We have quite an interesting reading to share with you. Courtesy of 2005 Board member opoptimus who has posted in our forums an English translation of the first part of an interview with Takara Tomy designer Shogo Hasui.
This interview was originally published in the Japanese Transformers Generations Book 2020. The source of the first translation (in Chinese) comes from ‘Cybertron 600″ on Weixin. On this interview Mr. Hasui talks about team work between Hasbro and Takara, considerations and new ideas that were introduced in War For Cybertron Siege, the original concept for Weaponizers, the introduction of the new Commander Class (and Jetfire of course), Omega Supreme , trivia and more. We highly suggest you to take your time to enjoy this interview.
Click on the bar to read the translation, and stay tuned with TFW2005 for the second part. Let us know your impressions on the 2005 Board!
Foreword:
We interviewed Mr. Hasui Shogo, who as a key figure on (Takaratomy’s) overseas product team collaborates with Hasbro, and asked about the latest development on the WfC trilogy, and several other designs by Mr.Hasui.
–Please tell us your relationship with Hasbro during development of the Generations line.
H: Generations is a product line co-developed by Hasbro and TakaraTomy. TT sell the products in Japan and Hasbro in all the other countries and regions.
–Practically, how do the two companies collaborate? What’s the process like?
H: Firstly Hasbro work out budget and sell price, molding investment and other budgets. We (TT design team) calculate the amount of plastic and number of molds allowed(within budget). Within this budget limitation, how we can design more interesting products and the compromises we make, is decided between the two companies. What TT want, what Hasbro want, we try our best to lay it all out on the table, and decide on the general design direction and what compromises to be made. This type of design collaboration is quite unusual, but it had been in place before I joined Takara 20 years ago. We all have Yoke san to thank for his effort on making this unique collaboration possible.
–Back in Yoke san’s time, this (type of collaboration)must’ve been confusing?
H: Yeah, the common practice back then was “I designed this product, let’s discuss how much we can sell it for”. He elevated the mindset from “let’s design a product at this price point” to “let’s see what fun ideas we can put in within this budget”. It took a lot of effort for this change in mindset to happen.
–Every year there’s a design concept (gimmick) for Generations, how do you decide on that?
H: The previous Prime Wars trilogy started from a rough concept by Hasbro, and we decide what characters can be made from this concept. But it’s different for the WfC trilogy. Hasbro design manager John Warden came to me direct, asking for input from the very beginning. We started from a topic along the lines of “we’ve done pretty much all of these characters in the classics format in the past”, what are we doing from this point on? Then we talked about further plans into the future. We considered making less known characters, but in the end decided on creating a world and play pattern that includes all the characters, where fans can immerse themselves into. Countering popular play patterns like “combining” or “city bot”, we suggested developing a “mix-matching weapon and armor” play pattern, which will be across the board in the new line.
–Cog or Six-gun being add-on pieces to combine with other figures is a very creative idea.
H: Within the parts count limitation, if we put too much focus on individual figure’s weapons or armor, the quality of the figure itself would be negatively effected. To avoid this we considered producing “weapon packs”. We looked at the fiction in the past when researching, and imagined Six-gun being part of “a Transformers race that can come apart as individual parts to enhance other transformers”; then we kinda expanded on this idea which ultimately evolved into “selling Cog and Six-gun as weapon packs”. We actually had made the suggestion to include weapons across several figures which combine into a Cog like mini character; although the idea wasn’t taken on board at the time, this concept eventually gets realized in the WfC line.
— Do you share your ideas with Hasbro on the actual design of products?
H: The Siege line-up began as Hasbro’s proposal to include all the well-known big names, then TT would adjust and distribute into each wave and price point. And (TT) proposed adding ankle pivot and waist rotation across the line to better pose out with weapons. Being mindful of the scale was Hasbro’s proposal. I’d suggested this to them in the past, the idea of so called “chain marketing”, where after buying one figure collectors would want to buy the others in the line; for example UW Devastator and PotP Predaking are close in size, then collectors would want to display them together. Hasbro took up my idea, so for this new line we would keep bot mode scale and a unifying aesthetics in mind (when designing).
–Omega Supreme is not only in size, but also in aesthetics and transformation, very faithful to the G1 cartoon. We fans are really touched.
H: Because I was involved with establishing a new (Commander class) price point, I had to entrust this design task with Kunihiro san. But I really wanted to be part of this project, so I drew up some “Omega Supreme size and appearance” sketches, and gave suggestions like “Omega’s face better not show any emotion”. Of course I didn’t do this just for Omega Supreme; I always slip our Generations team members files like “this character’s trait is this”, it’s indeed a strange behavior (laugh).
–The Commander class in question, is Jetfire right?
H: Jetfire had been done a couple of times already, but I was never involved. Firstly I really like this character, so the design process was such a joy. The sticking point for me personally, is I really wanted a Jetfire that transforms from “that jet” to “that robot design”. I imagine a lot of fans are like me, (would want to) take no hints from “that particular toy” back in the day(laugh), but to focus 100% on recreating the cartoon look. Actually when we first started on the project, Jetfire had a different Cybertronian alt mode, but I insisted on “‘bot mode is already so faithful to the cartoon, fans will be thrilled if the alt mode is too”, so we eventually settled on the current look.
–Compared with other products, (Jetfire) feels a bit different; there’s a lot details that use linked mechanism. A luxury feel to it overall.
H: Really? Maybe my love for Jetfire was too strong (laugh). Because of the the new Commander price point, we could experiment on some new ideas. I explained that we could work out parts count based on price point, but the details of these parts, or their weight hadn’t been set. So here’s how we designed this new Commander class: starting from Titans class Devastator, we took off head and body, worked out the weight limit for Jetsfire backwards from the parts count of what’s left on Devastator – Scrapper, Long Haul and Mixmaster. We then throw in all the details and gimmicks into we could within this limit, and there was Jetfire.
–A 5mm port flips out when the fist is closed, what a mechanism!
H: Originally it was a Hasbro proposal to add an arm mechanism that rotates between 5mm fist and splayed out hand. But there’s not enough space left in the arm, so I came up with this mechanism. It wouldn’t be there if it weren’t for Hasbro’s participation.
–The handle bars underneath the jet fuselage is also interesting
H: It was intended for Ironhide or Thundercracker to grab onto. Jetfire’s alt mode is actually a cargo jet, so in order to hold other characters firepower 5mm ports were put under the wings too, and the bottom of the jet was designed to interact with Six-gun.
Part 2 to be continued…..
Roadbuster25
Thanks for translating and awesome read. Confirms so many questions that we have theorized. Regarding the budgets is he saying that once the budget is set they determine the approximate number of parts they can produce for the entire line. For instance – one line has a set limit of 10K parts. And then from there they start determining how many figures they'll make for the line based on the part count?
WolverineDragon
Up to your scale tricks I see!
orangeitis
Oh no, being contradictory without giving a good reason. You sure got me with that one.
Shin Densetsu
Yes he is. He’s indirectly responsible for the shift to emphasis on scale and more direct G1 callouts(the team had started to do this more under Mark Weber but Hasui went further). Sometimes being a rebel works out years later.
Fenrys
More like (during prime wars)
Takara: hey hasbro, let's do a scaled line
Hasbro: nah not this time
(Wfc trilogy)
Hasbro: hey, remember when you guys wanted to do a scale based line?
Takara: yea
Hasbro: let's do it
cappeca
No, it wasn't.
More like "Hey Hasbro, how about sticking to the IP design fundamentals like original model sheets and all the media produced over these, well, almost 40 years and deliver a very nice product this time?" and Hasbro went "What? Oh, sure, whatever."
Fenrys
Technically it was a bit of a back and forth as it seems (based on the interview) that Takara had mentioned a unified scale prior, it's just Hasbro took the idea and ran with it with the WFC Trilogy (least that's what I got from reading it)
orangeitis
So unified scale was Hasbro's doing.
I knew there was something I liked about them.
Treadshot 2.0
I would honestly kill for all of the animated characters being redone in a more traditional style. You can even keep most of the engineering, just give me more normal-looking proportions and faces and we are in business
SonicConvoy05
just tried the Jetfire Sixgun thing, it really works! not sure if sigun can/should be bearing the weight though.
Bravemaximike
Fun Fact:
Recently I got my old Suitcase out of my brothers garage full of Transformers from 2002-2010 era.
Couldn’t stop playing with animated Starscream. What a cool version of him.
Thundershot
How about all three? 2022 Armada, 2023 Energon, 2024 Cybertron. Then they can do a new G1 in 2025, Animated in 2026, and Prime in 2027 before they need to revisit G1 again.
Bravemaximike
I take a redux of the Galaxy Force Starscream.
I regret not getting that Maketoys one
Robogeek28
You read my mind.
Thundershot
That’s why I’m hoping for a new Voyager Armada Starscream instead!
Ramberk Magnus
I’m not even really arguing against your points. I’m just saying a brand new voyager class G1 Starscream ain’t gonna happen right away. I don’t think that’s an outrageous prediction.
Treadshot 2.0
…while also starting a brand new Studio Series 86 line that slavishly renders G1 characters? Anyway, Starscream is only "early G1" in that he was there from the start, but he was featured more prominently after the movie than most of the Movie characters — he had like three focal-point episodes in season 3. Hell, he (as his G1 self) even had a featured episode in Beast Wars, a completely different cartoon that came out over a decade later! If ANYBODY can slip the "early G1" net it's this dude.
I'm not saying they'll do it next year. Maybe in the third year of the next trilogy. But let's be real here… they did a Voyager class G1 starscream in three consecutive years, so they're not scared to do that, and none of those is 'definitive' in the way that the other WfC Trilogy "iconic characters" figures feel (Optimus, Seige Megatron, Earthrise Soundwave, Netflix Bumblebee, and arguably the Datsun Bros). If the Seige version's super-articulated, dynamic, sleek robot transformed into the G1 plane, I'd feel differently, but as it is nothing they've made yet seems to be exactly what we want. And there's NO WAY they're NOT aware of that.
Also…. WOULD it fail? Says who? Did Earthrise Starscream fail just because Voyager Starscreams came out the previous two years, in Seige and Power of the Primes? Haven't they released the Seige Megatron mold for three consecutive years? If they really did make a much better Starscream next year, do you really think people wouldn't buy it? Bear in mind that Generations is their collector-oriented line. I mean, hell, I'm buying an "earth version" of Sideswipe that's barely distinguishable from the Seige version even though I have to buy a whole other figure I don't even want to get it. Who in this forum would legitimately NOT buy a Starscream that was as dope as, say, Commander Jetfire? Like, what if they put it out at the Leader price point so there were no compromises?
Ramberk Magnus
I think Hasbro understands they can’t do the “upgraded character 12 months later” thing like they did with WFC.
There is certainly room for an improved G1 Optimus and Starscream but if it happens next year, it would fail. “Better” versions will show up, just not immediately. It’s been leaked/officially stated that Hasbro is moving away from early G1.
Treadshot 2.0
Come on man. Do you REALLY doubt planned obsolescence at this point? We've gone from seeing the Dinobots done and then redone a few years later to seeing pretty much every character redone one year later. People were pissed that Earthrise was basically Seige but more Earthy. (Not me, because I was in for Cybertronian versions of everyone, but MANY people felt duped)
This franchise is arguably about planned obsolescence.
Anyway, Starscream is a 'flagship' character. They're GOING to release a new one in the next few years. The only question is how "geewun" will it be.
shibamura_prime
Thanks for the translation work!
That was a great read, Shogo Hasui is a badass. It's crazy how Studio Series Devastator happened the way it did. :O