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Posted: **Tue Jan 08, 2013 2:08 pm**

From what I've heard, Hasbro has a budget for a number of paint apps PER wave of toys. Guessing the competition gives Takara a bigger paint app budget. Amazing what a few paint apps do for a toy, like comparing the FOC Prime and Jazz. Sigh.

Posted: **Tue Jan 08, 2013 2:21 pm**

Plus, TakaraTomy likely begins with the Hasbro color schemes as a base, expanding upon and enhancing them to make their own color schemes. Using said existing color schemes to make their own is likely more of a money-saver than for them to create their own super extensive decos from the ground up, as such cases seem to be rarer cases than the more common occurences of the Takara decos just looking like enhanced version of the Hasbro decos.

Posted: **Tue Jan 08, 2013 2:33 pm**

I wonder how they hash out who does the "toy accurate" and "show accurate" versions. Seems like they flip flop back and forth.

Posted: **Tue Jan 08, 2013 8:19 pm**

These are some of the most clever engineering yet for the MP line. Love seeing how Frenzy can get a decibel decimating backpack, and the the piledrivers and Frenzy/Rumble accessories store in Soundwave.

MP Soundwave and his minions are going to be tough contenders to knock out of the top Transformer for 2013.

Posted: **Tue Jan 08, 2013 9:12 pm**

Stormrider wrote:These are some of the most clever engineering yet for the MP line. Love seeing how Frenzy can get a decibel decimating backpack, and the the piledrivers and Frenzy/Rumble accessories store in Soundwave.

MP Soundwave and his minions are going to be tough contenders to knock out of the top Transformer for 2013.

Agreed. All that added playability really reminds me of what some of the 3rd parties often try to do (FP, PE etc.). It's very unlike Has/Tak to add all those extra touches, but it seems that Takara is really going all out with the new MP's and it's about time in my opinion and all I can ask for is more. If they keep making them, I'll keep buying them.

Posted: **Tue Jan 08, 2013 9:17 pm**

Sabrblade wrote:Plus, TakaraTomy likely begins with the Hasbro color schemes as a base, expanding upon and enhancing them to make their own color schemes. Using said existing color schemes to make their own is likely more of a money-saver than for them to create their own super extensive decos from the ground up, as such cases seem to be rarer cases than the more common occurences of the Takara decos just looking like enhanced version of the Hasbro decos.

Yep, you're probably right about the choices of color schemes, at least for the most part (there are, as you yourself noted, some exceptions). I can't speak for how it is these days as it really varies, but back during Beast Wars, Takara always attempted to go for greater show accuracy (since they had a chance to actually see the show before producing the early toys unlike Hasbro, who provided the sample toys to the show's creators and the folks at Mainframe then created the show models based on those toys, frequently taking some (or a ton of) artistic license with the appearance and color schemes).

You can't argue that there isn't obviously a glaring difference in paint budgets though, because Hasbro knows full well that they could make these things much better if they wanted to. Just look at the countless modern Hasbro TF's that have ended up with unpainted rims/wheels and unpainted tail lights. That's not a palette selection issue, it's a budget issue. I know they have a certain price point to keep the toys to and Takara's is higher (and for good reason given what their competition offers with regards to paint apps etc. as has been mentioned by me and others several times already), but with the domestic prices steadily increasing, it's becoming hard to justify buying domestic instead of just getting the toy that looks better, at least for collectors.

Posted: **Wed Jan 09, 2013 3:06 am**

Mindmaster wrote:I wish Frenzy (Rumble!) came with Ravage instead, I'd much rather have those two over Rumble (Frenzy!) and Buzzsaw.

Gotta agree 100% with this. Maybe if Hasbro releases these here in the US they'll put the blue one with Ravage.

Until this mp, I wasn't familiar with the fact that the US/Japanese casetticon warrior characters were reversed.

Could someone familiar with the Japanese version of th G1 cartoon explain this to me...if "Frenzy" is the blue casetticon in the Japanese version, does his Japanese name actually remain the same, or differ to something that means "quake" or "rumbling" since clearly the blue casetticon is the one with the pille drivers causing the ground to "rumble" or shake...which the name "frenzy" would have no relation to.

Kinda confusing. Or was there an edit to the animation itself reversing their colors for some reason?

I imagine that most every US collector would want BLUE rumble more than RED rumble/frenzy, as the blue rumble is the most featured and memorable of the two in the G1 anime. Nothing against red frenzy though! =)

Posted: **Wed Jan 09, 2013 8:54 am**

DinobotSix wrote:
Mindmaster wrote:I wish Frenzy (Rumble!) came with Ravage instead, I'd much rather have those two over Rumble (Frenzy!) and Buzzsaw.

Gotta agree 100% with this. Maybe if Hasbro releases these here in the US they'll put the blue one with Ravage.

Until this mp, I wasn't familiar with the fact that the US/Japanese casetticon warrior characters were reversed.

Could someone familiar with the Japanese version of th G1 cartoon explain this to me...if "Frenzy" is the blue casetticon in the Japanese version, does his Japanese name actually remain the same, or differ to something that means "quake" or "rumbling" since clearly the blue casetticon is the one with the pille drivers causing the ground to "rumble" or shake...which the name "frenzy" would have no relation to.

Kinda confusing. Or was there an edit to the animation itself reversing their colors for some reason?

I imagine that most every US collector would want BLUE rumble more than RED rumble/frenzy, as the blue rumble is the most featured and memorable of the two in the G1 anime. Nothing against red frenzy though! =)

This page explains it best - http://tfwiki.net/wiki/FIRRIB

Basically, the original Generation 1 toys from Hasbro had the blue/purple one released as "Frenzy" and the black/red one released as "Rumble".

This was reflected in the Marvel comics and children's storybooks releaed at the time, with them each depicting Rumble as the red/black one and Frenzy as the blue/purple one.

Then, along came the cartoon which, according to its production bible (which refers to Rumble as the "red robot"), was going to follow in suit. However, somewhere along the way of production, their names got swapped around for some unspecified reason, resulting in the cartoon portraying Rumble as the more often seen blue/purple robot and Frenzy as the less often seen red/black robot.

No one is really certain what happened to lead to their names getting switched, but mistake or not, due to the widespread recognition the cartoon got, many viewers took it as gospel and became of the mindset that Rumble was/is supposed to be the blue/purple one and Frenzy the red/black one, instead of vice-versa as their toys and comic/book appearances (which came before the cartoon) had them be.

And since then, there has been an ongoing debate over which colors which character fans believe to be the "correct" ones. Complicating this matter is how different post-1980s G1 media (mainly comics) have been switching around their colors on and off due to different artists having grown up on either the original cartoon or the original toys/comics and having different preferences for each.

As such, this has led to the fan terms "FIRRIB" (meaning "Frenzy is red, Rumble is blue!") and "FIBRIR" (meaning "Frenzy is blue, Rumble is red!"), as well as variations like "RIBFIR" and "RIRBIB", which have all been used in such debates as these.

For the longest time, the Hasbro toys had remained with original "FIBRIR" style with every new G1-based Rumble and Frenzy toy having Rumble be red/black and Frenzy be purple/blue.

However, 2010 revealed to us a new Reveal the Shield "Demolition Rumble" toy that was surprising colored in the "FIRRIB" style! Though this toy wound up being canceled (dueto it coming so late in its toyline when stores were wanting Dark of the Moon toys instead), its existence was the first sign of things to come.

When the Transformers: War for Cybertron game debuted, the game's iterations of Rumble and Frenzy were in FIRRIB colors. Then the Transformers: Prime toyline released a blue-colored Rumble toy just last year. And an unreleased prototype of a Prime Frenzy toy was revealed to be red. This, combined with the canceled Demolition Rumble toy, seems to indicate that, for Hasbro's new Aligned Continuity, they've settled on FIRRIB and have thus far had all portrayed of Aligned Rumble be blue and Aligned Frenzy be red. As such, the newly-released Generations Fall of Cybertron Data Disc toys have had a blue Rumble and a red Frenzy.

But, then again, since these are the Aligned continuity version and not the G1 versions, the "FIRRIB vs "FIBRIR" argument kinda doesn't work since the Aligned versions had always been FIRRIB in every format (save for the Japanese Prime toys, but I'll get to that).

In 1985, when the Transformers brand came to Japan, Takara released their toys of Rumble and Frenzy with Rumble being red/black and Frenzy being blue/purple, just as Hasbro had done.

Noticing that their names were switched for the English version of the cartoon, Takara did not want to have the same confusion between the show and toys that Hasbro had with their versions. so, to remedy their situation, They switched Rumble's and Frenzy's names back around for the Japanese dub of the cartoon, making, in the Japanese language version of the cartoon, Frenzy be the more often seen purple/blue one and Rumble be the less often seen black/red one.

And ever since then, Japan has always had Rumble be the black/red one and Frenzy be the blue/purple one. So, these Masterpiece toys (as well as the Japanese Prime toys*) are just following the standard that Takara's had since 1985. :-B

* - Regarding the color difference between Hasbro's blue Prime Rumble and Takara's red Prime Rumble and blue Prime Frenzy, Japanese toy bio author Andrew Hall has hinted at some reconciliation being written into the Japanese toys' bios to explain this, so we'll hopefully get this sorted out when their bios surface.

Posted: **Wed Jan 09, 2013 9:14 am**

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:
Rated X wrote:
Deruji wrote:
Sabrblade wrote:
Rated X wrote:Ive never heard of Tampographs and dont know what they are.
http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Tampograph

You can see the process explained, at 3:50 you can also see the mass production version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yq24QaLArso

Very interesting. But if it's this easy, then that just opens the door for arguments on why Hasbro versions have SOME of the paint apps, but not ALL of the paint apps Takara versions have. I hate that American market vs. Japanese Market argument Hasbro always throws up in convention pannels. Theyre basically saying American kids are savages who destroy their toys and dont deserve the extra 50 cents worth of Tampo ink. Or are they saying Japanese kids dont buy toy robots, only Japanese adult collectors ? Either way, something seems lazy and cheap on Hasbro's part.

It's indeed Japanese vs. American market. Unlike Hasbro, TakaraTomy has to compete rather aggressively with big companies like Bandai. And I mean BIG: Bandai has I think the lion's share in the robot toy figure department and then some, in both the kids' and adult collector's market.

What are some of these Bandai Japanese Transforming toys that compete with Takara ??? i dont mean Gundam or Power Rangers. But robots that actually Transform. Is there a reason why Takara doesnt offer cheap Hasbro style versions meant for kids, not collectors. At 35 bucks a pop, Takara isnt doing themselves any favors trying to sell kids toys. I really dont get this whole "Asian market" thing. Either theyre kids toys or collectibles. They cant pose as both at the same price. And even with the colors of plastic chosen, it really makes no sense. take Takara bone white vs. Hasbro off white for instance. it's not a G1 vs neo, or a toy accurate vs. cartoon accurate arguement. It's just a case of Hasbro making poor decisions. Decisions that should be standard to the product worldwide. These decisions shouldnt play such a huge factor of placing the Takara product on a pedastool and making the Hasbro version purposely look inferior.

Posted: **Wed Jan 09, 2013 9:25 am**

For the kids: Gundam, Super Sentai, Kamen Rider and all sorts of other lines.
For the Collector: Chogokin lines.

It's not much transforming robots but robots period. And quite frankly, transforming sentient robots have never been as big as piloted mecha in Japan.

I should say Bandai has the majority of the Japanese toy market as a whole. So TakaraTomy has to appeal to the crowd in a variety of unique ways, be it the model kit gimmick of Arms Micron, or the shinies of United and Generations.

Hasbro does not have that problem, being the major toy company that it is, so they can do what they darn well please. >:oP

Posted: **Wed Jan 09, 2013 11:16 am**

DinobotSix wrote:Could someone familiar with the Japanese version of th G1 cartoon explain this to me...if "Frenzy" is the blue casetticon in the Japanese version, does his Japanese name actually remain the same, or differ to something that means "quake" or "rumbling" since clearly the blue casetticon is the one with the pille drivers causing the ground to "rumble" or shake...which the name "frenzy" would have no relation to.

The "rumbling arms" gimmick, in the cartoon, was used by both Rumble and Frenzy. I always hated that...I wanted the sonic scream deal for Frenzy only and the pile drivers for Rumble only.

Posted: **Wed Jan 09, 2013 2:42 pm**

Rated X wrote:What are some of these Bandai Japanese Transforming toys that compete with Takara ??? i dont mean Gundam or Power Rangers. But robots that actually Transform. Is there a reason why Takara doesnt offer cheap Hasbro style versions meant for kids, not collectors. At 35 bucks a pop, Takara isnt doing themselves any favors trying to sell kids toys. I really dont get this whole "Asian market" thing. Either theyre kids toys or collectibles. They cant pose as both at the same price. And even with the colors of plastic chosen, it really makes no sense. take Takara bone white vs. Hasbro off white for instance. it's not a G1 vs neo, or a toy accurate vs. cartoon accurate arguement. It's just a case of Hasbro making poor decisions. Decisions that should be standard to the product worldwide. These decisions shouldnt play such a huge factor of placing the Takara product on a pedastool and making the Hasbro version purposely look inferior.

1) Transformers are in their own zone, but they just are not at the same popularity as Gundam, Anime, and other franchises.

2) The prices in Japan are relative to the prices we pay in North America - the prices we pay for Takara produxts are because of s & h.

3) The toy industry is different in Japan. There's collectors in a sense and what not, but the majority of children aren't going to have the same personal space to collect toys because of smaller and more compact housing. Games take a priority instead.

4) Hasbro is not making 'stupid' choices. They're looking at opportunity costs and marginal costs. Why should they spend an additional $1 or $2 on a paint application for each figure when they don't need it to sell the product they've made? Hasbro off white Drift and FoC Jazz - we're still going to buy because it's a domestic release rather than something we have to import. Look at that FoC Bruticus toy - it's far from what I'd call a good figure, but it's still being bought up in hideous colours, more hideous colors, and even more hideous colours. A paint application here or there (or what Takara did) might spruce their toy up, but why bother. They're still going to sell X amount of units at X amount of price, there's no reason to go outside their budget.

Posted: **Wed Jan 09, 2013 5:16 pm**

just noticed the reply above mentioning the Red Casseticon also using Pile Driver arms. hmm...I seem to vaguely recall it, but haven't watched the G1 anime in a while. Thanks!

So I suppose it all sounds fine in the end then.

I also recall the US anime having so many issues with cel coloring, that often you'd see Starscream in Thundercracker colors, or vice versa.

Posted: **Wed Jan 09, 2013 5:17 pm**

Sabrblade wrote:Noticing that their names were switched for the English version of the cartoon, Takara did not want to have the same confusion between the show and toys that Hasbro had with their versions. so, to remedy their situation, They switched Rumble's and Frenzy's names back around for the Japanese dub of the cartoon, making, in the Japanese language version of the cartoon, Frenzy be the more often seen purple/blue one and Rumble be the less often seen black/red one.

First off, thanks for the interesting history of this issue.

As to the naming then, it's as I figured.

In Japan then they then refer to the blue casseticon as "Frenzy" which would seem odd, since he's the one causing earthquakes, not the red one they would know as "Rumble". but I suppose the fact that the nomenclature is from foreign language to begin with, it's not a big deal. =)

Thanks again!

Posted: **Wed Jan 09, 2013 8:14 pm**

DinobotSix wrote:just noticed the reply above mentioning the Red Casseticon also using Pile Driver arms. hmm...I seem to vaguely recall it, but haven't watched the G1 anime in a while. Thanks!

Yup, it occurs at 1:33 here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCB-jVLGAeo

Posted: **Thu Jan 10, 2013 4:33 am**

Very impressive, iirrespective of the whole FIRRIB RIBFIR IFRIRB BFIIRR scenario. Glad I've got mine on preorder.

Posted: **Thu Jan 10, 2013 6:38 pm**

F Prime wrote:Yup, it occurs at 1:33 here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCB-jVLGAeo

Ah yes!
Thanks for the link...that scene always brings a smile to my face and warms my heart!

G1 Starscream is such a perfect bastard! =D

Posted: **Thu Jan 10, 2013 10:40 pm**

Rated X wrote:
JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:
Rated X wrote:
Deruji wrote:
Sabrblade wrote:
Rated X wrote:Ive never heard of Tampographs and dont know what they are.
http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Tampograph

You can see the process explained, at 3:50 you can also see the mass production version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yq24QaLArso

Very interesting. But if it's this easy, then that just opens the door for arguments on why Hasbro versions have SOME of the paint apps, but not ALL of the paint apps Takara versions have. I hate that American market vs. Japanese Market argument Hasbro always throws up in convention pannels. Theyre basically saying American kids are savages who destroy their toys and dont deserve the extra 50 cents worth of Tampo ink. Or are they saying Japanese kids dont buy toy robots, only Japanese adult collectors ? Either way, something seems lazy and cheap on Hasbro's part.

It's indeed Japanese vs. American market. Unlike Hasbro, TakaraTomy has to compete rather aggressively with big companies like Bandai. And I mean BIG: Bandai has I think the lion's share in the robot toy figure department and then some, in both the kids' and adult collector's market.

What are some of these Bandai Japanese Transforming toys that compete with Takara ??? i dont mean Gundam or Power Rangers. But robots that actually Transform. Is there a reason why Takara doesnt offer cheap Hasbro style versions meant for kids, not collectors. At 35 bucks a pop, Takara isnt doing themselves any favors trying to sell kids toys. I really dont get this whole "Asian market" thing. Either theyre kids toys or collectibles. They cant pose as both at the same price. And even with the colors of plastic chosen, it really makes no sense. take Takara bone white vs. Hasbro off white for instance. it's not a G1 vs neo, or a toy accurate vs. cartoon accurate arguement. It's just a case of Hasbro making poor decisions. Decisions that should be standard to the product worldwide. These decisions shouldnt play such a huge factor of placing the Takara product on a pedastool and making the Hasbro version purposely look inferior.

Can you explain more when you say $35 a pop for a Takara toy? Which toys are referring to? And are you referring to the price you see on the online retailers outside Japan or the price in Japan, because they are vastly different. For instance, when I lived in Japan, the Henkei series Deluxe sold for about Y1500 (which was about $14 USD at the time), which isn't too far off of par compared to Hasbro Deluxe's in the U.S. when you take in account the increased salaries in Japan due to the higher cost of living. That Y1500 eventually becomes $35 after the exchange rate, costs due to shipping, and online retailers' piece of the cut. All those factors make collecting Japanese toys expensive when living outside of Japan.

Posted: **Fri Jan 11, 2013 12:31 am**

Mindmaster wrote:I wish Frenzy (Rumble!) came with Ravage instead, I'd much rather have those two over Rumble (Frenzy!) and Buzzsaw.

Pretty sure it was a deliberate revenue maximising company decision.

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In Hand Images of MP-16 Frenzy and Buzzsaw

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Re: In Hand Images of MP-16 Frenzy and Buzzsaw

Re: In Hand Images of MP-16 Frenzy and Buzzsaw