I love both American and Japanese versions, however the Japanese tended to be better quality productions. The Japanese versions tended to be more inventive with crisper sound and better footage of the toys. Plus, the animation clips were very good.
I thought these commercials were made in the 90s because of the high quality visuals and early CGI. Japan is quite far ahead than the US back in the 80s.
The American and Japanese versions are awesome! The kids from the American commercials are the experts and the Japanese commercials are automatic! Love the styles!
Fact: This "Megatron" is based on MC-12 Walther P38, since Hasbro has the MC-13 Walther P38 UNCLE mold at that time until 2000... And I think I'll name the gray-and-black Walther P38 "Megaplex".
It's odd to see a crowd of who I assume are American people shouting "Convoy! Convoy!" when they'd only be familiar with Optimus Prime. Do you think that kid actor was like "What's a Comboy? That looks like Optimus Prime to me! Wait... IS OPTIMUS PRIME DEAD!?"
After seeing the pyrotechnics in these commericals, I legit wanna see a fan series with stop-motion animation and real explosions, not the gas bombs of a bayformers movie. WOULDN'T THAT BE SICK?
Gotta love the irony of licensing out japanese toys under a new name in the west then Re-releasing them in Japan under that new name as well. I guess you can say that's the power of presentation and marketing you can have cool robot toys but they will always sell better with some kind of story attached to it.
Wow, the stop-motion and animation are quite good in 1985 despite few softwares capable of supporting high-quality that year...oh, I love the explosions and the helicopters that were lifting Convoy!
Though Japan didn't get the movie until 1989. They did this off screen in their continuity as Prime wasn't in most of Season 3 which became Transformers: 2010 over there.
I wonder if Japanese kids at the time were confused when Takara brought Transformers to Japan for the first time. They still had Diaclone and Mirochange figures with them, and now their parents probably had to go out and buy the supposedly “reskinned” toys.
Angus Ng not quite. Not even close in fact. Many 60's 70's animes and tokusatsu shows were designed to sell toys in fact. Stuff like Ultraman, Mazinger Z, Combattler V and Getter Robo were practically designed to sell toys long before those series you mentioned ever did get that treatment