This page contains affiliate links. We may earn commissions when readers interact with or purchase items through these links. For more information, see our affiliate disclosures here.

My Japanese G1 Continuity Talk with Hayato Sakamoto at BotCon 2016

Get the latest Transformers related Convention and Event forum news and information. Join in discussions with fellow attendees right here on Seibertron.com.

Moderator: Club and BotCon Forum Staff

My Japanese G1 Continuity Talk with Hayato Sakamoto at BotCon 2016

Postby Sabrblade » Thu Apr 21, 2016 6:06 pm

Motto: "Can't do a job halfway. What's worth doing is worth doing well, I say."
Weapon: Saber Blade
On the last day of BotCon 2016, I attended the Sunday morning panel that was hosted by Japanese Transformers artist/writer Hayato Sakamoto, writer/translator Andrew “Hydra” Hall, and writer/translator Ken Rose. At this panel, Sakamoto talked about his working as an artist for IDW’s Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye comic series, as well as his working as both a writer and an artist for the TakaraTomy’s Transformers: Unite Warriors and Transformers: Legends pack-in fiction. (For those interested, you can watch a full YouTube video recording of the panel HERE).

After the panel ended, I approached the three as they were exiting the room (heading back to Sakamoto-san’s booth in the Artist Alley room) to ask Sakamoto-san some questions about his Japanese G1 works. Having an affinity for continuity and lore, Sakamoto-san was quite enthusiastic to discuss these topics with me. I joined the three on their walk back to the Artist Alley, introducing myself to Andrew Hall who recognized my screenname. Once we got to Sakamoto-san’s booth, Ken Rose graciously acted as a translation middleman between the two of us.

Most of my questions originated from what was said during the panel about the continuity placements of Unite Warriors Offshot and Legends, which then springboarded into a wider discussion of the Japanese G1 cartoon continuity as a whole. Here is a rundown of the things we discussed and the answers I was able to get (note that Sakamoto-san’s attention eventually became divided between myself and other fans who were wanting him to sign and/or draw something for them, so some of the answers I got were less clear than others):

* As said during the panel, Unite Warriors Offshot and the specific Legends manga chapters that have G1 Megatron, Ultra Magnus, and Springer come into the Legends Universe all take place after G2. But more specifically, they all take place after the two e-HOBBY manga that came with Masterpiece MP-1B Convoy Black Ver. And Masterpiece MP-3G Starscream Ghost Ver.

* As the Legends manga chapter that has Springer go to the Legends Universe takes place in the 2030s, with Operation Combination and United EX set in the year 2035, that era of Legends (and I think Unite Warriors Offshot as well) takes place in the late 2030s.

* Unite Warriors Offshot takes place even after the post-G2/post-e-HOBBY era of Legends. However, Sakamoto-san does not yet know how long or short after Legends that UWO takes place, as Legends currently has Metroplex in the Legends Universe while UWO has him in the main JG1 universe, so Sakamoto does not yet know when Metroplex gets out of the Legends Universe and goes back to the JG1 universe. But he does at least know that UWO does come after Legends.

* Unlike the rest of the Unite Warriors fiction released so far, the Grand Galvatron comic does not take place in the same post-G2/post-e-HOBBY era as UWO. Though the comic does say that it takes place ten years after Galvatron’s death in 2011 (2021), Sakamoto further revealed that it takes place after the Masterforce cartoon.

* As stated at the panel, one of the things Sakamoto set out to do with the Legends manga was to show Ultra Magnus’s rebirth into his G2 Laser Ultra Magnus body. However, in the Legends manga that showed Ultra Magnus’s rebirth, Ultra Magnus is shown waking up from inside his coffin in his Legends toy body instead. When asked if Ultra Magnus was reborn in his G2 Laser Ultra Magnus body or his Legends toy body, Sakamoto said it was the former, and explained that manga chapter as being more of a retelling of Magnus’s rebirth than a literal depiction. He also explained that Ultra Magnus can change his physical form back and forth between his G2 Laser body and his Legends body by the power of the Reconfiguration Matrix. This explains how Magnus was able to appear in his G2 Laser body during the post-G2 e-HOBBY manga and then as his Legends body later on in the Legends manga.

* Reiterating something he said at the panel, when Alpha Trion sacrificed the last of his energy to recharge the Matrix in episode 3 of The Headmasters, he didn’t merely recharge the Matrix, he became the Matrix. A new Matrix, at that. And this Matrix being a new one is why Rodimus Prime (or rather, his animation model) looked different in The Headmasters compared to how he looked in season 3 of the G1 cartoon. And in the Legends manga, when Alpha Trion put himself into Ultra Magnus’s chest, Ultra Magnus came back to life by having the new Matrix (Alpha Trion) put into him.

* As he referred to the Grand Scourge comic to present the continuity placements of UWO and Legends during the panel, I asked him if the Grand Scourge comic is supposed to be a part of the main JG1 cartoon continuity or not, as the comic itself is rather vague on its own continuity, seemingly on purpose. Sakamoto’s answer is that he’s presently not sure if it is or not since he’s not the one writing it. As I type this answer, I suspect that Sakamoto is open to the possibility of the comic being on its own outside of the JG1 continuity, and is just taking precautions with the placements of UWO and Legends to allow the Grand Scourge comic to be slotted into the main timeline should the opportunity arise at a later date. But for right now, its placement in the main timeline (should it ever be included) remains undetermined.

* As stated at the panel, Sakamoto is among those responsible for creating the big JG1 timeline from 2007. He confirmed that he played a role in adding Car Robots to the timeline. His reasons given for including it were that RobotMasters Wrecker Hook is an amnesiac Car Robots Wrecker Hook (I did not get to ask if this was the official consensus or just his own personal consensus), Brave Maximus came back to Earth after Car Robots (and apparently so too did God Magnus, from what I was told, but didn’t get anything further about that), and that when the e-HOBBY G1 GoBots came to the Transformers universe, their technology was used to create the Spychangers.

* At the end of the Car Robots cartoon, Brave Maximus had taken all of the Destrongers back to Cybertron to stand trial before Vector Sigma. Since the characters of that cartoon were said to have come from the future, I asked if Brave Maximus took them back to the Cybertron of the cartoon’s present time or the Cybertron of future that the characters all came from. Sakamoto said it was the future.

* In the Legends manga that features Car Robots Black Convoy (RiD Scourge), he has his own Energon Matrix, as a means of explaining the molded-in Matrix on the toy. Sakamoto explains that Black Convoy was able to get an Energon Matrix of his own because the United EX fiction had the Energon Matrix technology being developed in the year 2035. And since Black Convoy had been taken back to Cybertron in the future, he was able to get his Energon Matrix during a point when Energon Matrix technology existed.

* When asked to tell more about how Black Convoy got his Energon Matrix, Sakamoto said that he’s waiting for a Unite Warriors Baldigus release before saying any more about that. I didn’t get to ask if he meant that there is a Unite Warriors Baldigus coming, or if he’s just wanting there to be one.

* Sakamoto told me an in-fiction reason for why Car Robots Ai and the human Ai Kuruma looks alike. Car Robots Ai's appearance is based on a scan made of Ai Kuruma.

* I asked Sakamoto if he could tell me what exactly a Spark Engine was, as it was only mentioned once in the Car Robots anime but never told what it was. Unfortunately, this question didn't get to be answered. I don't fully recall why it wasn't answered, but I think it was either due to the answer being tied with the Black Convoy question that he was waiting on a UW Baldigus release in order to answer, or was due to Sakamoto's attention becoming divided between my questions and other fans coming to his booth to ask for his autograph/artwork.

* When asked what future era the Car Robots characters hail from, Sakamoto said that it’s currently fuzzy on what era they came from. When I mentioned that some fans like to think that they come from the same era as the Beast Wars II and Beast Wars Neo cast, he said that that idea pretty much aligns with his own ideas (of note is that a small book of his original artwork that he had for sale at his booth contained a page of artwork that featured Big Convoy and JRX together on Cybertron, but it wasn’t official art, just one of his many personal art pieces).

* Sakamoto also asked me if I work on the TFWiki, and I said yeah. Sakamoto told me a few things that he’d like to see on the Wiki. Specifically, he’d like to see more images overall of artwork, especially more images of full-body character artwork. I told him that, while I do contribute to the Wiki, I’m not a member of its administrative staff, and that the Wiki does have some policies regarding what images it uses and such, but which are reasonable.


I think that’s everything we got to discuss before the convention ended. If I remember any more, I’ll add more to it.
Last edited by Sabrblade on Sun Sep 12, 2021 10:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"When there's gold feathers, punch behind you!!"

Shadowman wrote:This is Sabrblade we're talking about. His ability to store trivial information about TV shows is downright superhuman.
Caelus wrote:My wife pointed out something interesting about the prehistoric Predacons. I said that everyone was complaining because transforming for them mostly consisted of them just standing up-right. She essentially said, 'So? That's what our ancestors did.'
User avatar
Sabrblade
God Of Transformers
Posts: 38680
News Credits: 434
Joined: Thu Dec 06, 2007 7:22 pm
Location: Tampa, FL
Strength: 7
Intelligence: 10
Speed: 7
Endurance: 8
Rank: 9
Courage: 8
Firepower: 7
Skill: 9

Re: My Japanese G1 Continuity Talk with Hayato Sakamoto at BotCon 2016

Postby Counterpunch » Mon Apr 25, 2016 9:38 am

Motto: "Everything I do is divinely sanctioned."
Weapon: Jawbreaker Cannon
Sabrblade wrote:* Sakamoto also asked me if I work on the TFWiki, and I said yeah. Sakamoto told me a few things that he’d like to see on the Wiki. Specifically, he’d like to see more images overall of artwork, especially more images of full-body character artwork. I told him that, while I do contribute to the Wiki, I’m not a member of its administrative staff, and that the Wiki does have some policies regarding what images it uses and such, but which are reasonable.


I concur with his request wholeheartedly.

Frankly, it's one of the biggest weaknesses of the Wiki.

I would really like to be able to track character model changes over time, particularly with the comics where multiple alt or bot modes have been used in the stories.

I've had multiple instances of late where I just scrap going on to the wiki for information and start rifling through my back issues to figure stuff out.
Image
User avatar
Counterpunch
Podcast Host
Posts: 11335
News Credits: 125
Joined: Wed Mar 05, 2003 9:56 pm
Strength: 6
Intelligence: 8
Speed: 6
Endurance: 5
Rank: 9
Courage: 9
Firepower: 4
Skill: 7

#Botcon 2016 Japanese G1 Continuity Talk with Hayato Sakamoto

Postby william-james88 » Tue Apr 26, 2016 8:57 pm

Motto: "'till All Are One"
One of our fellow Seibertronian Superstars, Sabrblade was at Botcon 2016 and spoke to Japanese Transformers artist/writer Hayato Sakamoto. He wrote for us a transcript of this fascinating discussion which might even elude to some upcoming Unite Warriors releases. The full transcript is below with an introduction of the context by Sabrblade:

Sabrblade wrote:On the last day of BotCon 2016, I attended the Sunday morning panel that was hosted by Japanese Transformers artist/writer Hayato Sakamoto, writer/translator Andrew “Hydra” Hall, and writer/translator Ken Rose. At this panel, Sakamoto talked about his working as an artist for IDW’s Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye comic series, as well as his working as both a writer and an artist for the TakaraTomy’s Transformers: Unite Warriors and Transformers: Legends pack-in fiction. (For those interested, you can watch a full YouTube video recording of the panel HERE).

After the panel ended, I approached the three as they were exiting the room (heading back to Sakamoto-san’s booth in the Artist Alley room) to ask Sakamoto-san some questions about his Japanese G1 works. Having an affinity for continuity and lore, Sakamoto-san was quite enthusiastic to discuss these topics with me. I joined the three on their walk back to the Artist Alley, introducing myself to Andrew Hall who recognized my screenname. Once we got to Sakamoto-san’s booth, Ken Rose graciously acted as a translation middleman between the two of us.

Most of my questions originated from what was said during the panel about the continuity placements of Unite Warriors Offshoot and Legends, which then springboarded into a wider discussion of the Japanese G1 cartoon continuity as a whole. Here is a rundown of the things we discussed and the answers I was able to get (note that Sakamoto-san’s attention eventually became divided between myself and other fans who were wanting him to sign and/or draw something for them, so some of the answers I got were less clear than others):

* As said during the panel, Unite Warriors Offshoot and the specific Legends manga chapters that have G1 Megatron, Ultra Magnus, and Springer come into the Legends Universe all take place after G2. But more specifically, they all take place after the two e-HOBBY manga that came with Masterpiece MP-1B Convoy Black Ver. And Masterpiece MP-3G Starscream Ghost Ver.

* As the Legends manga chapter that has Springer go to the Legends Universe takes place in the 2030s, with Operation Combination and United EX set in the year 2035, that era of Legends (and I think Unite Warriors Offshoot as well) takes place in the late 2030s.

* Unite Warriors Offshoot takes place even after the post-G2/post-e-HOBBY era of Legends. However, Sakamoto-san does not yet know how long or short after Legends that UWO takes place, as Legends currently has Metroplex in the Legends Universe while UWO has him in the main JG1 universe, so Sakamoto does not yet know when Metroplex gets out of the Legends Universe and goes back to the JG1 universe. But he does at least know that UWO does come after Legends.

* Unlike the rest of the Unite Warriors fiction released so far, the Grand Galvatron comic does not take place in the same post-G2/post-e-HOBBY era as UWO. Though the comic does say that it takes place ten years after Galvatron’s death in 2011 (2021), Sakamoto further revealed that it takes place after the Masterforce cartoon.

* As stated at the panel, one of the things Sakamoto set out to do with the Legends manga was to show Ultra Magnus’s rebirth into his G2 Laser Ultra Magnus body. However, in the Legends manga that showed Ultra Magnus’s rebirth, Ultra Magnus is shown waking up from inside his coffin in his Legends toy body instead. When asked if Ultra Magnus was reborn in his G2 Laser Ultra Magnus body or his Legends toy body, Sakamoto said it was the former, and explained that manga chapter as being more of a retelling of Magnus’s rebirth than a literal depiction. He also explained that Ultra Magnus can change his physical form back and forth between his G2 Laser body and his Legends body by the power of the Reconfiguration Matrix. This explains how Magnus was able to appear in his G2 Laser body during the post-G2 e-HOBBY manga and then as his Legends body later on in the Legends manga.

* Reiterating something he said at the panel, when Alpha Trion sacrificed the last of his energy to recharge the Matrix in episode 3 of The Headmasters, he didn’t merely recharge the Matrix, he became the Matrix. A new Matrix, at that. And this Matrix being a new one is why Rodimus Prime (or rather, his animation model) looked different in The Headmasters compared to how he looked in season 3 of the G1 cartoon. And in the Legends manga, when Alpha Trion put himself into Ultra Magnus’s chest, Ultra Magnus came back to life by having the new Matrix (Alpha Trion) put into him.

* As he referred to the Grand Scourge comic to present the continuity placements of UWO and Legends during the panel, I asked him if the Grand Scourge comic is supposed to be a part of the main JG1 cartoon continuity or not, as the comic itself is rather vague on its own continuity, seemingly on purpose. Sakamoto’s answer is that he’s presently not sure if it is or not since he’s not the one writing it. As I type this answer, I suspect that Sakamoto is open to the possibility of the comic being on its own outside of the JG1 continuity, and is just taking precautions with the placements of UWO and Legends to allow the Grand Scourge comic to be slotted into the main timeline should the opportunity arise at a later date. But for right now, its placement in the main timeline (should it ever be included) remains undetermined.

* As stated at the panel, Sakamoto is among those responsible for creating the big JG1 timeline from 2007. He confirmed that he played a role in adding Car Robots to the timeline. His reasons given for including it were that RobotMasters Wrecker Hook is an amnesiac Car Robots Wrecker Hook (I did not get to ask if this was the official consensus or just his own personal consensus), Brave Maximus came back to Earth after Car Robots (and apparently so too did God Magnus, from what I was told, but didn’t get anything further about that), and that when the e-HOBBY G1 GoBots came to the Transformers universe, their technology was used to create the Spychangers.

* At the end of the Car Robots cartoon, Brave Maximus had taken all of the Destrongers back to Cybertron to stand trial before Vector Sigma. Since the characters of that cartoon were said to have come from the future, I asked if Brave Maximus took them back to the Cybertron of the cartoon’s present time or the Cybertron of future that the characters all came from. Sakamoto said it was the future.

* In the Legends manga that features Car Robots Black Convoy (RiD Scourge), he has his own Energon Matrix, as a means of explaining the molded-in Matrix on the toy. Sakamoto explains that Black Convoy was able to get an Energon Matrix of his own because the United EX fiction had the Energon Matrix technology being developed in the year 2035. And since Black Convoy had been taken back to Cybertron in the future, he was able to get his Energon Matrix during a point when Energon Matrix technology existed.

* When asked to tell more about how Black Convoy got his Energon Matrix, Sakamoto said that he’s waiting for a Unite Warriors Baldigus release before saying any more about that. I didn’t get to ask if he meant that there is a Unite Warriors Baldigus coming, or if he’s just wanting there to be one.

* Sakamoto told me an in-fiction reason for why Car Robots Ai and the human Ai Kuruma looks alike. Car Robots Ai's appearance is based on a scan made of Ai Kuruma.

* I asked Sakamoto if he could tell me what exactly a Spark Engine was, as it was only mentioned once in the Car Robots anime but never told what it was. Unfortunately, this question didn't get to be answered. I don't fully recall why it wasn't answered, but I think it was either due to the answer being tied with the Black Convoy question that he was waiting on a UW Baldigus release in order to answer, or was due to Sakamoto's attention becoming divided between my questions and other fans coming to his booth to ask for his autograph/artwork.

* When asked what future era the Car Robots characters hail from, Sakamoto said that it’s currently fuzzy on what era they came from. When I mentioned that some fans like to think that they come from the same era as the Beast Wars II and Beast Wars Neo cast, he said that that idea pretty much aligns with his own ideas (of note is that a small book of his original artwork that he had for sale at his booth contained a page of artwork that featured Big Convoy and JRX together on Cybertron, but it wasn’t official art, just one of his many personal art pieces).

* Sakamoto also asked me if I work on the TFWiki, and I said yeah. Sakamoto told me a few things that he’d like to see on the Wiki. Specifically, he’d like to see more images overall of artwork, especially more images of full-body character artwork. I told him that, while I do contribute to the Wiki, I’m not a member of its administrative staff, and that the Wiki does have some policies regarding what images it uses and such, but which are reasonable.


I think that’s everything we got to discuss before the convention ended. If I remember any more, I’ll add more to it.
If you have any news, rumours, or hot new sightings to report which you feel should be front paged,
please contact us using this form.

Image
User avatar
william-james88
News Staff
Posts: 32550
News Credits: 4469
Joined: Thu Apr 17, 2014 5:46 am
Buy from william-james88 on eBay

Re: My Japanese G1 Continuity Talk with Hayato Sakamoto at BotCon 2016

Postby Sabrblade » Tue Apr 26, 2016 9:06 pm

Motto: "Can't do a job halfway. What's worth doing is worth doing well, I say."
Weapon: Saber Blade
I probably should have mentioned that some of what I wrote reads a little better after having first viewed Sakamoto's BotCon panel. So I'd recommend watching that video of the panel I linked to above before reading the full conversation that Sakamoto and I had after it.

Or, since I also took notes covering what was said at that panel, I could post my panel notes if ya'll would like.
"When there's gold feathers, punch behind you!!"

Shadowman wrote:This is Sabrblade we're talking about. His ability to store trivial information about TV shows is downright superhuman.
Caelus wrote:My wife pointed out something interesting about the prehistoric Predacons. I said that everyone was complaining because transforming for them mostly consisted of them just standing up-right. She essentially said, 'So? That's what our ancestors did.'
User avatar
Sabrblade
God Of Transformers
Posts: 38680
News Credits: 434
Joined: Thu Dec 06, 2007 7:22 pm
Location: Tampa, FL
Strength: 7
Intelligence: 10
Speed: 7
Endurance: 8
Rank: 9
Courage: 8
Firepower: 7
Skill: 9

Re: My Japanese G1 Continuity Talk with Hayato Sakamoto at BotCon 2016

Postby Deadput » Tue Apr 26, 2016 9:28 pm

Motto: "Let's kick the tires and light the fires!"
Weapon: Fusion Blaster Cannon
Sakamoto is a cool dude that was a good read about lore.


Would be cool to meet him.
Va'al wrote:
Deadput wrote:Actually I don't know my mother's name is Valerie so is Va'al actually my mother?

Yes. Now go to your room and don't play with yourself.


Image
User avatar
Deadput
Faction Commander
Posts: 4592
News Credits: 54
Joined: Sat May 05, 2012 7:37 am
Location: Alberta,Canada
Alt Mode: A mec suit for redundancy.
Strength: 3
Intelligence: 6
Speed: 9
Endurance: 3
Rank: 3
Courage: 7
Firepower: 10
Skill: 5

Re: My Japanese G1 Continuity Talk with Hayato Sakamoto at BotCon 2016

Postby Randomhero » Tue Apr 26, 2016 9:30 pm

I heard about his panel on another site. I heard he and a lot of fans from Japan consider everything to be part of the original G1 continuity in one way or another. It's...odd but if you can make it work in your own head well... More power to ya
Randomhero
Gestalt
Posts: 2754
News Credits: 3
Joined: Thu Sep 06, 2012 6:02 pm

Re: My Japanese G1 Continuity Talk with Hayato Sakamoto at BotCon 2016

Postby Sabrblade » Tue Apr 26, 2016 9:32 pm

Motto: "Can't do a job halfway. What's worth doing is worth doing well, I say."
Weapon: Saber Blade
Randomhero wrote:I heard about his panel on another site. I heard he and a lot of fans from Japan consider everything to be part of the original G1 continuity in one way or another.
Not everything. No Unicron Trilogy, Movie, Animated, or Prime stuff, for instance.
"When there's gold feathers, punch behind you!!"

Shadowman wrote:This is Sabrblade we're talking about. His ability to store trivial information about TV shows is downright superhuman.
Caelus wrote:My wife pointed out something interesting about the prehistoric Predacons. I said that everyone was complaining because transforming for them mostly consisted of them just standing up-right. She essentially said, 'So? That's what our ancestors did.'
User avatar
Sabrblade
God Of Transformers
Posts: 38680
News Credits: 434
Joined: Thu Dec 06, 2007 7:22 pm
Location: Tampa, FL
Strength: 7
Intelligence: 10
Speed: 7
Endurance: 8
Rank: 9
Courage: 8
Firepower: 7
Skill: 9

Re: My Japanese G1 Continuity Talk with Hayato Sakamoto at BotCon 2016

Postby william-james88 » Tue Apr 26, 2016 9:40 pm

Motto: "'till All Are One"
Sabrblade wrote:
Randomhero wrote:I heard about his panel on another site. I heard he and a lot of fans from Japan consider everything to be part of the original G1 continuity in one way or another.
Not everything. No Unicron Trilogy, Movie, Animated, or Prime stuff, for instance.


Didn't the legends comic connect both animated and g1 as seperate universes which can interact with one another though? Meaning that g1 ultra Magnus did meet animated slipstream.
If you have any news, rumours, or hot new sightings to report which you feel should be front paged,
please contact us using this form.

Image
User avatar
william-james88
News Staff
Posts: 32550
News Credits: 4469
Joined: Thu Apr 17, 2014 5:46 am
Buy from william-james88 on eBay

Re: My Japanese G1 Continuity Talk with Hayato Sakamoto at BotCon 2016

Postby Sabrblade » Tue Apr 26, 2016 9:47 pm

Motto: "Can't do a job halfway. What's worth doing is worth doing well, I say."
Weapon: Saber Blade
william-james88 wrote:
Sabrblade wrote:
Randomhero wrote:I heard about his panel on another site. I heard he and a lot of fans from Japan consider everything to be part of the original G1 continuity in one way or another.
Not everything. No Unicron Trilogy, Movie, Animated, or Prime stuff, for instance.


Didn't the legends comic connect both animated and g1 as seperate universes which can interact with one another though? Meaning that g1 ultra Magnus did meet animated slipstream.
They met in the Legends Universe after both had come to it from their own respective separate universes.

That was something mentioned at the panel. The Legends Universe is itself a unique separate universe that introduces all aspects of other universes, with characters from such universes as Cloud World, Japanese G1, Animated, and Armada hopping over into it from their own universes. Ultra Magnus came over from JG1 around the late 2030s (after G2), and Slipstream came over from Animated likely at some undisclosed point after season 3.
"When there's gold feathers, punch behind you!!"

Shadowman wrote:This is Sabrblade we're talking about. His ability to store trivial information about TV shows is downright superhuman.
Caelus wrote:My wife pointed out something interesting about the prehistoric Predacons. I said that everyone was complaining because transforming for them mostly consisted of them just standing up-right. She essentially said, 'So? That's what our ancestors did.'
User avatar
Sabrblade
God Of Transformers
Posts: 38680
News Credits: 434
Joined: Thu Dec 06, 2007 7:22 pm
Location: Tampa, FL
Strength: 7
Intelligence: 10
Speed: 7
Endurance: 8
Rank: 9
Courage: 8
Firepower: 7
Skill: 9

Re: My Japanese G1 Continuity Talk with Hayato Sakamoto at BotCon 2016

Postby Flashwave » Tue Apr 26, 2016 11:47 pm

Motto: "Our society's downfall will not be this war. The war IS our society. That which will get us will be the little things. Some humanoid race, some tossed cannon, the little things that no one looks out for. THAT is for what we must be vigilant."
Weapon: Twin Shoulder-Mounted Rocket Launchers
Sabrblade wrote:
william-james88 wrote:
Sabrblade wrote:
Randomhero wrote:I heard about his panel on another site. I heard he and a lot of fans from Japan consider everything to be part of the original G1 continuity in one way or another.
Not everything. No Unicron Trilogy, Movie, Animated, or Prime stuff, for instance.


Didn't the legends comic connect both animated and g1 as seperate universes which can interact with one another though? Meaning that g1 ultra Magnus did meet animated slipstream.
They met in the Legends Universe after both had come to it from their own respective separate universes.

That was something mentioned at the panel. The Legends Universe is itself a unique separate universe that introduces all aspects of other universes, with characters from such universes as Cloud World, Japanese G1, Animated, and Armada hopping over into it from their own universes. Ultra Magnus came over from JG1 around the late 2030s (after G2), and Slipstream came over from Animated likely at some undisclosed point after season 3.

Soo... Axiom Nexus
Image
User avatar
Flashwave
City Commander
Posts: 3577
News Credits: 8
Joined: Tue Apr 26, 2005 2:42 pm
Strength: 7
Intelligence: 9
Speed: 9
Endurance: 6
Rank: 9
Courage: 9
Firepower: 7
Skill: 9

Re: My Japanese G1 Continuity Talk with Hayato Sakamoto at BotCon 2016

Postby Randomhero » Wed Apr 27, 2016 6:01 am

Sabrblade wrote:
Randomhero wrote:I heard about his panel on another site. I heard he and a lot of fans from Japan consider everything to be part of the original G1 continuity in one way or another.
Not everything. No Unicron Trilogy, Movie, Animated, or Prime stuff, for instance.



Th y did connect animated and the movies together. Remember how animated if suppose to the same timeline and continuity as the movie. Japan you so silly
Randomhero
Gestalt
Posts: 2754
News Credits: 3
Joined: Thu Sep 06, 2012 6:02 pm

Re: My Japanese G1 Continuity Talk with Hayato Sakamoto at BotCon 2016

Postby Sabrblade » Wed Apr 27, 2016 7:39 am

Motto: "Can't do a job halfway. What's worth doing is worth doing well, I say."
Weapon: Saber Blade
Flashwave wrote:Soo... Axiom Nexus
Sorta, but instead of a whole planet-wide city populated by billions of bots from many universes, it's a universe inhabited primarily by Chibi versions of Beast Era characters with real world mundane jobs and careers, and only a small handful of bots from other universes who are treated as celebrities in the Legends Universe since the Transformers toy and media brand itself also exists in that universe.

Randomhero wrote:
Sabrblade wrote:
Randomhero wrote:I heard about his panel on another site. I heard he and a lot of fans from Japan consider everything to be part of the original G1 continuity in one way or another.
Not everything. No Unicron Trilogy, Movie, Animated, or Prime stuff, for instance.



Th y did connect animated and the movies together. Remember how animated if suppose to the same timeline and continuity as the movie. Japan you so silly
That was their original plan, but they ultimately didn't do it.
"When there's gold feathers, punch behind you!!"

Shadowman wrote:This is Sabrblade we're talking about. His ability to store trivial information about TV shows is downright superhuman.
Caelus wrote:My wife pointed out something interesting about the prehistoric Predacons. I said that everyone was complaining because transforming for them mostly consisted of them just standing up-right. She essentially said, 'So? That's what our ancestors did.'
User avatar
Sabrblade
God Of Transformers
Posts: 38680
News Credits: 434
Joined: Thu Dec 06, 2007 7:22 pm
Location: Tampa, FL
Strength: 7
Intelligence: 10
Speed: 7
Endurance: 8
Rank: 9
Courage: 8
Firepower: 7
Skill: 9

Re: My Japanese G1 Continuity Talk with Hayato Sakamoto at BotCon 2016

Postby UltraMarginal » Wed Apr 27, 2016 8:31 pm

Motto: "I like chocolate"
Great Interview,
thank you for sharing. 8-) :APPLAUSE:
UltraMarginal
Mini-Con
Posts: 40
Joined: Tue Jun 26, 2012 7:49 am

Re: My Japanese G1 Continuity Talk with Hayato Sakamoto at BotCon 2016

Postby Evil Eye » Sat Apr 30, 2016 1:32 pm

Motto: "Don't be a goddamn coward."
Weapon: Acid Spray Gun
Awesome! I'd love to meet Sakamoto, he seems like a pretty awesome dude (and he's a superb artist to boot).
Ha ha Transformers go brrrrr
User avatar
Evil Eye
Guardian Of Seibertron
Posts: 5395
News Credits: 12
Joined: Sat Nov 05, 2011 9:24 am
Location: 199X
Alt Mode: F-4 Phantom II
Strength: 7
Intelligence: 8
Speed: 7
Endurance: 8
Rank: 6
Courage: 10
Firepower: 6
Skill: 8

Re: My Japanese G1 Continuity Talk with Hayato Sakamoto at BotCon 2016

Postby Sabrblade » Sat Apr 30, 2016 6:11 pm

Motto: "Can't do a job halfway. What's worth doing is worth doing well, I say."
Weapon: Saber Blade
I've decided to go ahead and post my notes from the panel anyway, along with the video recording I linked to earlier. Here y'are:

Hayato Sakamoto’s Transformathematics panel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XGENt3QwZw


Hayato Sakamoto, Andrew Hall, Ken Rose

More Than Meets the Eye

Issue 50 cover –exclusive cover by Hayato Sakamoto and Casey Coller

Sunder
Sakamoto was first told by James Roberts to make a Freddy Krueger type character, so the claws on his hands are probably inspired by Freddy. Sort of like a nightmare villain like Freddy, sort of ghastly like that.
He tried to go with the Freddy Krueger image, but also knew that Sunder was a scientist, so he might be skinny. But, as the story goes on, he would be attacking and hurting a lot of people. So, Sakamoto decided on a little more of a horror image in his piece.
In the Japanese horror movie Yatsukhaka Mura, a serial killer goes around killing people with two flashlights attached to his head. So, Sakamoto thought that the idea of a serial killer looking a little bit weird might actually be even scarier, so that was his inspiration for the character.
When Sakamoto first showed Andrew Hall the draft, Andrew was against it for it looking too goofy, but Sakamoto insisted that he would make it scary.
In MTMTE issue 48, James Roberts has this image of a very scary face, and Sakamoto started his design for Sunder from that face, which led to the idea of inspiration from Yatsuhaka Mura, and with that inspiration, Sakamoto had reservations from James Roberts for Sunder to transform into a lunar vehicle, and so the altmode of the design needed an antenna. Sakamoto initially had trouble putting the antenna into the design because it kinda speaks too much for itself, but took inspiration from the Taiyō no Tō statue in Japan, which inspired him to make the antenna itself a face.

Kindle and Fervor
New characters, initial and final designs
In Sakamoto’s designs, Kindle was yellow and Fervor was red, but the colorist made some decisions on their own and made them different, apparently. Sakamoto still likes his designs better (LOL), but he does feel the colorist made the right decision.
A lot of effort was put into these designs, but it was pretty easy to tell from the script that these two would not make it through the next issue. So he tried to make them as memorable as he could in their single panel appearance in issue 48. And they did end up dying with just the single panel.

The spy in the DJD, Agent 113
This was another character that only had a single panel in the actual issue, but Sakamoto had some memory that Megatron had said inside of a story that this was a character that can’t hold a gun, so Sakamoto thought about long fingers or lightsaber hands, and also added some attributes that would look like a member of the DJD.
James Roberts instructed that he should have machetes or blades on his hands, which might also be where the design came from.

Issue 44 Necrobot planet statues
Final panel on top, initial designs for the panel below it.
Sakamoto was originally allowed to include characters who weren’t main characters like Arcee and Sixshot.
There were supposed to be flowers around the statues, equal to the number of lives killed by the Scavengers, and it was felt that Arcee and Sixshot had too many flowers, so Sakamoto changed them into statues of characters who probably didn’t have that high of a kill rate.
James Roberts told Sakamoto to put new, original characters in the background, but Sakamoto had trouble coming up with new characters, so he used some characters from a series of original Transformers comics he had been writing in Japan for the last 20 years…

Issue 44 background characters
Top panel is the final version while beneath it are the characters Sakamoto took from his own Japanese comics and put into the background of the panel.
Their names are Cyber, Yamada-3, Action, Indead, and Wheezing Arrow.
Yamada-3 is actually a Lupin III-inspired character.
Blue Bacchus’s design from last year’s panel was also based on a character from Lupin III.
Wheezing Arrow is Sakamoto’s own original Seeker.

Issue 49 smelting pool panel
Sakamoto was supposed to write a lot of original characters here too, but of course he couldn’t really come up with this vast number of characters. James said like nearly a 100 different guys. So, Sakamoto used concept designs and inspirations from the Transformers Generations book to fill all that out.
It took a long time to draw all of this. The TFWiki crew is gonna go nuts documenting all of these guys now. Unfortunately, many obscure Transformers made their "final" appearance in this one panel.
While most of these characters are just designs, there is actually a single character who has his own toy…

Sunshine
Sunshine is a fan character from Sakamoto’s original Transformers fan comics.
His toy is a custom repaint of the Micromaster Drillbuster from Transformers: Zone, repainted with a pink body, a yellow windshield, black treads, white thighs, and a white drill.
However, the colorist for Issue 49 gave Sunshine a more unique color design, which Sakamoto would like thank the colorist for all their hard work.

Japanese Transformers manga – Unite Warriors Offshot and Legends

What was released over here as Transformers: Generations was released in Japan as Transformers: Legends and Transformers: Unite Warriors. Prior to these lines, the Generations line was introduced in Japan through various lines such as Henkei! Henkei! Transformers and Transformers: United, and had their own storyline which was kind of a flashback to the original G1 storylines.

With Unite Warriors and Legends, the idea was to depict what happened after the stories in the original G1 storyline to these characters. Sakamoto loves to connect things to the Japanese G1 storyline. He’s one of the people responsible for the huge Japanese timeline that came out around the Kiss Players era. So, the following are connected at some point to the G1 story in Japan.

Unite Warriors Offshot

In everyday life, another theme was to depict the everyday lives of these Transformers who are fighting every day but also probably have quiet vacations and other kind of everyday lives.

Aerialbots
The theme for the Superion toy was they’re eating their lunch, and this is a panel of them having an Energon barbecue outside. This is actually an idea Sakamoto had for a long time. He wanted to show various energon cube dishes: energon spaghetti, energon cube steak, and various other dishes. There actually is no particular reason the Aerialbots are having a barbecue, but Sakamoto decided to do what he wanted to do for a long time.
In the bottom-left, you can see Prince Jumal from the cartoon grown up. The scene has the Aeiralbots reunite with Jumal after a long while, and they’re having a party.

Stunticons
In the episode where Starscream created the Combaticons, there’s a scene where Megatron calls the Stunticons, but they say they can’t help because they’re too busy crashing cars in the city, so this scene is a homage to that. Takara at first told Sakamoto to depict the Stunticons playing with toy cars, but he chose this over their descriptions. The Stunticons are riding these cars in the manner that Rumble was riding the car that was the basis for Drag Strip in "The Key to Vector Sigma, Part 1".
The car Dead End is riding is the Symultech car owned by Auggie Cahnay. The man who is chasing after Dead End is Auggie Cahnay’s son.
In the background, you can see Breakdown slipping on his own oil.

Continuity
Many of you might be questioning about exactly when this storyline takes place. And to answer that, Sakamoto would like to introduce the comic that came with Grand Scourge, the e-HOBBY release in Japan. And in that comic is a scene where Superion and Menasor are fighting alongside Legends Megatron and Masterpiece Optimus Prime. And in another Legends comic, you can see Masterpiece Optimus Prime and Legends Megatron fighting. And, apparently, in the Legends storyline, Megatron turns into this form after his Generation 2 form.
One of the themes you’ll see from reading Hayato Sakamoto’s work is that it always fits into continuity somewhere. He doesn’t just throw out something random or offhand. It's MTMTE he thinks about. Does this jibe with everything we’ve had before it, does it fit into continuity with G1 stuff? Of course, it’s very specific. Every mode he has, every character that appears there is thought out deliberately.
So, to answer the original question, the storyline takes place somewhere after Generation 2, and that’s why Jumal looks so old in that other panel.

Protectobots
Sakamoto didn’t have his original artwork for this so a cutout of the art from the toy was used instead.
In the background, you can see NUL-A. In the cartoon, NUL-A was sporting a New York Yankees baseball cap, so Sakamoto thought that NUL-A probably was a baseball fan, and so that’s how Sakamoto came up with this scene with everybody playing baseball. You might realize that the gloves the characters are using are actually the hands for the combined mode.

Constructicons
The Constructicons are rebuilding Crystal City with various characters including an older Chip, Hoist, Grapple, and Omega Supreme. And Sakamoto also added RoadHauler, who was a character who first appeared in the first episode of the original G1 cartoon, and is a color variant of Grapple.
In Japan, it was decided that Hauler was to be the seventh member of the Constructicons, as stated in the backstory of his e-HOBBY toy bio.
Andrew Hall was kinda hoping for them to be able to squeeze Gravedigger in there as well, who was the supposed eighth Constructicon appearing in United EX, but there probably wasn’t enough space to get him in there.
In the original cartoon, the Constructicons had a treacherous rate, they would backstab a lot of characters. So, Sakamoto wanted to show a scene where they had kind of reunited with a lot of characters they had backstabbed over the years. But actually, this is another scene where the Constructicons are tricking these characters.
The Constructicons are actually tricking the Autobots in this scene, as they plan to doublecross them once the city is built.
The name "Grapple" is secretly engraved somewhere in the shadow of one of the pillars in the artwork.

Initial design for the Constructicon art
This is a scene where all the Constructicons are building a candy house. Scrapper is wearing the long tall hat like a chef would wear. The humans in the bottom-left are the construction workers from the cartoon that were always being stolen from by the Constructicons. Takara told Sakamoto that the picture almost looks like the Constructicons are getting ready to eat these humans, and so that was why they didn’t use it. Probably for the better.

Convoy Grand Prime
The surfboard and the idea of surfing is from "The Ultimate Doom".
With Sunstreaker is the RiD (Car Robots) character Kelly (Junko). They were a team in the Binaltech Asterisk line in Japan, so he wanted to kinda pair them together again. Sakamoto feels that the idea of Sunstreaker, who originally dislikes humans, being with Kelly is very interesting, so he used it in here.
On Optimus Prime’s hand is Marissa Faireborn and her daughter Sue. Sue is actually a character originally designed for this scene, and Sakamoto hopes he can use her in other scenes in the future.

Grand Galvatron comic
In this storyline, the story will be that Galvatron’s ghost, after Galvatron died in the Japanese Headmasters cartoon, has possessed Cyclonus, and now he’s scheming his revenge and comeback.
Sakamoto was initially thinking to go with explaining this character to be Galvatron II, a character by e-HOBBY, but decided to go with something a little bit more meaty, and that’s why his coloring is white.

In the future, there will be Bruticus and other characters will be released, and Sakamoto plans to work on such artwork and hopes you all enjoy it.

Legends

Sakamoto’s original series. In Legends, one thing they attempted to explain in the story was why Ultra Magnus has the Matrix in his G2 form when he originally was not able to carry it in G1. There are certain elements to the story that kind of illustrate that as we can see.

Before we start looking at Ultra Magnus, let’s give a quick introduction to the Legends Universe. It is a universe that is created by the Zamojin beings that were tricked by the Quintessons. It is a universe that introduces all aspects of other universes.

Ultra Magnus
In the Legends Universe, Sakamoto was planning to introduce Ultra Magnus as his G1 self, but the toy that was to be released in the Legends toyline came with Alpha Trion. In the American release of the toy, it was Minimus Ambus. But in the Japanese release of the toy, because the IDW comics are not that well known in Japan yet, Takara told Sakamoto to come up with a different character, and so he decided to go with Alpha Trion.

In the episode 3 of The Headmasters, Alpha Trion sacrifices himself to become the contents of the now-empty Matrix. In Japan, the Matrix is thought to be an energy source which draws its energy from a culmination of experience and knowledge by former leaders who carried the Matrix. The idea behind Alpha Trion recharging the Matrix was that Alpha Trion being the oldest Transformer in the original cartoon universe had seen and known all these leaders, and thus had experience and knowledge of all these leaders. And so thus his presence could recharge the Matrix once again. And one thing that shows how the Matrix changed with Alpha Trion recharging it is how Rodimus Prime’s design changed by the new Matrix.

Alpha Trion, now one with the Matrix, had different bodies such as the unreleased Scourge redeco and the Minimus Ambus redeco. So, the once dead Ultra Magnus was revived by placing Alpha Trion, now the Matrix, into his chest chamber, and so became the e-HOBBY original toy Laser Ultra Magnus. The e-HOBBY toy was released maybe ten years ago and there was a story of him being called back to life through the Matrix, but never an explanation for why he has the Matrix, how this is possible, and so through the course of the Legends manga, Sakamoto was able to explain why this occurred.

A word of things to come.
So, like this, in the Transformers: Legends storyline, they are introducing and recreating the story of what happened to various characters after the main storyline. So, in the continuing Headmasters toyline, they will continue with this Legends storytelling, and plan to tell why Chromedome and other characters have new bodies and how Blaster and Blurr have become Headmasters.

G1 Toy concepts

Powermaster Triple Changer Optimus Prime
This was a concept for the original 1988 Powermaster Optimus Prime toy with a triple-changing cab that would have had a truck cab, jet, and robot modes.
It’s one of the designs that was patented for release back in G1, but never made into production. We got the one we got in 1988 instead.

Powermaster Megatron
This was a Sakamoto-original concept as a Doubledealer redeco.
It’s not a real toy concept, just an idea Sakamoto thought up since he figured that it only made sense for there to be a triple-changing Powermaster Megatron to go with a triple-changing Powermaster Optimus.
Last edited by Sabrblade on Sun Sep 12, 2021 10:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"When there's gold feathers, punch behind you!!"

Shadowman wrote:This is Sabrblade we're talking about. His ability to store trivial information about TV shows is downright superhuman.
Caelus wrote:My wife pointed out something interesting about the prehistoric Predacons. I said that everyone was complaining because transforming for them mostly consisted of them just standing up-right. She essentially said, 'So? That's what our ancestors did.'
User avatar
Sabrblade
God Of Transformers
Posts: 38680
News Credits: 434
Joined: Thu Dec 06, 2007 7:22 pm
Location: Tampa, FL
Strength: 7
Intelligence: 10
Speed: 7
Endurance: 8
Rank: 9
Courage: 8
Firepower: 7
Skill: 9

Re: My Japanese G1 Continuity Talk with Hayato Sakamoto at BotCon 2016

Postby Sabrblade » Mon May 23, 2016 10:51 am

Motto: "Can't do a job halfway. What's worth doing is worth doing well, I say."
Weapon: Saber Blade
A little late coming on this but I just found out that Alfes 2010 has a gallery of photos taken of this panel's slideshow - http://higekumatoytoy.blog60.fc2.com/blog-entry-2602.html


Using these pics, I can add some visuals to my panel report (open each image in a new tab to view them at full size):
 

Hayato Sakamoto’s Transformathematics panel

Hayato Sakamoto, Andrew Hall, Ken Rose

More Than Meets the Eye

Image
Issue 50 cover –exclusive cover by Hayato Sakamoto and Casey Coller
 
Image
Sunder
Sakamoto was first told by James Roberts to make a Freddy Krueger type character, so the claws on his hands are probably inspired by Freddy. Sort of like a nightmare villain like Freddy, sort of ghastly like that.
He tried to go with the Freddy Krueger image, but also knew that Sunder was a scientist, so he might be skinny. But, as the story goes on, he would be attacking and hurting a lot of people. So, Sakamoto decided on a little more of a horror image in his piece.
In the Japanese horror movie Yatsukhaka Mura, a serial killer goes around killing people with two flashlights attached to his head. So, Sakamoto thought that the idea of a serial killer looking a little bit weird might actually be even scarier, so that was his inspiration for the character.
When Sakamoto first showed Andrew Hall the draft, Andrew was against it for it looking too goofy, but Sakamoto insisted that he would make it scary.
In MTMTE issue 48, James Roberts has this image of a very scary face, and Sakamoto started his design for Sunder from that face, which led to the idea of inspiration from Yatsuhaka Mura, and with that inspiration, Sakamoto had reservations from James Roberts for Sunder to transform into a lunar vehicle, and so the altmode of the design needed an antenna. Sakamoto initially had trouble putting the antenna into the design because it kinda speaks too much for itself, but took inspiration from the Taiyō no Tō statue in Japan, which inspired him to make the antenna itself a face.
 
Image
Kindle and Fervor
New characters, initial and final designs
In Sakamoto’s designs, Kindle was yellow and Fervor was red, but the colorist made some decisions on their own and made them different, apparently. Sakamoto still likes his designs better (LOL), but he does feel the colorist made the right decision.
A lot of effort was put into these designs, but it was pretty easy to tell from the script that these two would not make it through the next issue. So he tried to make them as memorable as he could in their single panel appearance in issue 48. And they did end up dying with just the single panel.
 
Image
The spy in the DJD, Agent 113
This was another character that only had a single panel in the actual issue, but Sakamoto had some memory that Megatron had said inside of a story that this was a character that can’t hold a gun, so Sakamoto thought about long fingers or lightsaber hands, and also added some attributes that would look like a member of the DJD.
James Roberts instructed that he should have machetes or blades on his hands, which might also be where the design came from.
 
Image
Issue 44 Necrobot planet statues
Final panel on top, initial designs for the panel below it.
Sakamoto was originally allowed to include characters who weren’t main characters like Arcee and Sixshot.
There were supposed to be flowers around the statues, equal to the number of lives killed by the Scavengers, and it was felt that Arcee and Sixshot had too many flowers, so Sakamoto changed them into statues of characters who probably didn’t have that high of a kill rate.
James Roberts told Sakamoto to put new, original characters in the background, but Sakamoto had trouble coming up with new characters, so he used some characters from a series of original Transformers comics he had been writing in Japan for the last 20 years…
 
Image
Issue 44 background characters
Top panel is the final version while beneath it are the characters Sakamoto took from his own Japanese comics and put into the background of the panel.
Their names are Cyber, Yamada-3, Action, Indead, and Wheezing Arrow.
Yamada-3 is actually a Lupin III-inspired character.
Blue Bacchus’s design from last year’s panel was also based on a character from Lupin III.
Wheezing Arrow is Sakamoto’s own original Seeker.
 
Image
Issue 49 smelting pool panel
Sakamoto was supposed to write a lot of original characters here too, but of course he couldn’t really come up with this vast number of characters. James said like nearly a 100 different guys. So, Sakamoto used concept designs and inspirations from the Transformers Generations book to fill all that out.
It took a long time to draw all of this. The TFWiki crew is gonna go nuts documenting all of these guys now. Unfortunately, many obscure Transformers made their "final" appearance in this one panel.
While most of these characters are just designs, there is actually a single character who has his own toy…
 
Image
Sunshine
Sunshine is a fan character from Sakamoto’s original Transformers fan comics.
His toy is a custom repaint of the Micromaster Drillbuster from Transformers: Zone, repainted with a pink body, a yellow windshield, black treads, white thighs, and a white drill.
However, the colorist for Issue 49 gave Sunshine a more unique color design, which Sakamoto would like thank the colorist for all their hard work.
 
Japanese Transformers manga – Unite Warriors Offshot and Legends

What was released over here as Transformers: Generations was released in Japan as Transformers: Legends and Transformers: Unite Warriors. Prior to these lines, the Generations line was introduced in Japan through various lines such as Henkei! Henkei! Transformers and Transformers: United, and had their own storyline which was kind of a flashback to the original G1 storylines.

With Unite Warriors and Legends, the idea was to depict what happened after the stories in the original G1 storyline to these characters. Sakamoto loves to connect things to the Japanese G1 storyline. He’s one of the people responsible for the huge Japanese timeline that came out around the Kiss Players era. So, the following are connected at some point to the G1 story in Japan.

Unite Warriors Offshot

In everyday life, another theme was to depict the everyday lives of these Transformers who are fighting every day but also probably have quiet vacations and other kind of everyday lives.
 
Image
Aerialbots
The theme for the Superion toy was they’re eating their lunch, and this is a panel of them having an Energon barbecue outside. This is actually an idea Sakamoto had for a long time. He wanted to show various energon cube dishes: energon spaghetti, energon cube steak, and various other dishes. There actually is no particular reason the Aerialbots are having a barbecue, but Sakamoto decided to do what he wanted to do for a long time.
In the bottom-left, you can see Prince Jumal from the cartoon grown up. The scene has the Aeiralbots reunite with Jumal after a long while, and they’re having a party.
 
Image
Stunticons
In the episode where Starscream created the Combaticons, there’s a scene where Megatron calls the Stunticons, but they say they can’t help because they’re too busy crashing cars in the city, so this scene is a homage to that. Takara at first told Sakamoto to depict the Stunticons playing with toy cars, but he chose this over their descriptions. The Stunticons are riding these cars in the manner that Rumble was riding the car that was the basis for Drag Strip in "The Key to Vector Sigma, Part 1".
The car Dead End is riding is the Symultech car owned by Auggie Cahnay. The man who is chasing after Dead End is Auggie Cahnay’s son.
In the background, you can see Breakdown slipping on his own oil.
 
Image
Continuity
Many of you might be questioning about exactly when this storyline takes place. And to answer that, Sakamoto would like to introduce the comic that came with Grand Scourge, the e-HOBBY release in Japan. And in that comic is a scene where Superion and Menasor are fighting alongside Legends Megatron and Masterpiece Optimus Prime. And in another Legends comic, you can see Masterpiece Optimus Prime and Legends Megatron fighting. And, apparently, in the Legends storyline, Megatron turns into this form after his Generation 2 form.
One of the themes you’ll see from reading Hayato Sakamoto’s work is that it always fits into continuity somewhere. He doesn’t just throw out something random or offhand. It's MTMTE he thinks about. Does this jibe with everything we’ve had before it, does it fit into continuity with G1 stuff? Of course, it’s very specific. Every mode he has, every character that appears there is thought out deliberately.
So, to answer the original question, the storyline takes place somewhere after Generation 2, and that’s why Jumal looks so old in that other panel.
 
Image
Protectobots
Sakamoto didn’t have his original artwork for this so a cutout of the art from the toy was used instead.
In the background, you can see NUL-A. In the cartoon, NUL-A was sporting a New York Yankees baseball cap, so Sakamoto thought that NUL-A probably was a baseball fan, and so that’s how Sakamoto came up with this scene with everybody playing baseball. You might realize that the gloves the characters are using are actually the hands for the combined mode.
 
Image
Constructicons
The Constructicons are rebuilding Crystal City with various characters including an older Chip, Hoist, Grapple, and Omega Supreme. And Sakamoto also added RoadHauler, who was a character who first appeared in the first episode of the original G1 cartoon, and is a color variant of Grapple.
In Japan, it was decided that Hauler was to be the seventh member of the Constructicons, as stated in the backstory of his e-HOBBY toy bio.
Andrew Hall was kinda hoping for them to be able to squeeze Gravedigger in there as well, who was the supposed eighth Constructicon appearing in United EX, but there probably wasn’t enough space to get him in there.
In the original cartoon, the Constructicons had a treacherous rate, they would backstab a lot of characters. So, Sakamoto wanted to show a scene where they had kind of reunited with a lot of characters they had backstabbed over the years. But actually, this is another scene where the Constructicons are tricking these characters.
The Constructicons are actually tricking the Autobots in this scene, as they plan to doublecross them once the city is built.
The name "Grapple" is secretly engraved somewhere in the shadow of one of the pillars in the artwork.
 
Image
Initial design for the Constructicon art
This is a scene where all the Constructicons are building a candy house. Scrapper is wearing the long tall hat like a chef would wear. The humans in the bottom-left are the construction workers from the cartoon that were always being stolen from by the Constructicons. Takara told Sakamoto that the picture almost looks like the Constructicons are getting ready to eat these humans, and so that was why they didn’t use it. Probably for the better.
 
Image
Convoy Grand Prime
The surfboard and the idea of surfing is from "The Ultimate Doom".
Image
With Sunstreaker is the RiD (Car Robots) character Kelly (Junko). They were a team in the Binaltech Asterisk line in Japan, so he wanted to kinda pair them together again. Sakamoto feels that the idea of Sunstreaker, who originally dislikes humans, being with Kelly is very interesting, so he used it in here.
Image
On Optimus Prime’s hand is Marissa Faireborn and her daughter Sue. Sue is actually a character originally designed for this scene, and Sakamoto hopes he can use her in other scenes in the future.
 
Image
Grand Galvatron comic
In this storyline, the story will be that Galvatron’s ghost, after Galvatron died in the Japanese Headmasters cartoon, has possessed Cyclonus, and now he’s scheming his revenge and comeback.
Sakamoto was initially thinking to go with explaining this character to be Galvatron II, a character by e-HOBBY, but decided to go with something a little bit more meaty, and that’s why his coloring is white.

In the future, there will be Bruticus and other characters will be released, and Sakamoto plans to work on such artwork and hopes you all enjoy it.

Legends

Sakamoto’s original series. In Legends, one thing they attempted to explain in the story was why Ultra Magnus has the Matrix in his G2 form when he originally was not able to carry it in G1. There are certain elements to the story that kind of illustrate that as we can see.
 
Image
Before we start looking at Ultra Magnus, let’s give a quick introduction to the Legends Universe. It is a universe that is created by the Zamojin beings that were tricked by the Quintessons. It is a universe that introduces all aspects of other universes.
 
Image
Ultra Magnus
In the Legends Universe, Sakamoto was planning to introduce Ultra Magnus as his G1 self, but the toy that was to be released in the Legends toyline came with Alpha Trion. In the American release of the toy, it was Minimus Ambus. But in the Japanese release of the toy, because the IDW comics are not that well known in Japan yet, Takara told Sakamoto to come up with a different character, and so he decided to go with Alpha Trion.
 
Image
In the episode 3 of The Headmasters, Alpha Trion sacrifices himself to become the contents of the now-empty Matrix. In Japan, the Matrix is thought to be an energy source which draws its energy from a culmination of experience and knowledge by former leaders who carried the Matrix. The idea behind Alpha Trion recharging the Matrix was that Alpha Trion being the oldest Transformer in the original cartoon universe had seen and known all these leaders, and thus had experience and knowledge of all these leaders. And so thus his presence could recharge the Matrix once again. And one thing that shows how the Matrix changed with Alpha Trion recharging it is how Rodimus Prime’s design changed by the new Matrix.
 
Image
Alpha Trion, now one with the Matrix, had different bodies such as the unreleased Scourge redeco and the Minimus Ambus redeco. So, the once dead Ultra Magnus was revived by placing Alpha Trion, now the Matrix, into his chest chamber, and so became the e-HOBBY original toy Laser Ultra Magnus. The e-HOBBY toy was released maybe ten years ago and there was a story of him being called back to life through the Matrix, but never an explanation for why he has the Matrix, how this is possible, and so through the course of the Legends manga, Sakamoto was able to explain why this occurred.

A word of things to come.
So, like this, in the Transformers: Legends storyline, they are introducing and recreating the story of what happened to various characters after the main storyline. So, in the continuing Headmasters toyline, they will continue with this Legends storytelling, and plan to tell why Chromedome and other characters have new bodies and how Blaster and Blurr have become Headmasters.

G1 Toy concepts
 
Image
Powermaster Triple Changer Optimus Prime
This was a concept for the original 1988 Powermaster Optimus Prime toy with a triple-changing cab that would have had a truck cab, jet, and robot modes.
It’s one of the designs that was patented for release back in G1, but never made into production. We got the one we got in 1988 instead.
 
Image
Powermaster Megatron
This was a Sakamoto-original concept as a Doubledealer redeco.
It’s not a real toy concept, just an idea Sakamoto thought up since he figured that it only made sense for there to be a triple-changing Powermaster Megatron to go with a triple-changing Powermaster Optimus.
"When there's gold feathers, punch behind you!!"

Shadowman wrote:This is Sabrblade we're talking about. His ability to store trivial information about TV shows is downright superhuman.
Caelus wrote:My wife pointed out something interesting about the prehistoric Predacons. I said that everyone was complaining because transforming for them mostly consisted of them just standing up-right. She essentially said, 'So? That's what our ancestors did.'
User avatar
Sabrblade
God Of Transformers
Posts: 38680
News Credits: 434
Joined: Thu Dec 06, 2007 7:22 pm
Location: Tampa, FL
Strength: 7
Intelligence: 10
Speed: 7
Endurance: 8
Rank: 9
Courage: 8
Firepower: 7
Skill: 9


Return to Convention and Event Forum

Transformers and More @ The Seibertron Store

Visit our store on eBay
These are affiliate links. We may earn commissions when you purchase items or services through these links.
Visit shop.seibertron.com to buy "WALKING DEAD DLX #64 Cvr B Image Comics 2023 APR230313 64B (CA) Adlard + McCaig"
WALKING DEAD DLX # ...
Visit shop.seibertron.com to buy "HOUSE OF SLAUGHTER #4 Cvr D 1:25 Boom Comics 2022 NOV210747 4D (CA) Dell'Edera"
HOUSE OF SLAUGHTER ...
Visit shop.seibertron.com to buy "WALKING DEAD DLX #61 Cvr A Image Comics 2023 FEB230267 61A (CA) Finch + McCaig"
WALKING DEAD DLX # ...
Visit shop.seibertron.com to buy "CHILDREN OF THE ATOM #4 var Marvel Comics 2021 APR210805 (CA) Chang (W) Ayala"
CHILDREN OF THE AT ...
Visit shop.seibertron.com to buy "CHILDREN OF THE ATOM #2 var 1:25 Marvel Comics 2021 MAR200891 (CA) Henderson"
CHILDREN OF THE AT ...
Visit shop.seibertron.com to buy "INVINCIBLE RED SONJA #4 Cvr I 1:25 Dynamite Comics 2021 4i 210914E (CA) Linsner"
INVINCIBLE RED SON ...
Visit shop.seibertron.com to buy "WALKING DEAD DLX #79 Cvr C Image Comics 2023 1023IM399 79C (CA) Santolouco"
WALKING DEAD DLX # ...
Visit shop.seibertron.com to buy "WALKING DEAD DLX #66 Cvr B Image Comics 2023 MAY230292 66B (CA) Adlard + McCaig"
WALKING DEAD DLX # ...
Visit shop.seibertron.com to buy "WALKING DEAD DLX #73 Cvr B Image Comics 2023 0823IM316 73B (CA) Adlard + McCaig"
WALKING DEAD DLX # ...
Visit shop.seibertron.com to buy "INVINCIBLE RED SONJA #8 Cvr H 1:20 Dynamite Comics 2022 NOV210587 8H (CA)Cosplay"
INVINCIBLE RED SON ...
Visit shop.seibertron.com to buy "HOUSE OF SLAUGHTER #1 2nd ptg LCSD card stock Boom Comics 2021 (CA) Lee + Chung"
HOUSE OF SLAUGHTER ...
Visit shop.seibertron.com to buy "WALKING DEAD DLX #48 Cvr C Image Comics 2022 AUG220254 48C (CA) Rivera"
WALKING DEAD DLX # ...
Visit shop.seibertron.com to buy "HOUSE OF SLAUGHTER #6 Cvr D 1:25 Boom Comics 2022 MAR220788 6D 220531A"
HOUSE OF SLAUGHTER ...
Visit shop.seibertron.com to buy "WALKING DEAD DLX #49 Cvr B Image Comics 2022 AUG220257 49B (CA) Adlard"
WALKING DEAD DLX # ...
* Price and quantities subject to change. Shipping costs, taxes and other fees not included in cost shown. Refer to listing for current price and availability.
Find the items above and thousands more at the Seibertron Store on eBay
Transformers Podcast: Twincast / Podcast #346 - Gas Station Jamboree
Twincast / Podcast #346:
"Gas Station Jamboree"
MP3 · iTunes · RSS · View · Discuss · Ask
Posted: Saturday, March 23rd, 2024

Featured Products on Amazon.com

These are affiliate links. We may earn commissions when you purchase items or services through these links.
Buy "Transformers: Generations Power of The Primes Legends Class Roadtrap" on AMAZON
Buy "Transformers Toys Optimus Prime Cyberverse Ultimate Class Action Figure - Repeatable Matrix Mega Shot Action Attack Move - Toys for Kids 6 & Up, 11.5"" on AMAZON
Buy "Transformers Generations Exclusive Cyber Battalion Class Shockwave Figure" on AMAZON
Buy "Transformers: Bumblebee -- Energon Igniters Nitro Series Optimus Prime" on AMAZON
Buy "Transformers Generations Power of The Primes Deluxe Terrorcon Cutthroat" on AMAZON
Buy "Transformers: Generations Power of the Primes Voyager Class Starscream" on AMAZON
Buy "Transformers: Generations Power of The Primes Deluxe Class Dinobot Sludge" on AMAZON
Buy "Cyberverse Warrior Class Windblade" on AMAZON
Buy "Transformers Generations Combiner Wars Deluxe Class Protectobot Streetwise Figure" on AMAZON
Buy "Transformers Platinum Edition Predaking Figure [Amazon Exclusive](Discontinued by manufacturer)" on AMAZON
Buy "Transformers Generations Voyager Class Roadbuster Figure" on AMAZON
Buy "Transformers Generations Leader Class Ultra Magnus Figure(Discontinued by manufacturer)" on AMAZON