The HIDDEN History of The Transformers Cartoon in Japan - From Marvel to Toei and Back Again!

[Music] there are some glaring misconceptions held by many Western Transformers fans when talking about the history of the Transformers in Japan although they almost certainly originate from ignorance and a lack of information in English available to the early internet these misconceptions have shaped the broader discussion of the franchise as a whole now let me ask you is the Transformers brand American or Japanese more often than not I hear many fans say the former due to the Transformers branding trademarks and initial comics and cartoons being mainly driven by Hasbro Marvel and sunbo entertainment Others May say the brand is Japanese because the first generation of Transformers toys were Takara products sold with new branding tacked on however while neither of these assertions aren't necessarily true they are a gross oversimplification of the transformers' history and they're also just cringe as and just completely undermines a nearly four decade long collaboration and the internal relations of the industry which shape the Transformers as we know them today the Transformers was a GameChanger for the Japanese robot fandom of the early 80s and it wasn't something that came out of left field having been built upon the established history of the Mecha genre and its exposure to American audiences to understand how the franchise evolved out of eastern and western sensibilities we have to go back to where it all started and I'm controversially not talking about Bob budiansky or the 1983 Tokyo toy fair in 1978 Spider-Man leapt on to Japanese [Music] television a one-of-a-kind collaboration between Marvel Comics Group and toi company Spider-Man's tokusatu adaptation was the result of a licensing agreement between the two companies all thanks to Jean pel a liaison for Marvel Comics Group in Japan P saw the potential for the Spider-Man character overseas after he failed to capture Japanese audiences through Marvel's Comics alone pel approached toy agency a TV and animation production company in Tokyo to produce an adaptation of Spider-Man for Japanese audiences in the same fashion as their wildly popular common writer and Sentai series of tokusatu shows based on manga by the influential sharo ishin namori toi Spider-Man became a ratings hit amongst Japanese children partly thanks to the inclusion of Spider-Man Super Robot leopardon legendary Mecha designer katsushi murakami whom Americans May recognize from his golon and D rugger designs designed a myriad of toys for the series such as the spider machine and leop Paran itself released by Bondi subsidiary popy this toy sponsorship rocketed the popularity of piloted Mecca being used in a tokus satu series Spider-Man building off of their successful Spider-Man series toi and Marvel collaborated once more this time on the next entry in sharo Isham Mori Sentai series Battle Fever [Music] J while Spider-Man was considered a loose adaptation of the American Icon Battle Fever J is even more Loosely based upon Marvel's Captain America or Al the series was drafted as Captain Japan and over time toi included other heroes from around the world as part of the cast fitting better with the initial two Sentai series and establishing a Trope which persisted in Sentai since although it's unknown why toi couldn't secure a license for Captain America Marvel did allow toei to implement the character Miss America into the Battle Fever team by this point her costume was completely redesigned only retaining the shield design on her chest of course Battle Fever Jay couldn't go without a giant robot of its own introducing Battle Fever Robo as the first Mecca of the newly christened Super Sentai series as Super Sentai continued with more iterations annually Marvel's influence on each entry shrank gradually by the time of the fifth Super Sentai season Sun Vulcan Marvel's only association with the franchise was through its final credit as a series co-creator marking the end of Marvel's involvement with Super Sentai as toi continued the franchise long after Marvel's departure however this is far from the end of our story on Western Shores American toy company Mattel were creating their own franchise parallel to toy Spider-Man imagine you enter the world of the Shogun Warriors the Shogun Warriors an original mea franchise for Americans consisting of characters licensed to Mattel from popy starring then popular robots such as combater V danguard Ace and yusa Raiden the comic created by Marvel merged these robots into a shared original Universe completely unrelated to their original appearances in their respective anime series Creator Doug moench was approached by Stan Lee to write the tie-in comic specifically because moen's children enjoyed playing with popy's toys Shogun Warriors proved to be a successful template which Marvel replicated when Hasbro approached them to create the tie-in fiction for the Transformers not directly related to either Transformers or the Shogun Warriors but relevant to this topic is the cult Saturday morning cartoon The Mighty orbots orbots is another instance of an American and Japanese Mecha themed co-production that while proving unsuccessful felt like the prototype for the Transformers produced by MGM Warner Brothers and Tokyo movie shinsha or TMS orbots had some of the most talented individuals in the anime industry working on it with Osamu desaki being the ser series director alongside longtime collaborator akios sigo providing character designs with the main character Rob bearing a stark resemblance to the titular character from the TMS anime space adventure Cobra whereas the mecca itself is visually based on the robot from another popular TMS series six God combination God Mars Mighty orbots especially ties into Transformers and its writing staff which mostly comprises of future Transformers writers such as David Wise BOS Dixon Donald F glut and Douglas Booth the show was even a personal favorite of Transformers Animated co-creator Derek J Wyatt having influenced Wyatt's signature art style and designs for animated in June of 1983 Hasbro Representatives attended the Tokyo toy show of that summer catching wind of takara's latest releases in their Dione and microchange toy lines Hasbro wasted no time whatsoever acquiring the rights to these figures for sale in the United States and other Western countries after signing a licensing deal with Takara on November 1st of 1983 a document which Hasbro still honors to this day by paying taromi annual royalties for selling their designs outside of Japan Hasbro then wasted no time and developing their newly acquired Transformers line as a recognizable brand entity on par with their popular GI Joe toy line much like the aforementioned Shogun Warriors the Transformers received a Marvel tiin comic with a completely new setting in lore unrelated to the toy Line's Origins at the same time an animated series was being co-developed by Hasbro with Marvel Productions sunbo entertainment and toi animation the same Studio responsible for producing the animated series from which the shun Warriors originated from by the 1980s toi had entered the animation Outsourcing scene thanks to their good relations with Marvel Comics having previously worked on Marvel Spider-Man and his amazing friends as well as the television series and commercials for Hasbro's GI Joe reboot due to their extensive catalog of Mecha anime toi must have seemed like the perfect fit for adapting Transformers for the television the previously mentioned Jean pel responsible for creating toi Spider-Man and establishing toi and Marvel's partnership in Japan encouraged Hasbro to place an order with toi to produce the Transformer story boards penned by Marvel and sunbo due to pel's positive reaction to the gi. Joe toy commercials animated by toi current toi animation Vice president Kozo morisha was appointed Chief director of the Transformer Series this proved to be a tall order for morisha as Transformers eventually consumed a large portion of his career through the mid 80s having joined to's animation Department by 1970 morisha already had several robot anime directing credits under his belt including but not limited to dir rugger 15 lighted electroid albas and video Warrior laserion and eventually going on to direct and produce some of the most recognized anime around the world such as St seya and Dragon Ball Z of course also working on the Transformers was to's Studio Number One a subcontractor responsible for the highquality animation work on shows like danguard Ace many Japanese Transformers fans believe the detailed transformation sequences seen in the Transformers pilot episode are in fact Studio Number one's work the initial Mecha designs used to adapt the Transformers to animation and Comics were commissioned by toy to konam Productions a small anime production house founded by ex Ashi Productions animators including the legendary animator Yoshi Nori kanada utsumi inata kahiro oi and many more by this point toi had developed a steady working relationship with konam Pro having previously commission design work for the aforementioned Alas and lazeron Anime konam Pro's main Mecha designer and founding member shoh kohara responsible for projects like plz Sano berth and windaria was the individual responsible for creating the initial animation models for eight of the original Transformers cast members Optimus Prime sideswipe Jazz prowl Megatron The Seekers Soundwave and his cassettes According To kaziro Oi kohara created these models at konam during Al Vegas's broadcasting period suggesting a late 1983 or early 1984 creation date predating any yet to be published fiction Ochi also mentions that kohara achieved the Transformers iconic appearances by viewing the toys from a rotating turntable in fact konam Pro was eventually subcontracted by toy for animation on the Transformers alongside Ashi Productions and several other Studios this gives the Show's first season a distinctly anime art style unlike any Western cartoon airing at the time it gets especially apparent in episodes like the three-part pilot featuring the first work by now famed animator Masami obari roll for and heavy metal War featuring work by nooshi habara of Ashi Productions and other talents like Satoshi arihara Kia aamia and hioshi omori hell even konam Productions animator Hideki Tamara solo animated a number of action sequences during the third part of the ultimate Doom this decision to allow toi and kame Productions to take the lead on adapting Tara's toys for animation Pro to be vital in determining Transformers success not only are they some of the most iconic cartoon characters that most normies can recognize today but it set the bar for Transformers art style and character designs moving forward evidenced by the fact that modified kohara models appear in the first issue of Marvel Transformers While most of the rest of the cast hardly resemble their eventual animation counterparts in spite of Kara's efforts however Marvel sunbo artist floro Dei altered Kara's designs ever so slightly for ease of animation and ultimately received the end credit for Kara's work it's not even until later Seasons where you can see which characters Derry was really responsible for rendering characters who shared the same toy with completely different proportions and key details the only kohara character which saw a major overhaul by sunbo Marvel was Megatron with the initial model being used in comics and commercials having been based on a gun Robo prototype unless only serving as the foundation for Megatron's future appearance despite all of this the Transformers embracing of the anime style and Japanese design sensibilities of the time gave Hasbro the upper hand against the competitor tonka's GoBots in the eyes of many children a show animated by Hannah Barbara and featured character designs so similar to the toys they depict that they lacked any of the dynamism or rule of cool that the Transformers had this didn't come without skepticism on America's part however in the beginning even before planning to do pre-production executive producers of Hasbro toy company Griffin and ball and Marvel Productions were mostly concerned if American children would watch a Japanese styled robot TV show remarked series producer Nelson shin and so Hasbro sunbo Marvel and toe animation created the more than meets the ey miniseries to gauge children's reactions keep in mind that Americans still had a limited exposure to anime let alone a conscious awareness of its existence V had only began airing on September 10th 1984 one week ahead of the Transformers and Robotech wouldn't hit American Airwaves until mid 1985 nonetheless Hasbro Marvel sunbo and toe proceeded forth with the project despite previously drafting up a safer more easily marketable concept for fiction based on takara's material it's not known to what extent Takara had influenced the production of the comics or the cartoon series in the beginning if at all but it was was clearly a show intended for a Japanese audience from the get-go assuming the Transformers proved successful enough in the US for Takara to embrace the rebranding after all the initial launch of the brand was treated as something of an experiment with children Transformers being conceived with a Japanese audience in mind is most apparent in the age-old Jetfire Skyfire debacco which understandably confuses fans to this day in October of 1982 The superdimension Fortress Macross pred on Japanese television and proved to be a massive hit both on screen and in the toy aisle the show's main toy sponsor takatoku toys released the hugely successful and detailed 155 scaled perfect transforming Valkyrie figure a toy which sold well over a million units in Japan being the best possible toy iteration of ma cross's main Mecca from that era it was only a matter of time before companies overseas took notice of ma Ross's immutable success by 1984 tatso artland big West and Bondi the four major companies now responsible for producing and financing Macross were gearing up to release the franchise's film adaptation do you remember love the summer of that [Music] year capitalizing on Macros hype a swath of new 155 variants were to be released by takatoku and eventually Bondi following their acquisition of the former company key amongst these new toys was takatoku vf-1s super Valkyrie the very toy which Hasbro eventually drafted up a Transformers bio for by April of 1984 Hasbro's new Transformer named Jetfire was patented for Hasbro that same month by a company called matashiro the actual company which engineered the 155 scaled figure and briefly held the molds during takatoku acquisition by Bondi and in fact this is where the first variance of the Transformers jet fire came from notable for the macros kite Insignia on the wing and the matashiro stamp on the underside after the acquisition Bondi removed any references to Macross and placed their stamp on the figure after fulfilling the rest of Hasbro's orders making the Bondi release of Jetfire the most common version of the toy by July 10th 1984 the Transformers episode which jet fire was scheduled to appear in Fire in the Sky was drafted and retained his initial floair animation model in name however this quickly presented a dilemma for the series producers if the show were to air in Transformers other major potential Market Japan there was no way jetfire's inclusion could be feasible not only could jetfire's toy obviously not be released as part of the Transformers overseas being a competitor's product that goes against Hasbro's binding agreement with Takara but the television series could in no way advertise said to to to Japanese kids the episode's final draft dated July 19th 1984 removed all references to Jetfire in its script with SBO and toy conceiving an entirely new character for the animation Skyfire and just two days after that matross do you remember love hit Japanese theaters to resounding Fanfare despite Hasbro and sunbo creating Skyfire to accommodate takara's needs in Japan the show completely dropped Skyfire as a character after its first season making the Jetfire toy an exclusive Oddity to Hasbro markets nowhere does Harmony Gold's dub of Macross Robotech factor into this equation and the assumption that it does is likely just an old rumor originating from the early internet days that just never really faded away I believe a lot of these misunderstandings assumptions and the lack of clarity on the early days of the Transformers brand and its Japanese Roots comes from a lack of English language sources discussing the topic after all being simultaneously an American and Japanese property the only way to get the full picture is to break through the language barrier a lot of my information came from Japanese language sources like director Koo Mora's autobiography and tweets from various Transformers animators hopefully this video helps to paint a more full picture of the Unique International entity that the Transformers truly [Music] are [Music] for

Channel: IronMysterian

Views: 133,882

Keywords: transformers, anime, cartoons, 80s, retro, takara, tomy, takara tomy, studio series, legacy, hasbro, marvel, comics, mecha, robots, voltron, macross, robotech, aesthetic, vibes, manga, toys, michael bay, vintage, g1 transformers, spider man, spiderman, toei, power rangers, anime review, anime history, sentai, crunchyroll, transformers legacy, transformers masterpiece, transformers jetfire, jetfire, skyfire, transformers cartoon, full episodes, kids, toy review, review, lost media, analog horror, analog

Id: CcWlXbCn6yI

Length: 18min 41sec (1121 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 03 2023