The Energon Pub

Anyone have any insight into who creates/designs which toys between Hasbro and Takara? How exactly are the two companies related? I've always been curious.

That's a good question. Haha. Only thing I know is the PVC kids used in the entertainment pack and the NYCC "exclusive" were made here in the states. Robot wise, not too sure who does what.

Im sure most of the movieverse stuff, or all are designed by takara. I read that somewhere...

As for the PRID and FE molds, I think they are hasbro made, but I'm not 100% sure. Unicron trilogy was probably 90 if not 100% takara too.

I'm pretty sure Takara does all of the MP's, which makes sense since they are generally the first ones to release the molds.

Interesting Are they one company divided by region or two separate companies that happen to share the IP and cooperate/share on product design? Actually I believe they are two separate companies with almost no relation, which is weird. How do they decide who does what? I really wonder who actually creates the toys. Diaclone was Takara? I suppose most of G1 was Takara or another Japanese company.

JackStraw wrote:Interesting Are they one company divided by region or two separate companies that happen to share the IP and cooperate/share on product design? Actually I believe they are two separate companies with almost no relation, which is weird. How do they decide who does what? I really wonder who actually creates the toys. Diaclone was Takara? I suppose most of G1 was Takara or another Japanese company.

There are a lot of places you can read about the history of TFs, so I'd recommend you do some reading. (Try wikipedia or TFwiki.) Here's a quote from Wikipedia:

The Transformers toyline was created from toy molds mostly produced by Japanese company Takara (now known as Takara Tomy) in the toylines Diaclone and Microman. Other toy molds from other companies such as Bandai were used as well. In 1984, Hasbro bought the distribution rights to the molds and rebranded them as the Transformers for distribution in North America. Hasbro would go on to buy the entire toy line from Takara, shortly after giving them sole ownership of the Transformers toy-line, branding rights, and copyrights, while in exchange, Takara was given the rights to produce the toys and the rights to distribute them in the Japanese market.

Thanks Guy, I've read that before. I guess I just want to understand the relationship better, and wonder more about the current crop of toys. Like was FE Prime Optimus and RID Optimus created/designed by the same people? Takara I would guess, but I remember one of the bonus materials on the Prime Blu Ray made it seem like the Prime toys were designed by Hasbro's folks in America. Was Prime Breakdown made by the same people who made Airachnid? Stuff like that. Anyone know of any other two companies with a comparable deal/relationship as Has/Tak's? It seems weird that two completely separate unrelated companies deal in the almost exact same product and IP.

The bottom line is that Hasbro designs the figures on paper first, then submits them to TakaraTomy for refinement and sculpting of the molds. TakaraTomy can then use the molds they created for their own lines as they see fit, as they own the brand outright. Hasbro is just a licensee.
The Japanese exclusive molds are created by TakaraTomy all the way, from paper to plastic. However, as a licensee Hasbro can request the use of such a mold nonetheless. They've done that for Universe 2003 Nemesis Prime and various Beast Machines Dinobots for example.

JelZe GoldRabbit FTW as usual. Very interesting, thanks. So by that logic, can we assume that Hasbro designed the Prime Breakdown voyager, which they won't actually release at this time? Very interesting indeed.

JackStraw wrote:JelZe GoldRabbit FTW as usual. Very interesting, thanks. So by that logic, can we assume that Hasbro designed the Prime Breakdown voyager, which they won't actually release at this time? Very interesting indeed.

It's completely possible Hasbro did design the mold, but it was rejected for the domestic line. TakaraTomy would then take it up and finish it themselves.

Hasbro and Takara jointly own the Transformers brand. It's not so much licensor/licensee as a corporate partnership for this brand of toys. For G1, of course, all the molds were Takara. Then Hasbro came in, bought the molds, and created Transformers out of them. Takara then went back and reintroduced their toys as Transformers, also bringing over the US cartoon series. As the franchise grew and developed into wholely original territories, their partnership became more clear. Generally the companies work together (in varying degrees, depending on the series) to create a series from the ground up. Hasbro representatives may do the conceptual design before handing them off to Takara's designers to do the sculpting and physical engineering. Hasbro gets to chime in during this and say whether a toy needs to be refined to conform to price points and safety laws and gimmickry and what have you. Once it's finalized, they're sent off to factories in Taiwan to be mass-produced, painted, assembled, and packaged before being sent off to retailers around the world. Takara manages the Transformers line within Japan, Hasbro manages it literally everywhere else in the world.

So to re-answer the initial question, most of the engineering is done by Takara.

That Bot wrote:...they're sent off to factories in Taiwan to be mass-produced, painted, assembled, and packaged before being sent off to retailers around the world.

Just a tiny correction here. They're made in mainland China, not Taiwan. Also, Taiwan is (technically) an independent republic, and is not considered Chinese territory.

Takara stepped back from design and development of the standard lines. Classics, animated, prime, are all Hasbro designed. Previously, Takara was deigning and engineering all lines. Car Robots, Micron Legend, Superlink, Galaxy Force were all produced from the ground up by Takara. Hasbro takes those molds and manufactures it's lines Robots in Disguise, Armada, Energon, and Cybertron.

The Movie lines are a little different as the designs all belong to Paramount. Which is why, you will never see movie designs outside movie lines.

Takara is now focusing on the collector oriented designs such as Masterpiece, Alternity.. Etc..

Overcracker wrote:The Movie lines are a little different as the designs all belong to Paramount. Which is why, you will never see movie designs outside movie lines.

Hate to point it out, but you're wrong on that point. Movie legion black Soundwave was released under the RiD cyberverse line, and so was Movie legion Evac.

RAcast wrote:

Overcracker wrote:The Movie lines are a little different as the designs all belong to Paramount. Which is why, you will never see movie designs outside movie lines.

Hate to point it out, but you're wrong on that point. Movie legion black Soundwave was released under the RiD cyberverse line, and so was Movie legion Evac.

It seems Legends are exempt, but the Deluxe and larger toys are beyond reach for that reason. Besides, Cyberverse toys that don't belong to Prime do not have the "Prime" header on the packaging

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:

RAcast wrote:

Overcracker wrote:The Movie lines are a little different as the designs all belong to Paramount. Which is why, you will never see movie designs outside movie lines.

Hate to point it out, but you're wrong on that point. Movie legion black Soundwave was released under the RiD cyberverse line, and so was Movie legion Evac.

It seems Legends are exempt, but the Deluxe and larger toys are beyond reach for that reason. Besides, Cyberverse toys that don't belong to Prime do not have the "Prime" header on the packaging

Yeah, it's the generic RiD packaging. Which is what I said.

RAcast wrote:

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:

RAcast wrote:

Overcracker wrote:The Movie lines are a little different as the designs all belong to Paramount. Which is why, you will never see movie designs outside movie lines.

Hate to point it out, but you're wrong on that point. Movie legion black Soundwave was released under the RiD cyberverse line, and so was Movie legion Evac.

It seems Legends are exempt, but the Deluxe and larger toys are beyond reach for that reason. Besides, Cyberverse toys that don't belong to Prime do not have the "Prime" header on the packaging

Yeah, it's the generic RiD packaging. Which is what I said.

I meant, no header at all:



"Robots in Disguise" is considered part of Prime now.

SKYWARPED_128 wrote:

That Bot wrote:...they're sent off to factories in Taiwan to be mass-produced, painted, assembled, and packaged before being sent off to retailers around the world.

Just a tiny correction here. They're made in mainland China, not Taiwan. Also, Taiwan is (technically) an independent republic, and is not considered Chinese territory.

Some are also made in Vietnam now

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:

RAcast wrote:

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:

RAcast wrote:

Overcracker wrote:The Movie lines are a little different as the designs all belong to Paramount. Which is why, you will never see movie designs outside movie lines.

Hate to point it out, but you're wrong on that point. Movie legion black Soundwave was released under the RiD cyberverse line, and so was Movie legion Evac.

It seems Legends are exempt, but the Deluxe and larger toys are beyond reach for that reason. Besides, Cyberverse toys that don't belong to Prime do not have the "Prime" header on the packaging

Yeah, it's the generic RiD packaging. Which is what I said.

I meant, no header at all:



"Robots in Disguise" is considered part of Prime now.

Technically speaking, they aren't R.I.D. either. They are generic Cyberverse Transformers.

The Prime molds have the Prime subtitle, while the movie molds including Evac, have nothing.
Not even R.I.D. anywhere. They do however feature the Paramount logo that signifies these are Movie line figures.



So technically speaking, I'm not wrong, they are Movie figures, they just happen to be in Cyberverse packaging with Prime character art.

LOST Cybertronian wrote:

SKYWARPED_128 wrote:

That Bot wrote:...they're sent off to factories in Taiwan to be mass-produced, painted, assembled, and packaged before being sent off to retailers around the world.

Just a tiny correction here. They're made in mainland China, not Taiwan. Also, Taiwan is (technically) an independent republic, and is not considered Chinese territory.

Some are also made in Vietnam now

Yeah, I noticed that on my MP-10 Convoy. Can't say they're any better at the job than the Chinese. The one I got had black paint on his chest and the paint on the parts above his alt mode's headlights was too thin.

LOST Cybertronian wrote:

SKYWARPED_128 wrote:

That Bot wrote:...they're sent off to factories in Taiwan to be mass-produced, painted, assembled, and packaged before being sent off to retailers around the world.

Just a tiny correction here. They're made in mainland China, not Taiwan. Also, Taiwan is (technically) an independent republic, and is not considered Chinese territory.

Some are also made in Vietnam now

Sorry, that's what I meant in the first place. Vietnam, not Taiwan. I always trip up with Asian locations.



By the way, folks, the Robots In Disguise heading is just a categorization of the mainline TF Prime figures, the replacement for DOTM's Mechtech for deluxe and above. Cyberverse and RID are different things, it's not PRID Cyberverse.