Hi-Res Figure King #212 Transformers Scans - Diabattles, Q-Transformers, Hot Rod and More

Blast!!! I want just about all of these.

Diabattles V2 is truly a sight to behold.

Is anyone else NOT excited about Diaclone's return? I've always felt that one of Takara's biggest weaknesses with the Transformers brand is that they won't just stay focused on Transformers. Takara would probably love to have Diaclone be a big hit so that they can focus on that product line instead of Transformers so that they don't have to share profits with Hasbro (or at least sell Diaclone products in Hasbro's markets). I'm all for seeing Diaclone updates in Transformers, but I'm not up for seeing a stand-alone Diaclone line which I think will only take away from the Transformers brand.

Seibertron wrote:Is anyone else NOT excited about Diaclone's return? I've always felt that one of Takara's biggest weaknesses with the Transformers brand is that they won't just stay focused on Transformers. Takara would probably love to have Diaclone be a big hit so that they can focus on that product line instead of Transformers so that they don't have to share profits with Hasbro (or at least sell Diaclone products in Hasbro's markets). I'm all for seeing Diaclone updates in Transformers, but I'm not up for seeing a stand-alone Diaclone line which I think will only take away from the Transformers brand.

No different to Bandai handling multiple brands like Sentai, Gundam, Macross etc, is it? Takara don't need to be exclusively Transformers, do they? I mean, Hasbro does multiple toy lines and brands and we've never cited that as a reason for low quality or lack of interest in the brand.
I see no reason for one more robot toyline on the shelves to kill the rest. Surely it can only broaden the market, and boost TT's financial intake. Win win for all their brands.
If you mean the consumers, well, we've always lived in a world where choice is an option, haven't we? I don't focus on Transformers because I have no other option and Bandai selling Macross Valkyries hasn't stoped us all buying Transformers up 'til now. People who love Transformers won't stop buying them because of something new and shiny, I for one plan on collecting both. I've always loved the Diaclone robots outside of those used in Transformers. This guy will be displayed with MP Tiger Track and Road rage!
I don't fear at all that Takara will abandon Transformers, or become lacklustre with it. Such a notion has no reason to cross my mind, and different strokes for different folks.

Not sure what's prompted this line of thought, good man.

hinomars19 wrote:Not sure what's prompted this line of thought, good man.

Transformers has historically not been that popular in Japan, though it has gained popularity since the movie franchise. I've thought for at least a decade or so (before the live action movies were announced), that Takara would do better to just follow Hasbro's lead with Transformers. Use the terms Autobots, Decepticons, Cybertron, Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Cliffjumper, etc. No more Cybertron for Autobots, Destron for Decepticons, Seibertron for their homeplanet, Convoy for Optimus Prime, Bumble for Bumblebee, etc. I just want to see them put all of their chips in on Transformers. No more distractions. No more thinking other robot toy lines are going to be successful. No Brave. No Diaclone. Just buy into Transformers 100%. I'm all for toy companies having other sources of revenue. The problem with Takara, and specifically Transformers, is that Transformers isn't that popular in Japan, but I feel like that a big part of that problem is Takara itself because they are not fully vested into the brand. Hasbro is, despite making a multitude of other toylines, but they also have the king of robot toys in the States ... no other robot toy line even comes remotely close to it here in the States. However, in Japan, I just want to see Takara get 100% behind Transformers. Quit worrying about other robot toy lines that will compete with the Transformers brand. Give it up. Forget about it. Put all of your ideas into how to improve the Transformers brand. You can't compare the U.S. market with the Japanese market. Takara doing something like this is not the same as Hasbro doing another toy line.

What Ryan said is tru on TF. TF isn't that big a name for quite sometime except post 2007 (the Movie). The only place where TF sells like hotcakes is in the land of KOs....China!

fenrir72 wrote:What Ryan said is tru on TF. TF isn't that big a name for quite sometime except post 2007 (the Movie). The only place where TF sells like hotcakes is in the land of KOs....China!

Transformers sells really well in the US as well as other Hasbro markets. It is also really popular in China.

Seibertron wrote:

fenrir72 wrote:What Ryan said is tru on TF. TF isn't that big a name for quite sometime except post 2007 (the Movie). The only place where TF sells like hotcakes is in the land of KOs....China!

Transformers sells really well in the US as well as other Hasbro markets. It is also really popular in China.

As in "super popular" in China. As attested to the recent releases of the quite expensive henkei 3 in one packs? Asia market my posterior..those are China bound.

Gundam,Macross and Eva rules Japan.

Seibertron wrote:You can't compare the U.S. market with the Japanese market.

I know I'm cherrypicking... but why are you asking Takara to pursue a Hasbro-esque strategy, given the above?

I'm of the opinion Diaclone is a non-issue. Great for those who want it. Irrelevant for those who don't... certainly not a negative in any way.

fenrir72 wrote:

Seibertron wrote:

fenrir72 wrote:What Ryan said is tru on TF. TF isn't that big a name for quite sometime except post 2007 (the Movie). The only place where TF sells like hotcakes is in the land of KOs....China!

Transformers sells really well in the US as well as other Hasbro markets. It is also really popular in China.

As in "super popular" in China. As attested to the recent releases of the quite expensive henkei 3 in one packs? Asia market my posterior..those are China bound.

Gundam,Macross and Eva rules Japan.

I agree that Gundam, Macross and Eva are all very popular in Japan, far more so than Transformers. However, I wouldn't use the Henkei 3 packs as an example. There has only been 5 of those 3 packs, and the last one was released at least a year ago (mid-2014 if I recall correctly). If those had been more popular, I'm assuming we'd see a set released every 3 to 6 months which isn't happening.

megatronus wrote:

Seibertron wrote:You can't compare the U.S. market with the Japanese market.

I know I'm cherrypicking... but why are you asking Takara to pursue a Hasbro-esque strategy, given the above?

I'm of the opinion Diaclone is a non-issue. Great for those who want it. Irrelevant for those who don't... certainly not a negative in any way.

My statement is being taken out-of-context, I wrote it too far down in the paragraph so it reads like a separate statement. I was replying to hinomars19's initial comments comparing the more popular more-or-less Japanese exclusive robot toy lines sold in Japan. Takara doesn't have a runaway hit like those, but they really do it ... it's the Transformers brand. Takara Tomy just doesn't treat the brand like it is a runaway hit like Hasbro does. I think if Takara would get behind the Transformers brand for once and fully support it, a great many things would happen. Yet they don't, they haven't, they're always following Takara's lead, and they continue to work on their own transforming robot toy lines instead of putting all their chips on Transformers. If Transformers was as wildly successful in Japan as it is here in the States, I wouldn't have any room to talk. But since it's not, and Takara isn't the big robot toy line player in Japan, I think there's a lot of merit to my statements about Takara not focusing on Transformers and following the global lead on the brand that has caused the brand to not be as successful in Japan. I think a lot of Transformers fans have "fan blinders" on so they don't always see the bigger picture business-wise like this. I could also be totally off-base here, but I think I've been on to something for the past 15 years or so since I started making these comments with Brave and Web Diver.

Seibertron wrote:

megatronus wrote:

Seibertron wrote:You can't compare the U.S. market with the Japanese market.

I know I'm cherrypicking... but why are you asking Takara to pursue a Hasbro-esque strategy, given the above?

I'm of the opinion Diaclone is a non-issue. Great for those who want it. Irrelevant for those who don't... certainly not a negative in any way.

My statement is being taken out-of-context, I wrote it too far down in the paragraph so it reads like a separate statement. I was replying to hinomars19's initial comments comparing the more popular more-or-less Japanese exclusive robot toy lines sold in Japan. Takara doesn't have a runaway hit like those, but they really do it ... it's the Transformers brand. Takara Tomy just doesn't treat the brand like it is a runaway hit like Hasbro does. I think if Takara would get behind the Transformers brand for once and fully support it, a great many things would happen. Yet they don't, they haven't, they're always following Takara's lead, and they continue to work on their own transforming robot toy lines instead of putting all their chips on Transformers. If Transformers was as wildly successful in Japan as it is here in the States, I wouldn't have any room to talk. But since it's not, and Takara isn't the big robot toy line player in Japan, I think there's a lot of merit to my statements about Takara not focusing on Transformers and following the global lead on the brand that has caused the brand to not be as successful in Japan. I think a lot of Transformers fans have "fan blinders" on so they don't always see the bigger picture business-wise like this. I could also be totally off-base here, but I think I've been on to something for the past 15 years or so since I started making these comments with Brave and Web Diver.

even if Takara doesn't put as much focus on Transformers as Hasbro does Takara does seems to put out a higher quality product than hasbro with the paint detail and the G1 homeages and use of diecast metal
Hasbro lacks in all of those catagories its like comparing Cheverolet and GMC

I get what Ryan's saying but, a lot of the other robot lines that are much bigger in Japan have more appeal to older audiences for all of them involving non-living, human-operated robots, while living robots like the Transformers are viewed as being more for younger audiences. It isn't so much a problem with Takara not being that invested in the Transformers (but that is a problem, yes) as it is the mentality of Japan's interest in robot lines.

It certainly doesn't help that just about every time a North American Transformers cartoon gets dubbed into Japanese it gets dumbed down for younger viewers with lots of adblibbing and over-the-top humor being added into it. The only times this didn't happen were when the G1 cartoon was dubbed into Japanese (since the trend began with Beast Wars, but the G1 cartoon's dub did get a lot more dialogue for the narrator to explain even the most obvious of things to the viewers) and when Animated was dubbed into Japanese (since the original English version was already light-hearted and comedic enough, but the newly-added episode previews at the beginning and ending of each episode did get some jokey dialogue in them).

Plus, accompanying the "nonliving robots = older viewers, living robots = younger viewers" mentality is an additional mentality of "It's cool to build model kits, it's uncool to play with toys". This was once brought up in one of the Twincast Podcast episodes in regards to how Transformers get only a small page count of advertisement in the Japanese magazines compared to the other robot lines like Gundam that get a HUGE page count of advertisement. And whereas the Transformers are advertising toys, the other lines that get all the other pages are advertising model kits. So there's a greater appeal of model kits over toys when it comes to robot lines in Japan, especially between younger and older viewers.

Now, yes, there are some exceptional cases to all this like the collector-based action figure merchandise (for Transformers, this would be the Masterpieces, and for other lines this would be things like SHFigurarts or Soul of Chogokin and such), but these are deemed less as actual "toys" than they are "display pieces" since they are less expected to be actually played with and more expected to be displayed on a shelf or desk for decorative purposes.

And there's another factor in all this as well that hasn't been covered yet. A lot of the other robot lines that are bigger than Transformers in Japan got started way ahead of Transformers; some by a few years, some by several years, some even by a whole decade. These ones were popular and successful before Transformers was even conceived, so Transformers already some big competition to go up against when it first came to Japan. And no matter how popular and successful it ever became in Japan, several of the earlier robot lines would continue to outclass it with their own undying success and popularity. Not to mention that many of them used model kits as their primary medium of merchandise, as opposed to the Transformers's use of toys (though, yes, several of the other lines like Super Sentai did choose toys over models for their products as well, but an example like Super Sentai is also aimed at younger audiences too).

So while Takara's own interest in the Transformers does need to change, so too (arguably even moreso) does Japan's overall mentality of "living vs. nonliving robots" and "toys vs. model kits". I myself have always been more interested in both living machines and toys than nonliving machines and model kits. Even as a preschool child when playing with Hot Wheels and/or Matchbox cars did I pretend that the cars were alive with voices and personalities of their own, and any Power Rangers Megazord I had was also played with as though both it and its individual Zord components were alive. I think I even played with Star Wars vehicles as though they were alive (though, that may in part have been due to my lack of owning any of the human characters besides Boba Fett). While one could argue that this kind of thing is what kids do and only adds to Japan's treating living robots as kiddy stuff, I as an adult collector still maintain my own mentality of preferring my robots and vehicles to be alive rather than not. But until the day comes when Japan chooses to think this way as well, we're stuck with Transformers being a constantly-struggling success over in the Land of the Rising Sun, even if Takara were to put even more stock into it than they already are.

Seibertron wrote:

fenrir72 wrote:

Seibertron wrote:

fenrir72 wrote:What Ryan said is tru on TF. TF isn't that big a name for quite sometime except post 2007 (the Movie). The only place where TF sells like hotcakes is in the land of KOs....China!

Transformers sells really well in the US as well as other Hasbro markets. It is also really popular in China.

As in "super popular" in China. As attested to the recent releases of the quite expensive henkei 3 in one packs? Asia market my posterior..those are China bound.

Gundam,Macross and Eva rules Japan.

I agree that Gundam, Macross and Eva are all very popular in Japan, far more so than Transformers. However, I wouldn't use the Henkei 3 packs as an example. There has only been 5 of those 3 packs, and the last one was released at least a year ago (mid-2014 if I recall correctly). If those had been more popular, I'm assuming we'd see a set released every 3 to 6 months which isn't happening.

China bound and all sold out. 2ndary market for those sets I used as an example are really bordering in the insane if you are lucky to find a set for sale.How come resurect a long dormant line if the demand wasn't there?

The thing is Ryan, again as you stated, not popular in Japan (maybe the reason why recent lines "sell out" too fast is because TT doesn't want to risk too much excess inventory so the run is quite limited (whatever line TAV, Legends etc)

Plus, the blue lightning that makes a certain franchise popular is really fickle as in Gundam, it sucked bigtime before reruns made it the big Kahuna it is today.

TF, China and the USA market and international markets (?). The rest of known Japan based franchises really leaves TF in the dust far behind. MP is more of a contender, but noticed why all it is focused on? G1 (the Bayformer MP imho don't count). It will alsways be G1 as it's a safe investment bet.

The Diaclone plane tank reminds me of Transformers:Energon Wing Saber.
I wish I know how to post pictures side by side.