I think the review misses the point (or at least the history) of the cartoon. It makes it sound like the toys were made for the cartoon, but it was the other way around. The Transformers cartoon story line was entirely invented by Hasbro. The original Takara toys, in the Microman and Diaclone lines, were just plain toys. But they were amazingly cool. There were originally 3 Gun Robots. (The coolest was the Walther P38, IMO.) They were made of diecast metal, and they fired plastic bullets. Casette Man (later Soundwave) was a working FM radio! The Takara robots weren't divided into Autobots and Decepticons or thrown into late 20th century Earth. All the round hole/square pegging was Hasbro forcing the licensed Takara, Takatoku, and other toys which made up the Transformers into a new story line. In any case, the concept was extremely popular in Japan, which went on to reimport its own toys, allowing the toys to carry on much longer than they would have. Interestingly. Joustra, the French company which released some of the toys in Europe in 1984, came up with its own story line in which the F-16 (Starscream) was the leader of a group of robots against one of the other Takara sets. (Sorry for the long ramble. I was a Takara head before getting into sofubi. )
I thought it was funny. I love transformer toys, but some of these same things in the show left me like And don't even get me started about the 1986(?) animated film, lol.
Andy..some great points. But the article isn't trying to talk about the "history" of the cartoon or takara. It's just a sarcastic article about the cartoon and what didn't really work. If robots could try to disguise themselves on earth in the year 2009...Then disguising yourself as a giant dinosaur or a 9 foot scorpion probably wouldn't be much of a disguise. I also remember watching this as a kid and every time optimus prime transformed..his trailer would disappear. It would just go offscreen only to return later. It made no sense.
Yeah I know. I was just saying that the criticisms of the toys in the cartoon need to be considered in the context of the history of the line and how Hasbro got its hands on the toys in the first place. But yeah, all that aside, the whole TF concept is silly in its own right. Kind of like the physics of Superman. "Here Lois, let me catch you falling as I fly up towards you. Oops, sorry I just broke your back." Personally, as a kid in the 80's I thought the TFs were all awesome. Speaking of strange things that turn into robots, a couple of years back the TF world was set on its head again by the Binaltech/Alternators line. Again, so much nicer in Japan since the toys were diecast and were painted with automotive paint!! Anyway, I read an interview with the genius designer who came up with the incredibly complex transformation specs of toys like the Masterpiece Prime. He said that when walking down the street, he looks at things like buildings and visualizes in his head how they might transform into robots. I found that very cool, since my thoughts tend to focus on places to find ginger cookies and Dr. Pepper.
I thought the dumbest transformers were the ones with rubber shells that made them look like monsters, space barbarians, etc. Several designers from mecha anime shows had their start designing the toys that became Transfomers. Shinji Aramaki (MOSPEADA) worked on Micro Change, Shoji Kawamori (Macross) contributed to Diaclone, and Mika Akitaka (Nadesico) designed Predaking, among others. Akitaka did design a transforming building (like Tom Hanks did in the movie Big) at one point but the Takara folks weren't too hot on it.
I think I still have a sharkticon lying around at my parent's house somewhere. I'm gonna have to find that thing next time I'm in PA. This thread really brought back some childhood memories!
