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And...

gothsaurus wrote:And thinking about it, these ARE from HasbroAsia, right? It IS a 4th company. (Hasbro, Takara/Tomy, TFCC, HasbroAsia.) Each makes its own business plan, toy lines, exclusives, sculpts (at times)... It's clear why odd things like this happen, and why it's confusing to collectors. Each is thinking about its own market and what will sell. With the internet, we monitor all four companies and what they are doing overseas, and it looks like a big mess.

Wait, there's a Hasbro Asia? I know there's an asian branch... But I kinda doubt they PRODUCE the toys. This is from Takara, it appears... That's the logo on all their other exclusives.

Yeah, I couldn't make out a logo right off. Nice job if you can!

And yeah, supposedly there's a separate company dealing with non-Japan-Asia — China, Singapore, etc. The GDO line was the first I've really heard anything about them doing their own series. Very odd.

Ah well. IF these are from Takara, guessing they won't be showing up at my local ToysRUs as I'd hoped. bummer.

You're both right.

There is both a Hasbro Asia (which is doing the Generations GDO figures) and an Asian market-exclusive line of TakaraTomy figures (which is what these Seekers are for).

Clearly, Sabrblade needs a new bio written with the function being "espionage". Clearly, you must be hanging out next to the water cooler at Takara reading a newspaper with two eye holes cut in it. ;-D

Thanks as always for the insight. Besides helping make sense of the (often contradictory) decisions made by the different companies, it also gives me a little more patience rolling with things as a fan. Cheers!

Happy Friday morning everyone! To kick off the day we have some new info on the previously rumored Asian market exclusive Classics Seekers Set. The first of what we assume will be two sets is dubbed "Deluxe Seeker Set Ace", and features Starscream, Thundercracker, and Skywarp. The set will feature tweaked decos with metallic paint and come in premium packaging.

Check out the figures in the images mirrored from TransformersAsia.com below:

i need these. my classics Skywarp is getting lonely.

all three Seekers in one box.

They do look pretty good, but not enough of a significant improvement for me to cough up for this mold for the....one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten: I don't know how many times. I've ran out of fingers.

it may just be me but i find myself really hating this mould now. It just doesnt work and hasnt held up very well to others such as classic prime+skyfire+sideswipe etc

The arms just dont work as the wings get in the way and the arms themselves cant do much because of the wings. The legs have limited movement and the figure cant even stand up that well

I keep expecting a 3rd party company to make a newer version of the seekers so they dont suck so much anymore. Prime+skyfire and afew others have stood the test of time while these guys just seem...i dunno...almost like Hasbro didnt give a crap as much. Same goes for astrotrain - hes a great figure but the 2 train bits on his arm annoy the crap outa me and it seems lazy they didnt do a solution to that problem

Wow! Selling all 3 seekers in one set? Who'd a thunk it?

I dunno, I think these figures hold up decently. The arms are fine, it's the null rays that really hinder the articulation. But they're starting to show their age with those hands.

This is great for late comers to the classics line. But I'm not one. Make Sunstorm and then we'll talk about me buying this mold again. Between regular releases and KOs I've gottent his mold tons of times.

I might pick this up just for skywarp... If the price isn't insane.

Swindle01 wrote:it may just be me but i find myself really hating this mould now. It just doesnt work and hasnt held up very well to others such as classic prime+skyfire+sideswipe etc

The arms just dont work as the wings get in the way and the arms themselves cant do much because of the wings. The legs have limited movement and the figure cant even stand up that well

I keep expecting a 3rd party company to make a newer version of the seekers so they dont suck so much anymore. Prime+skyfire and afew others have stood the test of time while these guys just seem...i dunno...almost like Hasbro didnt give a crap as much. Same goes for astrotrain - hes a great figure but the 2 train bits on his arm annoy the crap outa me and it seems lazy they didnt do a solution to that problem

Don't worry, now that these are getting their 50th release, you can expect a new, better mold to come out in the next year or so ala MP-10...

Although I don't understand your stroking of Classics Jet/Skyfire. That mold is totally half-assed. The legs suck and it doesn't pose for crap...nor does it look all very accurate in bot mode. The seeker mold is a bit overrated, but it does a much better job than Jet/Skyfire.

How has this mold not crumbled to dust with all of these seeker variants!?

There must be degradation somewhere in there.

Nnnnope! Give me a deco I don't have yet. The Classics seeker mold is one of my favorites ever. However, it's time to start filling the character gaps.

This is my all time favorite Hasbro mold. This mold started me off on classics collecting. Im not really understanding all the hate and pettyness about the mold. However, the chromed paint and different launchers is not enough to make me replace my Henkei versions. They sold me with the Bruticus Maximus Asian repaint. But not these.

If the price is $75 or less, I'll probably bite. I sold my Classics seekers years ago & regretted it.

Why does it seem lately that the Asian market is in some kinda of time warp.

Better a time warp than the oddly-spiky-Prime-retools... or oddly-hollow-and-cheap-plastic FOC bots. I'm excited to see more Classics coming to the shelf, even if it is as repaints and retools. I'm happily surprised by the GDO Asia bots in person. Will be picking up these seekers and Omega/Prime as well.

STngAR wrote:Why does it seem lately that the Asian market is in some kinda of time warp.

It appears the Asian countries want classics, not stupid TF Prime figures. I believe "Asian Exclusives" are for countries other than Japan (They have Takara/United)

Oh no... I've somehow awakened to find I am an asian country! It's like Kafka's The Metamorphosis only different.

Seems like 80% of the toys I bought this year are some sort of retool/repaint. Cliffjumper alone had like 9 incarnations. I'm done.

You thinking of the Classics/Asia GDO/Prime/Zombie spectrum of Cliffjumpers? Or did I miss something

Then there is the 3rd party Cliffjumper head can of worms.

While Takara makes these in Asia, Hasblow goves to the US...you guessed it: more pathetic BB's.