Takara-Tomy have announced that they have won a Japanese award for quality design. The Good Design Long Life Award has been awarded to them for their work on Transformers Masterpiece figures. They have put out a Japanese language statement about their award which can be seen here (PDF). We here at TFW2005 and the Transformers Community as a whole also salute them for their awesome work!
About the Good Design Award.
The Good Design Award is a comprehensive design-promotion system that picks good design out of a variety of unfolding phenomena, and aims to enrich our lives, industries, and society as a whole by highlighting and celebrating these works. It is hosted by the Japan Institute for Design Promotion, a public interest incorporated foundation. It’s precursor, the Good Design Selection System (or G Mark System), was founded in 1957 by the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (the current Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry), and has been engaged in this work for about 60 years. Submissions come from a wide range of fields, and roughly 1200 designs are recognized every year. Over 59 years, around 43,000 designs have been recognized by the awards. Recipients of a Good Design Award are granted use of the G Mark symbol, which has been an emblem of good design for over half a century.
Type-R
Embeded video
Type-R
Official TakaraTomy video on their Good Design Award for the MP series.
タカラトミー on Twitter
danny boy
There's the man, the legend, the genius. Well deserved Kobayashi. Nobody is even remotely close to your level. May you shower us with your beautiful MP's for years to come.
Type-R
Lead designer Hironori Kobayashi receiving the award on behalf of the design team.
Transformers Toy Designer Kobayashi… – Planet Iacon – Singapore Transformers Fans Unite!! (S.T.F.U!!) | Facebook
View attachment 27650636
Toolala
Honestly I prefer the earlier MP's, they were more self contained rather then trying to "fit in" with other toys, it felt like you were getting a complete package rather then "oh this will look great next to that guy!"
Don't get me wrong, alot of the MP10+ stuff is great, but I liked the fact that every MP release before MP10(minus repaints of course) was very unique in style and engineering, either way both options are better then what we're getting now, the fact that MP's are now trying to be so slavishly toon accurate is quite painful.
Spin-Out
Good,TT deserved some recognition for this. Still, I wouldn't be as excited about this if they were still sticking to G1.
Wave
Well deserved, for sure!
StrangePlanet
Hey, that's nice to see. Congrats to the Masterpiece team.
SouthtownKid
Those pictures in the first post have nothing to do with the actual exhibit. Go ahead and scroll up to take a look at what the exhibit is.
And Kobayashi started the line. That's why. No mystery. No conspiracy.
bellpeppers
I can only speak for myself when I say that I'm done with the MP line, and that Ironhide and Tracks were the final 2 nails in the coffin.
Bu friggin Megatron might change my mind.
divinecomedy
LOL, they have Tracks there, my least favorite MP.
Liampope
I think you might be missing the point of some people! People are commenting on the pics on the website linked in the OP. That has nine MPs which just happen to be pretty much Kobayashi's entire portfolio so far (minus Roadrage only). I can see why some feel Hasui's name and contributions are suspiciously absent. I'm not into all these TT in-fighting conspiracies and my-designer-is-better-than-yours arguments, but it does seem a bit wierd that it seems to be only recognising Kobayashi and his designs.
SouthtownKid
The entire line is the line. It's not about individual designers. And there are only TWO Masterpieces displayed, total. So it's not like they displayed all of one person's work and none of anyone else's. Only TWO. MP-01, which is inarguably the most significant, since it kicked off the line, and Tracks, which…whatever.
This isn't even a toy thing; it's about good design in general. Look at the kinds of things that are displayed next to the MPs. Not even remotely toy-related. So it's safe to say that 90% of the people who will visit the exhibition don't know jack or care at all about Transformers. The exhibition is not about that.
Bottom line, don't feel slighted on behalf of Hasui or whoever. You're missing the point.
Max Rawhide
Great that they got this reward… …but as others have said, it's wrong that the only MP's on display are the Koboyashi designed MP's, thereby completely ignoring Hasui's work.
I'm not saying either designer one is better than the other (although I do prefer Hasui), but I think it's safe to say that the MP line didn't become what it is today and as popular as it is today, if it hadn't been for Hasui. He was the one who pushed for smaller scale MP's and making it a complete line. Before him, when Koboyashi was in 'charge', it was a line of stand alone releases that had little in common with great variety in sizes and especially design ethics (very cartoon accurate releases (MP-01 and MP-09), very toy accurate (MP-05 and MP-08) and even very realistic combined with more Japanese robot designs (MP seekers)).
Then came Hasui and not only did it then become a real line (not just leaders), there was also consistency in sizes (characters scaled to each other according to the scale chart) as well as consistent design choices: the often quoted mix of the animation model with influences from the original toy, the real altmode and perception (e.g. the more heroic proportions of Optimus).
Even completely ignoring fans preferances, Hasui's mix or the more cartoon based current releases, if it hadn't been for Hasui the MP line wouldn't be the line it is today. And then it wouldn't have received this award. And his work is completely ignored in the displayed figures. That's just wrong 🙁
Novaburnhilde
This is awesome to hear.
They really deserve it, the MP figures are amazing products.
Toolala
You gotta admit though, that was an amazing roast.
danny boy
Back on topic…..
"It's the first annual Montgomery burns award for outstanding achievement in the field of excellence"
darwin
Yeah they RUINED FOREVVA RIGHT?
WORLD IS DOOMED WITH THE CRAP THEY'RE DOIN'!!! 11111!!!
poor guy…no it's you who's not paying attention to the state of the line…
Toolala