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It is with a heavy heart that we report on the passing of composer Michiaki Watanabe (known professionally as Chūmei Watanabe) at the age of 96 due to heart failure at a Tokyo hospital on June 23. Having been trained in jazz composition his music often combined brass instruments with synthesizers to make his signature sound. Among Transformers fans he'd be best known for composing the score to both the Transformers Victory and Zone animated series. However, among fans of Japanese giant robots and superheroes in general he's considered the father of their respective soundtracks. To his anime credit are Getter Robo Go, Mazinger Z, Great Mazinger, Kōsoku Denjin Albegas, and Kotetsu Zieg. On the live action side he composed for Jinzo Ningen Kikaida, Mechanical Violator Hakaider, Toei's Spider-man, and perhaps most importantly the first six Super Sentai series. As a man that never formally retired he was still working in his advanced years including 2021's Muteking anime series and Kikai Sentai Zenkaiger.
It's been two years but the Tokyo Toy Show is finally back! And with it comes the Japan Toy Awards 2022 where Masterpiece Gattai Shouki has won an award in the "high target toy division" (according to Google translate). OK, so it actually lost the top grand prize spot to Bandai Spirits' over $700 GX-100 Gaiking set and it's more of a runner up "outstanding performance award" in that category, but they only give out four of those in each category so it's still an achievement! And it lets them stick a silver Japan Toy Awards logo on their website (as seen below) and possibly even the figure's box, though there probably isn't time for that on the first batch due out in less than two weeks.
The Tokyo Toy Show runs Thursday and Friday this week (June 16 and 17). If there's Transformers news to be found there you can be sure we'll be sharing it here on Seibertron!
We've seen sales on Pulse before and they tend to be a little underwhelming on the Transformers front with a small selection of sales items and not particularly great deals. Well not this time! Hasbro Pulse's new Power Days sales event where spending $75 or more in select figures will save you 40% off instantly! No coupons and no memberships required! And the selection for Transformers fans is nothing to scoff at. How does Selects Titan Black Zarak $107 sound? Or how about Masterpiece Skywarp 2.0 for $143? Or maybe Jurassic Park Collaborative set for what some would call the right price of $63? And it's not just the big stuff! The first wave of Legacy and Studio Series Core Class are only $7 each. There's also several Selects figures, a few left over Shattered Glass figures, even a few left from the Premium Finish line. I personally picked up SS Grindor, Premium Finish Megatron and Legacy Bulkhead for a combined total of only $86 before tax and shipping saving nearly $60. It's definitely a sale worth checking out even if you aren't looking for Transformers.
Sale runs until June 6, but you'll want to get in early for the best deals as stuff is already selling out in the first hours!
The Transformers Earthspark show will be starting in the second half of the year. We had very brief clips but now we have a promotional image that really gives us a good look at the designs. We have the two new robots who get adopted by humans along with Optimus and Bumblebee. Optimus reuses the evergreen design (afterall, that's the whole point of an evergreen design) and while Bumblebee does as well, it is a bit more stylized. It seems to borrow a lot from the Generations Bumblebee toy we had which was a G1-ified version of his muscle car look (which the evergreen design borrowed quite a bit from).
Of course promoting this series with Bumblebee and Prime make perfect sense, those are the characters/toys that sell best these days to younger kids, who are the target audience of this show.
The new BotBots show on Netflix has been up for around a week and many fans have commented on the show. While it is obviously a comedy show aimed for kids and not older fans, the worst fans have said is that it's not for them, as any other kid show like Amazing World of Gumball or Teen Titans would not be for them (although there are links to the Movieverse in the final episode). But no one has said it was bad, quite the contrary. Here are some takes from the community:
Sabrblade wrote:I found myself really enjoying it, more than I thought I would. The writing was really charming, clever, and at times downright hilarious. My favorite funny moment has got to be when Kikmee increased Dave's robot-dinosaur order quantity to 1000 right before he was instantly charged for that many. I lost it at his tidal wave of panicked reactions.
I was also very surprised to see that there was an actual ongoing storyline with various plot threads continuing from episode-to-episode. The Lost Bots' quest to get back in good graces with the other tribes, Dave's attempts to uncover the truth of the BotBots' existence, Spud Muffin's gradual descent from arrogant jock to villainous schemer, all of these were given room to grow and develop over the course of the season. That really kept my attention and made me want to see where the story would go and what the payoff would be. Of course, the end result was predictable, but also apropos to the kind of message this show was trying to convey.
Overall, this was a fun show.
RotorstormNZ wrote:I watched the first two and a half episodes before deciding my wife might like it too - we ended up binging the first five last night. It's so great to share something TF with her. I really like it and will definitely be getting into the toys.
Beast_Megatron wrote:This show is really charming and genuinely witty. It’s harmless at its worst and hilarious at its best. I recommend it if you’re an open-minded Transformers fan who wants a quick laugh.
william-james88 wrote:I had a great time watching this with my 4 year old. Some jokes were more for him, like the Clogstopper jokes, while others were more for me. I especially liked the episode when they find a cell phone and look at all the apps. That one really worked for me, as we rarely have up to the minute modern jokes like this in a kid's show, at least the ones we'd compare this show to. Also, I really liked the character models. As with the original G1 show, they used the toys as a starting point and came up with better proportioned characters. The changes made to Bonsai were especially fun and welcome for me, that was by far my favourite character. The only thing I found off, and my 4 year old pointed it out too, was how they would show the botbots from afar. They were all just rectangles of different colours, which just looked off. They could have at least done a variety of shapes. Aside from that, the show was very fun. It just adds a new layer to the brand we all love so much while taking nothing away.
The theme today is definitely about a behind the scenes look at all things Transformers. While we had a rare look at early stages of recent toy development earlier today, we now share with you a memo from Hasbro that really shows how prominent the idea of selling toys was in the 80s and how single minded they were with the G1 show just being a commercial. And in this case, to the detriment of good story telling and lore.
It's just one memo about Five Faces of Darkness part III but it speaks volumes. As fans may recall, there is a scene where Blitzwing does not accept the deal proposed by the Quintessons because he seems to know not to trust them. This never really comes back and feels rather random, especially for a character that was not prominent within the Deception ranks. Well, it turns out Flint Dille initially intended it to be Shockwave who was weary since he was older and more aware of the Quintessons than his fellow Decepticons. It definitely ties into the greater lore of Shockwave being ancient which has been revisited in Transformers fiction. As you can see from the memo, it was asked that Shockwave be replaced since his toy was no longer on the market. So Flint Dile chose Blitzwing as a replacement.
The memo is pretty epic for other reasons. Check out that note in response to Hasbro stating that the events of the 86 movie will be recounted in a vague way with no images so as not to spoil the movie. Plus, there is a really big push for Predaking so if you ever felt he seemed shoehorned in, well now you know why. And if he doesn't feel shoehorned, then that's just a testament to Flint Dile being and agile writer.
Below is the original outline with Shockwave there followed by the memo along with links to all resources pertaining to the Five Faces of Darkness.
We thank fellow Seibertronian Sabrblade for bringing this to our attention and to Greebtron for providing links on the matter.
Sabrblade wrote:Digging deeper into the links Greebtron provided on the matter, here's the direct links to all of the FFOD material from the Sunbow Marvel Archive:
Thanks to a heads up from Seibertronian Sabrblade, we have news that the upcoming Transformers Botbot series has released yet another new clip via Netflix on Youtube!
Transformers Botbots is set to follow the wacky escapades of our favorite little Transformers that literally turn into anything and everything that might be found in a mall after an Energon cloud strikes and brings them to life. In this new clip, we see the setup for one wacky race, as Burgertron and the Lost Bots gear up a slice of pizza racecar to go up against the Sugar Shocks and the Arcada Renegades in equally crazy racecars. We get the setup, teasing an exciting finish.
Check it out below, and watch for Botbots to drop this Friday March 25 on Netflix!
TFcon has become the hit North American Transformers convention since Botcon ceased to function in 2016, and has produced some big name visitors and some occasional fun official news as well.
Recently, TFcon held its springtime convention, and during that convention F.J. DeSanto, who was the showrunner for the recent War for Cybertron Series on Netflix offered up some new information. He put forth that they did have a series based on Transformers Legacy lined up, and the show was offered to Netflix, but ultimately the streaming service declined to pick it up.
This is an interesting bit of news for a couple reasons. For on thing, given that both War for Cybertron and its predecessor Prime Wars trilogy received cartoons, it was speculated that we might see a series based on Legacy as well. We can at least say that there was one in the design stages, but one that was ultimately put down before it could go anywhere. This might also be a sign of general streaming service disinterest in "mature" transformers content, as both War for Cybertron and the Prime Wars series were received with lukewarm feeling on average.
It is also interesting as it shows that we might have had a Transformers cartoon Multiverse story, which would have coincided with the general Hollywood theme of Multiverses as the hit topic of stories right now. We have had several multiversal stories in Transformers, but they have mostly been limited to comic arcs that tend to be more limited in audience appeal or accessibility.
Either way, for now, the future of Transformers cartoons appears to be focused on Botbots and Earthspark.
Let us know what you think of this news, and whether this was a disappointing choice by Netflix, or if the decision was a mercy killing.
This news was originally broken to us by @MikeSibertRadio on Twitter, who was present for the DeSanto interview at TFcon.
Thanks to a heads up from Seibertronian Sabrblade, we have news that the upcoming Transformers Botbot series has released another new clip via Netflix on Youtube!
Transformers Botbots is set to follow the wacky escapades of our favorite little Transformers that literally turn into anything and everything that might be found in a mall after an Energon cloud strikes and brings them to life. In this new clip, we see Burgertron trying to get the Lost bots, a group of Botbots who all ended up in the lost and found and have no idea that the outside world exists, motivated to return the phone of the mall security guard. Being lost bots, the botbots are more interested in playing with the phone and its many apps than actually returning it.
Check it out below, and watch for Botbots to drop on March 25 on Netflix!
Thanks to a heads up from Seibertronian Sabrblade, we have news that the upcoming Transformers Botbot series has released a new clip via Netflix on Youtube!
Transformers Botbots is set to follow the wacky escapades of our favorite little Transformers that literally turn into anything and everything that might be found in a mall after an Energon cloud strikes and brings them to life. In this new clip, we see Burgertron finding himself in the lost and found, where he has found and is introducing himself to the Lost bots, a group of Botbots who all ended up in the lost and found and have no idea that the outside world exists. Burgertron gives us a nice bit of exposition for the series in the clip.
Check it out below, and watch for Botbots to drop on March 25 on Netflix!
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OBSIDIAN Transform ...
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HARDHEAD + FUROS T ...
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