Never heard of these new animated series of Transformers.

Said to have been around for past few years during its airing on America’s The Cartoon Network, and were based on Transformers G1 toy line.

And here’s the Japanease toy commercial toy for the show, by Takara Tomy.

To be honest, I’m not really impressed with the way the series’ been produced, let alone its artwork.  It’s not that because the artwork was anything but “clumsy”, but rather it lacks its unique appeal as compared to the 80’s classics. And because I’m such an avid old school mecha fan,  I felt whole plot and content of the show was more……

“Kiddie-like”

Sure the original series was aimed for kids too.  But (on a personal note) I just felt this is very wrong for new animated series to have reduced itself to a type of show where people could not fully grasp on the whole picture why Transformers G1 was made as one of the pop culture phenomenon of that decade!  I mean that’s what made it special.

But this…. I’m just not too sure.  Maybe I’m a bit biased?

What do you think?  You’d think the new Transformers animated series live up to its expectations of the original?

Brave Exkaizer Team

There are not many online facts I could find with regard of this mecha anime.   Very uncommon mecha show that anyone hardly knows (including myself, which is sad to say the least).

All my googling efforts ended nowhere until I later discovered that they were actually far more popular in Asia, than it was in European, USA, South America and Oceanic countries.

It’s fair to say  the content was more geared to suit Asian audiences.   After searching its material via Google Trends (and reading this link from Wikipedia.org), I could be right.  Here’s the following excerpt from Wikipedia.org

“Brave Exkaiser is a Japanese animated television series that began in 1990, created by Sunrise under the direction of Katsuyoshi Yatabe, and is the first of the long running Yuusha or “Brave” metaseries funded by Takara and produced by Sunrise. The story takes place on a present day Earth that was secretly visited by a group of space police led by Exkaiser who were chasing after an evil gang of energy beings called The Geisters (led by Dino Geist). Upon arriving on Earth, Exkaiser and his team called the “Kaisers” put their spirits (Similar to Sparks of the Transformers mythos) into vehicles all over Japan so that they could convert them into transformable bodies for themselves.”

Here’s the intro theme.

Some pics from the series

Exkaizer Hero Crew

Brave Exkaizer wall poster

Exkaizer

And here’s the list of heroes and villians.

Our Heroes

Exkaizer – Our Hero Intro

King Exkaizer

Dragon Exkaizer

Great Exkaizer

Dash Max

Sky Max

Drill Max

God Max

Blue Raker and Green Raker

Ultra Raker

The Villians

The Four Geists

Dino Geist – Ringleader of Geists

Lots of uncanny resemblances with Transformers G1 animated series. Here and there. In fact, it is said that they’re the new designs of Transformers G1 and they’re meant to showcase the “enhanced” design aspects of Transformers that were superior. Because of this enthused marketing ploy Takara wanted to do so much, that’s why it’s part of that long lineage of super robot series during the 90s.

Very intriguing.

Well, that’s all for now. I’m sure there’s plenty of facts to go I’m keen to find out why the series was only good amongst Asian audiences in the far east.  More will be posted in the future.

If anybody out there who knows better about the Brave series, feel free to guest post here.  I’m looking forward to hear your thoughts on it.

Not long ago, J.J. Abrams (Lost, Alias), one of the executive producers/directors, are in talks with Hasbro making a live-action film based on the Microman series.  Hasbro bought the license over the 70’s classic series as it was part of the company’s long term strategy which lead to its phenomenal debut of Transformers G1 in the 80s, thanks to Takara’s (blessed) efforts in expanding Microman product lines into this range of vehicle-transforming robots called Diaclone series.

After reading their article,  I decided (with plenty of enthusiastic reasons) to go online and research further what made Microman such a hit in the late 70s….

And here’s what I encountered!

Microman series 1976-1980

From the look of this video, it consolidates all the great Microman commercial series, showcasing all the different models were made during that 4-5 year tenure.  Here are some of them.

Microman Vintage Commercial – One

Microman Vintage  Commercial – Two

Microman Vintage Commericial – Three

Later on, Takara,( its original company name before being rebranded as TakaraTomy) saw its Microman toylines’ potential to expand them, and eventually created an entirely new brand of toylines called the Diaclones, which are the shape-shifting miniatures that can disguise themselves into any toy vehicles ie cars, devices, airplanes, trucks etc.

Aka that’s how Transformers G1 series was born.

Here’s a couple of interesting early making of Transformers.

First Jazz Appearance

First Optimus Prime Appearance

First Dinobot Appearance

So, there you have it. Plenty of history going on here behind these vintage Japanese TV ads and how Transformers’ evolution gotten here.

Rest assured I’m certainly looking forward to watch Transformers G1’s predecessor in the big screen!!

Source: ANN.com

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

Been browsing on this chap’s link for quite some time now.

It’s a pretty good link on everything people want to discover the amazing world on super robot wars franchise, everything from music, models, games and picture covers.

I noticed that some of the pictures uploaded there are the sources of Hobby Japan Magazine, just like this 40th Anniversary cover I got (which I’m still in the process of finding the time to upload photos from the book!)

Hobby Japan Mag - 40th Anniversary Edition

And I’ve been meaning to make a humble request to have his blog as part of my blogroll. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have an email or other possible contacts to get in touch with. And I just added him to my blogroll anyway.

Eek! I hope he’s okay with this arrangement….

Anyway, enjoy his blog posts.

http://superrobotwar.wordpress.com/

Source: SRW Hot News

Whilst we’re still waiting for the upcoming and greatly-anticipated Transformers 2 film in a few weeks time,  I bumped across a Transformers fan site that just announced, not long ago, that company Shout! Factory’s going to release Transformers DVD collection set, that comes with 16 DVDs (say that again? 16 DVDS????) of every ‘G1′ Transfomers animated series in the 80s.  Not only that, it also comes with several other impressive items to add to every Transformers’ fan collectors item such as concept artworks, photo gallery, interview scripts etc.

Whilst I was reading the article from TVShowsOnDVD.com page, they said the collection set (entitled “The Transformers – 25th Anniversary Matrix of Leadership Edition: Collectors’ Set”), is available for buy at San Diego Comic-Con, running between July 23-26, this year.  (Check this link for find out more).  And if you’re anything like me, living several thousand miles away from the world’s craziest comic book convention centre and having a decent flight ticket is not ideal approach to getting there (especially in the economic climate everybody’s in), then you can also order it online via TransformersCollectorSet.com.   The starting price is at USD $140.00, which includes free shipping and handling of shipping within USA borders, and the delivery time takes up to 5 days after placing orders  (not sure whether this is theoretically true for international orders as it could take 7-10 days to deliver from my Amazon shopping experience).

Nevertheless, it’s there for everybody to order online anytime before beginning of July.  I would like to make a go for this, but I couldn’t because I’m not sure I really need the other special features it comes with.  Some people may like them.  But I’m not.  So it’s a matter of personal preferences for some people, I guess.  Would be interesting to find out whether there’s a majority of people out there really thought this a great steal of bargain for Transformers hard-core fans…