The Energon Pub

Million Publishing has announced Transformers Generation 2014 Vol.1. This volume will cover:

• 30th Anniversary Brand Retrospective
• Hasbro and Takara Tomy's Transformers: Age of Extinction/Lost Age Figures
• Hasbro and Takara Tomy's Beast Hunters/Transformers Go! Figures
• Special Look at Grimlock figures through the franchise
• Interviews with Japanese voice actors Yoku Shioya (Bumblebee) and Osamu Saka (Wheeljack)
• War Train Comic by Yuki Ohshima
• Controverse Comic by Hirofumi Ichikawa

This volume will be released on May 16th. Check out the small sample images below:

Those two manga stories are what I'm looking forward to.

Nice; I have been looking forward to this.
Any sale links from our sponsors??

triKlops wrote:Nice; I have been looking forward to this.
Any sale links from our sponsors??

HLJ has it available at http://www.hlj.com/product/TYT02243/Sci

Seibertron wrote:

triKlops wrote:Nice; I have been looking forward to this.
Any sale links from our sponsors??

HLJ has it available at http://www.hlj.com/product/TYT02243/Sci

And ordered; thanks Seibs!

Am I the only one who thinks this new Transformers "logo" stinks?

Seriously - what IS that mess? Do they think this plain font is somehow bold and sassy?

Thumbs DOWN. Hasbro, if you're floating this logo with the movie toy packaging to try and replace the existing logo for ALL the toy lines - DON'T.

I always look forward to getting this each year. The pictures are excellent and it's a great reference for the year.

Amazon Japan has revealed the exclusive for Million Publishing's Transformers Generations 2014 Vol. 1, Shouki! Shouki, a member of the Raiden trainbots, is redeco of Classics Deluxe Astrotrain and will also come with a Targetmaster redeco of the Power Core Combiner Minicon Groundspike. Check out the small image mirrored below:



Update: Million Publishing/Hero-X have posted official images of Shouki and revealed the identity of his Targetmaster, Daniel. Like their previous exclusives these guys will be mail-away images. Additional details can be found by clicking here.

I want to like it. I like the idea. I think I could be behind it more if it had a new head. Targetmaster Daniel is very oddly colored. I would have liked it more had it stuck to the Targetmaster color pattern of the originals with red and black.

Hmmm... that's an interesting exclusive. I wish I knew more about the train bots and it's too bad that there is only one train mold right now, so I don't think we will ever see the other team members.

Nope.

It definitely needs the head. Without the proper head crest, it just looks like Astrotrain. Here are some images of G1 Shouki from my gallery for those of you not familiar with this Japanese exclusive character.

I wonder how they'll explain his Decepticon shuttle mode. Guess he's joining the ranks of Doublespies now.

Emerje

Stormrider wrote:I wish I knew more about the train bots and it's too bad that there is only one train mold right now, so I don't think we will ever see the other team members.

same. i dont know anything about the character... but why would he have a decepticon symbol in shuttle mode?

You guys are killing the mood for me. THAT IS WONDERFUL! New head or not, I am not gonna be picky about this. None of the Million Publishing exclusives have been remolds, so this is no different.

And Targetmaster Daniel?!!! I'm just... lost for words. It's too much. Shouki alone was cool enough, but their inclusion of a Targetmaster Daniel of all things is too much goodness.

And yet, this is another beautiful Million Publishing exclusive I'll probably never get to own (because they're always so expensive).

Sabrblade wrote:You guys are killing the mood for me. THAT IS WONDERFUL! New head or not, I am not gonna be picky about this. None of the Million Publishing exclusives have been remolds, so this is no different.

And Targetmaster Daniel?!!! I'm just... lost for words. It's too much. Shouki alone was cool enough, but their inclusion of a Targetmaster Daniel of all things is too much goodness.

And yet, this is another beautiful Million Publishing exclusive I'll probably never get to own (because they're always so expensive).

Hold the phone guys, it's a dual homage! It not only homages Shouki, but the shuttle mode and Mini-Con reference the Thunder Arrow and its pilot, aka Skystalker and his Space Shuttle:





And I must say, using Groundspike as a bow and as a pantograph is really clever. I'm sold

I love this, this will be the first million publishing exclusive I actively seek out.

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:You guys are killing the mood for me. THAT IS WONDERFUL! New head or not, I am not gonna be picky about this. None of the Million Publishing exclusives have been remolds, so this is no different.

And Targetmaster Daniel?!!! I'm just... lost for words. It's too much. Shouki alone was cool enough, but their inclusion of a Targetmaster Daniel of all things is too much goodness.

And yet, this is another beautiful Million Publishing exclusive I'll probably never get to own (because they're always so expensive).

Hold the phone guys, it's a dual homage! It not only homages Shouki, but the shuttle mode and Mini-Con reference the Thunder Arrow and its pilot, aka Skystalker and his Space Shuttle:





And I must say, using Groundspike as a bow and as a pantograph is really clever. I'm sold

Million Publishing, why do you torture me with your expensive levels of awesomeness?

Sabrblade wrote:Million Publishing, why do you torture me with your expensive levels of awesomeness?

I shouldn't tell you this but... I've done some digging and Skystalker has no counterpart in Japanese fiction. This opens up possibilities:

- Skystalker's toy is unnamed in Japan, never got a representation in the Victory cartoon or manga while his ship did.
- Victory/Zone saw the trainbots reissued
- In 2025, Daniel would be approximately 27 (Japan age) or 32 (US age), given his age of 12 in Season 3 or TF:2010
- His father Spike was one of the main guys behind the "-master" process.

How will we connect the dots?

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:Million Publishing, why do you torture me with your expensive levels of awesomeness?

I shouldn't tell you this but... I've done some digging and Skystalker has no counterpart in Japanese fiction. This opens up possibilities:

- Skystalker's toy is unnamed in Japan, never got a representation in the Victory cartoon or manga while his ship did.
- Victory/Zone saw the trainbots reissued
- In 2025, Daniel would be approximately 27 (Japan age) or 32 (US age), given his age of 12 in Season 3 or TF:2010
- His father Spike was one of the main guys behind the "-master" process.

How will we connect the dots?

You should see the arguments that have gone on over at the Wiki to make Skystalker and the nameless pilot into the same person.

Finally, a different character using this mold. I was so tired of seeing Astrotrain. He is very nice. The blue is very clean and sleek looking. Never heard of the character so not having a new head isn't bothersome. Especially because I'll never get this. Would not have minded this being a Botcon figure. I'm still disappointed that the club never gave us Wings Universe Blast Off.

Man, the more I look at this thing, the more I can't believe how clever it is. You got the character of Shouki to make sense of the Train Mode, Daniel as his Targetmaster since he was the main human in The Headmasters, the Shuttle Mode is made into the Thunder Arrow with Shouki and Daniel going undercover, Daniel in in his Excel Suit (Exosuit) colored like the Thunder Arrow's pilot to better the disguise, and Daniel uses the Groundspike mold that turns into a bow as a play on the ship's name of "Thunder Arrow".

Sabrblade wrote:Man, the more I look at this thing, the more I can't believe how clever it is. You got the character of Shouki to make sense of the Train Mode, Daniel as his Targetmaster since he was the main human in The Headmasters, the Shuttle Mode is made into the Thunder Arrow with Shouki and Daniel going undercover, Daniel in in his Excel Suit (Exosuit) colored like the Thunder Arrow's pilot to better the disguise, and Daniel uses the Groundspike mold that turns into a bow as a play on the ship's name of "Thunder Arrow".

That all might work for you, but it turns me off even more about this.

Seibertron wrote:That all might work for you, but it turns me off even more about this.

This is no different than the kind of crazy homage stuff that the Club and e-HOBBY do. It's obviously aimed at fans of the Japanese G1 cartoons. Of course it's not gonna appeal to the masses.

It's an interesting idea but definitely isn't worth the hoops needed to jump through to get a Million figure.