Speculation: Hasbro Looking to Acquire Takara Tomy

fenrir72 wrote:If Hb does a friendly take over, well who knows what happens next? They are friends I hope.

Caminus9000 wrote:TakaraTomy has always taken the initiative of servicing their fans and giving us the best quality of their toys while Hasbro hid in the shadows looking after themselves and constantly neglecting us.

Caminus9000 wrote:*sign* if this happens Hasbro will destroy the entire Masterpiece Movie series before it even started. Either they'll take control on who could be next for release which is the LAST thing we want because all they'll end up giving us is different versions of bumblebee or let their shitty designer (john warden) take over on making them.


TakaraTomy has always taken the initiative of servicing their fans and giving us the best quality of their toys while Hasbro hid in the shadows looking after themselves and constantly neglecting us.

Randomhero wrote:I love it when people say Hasbro doesn’t care about fans while 95% of 84-87 has been remade with modern day engineering and 3 two foot tall city bots that have been made. It’s just sad and embarrassing

Rated X wrote:Im down with a one size fits all worldwide deco if it means "platinum" style figures for everyone and the death of the el cheapo Has-deco. No more off white and grey plastic and non painted hubcaps are a good thing. No more ridiculous prices for 50 cents worth of extra paint is also a good thing. As the Franchise ages and starts to gear more towards lifelong adult fans rather than kids, Hasbro might be influenced by the Japanese to make stuff more collector oriented and gimmick free. The transformers franchise needs more Japanese influence and less influence from corporate middle America.

Rated X wrote:Im down with a one size fits all worldwide deco if it means "platinum" style figures for everyone and the death of the el cheapo Has-deco. No more off white and grey plastic and non painted hubcaps are a good thing. No more ridiculous prices for 50 cents worth of extra paint is also a good thing. As the Franchise ages and starts to gear more towards lifelong adult fans rather than kids, Hasbro might be influenced by the Japanese to make stuff more collector oriented and gimmick free. The transformers franchise needs more Japanese influence and less influence from corporate middle America.

Randomhero wrote:I love all this ridiculousness. End of masterpiece, end of retools in Legends etc. it reminds me of when Disney acquired Marvel and when Disney acquired Lucasfilm and people freaking out thinking things were just gonna get worse and it didn’t.

If Hasbro acquired Takara tajara woudlnt disappear or lose stuff. They would just be able to have Hasbro’s backing and funding on stuff to sell their stuff. That’s what happens with a lot of these things.

Randomhero wrote:I love all this ridiculousness. End of masterpiece, end of retools in Legends etc. it reminds me of when Disney acquired Marvel and when Disney acquired Lucasfilm and people freaking out thinking things were just gonna get worse and it didn’t.

Black Hat wrote:Let's seriously hope this isn't happening. If it went ahead we'd have no "not completely crap but a bit more expensive" choice- it'd be Hasbro's underpainted figures with poorly applied stickers and no elbows or nothing. The MP line would either disappear completely or go to sh!t. And if this DID happen then Transformers as a brand would probably go under fairly quickly (contrary to popular belief, the collector market is bigger than most realize; 20% of Hasbro's TF profits are from collectors, and whilst that doesn't sound like much, it is a LOT of money from a company's perspective. Collectors abandoning the line would probably destroy Transformers completely, as the sharp fall in profits would cause the imbeciles in charge at Hasbro to cut back on the kid-oriented stuff, to the point quality would fall so low that even kids would begin to get sick of it.

Fiction would probably suffer too. With the brand entirely owned by an American company we'd most likely lose out on all Japanese influence on the fiction (no chance of that Trigger-produced anime I dream of) and the fiction would probably fall in line with the likes of modern Marvel; that is, pandering to people who don't even buy the things they want to change, and excluding the existing fanbase.

On the plus side, if this did happen, Hasbro might sell the brand to someone else with an actual idea of what they're doing. And who knows, the death of collector-oriented mainline toys might mean we see a return of CHUG scaled stuff in the 3P realm again.

I mean, I highly doubt this will happen, as this is an article from July and nothing has happened since then, but if it does, the Transformers might finally shed itself of the ball and chain that is Hasbro and their incompetence.

Black Hat wrote:Let's seriously hope this isn't happening. If it went ahead we'd have no "not completely crap but a bit more expensive" choice- it'd be Hasbro's underpainted figures with poorly applied stickers and no elbows or nothing. The MP line would either disappear completely or go to sh!t. And if this DID happen then Transformers as a brand would probably go under fairly quickly (contrary to popular belief, the collector market is bigger than most realize; 20% of Hasbro's TF profits are from collectors, and whilst that doesn't sound like much, it is a LOT of money from a company's perspective. Collectors abandoning the line would probably destroy Transformers completely, as the sharp fall in profits would cause the imbeciles in charge at Hasbro to cut back on the kid-oriented stuff, to the point quality would fall so low that even kids would begin to get sick of it.

Fiction would probably suffer too. With the brand entirely owned by an American company we'd most likely lose out on all Japanese influence on the fiction (no chance of that Trigger-produced anime I dream of) and the fiction would probably fall in line with the likes of modern Marvel; that is, pandering to people who don't even buy the things they want to change, and excluding the existing fanbase.

On the plus side, if this did happen, Hasbro might sell the brand to someone else with an actual idea of what they're doing. And who knows, the death of collector-oriented mainline toys might mean we see a return of CHUG scaled stuff in the 3P realm again.

I mean, I highly doubt this will happen, as this is an article from July and nothing has happened since then, but if it does, the Transformers might finally shed itself of the ball and chain that is Hasbro and their incompetence.

Randomhero wrote:

Black Hat wrote:Let's seriously hope this isn't happening. If it went ahead we'd have no "not completely crap but a bit more expensive" choice- it'd be Hasbro's underpainted figures with poorly applied stickers and no elbows or nothing. The MP line would either disappear completely or go to sh!t. And if this DID happen then Transformers as a brand would probably go under fairly quickly (contrary to popular belief, the collector market is bigger than most realize; 20% of Hasbro's TF profits are from collectors, and whilst that doesn't sound like much, it is a LOT of money from a company's perspective. Collectors abandoning the line would probably destroy Transformers completely, as the sharp fall in profits would cause the imbeciles in charge at Hasbro to cut back on the kid-oriented stuff, to the point quality would fall so low that even kids would begin to get sick of it.

Fiction would probably suffer too. With the brand entirely owned by an American company we'd most likely lose out on all Japanese influence on the fiction (no chance of that Trigger-produced anime I dream of) and the fiction would probably fall in line with the likes of modern Marvel; that is, pandering to people who don't even buy the things they want to change, and excluding the existing fanbase.

On the plus side, if this did happen, Hasbro might sell the brand to someone else with an actual idea of what they're doing. And who knows, the death of collector-oriented mainline toys might mean we see a return of CHUG scaled stuff in the 3P realm again.

I mean, I highly doubt this will happen, as this is an article from July and nothing has happened since then, but if it does, the Transformers might finally shed itself of the ball and chain that is Hasbro and their incompetence.

Let’s travel back to 2001 when takara was primarily in control the brand. We got the Unicron trilogy. We got toys that purposely pulled back on articulation like knees and elbows and such with Hasbro asking for certain things included and ignored by takara. Hasbro had to tell takara they wanted Unicron included and takara refused until they final gave in. That was a Hasbro thing. Hasbro is the reason we got that ginormous Unicron that turns into an actual planet and holds all the Minicons.

Let’s talk about animation. Again the Unicron trilogy. Takara was in control and wasn’t wanting to work with Hasbro. The animation was a huge step back and to boot was just sending them episodes without scripts. The American team had to figure out what the hell was going on half the time and rush to get them dubbed and put out. Same thing happened with Energon and is regarded as the worst cartoon ever made becuase of how awful it was done with bad animation and story telling. Again takara not communicating or even sending scripts. Get to cybertron and takara just full on ignored Hasbro and made the show a non continuation of Energon. They just made it a new show which forced Hasbro to add animation of Unicron debris throughout to make it a trilogy and explained stuff.

You really wanna say it’d get worse with Hasbro in control? After the Unicron trilogy we got animated and the aligned universe. You know what takara did to those? They made animated a continuation of the live action movie and turned Bulkhead into Ironhide from the movies and omitted pivotal episodes out becuase japan doesn’t like western show lengths.

Same with prime. Takara just gave up in Prime. Season three and predacons rising was never released so the show in Japan legitimately ended with the autobot base being destroyed and Optimus looking like he died and the autobots lost.

Really wanna day things would be worse with Hasbro in control? Some of us went through takara leadinng the charge and it wasn’t a fun ride.

Randomhero wrote:Dude come on. There was an episode in Armada called jungle where it all took place in a forest and another called Carnival that was actually a circus. Remember the three part premier that was actually a two parter with the third part just being a standard episode that was about building base.

Caminus9000 wrote:*sign* if this happens Hasbro will destroy the entire Masterpiece Movie series before it even started. Either they'll take control on who could be next for release which is the LAST thing we want because all they'll end up giving us is different versions of bumblebee or let their shitty designer (john warden) take over on making them.


TakaraTomy has always taken the initiative of servicing their fans and giving us the best quality of their toys while Hasbro hid in the shadows looking after themselves and constantly neglecting us.

Black Hat wrote:(because if you're watching the vast majority of anime dubbed you're doing it wrong)

It's 2017, you can drop the weeaboo routine. Dubs have come a long ways since the old days when they'd grab anyone that could read off some lines to fill roles, and scripts were cleaned up in hopes of getting a show on Toonami. These days most recording studios wont even talk to you if you don't have at least some theater or radio experience and Toonami only wants grittier, violent shows. That isn't to say there aren't some bad dubs (Sentai really makes some weird casting choices sometimes), but it isn't like Japan hits a home run every time either (Black Clover is unwatchable for me in Japanese).

Black Hat wrote:Yes, instead of unbearable screechy voice acting by no-name "talents" we have the same few studios and actors dubbing everything and injecting unwanted political nonsense into the dialogue for no reason whatsoever. How far we've come!

Yes, there are good dubs, but they're few and far between. And in any case, if you're going to watch something from another country you might as well watch it in the original language. That isn't being a weeaboo, that's just respecting the source material and the culture that birthed it. I wouldn't want to watch Amelie with people dubbing over the French dialogue after all.

RodimusRex wrote:Trying to be positive, here's what I'd imagine:

Emerje wrote:

Black Hat wrote:Yes, instead of unbearable screechy voice acting by no-name "talents" we have the same few studios and actors dubbing everything and injecting unwanted political nonsense into the dialogue for no reason whatsoever. How far we've come!

I honestly don't know what you're talking about. There's a few cases where dubs have gone off the rails, but they're hardly the norm. As far as the same few actors go, Japan does the same thing. Any given season you're going to hear the same dozen or so popular actors pop up. It's a job no matter what country you're in and the better you are at it the more work you get. You probably haven't noticed that all of the English studios have been bolstering their actor stables to help supply the increasing demand for dub streams. Funimation has about tripled their actors for their simuldubs, Sentai has increased and will probably be doing simuldubs on their new HiDive platform once they've built it up enough, and now Netflix is getting in on their own dubs as well.

Yes, there are good dubs, but they're few and far between. And in any case, if you're going to watch something from another country you might as well watch it in the original language. That isn't being a weeaboo, that's just respecting the source material and the culture that birthed it. I wouldn't want to watch Amelie with people dubbing over the French dialogue after all.

I don't know how you can say they're few and far between if you don't watch them to begin with. And watching something in its original language isn't a requirement to enjoy it, nor is it disrespectful. As much as I love the stuff and as much as I spend on it ever month, at the end of the day it's just a factory produced product that's made quite literally by committee to make money. They want you to watch it in whatever language you like best. What they wouldn't want is people telling others how they should watch their anime. Personally I leave all of my options open with paid subscriptions to Crunchyroll, Funimation, HiDive, Hulu, Netflix, Anime Strike/Amazon Prime, and VRV. Some shows I prefer to watch in Japanese, some shows I can only watch in Japanese, and some shows I watch both in Japanese and English if they're good enough, I have that freedom.

BTW, the Japanese dub over western shows and movies as well. Guess they're being disrespectful, too.

RodimusRex wrote:Trying to be positive, here's what I'd imagine:

Yikes! That all sounds just as pessimistic as everyone else. Again, if Hasbro is going to buy Takara Tomy they're going to do it to make money. Transformers is not where TT is losing money, having licenses expire is. Hasbro knows what the Asian market wants and has been releasing TT's collector lines through Hasbro Asia for a long time now. They aren't going to cut costs or reduced supply when they know full well that the market there can sustain it. It's us in the west that they don't trust as collectors after canceling two box sets and shutting down BotCon and the club, somewhere around $1000 in exclusives, and replacing all of that with three Titans Return exclusives worth $68 total (to say nothing of the smaller offerings at SDCC).

Emerje

Randomhero wrote:

Rated X wrote:Im down with a one size fits all worldwide deco if it means "platinum" style figures for everyone and the death of the el cheapo Has-deco. No more off white and grey plastic and non painted hubcaps are a good thing. No more ridiculous prices for 50 cents worth of extra paint is also a good thing. As the Franchise ages and starts to gear more towards lifelong adult fans rather than kids, Hasbro might be influenced by the Japanese to make stuff more collector oriented and gimmick free. The transformers franchise needs more Japanese influence and less influence from corporate middle America.

If takara profits are down like it’s said why the Hell would Hasbro acquire them and say “hey let’s do what they’re doing and focus on grown men who don’t grow up instead of focusing on the broadest audience which kids.” There’s a reason there’s posts every year that shows Hasbro increases every year it ain’t the 20-40 fans that buy toys.

Does nobody here have kids or shop in public? Doe everyone here just click a mouse and have their stuff delivered becuase they’re too sheltered in their home and embarrassed to buy toys in public. Sorry but my best friend is 31 and only shops online becuase he doesn’t like complete strangers seeing him buy toys. I know that’s a thing.

We are not the majority. I’m sorry if you can’t comprehend that but takara focusing on collectors is probably where they got to where they are with this. Doing insanely overpriced takara Mall exclusives, only putting out 20-30 figures a year with transformers and purposely ignoring certain molds becuase they don’t have a backstory from 30 years ago -cough took 2 years to release generations skids cough-

Hasbro’s primary focus is kids. We are the bonus.

Emerje wrote:

Black Hat wrote:Yes, instead of unbearable screechy voice acting by no-name "talents" we have the same few studios and actors dubbing everything and injecting unwanted political nonsense into the dialogue for no reason whatsoever. How far we've come!

I honestly don't know what you're talking about. There's a few cases where dubs have gone off the rails, but they're hardly the norm. As far as the same few actors go, Japan does the same thing. Any given season you're going to hear the same dozen or so popular actors pop up. It's a job no matter what country you're in and the better you are at it the more work you get. You probably haven't noticed that all of the English studios have been bolstering their actor stables to help supply the increasing demand for dub streams. Funimation has about tripled their actors for their simuldubs, Sentai has increased and will probably be doing simuldubs on their new HiDive platform once they've built it up enough, and now Netflix is getting in on their own dubs as well.

Yes, there are good dubs, but they're few and far between. And in any case, if you're going to watch something from another country you might as well watch it in the original language. That isn't being a weeaboo, that's just respecting the source material and the culture that birthed it. I wouldn't want to watch Amelie with people dubbing over the French dialogue after all.

I don't know how you can say they're few and far between if you don't watch them to begin with. And watching something in its original language isn't a requirement to enjoy it, nor is it disrespectful. As much as I love the stuff and as much as I spend on it ever month, at the end of the day it's just a factory produced product that's made quite literally by committee to make money. They want you to watch it in whatever language you like best. What they wouldn't want is people telling others how they should watch their anime. Personally I leave all of my options open with paid subscriptions to Crunchyroll, Funimation, HiDive, Hulu, Netflix, Anime Strike/Amazon Prime, and VRV. Some shows I prefer to watch in Japanese, some shows I can only watch in Japanese, and some shows I watch both in Japanese and English if they're good enough, I have that freedom.
exclusives worth $68 total (to say nothing of the smaller offerings at SDCC).

Emerje

o.supreme wrote:Also, are there any other distributors for Transformers in the world market besides & ? I know GiG used to distribute in Italy back in the Original Series era...not sure about now. How about South America? The Middle East? Africa? (not sure if some of those places even have Transformers...but if they do, who distributes them??)