The recent release of the new Transformers Generations book included some declarations of Takara Tomy Designers.
While brief, the article titles “Towards 2020 with transformers, following the 35th Anniversary” features statements from Takara Tomy designers Kojin Ono (Veteran G1 designer who also worked in the original G1 Raiden toy), Hisashi Yuuki (designer from several lines since Beast Wars II, including RID Optimus Prime) and Onohara Daisuke (G-Shock Master Optimus Prime).
They confirm some rumors as well as bring us new information about the “Raiden Project” announced by Takara during the “A Railway Story In The Sky” exhibition in Japan.
- Raiden, the Japanese exclusive train combiner, is confirmed to be released for the Masterpiece line.
- No official release date yet.
- They want to bring real trains to the great train fan base in Japan.
- The project will be taken by senior Takara Tomy designers this time.
What are your expectations on Raiden for the Masterpiece line? Sound off your impressions on the 2005 Boards!
HolyCulture
Isn’t it closer to $500 USD for the full set? It was for me.
and I’m extremely happy with this guy. It looks fantastic! ^^
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Athenor
Oh hey, I figured out how to unlock the knees and recreate the pose from the box!
I wasn't trying to, but it admittedly looks really good.
Funemployed
Absolutely stunning
Sy-Rein
I would suggest Suiken out of those two.
Suiken is my personal favorite Trainbot and 2nd favorite of the MPG figures, right behind Kaen.
ATFan
Of the two, Suiken. Yukikaze is the only member of the set I actively dislike and Suiken is my 3rd favorite.
JazzAlert13
Looking for advice: if I was to get just one (as a standalone figure, with genuinely no intention of building out the combiner) who would you recommend, Yukikaze or Suiken?
They are the two that look the coolest to me out of the six (mainly for being green lol) but which is more fun to mess around with? Thanks!
David Hingtgen
That, but even more so. Even HO isn't all that popular, but it's not "unknown/super-rare" there. But full-on O gauge? It's not even 1% of the Japanese train market AFAIK and I would imagine a fair number of hobby shops don't carry anything at all for it.
ATFan
Oh really? I don't have the og toys, and I can't bring myself to pay the current asking price for a set of non articulated G1 figures, but from pictures I always assumed they were a bit bigger than n scale.
johnny barracuda
The originals are about N scale. I have them displayed on N scale rails and that does the job.
johnny barracuda
In O scale the trains would have been gigantic, twice the lenght! Hard to manage on shelves.
ATFan
Last I heard they mostly do N scale over there, which is even smaller then the original toys.
Curium
The thing about not being forthcoming enough applies with the Missing Link line. I did get the ML Convoy in the end, but I have been hesitating a lot because I don't really want it as a stand alone and want to know more about the line going forward. I actually ended up asking and someone said we are supposed to get news next month so I went ahead and pulled the trigger.
Mike Lundberg
O scale isn't popular in Japan–it's HO. Doing a different scale would have undercut Takara's entire effort of appealing to Japanese train enthusiasts.
Ikkstakk
Overall I'm leaning toward wishing Takara had decided on O scale, rather than HO. Maybe it would have resulted in too much weight in Raiden mode, but I'm just bothered, majorly, by these trains being so small next to the MP cars.
When they went with HO scale, I thought the trains would be made to actually run on the tracks the collectors already had, that maybe they would even have little motors in them and be self-propelled. But they didn't, these are just… not model trains, but models OF trains, and as such, it doesn't seem important for them to be HO scale. No model train collector is going to be linking these Transformers up to their model trains… are they? They'll just kind of sit there on display, and as simple display pieces, is it important for them to be the same size as the actual model trains running around on the tracks?
O scale would have allowed for even more realistic detail, no? Maybe thicker plastic resulting in fewer breakages and fragility? Just frustrating, from a non-model train enthusiast but a pretty big Transformers Masterpiece enthusiast.
Throway
To be dreadfully honest I have no desire for combiners any bigger than Skyfire. It would be too big and I don't even live in Japan
Paco Grande
I agree with what you are saying overall. Prototypes for Raiden were shown but people were guessing on the height and some people couldn’t believe it was so short so they were living in denial for a long time, hoping that it would turn out taller in the end.
Takara is not very forthcoming with their plans. I get that competition is a thing and they want their plans to be secret, but I feel that they should be a lot more open with what the overall plans are for MP and MPG. We still aren’t sure what their future plans are for MPG or what height future combiners will be, but if their plan is to make all the combiners scale with each other and be around 12” tall they should be communicating that and explaining their reasoning. I suspect it is because they realize that not all collectors have infinite shelf space and that a line of 20” combiners just doesn’t work for a lot of people. But it would be nice to know for sure.
The height of Raiden bugs me but I think the fact that it isn’t toon enough to match the rest of the MP line bugs me way more. The lack of facial expression swapping on the individual bots and especially the combiner head is ridiculous. How awesome would it have been to have a screaming face for Raiden? Huge wasted opportunity.
Sunbow Prime
Were they named real train models in their show, or was it like Sunbow?
GPTF01
this is the first combiner set where i want to display the individual bots. i feel all other sets are just the combiner and the other 2 mods are just what ever for the most part like an after thought.
GPTF01
in this same show they also had wheeljack the same size as magnus depending on the scene and also had the trainbots small enough to sit on a couch and have humans come to their waist. more often then not they where portrayed on the small side in bot mode.
Shmoptimus Prime
I feel you on this. I haven’t kept a single combiner set intact over all the years I’ve been collecting, mostly due to the fact that they’re usually a pain in the ass to actually combine and the results aren’t that good. I think this is why back during combiner wars hastak basically said “if you want a big G1 Devastator this is it”. Now we know they’re working on another set but I don’t see them doing it in MPG anytime soon, especially since the reception to raiden hasn’t been that great.