers started with various Japanese toys, most of which weren't connected to any story or characters, they were merely toys. Hasbro's partnership with Marvel is what created the characters we know today. The original cartoon, while animated overseas, is an American creation. Season 4 of G1 is only 3 episodes long. Takara ignored Hasbro's Season 4 and in turn created their own version in a series called Headmasters. It featured all the G1 characters we know, but the show had a more anime feel to it. Five more seasons would follow it and Japan's separate G1 continuity ends with Operation Combination.

Following that Mainframe Studios out of Vancouver, Canada who made ReBoot created Beast Wars and it's follow-up Beast Machines. In the middle of that though Takara created two spin-offs called Beast Wars II and Beast Wars Neo which use traditional animation.

Since their conclusion...

Car Robots in Japan was dubbed into Robots in Disguise
Micron Legend became Armada
Super Link became Energon
Galaxy Force (in no way connected to the prior two) became Cybertron rounding out Hasbro's "Unicron Trilogy"
Animated and Prime were made in the US
Takara made a toy exclusive mini-sequel to Prime called Transformers: Go! which was only 6 episodes and had pack-in dvds with exclusive toys.
Robots in Disguise 2015 is the American sequel to Prime
and then we have Cyberverse which just concluded earlier this month.

On top of that there's the live action movies, Prime Wars trilogy by Machinima, and Netflix trilogy.

The next main toyline is Legacy.
The next movie is a sequel to Bumblebee, Rise of the Beasts.

^Awesome. I guess for all intents and purposes, it's an American series, or more of that since it was Hasbro that gave it the identity it has now.

Airhammy posted...

Celebrity voices included Judd Nelson as Hotrod, Leonard Nimoy as Galvatron, Eric Idle as Wreck-Gar, Robert Stack as Ultra Magnus, and Lionel Stander as Kup.

Stan Bush is a much a star of TF86 as those guys.

Indeed

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKjNVVmLCGQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDAoJIJ2ljU

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLk26ZPqtBoujNMQewk8-a9Jei1gZ1VTN-

May as well share my playlist with all the televised cartoon intros (along with the movie intro and Go!), in order of release.