Correction: Skyfire did appear in Season 2 of the TV series, with his final appearance being in episode 25 and the episode's final script dated December 1984.
Fair enough. :) The toy being owned by Hasbro, did result in Harmony Gold trying to sue Hasbro as they couldn't sell that particular version of the Valkyrie themselves. So that's likely why the character was dropped entirely in 1985. However, what you mentioned about it not being able to be sold in Japan, would explain the slight re-design for season one. :)
@@David315842Jetfire still appears in the 1986 catalog since it was still patented for Hasbro, and Skyfire was written out of the show in 1984 before Harmony Gold could do anything. HG couldn't touch Hasbro, and their patent required Matchbox to gut their original Veritech toy of its transformation gimmick. Meanwhile Takara's dub of Transformers tried to distance itself from Skyfire by placing most of his episodes at the end of their version, and not having him appear in the manga or supplemental stuff.
@@IronMysterian I had forgotten that they still were selling the Jetfire toy by 1986, but yeah you are correct, since Hasbro had the rights to the toy, it was never released by Matchbox for Robotech and instead had to make some chibi style figures instead, or deluxe versions that didn't fully transform. Though they did with the SDF-1 Macross. :) I have the TF manga and yeah Jetfire does not appear in that at all. If it wasn't for the fact that he was quite prominent in season 1, the Japanese dub would have likely skipped those episodes and probably replaced those with clip shows. I guess Toei had more faith in the show, as wear ever or not Takara would have adopted the toy line from Hasbro, the show itself could have simply been re-dubbed and aired on Japanese TV anyway due to the countries' fondness for robots, I'm saying that as Japan didn't get the Transformers toy line till 1985, so Toei must have prepared themselves in case the show was imported regardless of it had an accompanying toy line or not. If it didn't it probably would have been aired still, but maybe not on such prominent timeslots as the show did have, due to their being a toy line. It's just a theory.
I remember saving $40.00 for a very very very long time and finally having enough to go buy Jetfire. I recall watching the Transformers thinking that Skyfire would turn into Jetfire....and didn't. 😂I then started to collect the classic 1/55 scale Valkyries.
Skyfire also has a single non-speaking appearance in the Transformers season 3 episode, "Dark Awakening", where he his shown being destroyed among the Autobot fleet by a Quintesson artillery barrage.
@@cycloneblard5845George Lucas watched 1972's Android Kikkaider in 1974. That's where he partially got the inspiration for Darth Vader and the Emperor....from the villain characters Cyborg Hakkaider and his ruler who he eventually turned on: Professor Gil of DARK. Professor Gil took the scientist who created the hero Android Kikkaider hostage, gave him amnesia, then later took his brain and transplanted it into the machine body of Cyborg Hakkaider who was in all black in order to destroy his nemesis Android Kikkaider. When Cyborg Hakkaider finally realized Kikkaider was his 'son' and he was the DARK father, he turned on Professor Gil, killing him, but dying in the process in the arms of Android Kikkaider. And as we know, Darth Vader means Dark Father. 🤔
The good working relationship between (Hasbro and Takara) can be traced back to the year 1971. When Hasbro had licensed a copy of ''G.I. Joe'' to Takara which they marketed under the name ''Combat Joe''. One key difference was that Takara provided the ''Combat Joe'' figures with a variety of separately sold costumes. That were based on popular (Japanese Sci- Fi TV) properties such as ''Ninja Arashi'', ''Mirror Man'', ''Kamen Rider,'' ''Zone Fighter'' and others. This still didn't help ''Combat Joe'' and the line continued to sell poorly. So, in 1972 Takara decided to utilize the 12" (GI Joe/Combat Joe molds) to create a new offshoot line for the Japanese toy market. This offshoot was dubbed ''Henshin Cyborg'', which in English means (Transforming Cyborg). The ''Henshin Cyborg'' line was a huge success and put ''Takara'' on the map. It is not known whether Hasbro retained any intellectual property rights over the ''Henshin Cyborg'' line? In 1984 Takara kind of returned the favor to Hasbro. By allowing Hasbro to have a licensed copy of their (Micro Change and Diaclone) line. Rebranding the transforming Mecha toys into ''Transformers''.
The Combat Joe figures were incredible...I had a Panzer commander and a Wermacht officer and nothing matched them until 1/6th Dragon Models' figures and 21st Century Toys' Ultimate Soldier in the late 1990's.
The transformers is absolutely a collaberation between two different countries, and all the better for it. Without Takara Tomy we wouldn't have had the Transformers in any medium, and without hasbro the show and brands entire personality would have never existed. This is just my own personal preference but I find the majority of the Japasese shows aren't that bad I think the Headmasters is really good, but Victory in my opinion is just lacking. Overall great video with a deep retrospective of the entire brand.
It’s like Power Rangers. A japanese property given new life in the west by a partner company, leading to a whole new version of said property that became Iconic.
@@orangeinfernoalthough japanese actually don’t really need it super sentai to be adapted/adopted to begin with They already have name and huge popularity in south america
@@ThunderNerve , narrow minded thinking like that keeps things small, niche, and elitist. You got to have an audience in order to sell a product. This applies not only to toys, but also to any product.
@@paxhumana2015 NOPE, many people like the pure authenticity, And your voice is no where near the majority Especially someone like you who highly possible for lacking of appreciation of the origin You think toei who approaching saban? Nooo,.. It's actually saban who see the potential of super sentai Without saban super sentai will be more authentic then nowadays Powerqnger is just a parasite who clinging for their benefits
In Italy where anime was already wildly popular in the 80s with all sort of great series (all super robots, plus gundam and many others), Tranformers was introduced with great fanfare and all ads stressed the fact that these were the "new generation of cartoons from the United States of America", mostly to distance themselves from "violent" and "computer made" japanese animation (two common misconception at the times). Ah the irony ;)
in 90s some italian dubed animes are aired in Poland and they are cult favorite to this day -Tiger Mask -Captain Tsubasa -Yatterman -Gigi la trottola and many others
@@GaionSputro Tsubasa and Genzo were called Oliver and Benji here in Latin America, until the 2018 Captain Tsubasa anime was dubbed and the distributor insisted to use the original Japanese names, something which wasn't well received by old-school fans
First time I saw some kids playing with Transformers the one was like "Truck Man is the good guy and Gun Man is the bad guy," and this other kid goes "That's Megatron, not Gun Man, you sack jockey!" Kid runs off and tells his dad "he called me a sack jockey" and the dad busts a gut laughing. Ahh, the 80's were truly a magical time.
12:24 This is totally what I always thought, the Transformers cartoon really stood head and shoulders above not just Gobots, but many other shows! I didn't realize some of those amazing and well-known anime animation folks helped with all the early stuff!!! Really interesting and well put together video, man! I got my own Retrospective on my channel of the 1986 movie, feel free to check it out (it adds up to almost 8hrs though, haha). It's pretty incredible the many ingredients that have gone into creating Transformers.... That's probably why it's so dang special. 😊
So this explains why it seemed like 80s cartoon animation was so much better than the 90s. IT was all outsourced to Japan, when I found out Heathcliff was outsourced to japan I was like wow! In Heathcliff, u can really tell how much the animation dropped towards the end when they no longer used Toei
I remember seeing those first commercials for the Marvel comic before the toys even came out. It was the coolest thing I’d ever seen in my life. I was only 6, so there wasn’t much competition, but still.
Thank you for a high quality informative mini documentary on one of my favorite inspirations from my youth. Some of this I already knew but a lot of artist and designers at Toei were unsung and obscure. So I’m glad you gave them light. You even put in the Mighty Orbots connection in there. I always felt that Bulkhead had a Tor vibe to him. Now I know why. Speaking of unsung, I always wanted to know who the original Japanese Diaclone box illustration artist were. The designs for Inferno, Soundwave, Megatron, Bluestreak, Skids, Prowl and others were definite influences for Floro Dery and the Toei Sunbow crew. Hopefully that will be explored one day. Thanks again
Outstanding work here my dude! I was 11 in 1984 and huge into Transformers. I still collect the bots and Masterpiece series and this is still like a lot of new information I've never heard before! Subbed and can't wait for more!
You haven't just omitted some information - you've omitted an entire branch of the history, pertaining to the toys themselves. :-P That said, VERY thorough video essay on the animation side of things. I agree that the super robot tradition is certainly A factor and that you accurately covered the birth of the Megazord by covering the Toei Spider-Man adaptation. Although that said, there's a massive chunk of that genre's history that's missing. going right back to Tetsujin-28, however there too, you almost need to set the zero-point for most of this at the 2 atomic bombs dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. In fact the way that Godzilla led to Ultraman, which in turn created part of the inspiration for Kamen Rider, is certainly where that side of things comes full circle, in terms of both the Tokusatsu and Super Robot genres converging. However the evidence simply doesn't support that prempting Takara to introduce piloted mecha into either the Diaclone or Microman toylines. I'll come back to this with why Toei's Spider-Man was quite literally as much as 4 years late to the party in this regard. Furthermore, I feel that there's a huge chunk of the toy history you've missed in terms of what came prior to Hasbro's exposure to Microman and Diaclone at the 1983 Tokyo Toy Show (and to think that Hasbro were originally there to look at licensing a radio-controlled car) - which can be traced back to Barbie; yes, THAT Barbie. By the way, this side of things is also another aspect of America making something, Japan licensing it, Japan then making it its own, America licensing that and then Japan killing off its own thing to license the thing that America licensed off it, because of how successful it proved to be. When Hasbro saw Barbie, a revolutionary play doll with interchangeable outfits, they thought that there might be a similar gap in the boy's toys market and thus the original G.I. JOE was born - as was the term "action figure (because boys will never play with dolls)". G.I.JOE was a massive smashing success and so Hasbro began licensing it out to several different toy companies. One of those companies was Takara Toys in Japan, who released it under the name Combat Joe. However in 1972, potentially due to the success of Kamen Rider, Takara released a spin-off line to Combat Joe - Cyborg Henshin, or Transforming Cyborg. This was somewhat successful, however Takara decided to downsize the Cyborg Henshin figures from 12 inches to 3.75 inches, in order to create an affordable play experience for kids which also involved playsets and vehicles. Another reason for this is that 12 inch figures are generally incompatible with the comparatively smaller living spaces in Japan, as compared to 3.75" action figures. Also, from a toy perspective, you're completely incorrect about Toei's Spider-Man being the impetus for giant robots being a part of Takara's toy lines. In 1975, Takara made Microman it's own toyline as opposed to merely a spin-off line of Cyborg Henshin, with the 1975 toy line Microman Victory. One of the key changes with this line, was the introduction of a 12" motorised robot, called Robotman, which had a clear cockpit to hold a 3.75" Microman figure. The planning stages for this were potentially close to 4 years before Takara would have become aware of Toei's Spider-Man adaptation. (check out the site Microman Forever to for a lot of this information). However the success of that adaptation certainly would have encouraged Takara to proceed down that road. 1980 saw Takara in a bind. The lore had become too involved for new fans to jump on board, while older fans wanted something new. This led Takara to reboot the Microman line, while launching a 1/60 scale spin-off line, which was Diaclone. While Toei's Spider-Man and the success of Battle Fever J would certainly have been encouraging for Takara, again, these lines, even in terms of giant robots, were simply carrying on from what began with Robotman in 1975. To that end, it's worth noting that when Microchange added the inclusion of auxiliary robot partners as part of the 1983 Micro Change sub-line, some of those robot partners, disguised themselves by turning into Pennyracers. That's why the Autobot Minicars are superdeformed. This is also where things get interesting. The story goes that a young toy designer who was working on several early toys in the Diaclone line, claimed he could design a toy plane that could convert into a robot, without the need for removing parts. When his colleagues claimed it couldn't be done, that toy designer proved them wrong, by making the toy, out of pieces of folded cardboard. That toy was the first Valkyrie and that designer was the legendary Shoji Kawamori of Macross fame. Also, it wasn't just the Valkyrie which Hasbro licensed from Takatoku which got caught up in Takatoku declaring bankruptcy and Bandai's subsequent acquisition of them. Hasbro also obtained the rights to the toys from Special Armored Battalion Dorvack and Armored Insect Corps Beetras, which would become the Deluxe Autobots and Deluwe Insecticons respectively - who for some reason, never appeared in the cartoon, despite being in roughly the same situation as Jetfire. Potentially they were planned for 1985 and by then the dust had settled on the acquisition. However where this all gets peculiar for me though is with Sky Lynx. As you may or may not be aware, Sky Lynx was licensed by Hasbro from TOMY, meaning that until the Encore release, it was not released by Takara in Japan, until the 2008 Encore reissue. Yet despite this, there was no attempt to reduce Sky Lynx's presence from Transformers 2010 to my knowledge (ie Transformers Season 3). Perhaps they were more scared of Bandai at the time than they were of TOMY. Then there are the interesting issues with mix-ups worse than merely RIBFIR/RIRFIB. If you look at the original Diaclone toyline, the Super Tuning LP500S Lamborgini was red in the Diaclone line, while the standard LP500S was yellow, while those colours were switched for the Transformers toyline. Yet when you look at Sideswipe's bio, it's clearly describing the body of Sunstreaker, while Sunstreaker's bio is clearly describing the body of Sunstreaker. What appears to have happened on face value is that after the colours were swapped and the bios had been written, someone not paying attention said that "Sideswipe is the res one and Sunstreaker is the yellow one". However that's not the most interesting thing here, and this is only something I became aware of after owning the toy. When you look at the head sculpt of the Microchange toy MC-18 Magneman, it looks incredibly similar to the head sculpt which the Sunbow animation model of Ironhide was given. Also the cololur scheme of the animation model for G1 Ironhide seems to bear more of a resemblance to MC-18 than merely an inversion of CR No.2's colours. If I were to hazard a guess, it would be that MC-18 was originally planned to be Ironhide (a transforming lock as a security chief, perfectly fits), however when the decision to make the Autobots cars and Decepticons military equipment and devices, was made, the MC-18 design was adapted into a modified model for the Onebox Vanette. That would also explain how Ratchet wound up being modified to have a similar head. Hopefully you find some of these points to be an interesting jumping off point.
A lot of great stuff here, some of it I'm well aware of and didn't mention in greater detail because this video is mostly fiction and production-oriented and not about the toys themselves.
@@IronMysterian The problem I see there though is that you've left out the comic side of things, which is inextricably linked to the animation. With that, your origin point is Star Wars and there's no way of getting out of at least some toy history there to get to the animation side of things. Lucas' decision to "just make a few t-shirts to promote the movie", resulting in the Kenner Star Wars line, after Mego made the biggest mistake of their corporate lives, led to everyone, including Mattel, wanting "the next Star Wars" for one of their flagship lines. I'm sure most people know that Masters of the Universe was born out of shenanigans with allegedly making a toy line for Conan, however the legalities here are where it gets interesting. I don't think it was Marvel's collaboration with Toei that made them pursue this revenue stream at all. I think it was their rivalry with DC. To get around FCC regulations, MOTU of course, used pack-in minicomics. That way the toys were based around a comic, not a cartoon, and in turn, the cartoon was based on the comic. It just so happens that the company which made those minicomics was DC Comics. At that point, you can't tell me that Marvel didn't immediately want a piece of the action regarding Toy marketing media. In fact it's worth noting that Marvel did just that, through a partnership with Hasbro, for G.I.Joe. This is where I find it interesting. Somehow Griffin-Bacal got the idea to create a G.I.Joe cartoon to directly market the comic and as as a workaround way of using the cartoon to market the toys. However, and this is where I think a Transformers cartoon became inevitable following that 1983 Tokyo Toy Show visit, Mattel followed suit, hiring Filmation to produce a MOTU animated series, which aired in September that year. There's also no way that Hasbro hadn't caught wind of what Mattel and Filmation were doing, at least 3 months prior to when the MOTU Animated series aired, which is when the 1983 Tokyo Toy Show was held. While it's a matter of record that Hasbro were there to look at licensing a particular remote-controlled car, I don't buy for a minute that Hasbro exec, including those at that Tokyo Toy Show, weren't on the hunt for a "MOTU-killer", or that wasn't regularly in the back of all of their minds. I'd argue that it was the MOTU animated series, rather than the G.I.JOE animated series, which made the entire toy cartoon craze inevitable. G.I.JOE was certainly the proof of concept. However it was MOTU that not only proved it was a winning formula, being even more successfully globally than G.I.JOE at the time, but turned the marketing technique into a turf war. At that point it worked. At that point, it was a race for smaller companies to get a piece of the action and for larger companies, like Hasbro, to defend their turf and expand it as much as possible.
@@andrewrichards312It's an interesting piece of speculation, but it's beyond the topic of my video. I'm illustrating how Transformers' origins has connections and similarities with other works born out of Marvel and Toei's collaboration; not a broader discussion about American toy franchises in the 1980s. Even Disney's 808 documentary on Japanese Spider Man touches upon this partnership very briefly as Gene Pelc mentions it.
Yeah, I clicked on this because I wanted to hear more of what they did with Transformers in Japan, but they seem to be more interested in talking about the US version specifically.
I'm glad a video like this exists because a lot of people don't seem to know how popular Tranaformers was in 80s Japan. I've even seen Convoy along other 80s mecha in fan magazine art from time to time. I love Raideen so I just have to add that the Popy Chogokin GA-09 DX Raideen was one of if not the first real transforming robot toy and also got what had to be one of the first limited black repaints.
12:25 - Yeah, I have both the first model prototype Megatron with the black helmet, as well as the modified one in toy forms. The prototype also had a different gun style that looks more like a glock than the well known Walther P38. Before TF, I used to watch Star Blazers as a morning cartoon before heading to school, so I was actually well versed already in Japanese Animation and loved it. Despite that, I think I still would have loved this show whether I had that experience or not. It was great a great story to watch.
My friend had that toy too."Gun Robo". He'd never take it out of the box lol. On the box info he was described as a hero robot😮 He also has the original Golion before Matchbox brought it over as "Voltron". I mean original original l: it wasn't even the localized Bandai Godaikin toy line Golion. It was the original Japanese one. He also had the toy of Goggle V Super Sentai series and the toy of Future Robo Daltanius (the anime that World Media Events actually originally asked for from Toei before they were mistakenly given Golion instead 😂). My other friend had Combattler V and another friend had the G.I. Joe aircraft carrier 😂 Me, I was not so lucky lol I didn't have rich parents 😂 Still, I did have small diecast version of Great Mazinger (he was also my first ever Halloween costume 😂), an even smaller die ast version of UFO Robo Grendizer, a bootleg Taiwan version of Daitarn V, Gordian Warrior, a used toy of Denjiman, the second God Phoenix ship from Gatchaman Fighter (3rd season), a small Godaikin version of the super Sentai robo Dynaman, Ultraman Ace, and several Godzilla toys. 😂
I was lucky enough to have my mother and aunt working for Takara in the "Toy building" in NYC in the early 80s. I still remember spending weekends with them in the showroom, what a great time to be a child. Great vid.
I didn't mention it since I was discussing Marvel and Toei's role in fiction primarily, not the actual toys. It's also been mentioned to death and is common knowledge for anyone watching this type of video, so it's not exactly "hidden." If I ever make a video about how Transformers (toys) evolved, you can bet I'll mention it!
I like how basically all of the information in this video is stuff not mentioned in The Transformers' The Toys that Made Us episode, which focuses more on the Western side of things so they really round each other out.
Nope diaclones and microman were being sold well before the very first GI JOE went on to sale. So Takara didnt copy from Hasbro or took any inspiration.
@@shashankkatiha9439 no? Takara licensed the originall 12 inch Gijoe toys in 1972 and turned them into henshin cyborg because they didn't sell as army men. Then when the oil crisis happened they turned henshin cyborg into microman which then later birthed diaclone.
@@gojidohThat's the throughline they push but GI Joe, Microman and Diaclone aren't directly connected beyond those initial Microman molds being borrowed from GI Joe. Takara also had diecast robots under the Magnemo series which were competition to Popy. Its just an American centric view of the Japanese toy industry despite GI Joe and Transformers only being very loosely and tangentially related as very, VERY distant cousins with no toy engineering being shared, while Transformers actually shares lineage more with Magnemo, Popy etc.I think it was said here already, but it's like trying to say Disney and Modern anime are directly connected because Osamu Tezuka took inspiration from them almost a century ago.
The definitive explanation of the roots. As an 80s kid I always wondered about many visual origins, especially Skyfire, Having watched Robotech and seen the toy. Thanks for the research!
Ironically, later on, the Go-Bots were actually retconned into being a parallel dimension version of the Transformers universe, thus being more allies of the Autobots and Decepticons, respectively.
I can't believe Tonka won that lawsuit against Mighty Orbots, resulting in that TV series being cancelled. Such bs lol. The studio that did Mighty Orbots would later do Bionic Six I still need to finish watching God Mars though
1:15 Good example when quoting relationships between TF Brand and Japan. there are round dial panels shown here on scene. these are Leijimeters. originated from (and made famous by) Leiji Matsumoto. Note that Toei Doga did works with him several years prior. especially then Toei Doga produced (almost) every animated adapations of LM's works. I'm firmly believed that everyone (or most of) at Toei who worked on either Space Pirate Captain Harlock, Arcadia of My Youth, and Galaxy Express 999 (especially the two movies) also worked on TF Projects (and even GI Joe: A Real American Hero, which I THINK the first Toei-produced anime that uses animated bumpers (before then everything uses still-picture bumpers) ) ALSO Danguard Ace (that joined Shogun Warriors) was the ONLY mecha created by Leiji Matsumoto. he doesn't really like Bigbot genre.
Damn, I always wondered why all the Autobots in Marvel TF #1 were off-model except for just a few. It was because only Prowl/Bluestreak, Sideswipe, Optimus, and Jazz already had their show designs at that point. Thanks for explaining that!
When I had Grimlock Dinobot toy as a kid, I always wondered why he had a seat canopy on his back with a moveable see through door. It was to fit the 1" high Microman toys in as pilots! The original toy lines weren't sentient robots they were piloted mecha for Microman. It was Marvel who changed them into sentient robots for the comic line and later the cartoon...
@@budgiecat9039 Yep! When I was still real young, you could actually find some of the pre-TFs in the Asian markets in South Sac. I had a Cassette Man that at the time I thought was a KO but in retrospect realized was a MIcroman figure. I had the Frenzy/Rumble hybrid color tape dude AKA Enemy (and sold him to some dude in Canada a while back for a pretty penny). And there were some Diaclones in circulation. I remembered seeing some of the cars with the drivers
Mighty Orbots was me and older brother's favorite cartoon for the 1 season it aired on ABC in the 80s. We had never seen such dope animation on Saturday morning prior to that.
Mighty Orbots and Dungeons & Dragons was the ish back in the day. Both were slept on and better than all of the other big 3 network Saturday morning cartoons.
Very nice video. And here I thought I knew most of the facets of how the Transformers came to be. There were still more details and nuances I didn't know about, heh. Macross/Robotech is also one of my favorite series, so Jetfire is one of my favorite Transformers, and my favorite childhood one. Of course he ended up being one of the most expensive toys when I went to collect Transformers as an adult! Interesting that so much information is still "language locked" after all these years. It would be great if you could figure out the mystery studios behind several Transformers episodes, that Transformers fans are still trying to uncover. Some of them are really well done, like "A Prime Problem."
@@djhaynes991986 was still the bubble era, diecast was being phased out of a lot of Japanese toys by then, but it was probably just a decision Takara made because Predaking was big and expensive as is. Ginrai was still diecast, whereas Hasbro's Powermaster Prime was plastic.
Point of order: Warner Bros. had nothing to to with the creation of Mighty Orbots. It was all TMS, working with MGM. MGM, most everything except James Bond and some others was bought by Ted Turner, which eventually got bought by Warner Bros. It’s like saying ‘The Man from U.N.C.L.E.’ was a MGM/Warner show. No. Interestingly enough, Mighty Orbot itself was intentionally designed to look and transform/combine like the robot God Mars (another TMS show) so that Bandai could make a toy for America. Years ago this toy surfaced in South Korea and was the subject of much discussion among anime toy fans. It was a modification of a lower end all plastic version of God Mars that Bandai made, tooling they figured was an easy sacrifice. But then it all went away because, I am guessing, that Tonka nuisance lawsuit.
Thank you for posting this! The history of the Transformers is very interesting indeed. Now it's one of the most popular franchises in the world lol. Transformers has always been my favorite. Grew up watching mainly G1, Galaxy Force/ Cybertron, and Beast Wars. Japan should come out with a new Transformers anime series. The cartoons here in America haven't been as good lately.
There are quite of missing shoes that should have been mentioned. Mazunger, was introduced way before Transformers and any other other robots mentioned to Latinamerica.
Loved this video, there's nowhere near enough people who acknowledge TF's international status or history; TF in Japan AND in Europe are completely different beasts from what we Americans know, and I think that's fascinating and worth acknowledging. On that note, I find it interesting how it was received originally in the UK - apparently, according to what I've been told, the 80s cartoon wasn't anywhere near as popular as the MARVEL comic was. People in general heavily undervalue the Marvel TF comic series, as it received exclusive stories in the UK that fleshed out the characters and plot inbetween the "main" US stories, gradually growing into their own large epics happening behind the scenes in accordance with their popularity. In fact, the Marvel UK creative team was so well-loved that in the comic's later years, they straight-up took over the US comic as well, reintroducing their expanded lore and subplots to the American audiences. All of the ideas, characterizations, etc by the Marvel comic have been fundamentally influential on the franchise as a whole, with the Beast Wars cartoon being heavily inspired by its writing style and intending to follow up on one of the G2 comic's plot threads, plus concepts such as Primus, or Shockwave's cold and calculating persona, being used in almost every modern TF story today. And then, I also find it incredibly interesting how this indirectly ended up influencing the Transformers brand in Japan. No form of the Marvel comic was released in Japan until more modern reprints, so all they had was their dub of the cartoon. Marvel was a separate continuity from the show from the start, making us westerners more comfortable with the idea of reboots or alt timelines, while the Japanese fans had no conception. So, from story pages in TV Magazine, to manga, to entire anime shows, they created a plethora of original stories that ALL fit within the same continuity of the 80s cartoon (minus the 3-part finale, which wasn't localized in JP) - though a couple manga, namely the ones for Super-God Masterforce and beyond, began to drift heavily from the show canon and became their own things. This continued all the way into 2000, when the anime Car Robots was about Maximals and Predacons traveling back in time to 2000, still in the G1 continuity after all this time. Hasbro very strangely pretended it was a reboot and called it Robots in Disguise, changing many of the names, but kept the backstory in the show intact anyway... Nevertheless, even though Japan had blatant reboots after that, whether original or localized from America, they still to this day continue making new stories that fit within their G1 canon, usually in the form of manga or audio dramas, like TF Alternators or the Legends manga, the latter of which introduced an interconnected multiverse and timeline, ultimately connecting EVERY major TF continuity together. It's so crazy to me that, ultimately, this all stems back to the Marvel comic.
Also! Quick note, but the Japanese versions of the Unicron Trilogy (Micron Legend, Super Link, and Galaxy Force) were HORRIBLY butchered in English-speaking markets, and not nearly enough people realize that! The first two especially are two of the most emotionally-mature and subversive pieces of TF media in the entire franchise, but nobody knows that because EVERYBODY still would rather watch terribly stilted and *nonsensical* dubs with factually unfinished art/animation and poorly-balanced audio with cheesy sound effects & music - IT'S A CRIME.
@@fanb1536With Hasbro being the main owner of the franchise in the US, well, there’s not much that could be done with the dubs of those series. Of course, there’s aspects of it that really make no sense compared to the JP versions.
Pretty sad, G1 Skyfire fell off the face of the earth and never made an appearance in the 1986 Movie, or future G1 episodes. Next to Optimus Prime, he was my second favorite. Thank goodness for WFC.
The Trans Formers and Voltron are huge parts of my life. I obsessed over both and could never get enough of either. I was that perfect target age for the toys and cartoons (I was 9 when TF and V were released). I remember going to Target with my parents and telling them "I'll be in the toy department" and there on the back perimeter shelf (3rd from the floor) was majestically placed Optimus Prime. $24.99 (that's $70.93 adjusted for 2023-24 inflation) and I begged for years to get this as a birthday or Christmas present. Sadly it never happened. The first Trans Former I did get was my #1 fave Decepticon, Soundwave. Frank Welker and the incredible VOCODER used in post for the metallic voice we heard blue my mind. As for Voltron of course I loved Allura. I mean c'mon, must one ask why??? LOL. Go blue Lion!!!! As Prime would say "Autobots roll out!" And of course I can't forget "Let's go Voltron Force" from the team. Cool thing about both shows were several of the voice over artists for Trans Formers, also were voices on Voltron. Only BJ Ward (Allura) was not part of The Trans Formers.
Im gonna have to disagree with you on one aspect, American kids were more familiar with anime than you seem to suggest or realize. Having grown up in the 70s and 80s, my favorite shows were americanized animaes, including Battle of the Planets (Gatchaman), Starblazers (Battleship Yamato), and some rather older shows, which while not exactly anime, were very much styled like them. They were live action, but they still featured giant robots that transformed. I can also remember Tranzor Z (Mazingor Z) as yet another example. On a second note, might i suggest looking into the history of Robotech Defenders, as they're another example of americanizing Japanese toy lines through comic books.
I'm very aware of Japanese anime being dubbed before Voltron and Robotech, but my point is that there wasn't a "conscious" awareness that would amount to a fandom. The explosion of "Japanimation" being consciously understood and having a growing fan base wasn't until the late 80s and 90s. In the early 80s it was extremely underground and niche to be a conscious anime fan.
@@Reza-wg2cy Thank you, I wasn't sure of the spelling and I wasn't going to look it up and get kicked off of the message board. RU-vid has a habit of that, if you switch between sites on your phone.
I think that its thanks to shows like transformers, Voltron and others that Japanese anime has become the GIANT that it is today. If it wasn't for those early TV shows being made or broadcast in America, i dont think anime would be the world wide phenomenon that is today. It was those early shows that set the precedent for what GOOD anime really was. Shows like Saint Seiya, Fist of the north star, Akira, and Mobile Suit Gundam set the stage for later shows such as Sailor Moon, Trigun, Cowboy Bebop, Dragon Ball, Rurouni Kenshin, Inuyasha and many others that REALLY made Japanese anime mainstream in America in the early 90s and on into the early 2000s. In my opinion some of THE GREATEST ANIME EVER came out in the 80s and 90s with some of the biggest shows ever that STILL HAVE YET to be surpassed.
There is also a huge Brazilian mech named Audaz, whose Brazilian Portuguese name means Audacious, which makes sense, as it predated Mazinger Z by a few decades. Funnily enough, the first heroic giant mech to gain international fame was Mitsuteru Yokoyama’s Tetsujin 28, who was remote controlled instead.
Interesting details I never knew. I LOVE Macross and always wondered how the heck did Jetfire come to market. I used to have a Jetfire figure and I wonder what happened to it. I bought a VF-1S in Japan in the early 2000’s. Properly cool toys are timeless. ;)
Dude, I was watching Star Blazers on American television in 1978. Star Blazers is based on Space Battleship Yamato!. There was also Gachaman, which I also watched on American television in 1978, but it was called Battle of the Planets. That's just two examples of the Japanese cartoon invasion of the late 70's. Transformers just built on that.
Pretty good video. But you need a serious correction on one point. You posited Voltron as the point where anime was introduced to Americans and the US started feeling it. That's very incorrect. You're off by at least three decades. Astro boy, 8 man, Gigantor, Speed Racer, and Gatchaman all had insanely popular iterations in America that made Americans rabid for anime. It was literally nothing aesthetically new and very well loved by America by time Voltron came around.
I didn't say Voltron introduced Americans to anime, I said American exposure to anime was limited, unlike say Europe where anime and giant robots were extremely popular. Even the successful shows that were dubbed weren't marketed as "anime" like the 90s anime boom had done, so most people weren't made aware they were watching a foreign cartoon. Anime films were not widely distributed like they grew to be by companies like Manga Entertainment, CPM, ADV, Streamline etc. To be a conscious anime fan in the early 80s was extremely niche and underground, to say the least.
@@IronMysterian indeed. its also why certain shows i want to watch from the 1970s have italian dubs or subs, but still no english. i just have to look at the pretty action on screen.
Much appreciated breaking the language bearier. Could you make a video about how hasbro involvements changed towards the making of the toys. Who came up with the ideaus and who made them. In my opinion there is a qaulity drop and I can't help but wonder which part is takara and which is hasbro.
The Transformers ancestral DNA actually goes back to.....G.I. Joe. Hasbro would export the G.I. Joe toy line to Japan and Takara would localize them. Since robots were all the rage on Japan on the 60's due to using tin for toy robots, and popular anime like Tetsuwon Atom and Space Ace, Takara would create a toy line called Henshin Cyborg, repurposing the G.I. Joe toy line. When the 70's hit with the oil crisis, and the G.I. Joe toy line fell out of popularity in the U.S. when parents didn't want to buy war themed toys due to the Vietnam war and the attempt by Hasbro to change the war themed G.I. Joe to an adventure themed action line, Takara shrunk the size of their toy figures down in size to 5" figures and the toy line for a name change to Microman and Diaclone. Mego, who had a relationship with Marvel, got in contact with Takara and Microman toy line series was localized as the Micronauts, and Marvel adapted the toy line to a comic book series. Back in Japan, the toy line series evolved even further by shrinking the figures even further to 1" and the name got changed to Machine Robo. Before this, Hasbro has revived the G.I. Joe series as well by shrinking down the toy line to 5" figures which Marvel also made a comic series of as well as a cartoon series later. Hasbro by this time had come into contact with Takara and the Transformers was born through Marvel comics collaboration along with the toy line then got the cartoon series came out. By this time Micronauts toy line has died out as well as Diaclone in Japan. By 1986 however, Marvel lost the license collaboration of Micronauts and Hasbro took them over later.
I keep getting this comment as though I'm not already aware of the narrative that Transformers is several steps removed and very indirectly related to GI Joe. But I specify in the title of this video that I'm talking about the history of the cartoon, NOT about the development of toys because its not relevant to the cartoon development, its info that's well known, and its completely old news.
@@budgiecat9039This was only the first in a series of chronological videos about the show's undiscussed development history on the Japanese side. This video only intends to cover up to 1984. AKOM also just isn't "hidden history" nor Japanese, and I actually did mention AKOM in my subsequent video which covers The Movie era; since that's when they really became relevant. And Beast Wars isn't even the topic of discussion...
@@IronMysterian I didn't say Beast Wars I said Beast Machines which is clearly Japanese and it's all transformers still anyway. AKOM may be Korean but it's still part of the machine and history. Many Japanese studios used Korean outsourcing not just America
@@budgiecat9039Beast Machines was animated and published by Mainframe Entertainment, same as Beast Wars. The Japan exclusive Beast Wars anime were Beast Wars II and Beast Wars Neo.
Fantastic video! I love the weird fascinating history of this franchise so much. Gunna have to go track down a Jetfire with a Macross emblem now thought lol.
In following my 80s nostalgia trip that I’ve been going through. I just found this video randomly, but I have one question. How did Toei animation go from helming some of the most successful Japanese American collaborations of all time, to providing outdated records of their media to western distributors , to threatening to cancel contracts over certain people being so much as employed? What the hell happened? Why does Toei hate America now?
Great video! If you take it further back, you might say the catalyst was Japan licensing the original GI JOE, eventually shrinking him down to the 3 3/4" size (which would find its way back to the US in the '80s with the revamped GI JOE) and forming the Microman line which directly led to Diaclone. But I understand and appreciate the subject of this vid was the animation. I just love the symmetry of the US to Japan to US dyanamic. 😁
Check my community tab comments for Twitter links. The rest are TFWiki, Anime News Network, Japanese Wikipedia, and a couple of books which are only in Japanese and not digitally available (Kozo Morishita's autobiography and Saint Seiya Encyclopedia)
This is why i laugh when one side or the other of the fandom tries to gatekeep based on which country they are from. Usually it's a very elitist mentally about what county has the "correct" version of transformers, but not in the way you would think. For example in my experience, every time someone demands i use the Japanese names or says only japanese series are canon, it's actually a western fan. I rarely encounter an overseas fan that refuses to acknowledge the hasbro versions. Similar to Robotech vs Macross, where its usually western fans absolutely losing their mind when i say Robotech is the only reason i found out Macross existed. While not a collaborative development between countries like Transformers was, its similar in that after a point the series diverge significantly in each country. With transformers, i say it all comes down to preference. i actually dislike most of the US series after the movie premiered, but I also cant stand how silly some of the later japanese series were (looking at you, Devastator with a cape). So what happens is that i tend to take parts of both versions that i enjoy, much like how the entire franchise came to be. Long story short, people need to just enjoy the franchise and not try to purity test fellow fans.
I mean I liked Robotech as a kid since that's what I was introduced to first, much like Battle of the Planets, Force Five, Voltron, Tranzor Z and Starblazers.... But once I seen their original counterparts, I can't go back lol. Also, learning about how scumbag a company Harmony Gold was, I can't respect them..
@@budgiecat9039 I was introduced to Gatchaman through a different dub, G-Force. It's much more faithful to the Japanese version and doesn't have 7-Zark-7, who I absolutely despise.
@@OtakuUnitedStudio hmm yeah it was confusing times because even on Battle of the Planets, 7-Zark-7 would refer to the team as G Force. I guess the second iteration of the show just carried over that name. Then came Eagle Riders which I heard was even more confusing as it mashed together parts of the second season (Gatchaman 2} and third (Gatchaman Fighter). As a kid I had the second Bird Phoenix from Gatchaman II. My mom bought it used at a comic book shop in a bargain bin I hated it's design though with its painted on bird face....yuck 🤢
One thing is that Shockwave was made in Korea by ToyCo in South Korea, it is just a mystery of why Shockwave was made in South Korea. Yet to say it all Warner Bros should team up with Toei or Toho for Batman in Japan to give Batman a Batbot; probably DC could have their own Super Sentai with Batman.
@@Embargoman ToyCo is a Japanese company and Shockwave's original Astro Magnum toy are a Japanese originally. The molds were sold to a Korean factory and eventually a Chinese one but retained Toyco's stamp by the time of Transformers. You can read about it here: tfscraps.blogspot.com/2021/10/astro-magnum-historyelectronic-magnum.html?m=1
@@IronMysterian Interesting about the Shockwave story selling the mold to a Korean company called Intecs and Astro Magnum was ToyCo to say even if it where to be sold to a Hong Kong based company it will say MADE IN HONG KONG instead of MADE IN KOREA but yet make this toy as it is nowadays it will say MADE IN CHINA or MADE IN VIETNAM, just saying how times changes. Back then companies where searching to make stuff in Taiwan and South Korea just to say of ToyCo where to sell the mold to a Taiwanese company then the Shockwave toy on the back will say MADE IN TAIWAN instead. But anyway interesting story!
I really believe that Hasbro made the mistake of using the VF-1S Super Valkyrie for Jetfire/Skyfire. They should have done a redeco of Starscream for Jetfire/Skyfire (ignoring Shatter Glass because I don't care about that series).
This video, VERY informative! Full of interesting factoids and everything making sense. :) Very few people have done what you've done, especially the Sunbow/Marvel co-credit thing. It's nice seeing more of the history of the not so much discussed Marvel/Toei partnership and how it shaped popular media in the west. My hat's off to you sir. :) Outstanding job. :) Oh and to answer the age-old question; is The Transformers American or Japanese? The answer is a bit of both. ;)
It's a shame Toei Animation wasn't involved with the 1992 X-Men TAS and instead, Margaret Loesch and Saban Entertainment hired Korean studio AKOM instead (who did work on several seasons of the Transformers when Toei was too busy to do them. I can't remember, but I'd have to guess they were not as good as the Toei episodes) because 1989's Pryde of the X-Men pilot episode was done by Toei and you could clearly see the difference in quality. The last six episodes of X-Men TAS was done by a completely different animation studio however and they were way worse than AKOM which was an even bigger shame. I think whatever studio that was also worked on the first season of 1994 Fantastic Four cartoon which was not well received until the second season when they either got rid of them or they greatly improved their work...
@@budgiecat9039 AKOM were improving at that point and were cheaper to produce. Toei Animation was out of contact with American companies in the 90's, due to the price of the Yen being higher than the US Dollar. Some Japanese studios were still being used by companies who could afford them, or were smaller studios then Toei to begin with and could be easily negotiated to be affordable. The Philippine Animation Studio (the one you were referring too), finished off the fifth season of X-Men, as well as produced the opening two-parter from season 3; Out of the Past and were the studio who produced the animation for the second seasons of both the Iron Man and Fantastic Four animated series. Despite the animation quality, though seasons were held in better regard, due to the improvement of the storytelling in those seasons, compared to both of their first seasons which were considered poor by story standards, though the animation is slightly better detailed. Better animation does not make for a good story overall. But sometimes bad animation can even hamper a good written episode sometimes.
Thanks for your hard work on this video! I would love to know how I can see the alternate transformers intro running in the background at minute marker 18:16. What struck me immediately was the darker head on Megatron. What was this show called and did it also air in Japan in the 80s? That was one thing I was hoping to find out more about.
@@ForrestYoung Yep, it was taken directly from Shohei Kohara's preliminary design before Floro Dery updated the head to resemble the final toy. Kohara Megatron's head made it into the early issues of the Marvel comics as well.
I definitely remember it in the comics, but totally missed that early tv commercial. Is the entire commercial available to watch somewhere online? @@IronMysterian
Check out the Transformers History of Music album! It's by Shiro Sagisu from Evangelion, and a couple of songs were in the Japanese version of the cartoon. It's all on youtube
I'd just like to say the entirety of Japan's animation is also international! we gave them Bugs Bunny and Disney they gave us Gigantor in the 50s black and white, and it has been a circle ever since ww2, hell the Gundam that led to Macross was inspired partly by the book Starship Troopers, power armors, its just where you draw the line. as you could thank America for their mech genre entirely thanks to our tanks, and airplanes if you want! and even the Germans, it's really just where you draw the line. hell could probably say even before WW2
I don't know if I'd go that far... While the animation industry was certainly pioneered by American companies like Disney and Warner Bros, we can't discount the contributions of the Japanese. There's no denying their artistic talent and they took the medium into a much broader range of story telling. They made it their own and have excelled at the art. There has been a collaboration, whether directly or through an exchange of ideas, since the Japanese got involved. However, as you state, this definitely goes back to the Post-War period - with Speed Racer and Astroboy being a couple more notable examples. Adapting Japanese series would increasingly become a more common occurrence due to their popularity, eventually getting to the point where Japanese animators would be used for American IPs. Most of the iconic cartoons of the 80s had a Japanese staff (looking at you, Pacific Animation). Transformers wasn't significant in being the first import title - far from the case. It was significant for, at the time being the most successful. The rise of anime in recent times shouldn't be a surprise to anyone, as it's essentially what we grew up on. We are drawn to that distinctive Japanese style due to the nostalgia. Really, this is part of a greater cultural exchange between the US and Japan, which extends far beyond just animation. However, it's undoubtedly a symbiotic relationship. Gundam was also influenced by Star Wars, debuting just a couple years after A New Hope. The origin of a beam saber is obvious, but there are borrowed story elements as well. As the protagonist, Amuro Ray is the analog of Luke Skywalker - but in both, the greater story narrative is a redemption arc of the antagonist, Anakin and Char, respectively. However, on the flip side, the whole concept of the Jedi was heavily inspired by the samurai. The flow of ideas back and forth compounds upon itself. There's something greater a play here though. The fact that we were able to overcome the bitterness of conflict through creative cooperation is an example of humanity's potential. It's important to reflect on our capacity for good when there is so much negativity in the world today. Apologies for the duration of my rambling.
@@Shin_Lona I wouldn't discount their contributions either, it's more a very condensed way of saying a lot of ideas trade hands every day, decade, hell two people across the world could have the same thought, the USA was formed from international ideas too, it's I get frustrated when people forget the long history of idea trading before they where born.. it washes away so much context sometimes. that's why my point tried to be where do we draw a line on claiming who gets credit for what, cause in the end both could be right at different points. lots of people's contributions go unnoticed, even Dan the janitor who maybe off comment inspired a genre.
My history! Raideen, Battle Fever J, Voltron, Kamen Raidaa! Mighty Orbots! Robotech! Always wondered about Jetfire/Skyfire. Didn't know he was cut out from the original series like that.
@@IronMysterian, my bad I just googled, and he was briefly seen in the headmaster series according to Google..... ".......Skyfire making a somewhat surprising appearance as crowd-filler. Screen capture from the Transformers: The Headmasters cartoon episode "Miraculous Warriors, Targetmasters (Part 1)"
@umagnus77 He popped up a couple of times as crowdfiller in Season 3 and Headmasters, likely because the animators just needed models to fill up the backgrounds and incorrectly picked that model/didn't think it was too egregious, despite the writers being told not to use it anymore (as placing him in the background is a decision the animators make instead of the writers for crowd shots). Skyfire isn't mentioned in the production document cast list for Headmasters, so its an error or easter egg.
Toei Animation, Kaname Production, Ashi Production, and the animators are Kozo Morishita, Masami Obari, Nobuyoshi Habara, Kia Asamiya, Hidetoshi Omori, Hideki Tamura, Satoshi Urushihara, and Shohei Kohara.
Back during his original release, I saw Jetfire perhaps twice in toy stores and never again saw him on a retail shelf. He was very expensive for the time and the toy was fragile...I pulled a couple out of second-hand stores but they were broken, typically missing a forearm, and came with none of his Super Valkyrie packs. I cursed the brats that abused and ruined something that neat, rare, and expensive.
Robotech is why I instantly recognized Jetfire and was one of the Transformers besides Megatron and Optimus Prime that I wanted the most found an original G1 for $285
