One of my favourites (or everybody favourites, if you lived through the 80s) of all time. It was one of my first favourite mecha shows to watch other than Macross.

Who would have thought this long-line of Japanese toys made by Takara (aka Takara Tomy as of 2006) were reused or rehashed in this cartoon version that everybody get so much craving for? Having to learned that Takara’s toylines range Diaclone and Microman series were scooped up by Americans when American toy maker Hasbro came to see Takara at the Tokyo Toy Show in 1983. They were keen to have their toylines range because they were impressed how their scale models were designed to include humanoid figures to sit/drive in them and they’re able to transform into humanoid forms. Since Hasbro bought the rights to their product lines, the company and its key people began their marketing heavily on these as one major toy line range, hence the name “Transformers” was born. So what this evolution possible?
What started was that Takara made Microman toylines that were based on one of Japanese cyborg anime series called Henshin-Cyborg 1. The series’ popularity spawned many of these 3-inch cyborg models are that tiny many kids grew to like them so Takara made one of many great commercials on these such as below.

After its success, Takara made another spin-off of Microman series (using the same toy design development) which you have miniature size vehicles that are transformable into humanoid figures. Since then, Takara had made a number of Diaclone TV commercials in the early 80s such as this (featuring Optimus Prime in its formative days).

There are a number of countless Diaclone commercials featuring other familiar Transformers characters such as Ironhide, Ratchet, Bumble Bee just to name a few. And that’s probably the reason why Hasbro made a wise decision to have them and reinvented them into a branch so people in my generations would never forget how and why it was considered as one of the great childhood cartoon stories that’s ever produced of all time.

Henceforth, Hasbro decided to give us two distinctive factions.

Autobots Logo

Decepticon Logo

The story sets in a far away distant planet called Cybertron, and the two forces are battling out for the greater control of the planet. Autobots were fighting for peace and justice whilst Decepticons sought for power, domination and control. The battle was fought for many millennia. Several millennia later, the Autobots wanted to come up with an ultimate strategy that will end the war with Decepticons. They want to start the space exploration to find raw source of energy that will help them accomplish that goal. However, little did they aware, the plans were eavesdropped by Decepticons and so Decepticons decided to ‘join’ the exploration in their own space ship as well. Soon, once both of them caught up with each other, the intense fight took up in the Autobot spaceship. Next few brief moments, their spaceships made a collision course into the Earth’s stratosphere and Autobots crash-landed onto a volcano. All of them remained lifeless.
Four million years later, they were revived again as new technologies were invented. And Autobots and Decepticons learned to adapt the Earth’s environment and began to transforming into all sort of vehicles. Later in the series, the battle between the two forces ensues and once again the war of the Transformers resumes…
They are two great leaders of the two factions.

We have Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots, seen as very honourable, compassionate, strong, pragmatic, possess strong leadership qualities and a very wise leader.

Then we have Megatron, Leader of the Decepticons, leader of the Decepticons, seen as the tyrant, vile, cunning, evil, greed for power and seeks for interplanetary domination with the final quest of eradicating all the Autobots in all galaxies, starting from our solar system.

And then you have the Autobots and Decepticons teams who follow their respective leaders, all of them share one purposeful goal of winning the Transformers war. With an impressive cast of characters, we see a large array of Autobots and Decepticons, each has a unique characteristics when they transform from robot mode into humanoid mode and vice versa.

Autobots

Dinobots

Aerialbots

Decepticons

Insecticons

Constructicons

Combaticons

Since the series ran for 98-successful episodes between 1984 and 1987, numerous toy production lines came out from the series and many new Transformers series came out such as Headmasters, Beast Wars, Machine Wars, Robots in Disguise etc etc. Transformers franchise really became a serious hit for many kids around that time and they just flocked to their toy stores like crazy buzzy bees sucking out all the last boxes of Transformers toylines to bring them home. I was like that one of them. All of the Generation Mechs were, I’m sure.

Transformer’s popularity was its raw power of attraction that has kept people for talking about it for years and generations, even after the series ended. And now we have several websites that are dedicated to these such as Transformers.com (by Hasbro), IDW Publishing, TransformersClub.com, Botcon.com and several other unofficial fansites more to come.

We’ve seen the two latest Transformers movies that’s recently came out towards the end of first decade of 2000 since Transformers: The Movie back in 1986.

And to remind ourselves that have seen Transformers G1 and recall those four seasons of episodes, here are their intros. (If you haven’t, then sit back, relax and watch the intros and I would put a recommended suggestion you get its DVD/Blue ray release.

Season 1

Season 2

Season 3

Season 4

I remembered after the entire series ended at its fourth season, the continuity of Transformers saga went on but it was divided into a couple of streams, and one of them was produced in Japan, where they gave us The Headmasters, Super-god Masterforce, Victory and Zone. They were broadcast mostly in Japan/Asia in the later years. Looks like I have another Transformers subcategory to write into my list of mecha chronology. It’s going to be a long while.

In the meantime, let’s us rejoice the fact what is to one of the best childhood cartoon series that’s ever produced, throughout our lives. For the past, the present and the future. And it’s all thanks to this one little figurine that turn Takara’s and Hasbro’s imaginations into a reality. A reality that results in achieving incredible scale of critical success to its franchise.

Microman toylines