Anywho, I've always heard that Takara didn't like the idea of Beast Wars..so they just brought it over grudgingly. Perhaps the quality of the Japanese dubbing was a reflection of this?

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If they disliked Beast Wars, they HATED Beast Machines. Apparently the commentary track on the Japanese DVDs of Beast Machines features the Japanese voice actors ripping on the show constantly :tflaugh

I don't get Spongebob. How can the FCC allow a children's show where the main character's pants keep falling off?

Anywho, I've always heard that Takara didn't like the idea of Beast Wars..so they just brought it over grudgingly. Perhaps the quality of the Japanese dubbing was a reflection of this?

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If they disliked Beast Wars, they HATED Beast Machines. Apparently the commentary track on the Japanese DVDs of Beast Machines features the Japanese voice actors ripping on the show constantly :tflaugh

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Although, I thought I heard it garnered pretty good ratings when it aired over there last year.

I don't get Spongebob. How can the FCC allow a children's show where the main character's pants keep falling off?

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because he's a sponge, duh :tflaugh

Okay, as someone who was actually living in Japan when Beast Wars came out, I never got the feeling that Takara was 'grudgingly' releasing Beast Wars... in fact, when I returned to Australia, I had to adjust to the shock of Hasbro's relative lack of effort in marketing BW here. Things that Takara did above Hasbro included:

+ IMO, much nicer looking packaging - Takara's box art looked better than Hasbro's to me, and they had toy battle dioramas on the back.

+ Better promotion of the Transformers name/logo. In the early days of BW, Hasbro tried to minimise the impact of the Transformers logo on packaging - the BEAST WARS logo was in huge dominant font with 'transformers' written in itty-bitty G2 font on the bottom right corner. The word "Transformers" was far more visible on the Takara packaging.

+ BW figures were available individually or in versus sets.

+ All BW figures came with fold out catalogues, strongly promoting the rest of the line.

+ The volcano playset!! :D

+ Exclusive merchandise such as Shadow Panther, CD-ROM Versus Pack etc.

+ Employing high-profile voice actors for the dub, including Koyasu Takehito, Chiba Shigeru, Takagi Wataru, Iwanaga Tetsuya and Yamaguchi Kappei. That's right... the voice of male Ranma and Inuyasha was also the voice of Rattrap, and Airazar was Street Fighter's Ken! Airazar, SHORYUKEN!!

+ Just as in the West, Japan's Transfandom was also rebirthed by Beast Wars - with the first BotCon Japan being held the same year that BW was released by Takara.

 

That is one of the things I do not like from BW. The characters are cool and I understand they used "classic" names as a form of tribute to their ancestors, but I would have prefered them to have completely new names. At least they are not G1 Megatron and Opitmus. That would be taking the reincarnation thing too far!  huffermad.gif

I agree, but the names are Hasbro's decision, not Mainframe's.

 

In fact, I still wish that Hasbro would give up the G1 name tribute thing now and try to invent good original names for their characters. I dislike the fact that every year, the faction leaders have to be named Optimus Prime and Megatron/Galvatron. Far out. Other G1 leader names like Rodimus, Ultra Magnus, Scorponok, Thunderwing, Bludgeon and even Jhiaxus have been reused as name tributes too, but not as faction leaders. Energon Scorponok came close though... it's a shame he had to be replaced by Energon... Megatron... nuh...

 

Even if all Hasbro did was produce leader names with the same "Prime" and "-tron" suffixes, it would still be preferable to what we have now because at least it shows a half-arsed level of creativity, as opposed to no effort at all. At least Takara is willing to but this level of effort in with each line featuring a different Convoy (Convoy, Grand Convoy, Galaxy Convoy) and tron (Megatron, Galvatron, Master Megatron). No, they're not the most fantastic names, but like I said, a half-arsed effort is better than no effort at all.

 

And Hasbro needs to put some effort and thought into their TF names, since they are marketing their TFs towards a dominantly English speaking market. Some of Takara's names may sound strange, but as discussed in the Cybertron continuity thread, Takara's market are not English speakers - they only need to create names that sound good to their market of non-English speakers. Hasbro has done a similar thing with Kobushi... that wouldn't work as a TF name in Japan. Maybe as a TF's function, but not as a name.

Okay, as someone who was actually living in Japan when Beast Wars came out, I never got the feeling that Takara was 'grudgingly' releasing Beast Wars... in fact, when I returned to Australia, I had to adjust to the shock of Hasbro's relative lack of effort in marketing BW here. Things that Takara did above Hasbro included:

+ IMO, much nicer looking packaging - Takara's box art looked better than Hasbro's to me, and they had toy battle dioramas on the back.

+ Better promotion of the Transformers name/logo. In the early days of BW, Hasbro tried to minimise the impact of the Transformers logo on packaging - the BEAST WARS logo was in huge dominant font with 'transformers' written in itty-bitty G2 font on the bottom right corner. The word "Transformers" was far more visible on the Takara packaging.

+ BW figures were available individually or in versus sets.

+ All BW figures came with fold out catalogues, strongly promoting the rest of the line.

+ The volcano playset!! :D

+ Exclusive merchandise such as Shadow Panther, CD-ROM Versus Pack etc.

+ Employing high-profile voice actors for the dub, including Koyasu Takehito, Chiba Shigeru, Takagi Wataru, Iwanaga Tetsuya and Yamaguchi Kappei. That's right... the voice of male Ranma and Inuyasha was also the voice of Rattrap, and Airazar was Street Fighter's Ken! Airazar, SHORYUKEN!!

+ Just as in the West, Japan's Transfandom was also rebirthed by Beast Wars - with the first BotCon Japan being held the same year that BW was released by Takara.

 

That is one of the things I do not like from BW. The characters are cool and I understand they used "classic" names as a form of tribute to their ancestors, but I would have prefered them to have completely new names. At least they are not G1 Megatron and Opitmus. That would be taking the reincarnation thing too far!  huffermad.gif

I agree, but the names are Hasbro's decision, not Mainframe's.

 

In fact, I still wish that Hasbro would give up the G1 name tribute thing now and try to invent good original names for their characters. I dislike the fact that every year, the faction leaders have to be named Optimus Prime and Megatron/Galvatron. Far out. Other G1 leader names like Rodimus, Ultra Magnus, Scorponok, Thunderwing, Bludgeon and even Jhiaxus have been reused as name tributes too, but not as faction leaders. Energon Scorponok came close though... it's a shame he had to be replaced by Energon... Megatron... nuh...

 

Even if all Hasbro did was produce leader names with the same "Prime" and "-tron" suffixes, it would still be preferable to what we have now because at least it shows a half-arsed level of creativity, as opposed to no effort at all. At least Takara is willing to but this level of effort in with each line featuring a different Convoy (Convoy, Grand Convoy, Galaxy Convoy) and tron (Megatron, Galvatron, Master Megatron). No, they're not the most fantastic names, but like I said, a half-arsed effort is better than no effort at all.

 

And Hasbro needs to put some effort and thought into their TF names, since they are marketing their TFs towards a dominantly English speaking market. Some of Takara's names may sound strange, but as discussed in the Cybertron continuity thread, Takara's market are not English speakers - they only need to create names that sound good to their market of non-English speakers. Hasbro has done a similar thing with Kobushi... that wouldn't work as a TF name in Japan. Maybe as a TF's function, but not as a name.

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The problem is that if Hasbro does not use the names Optimus Prime and Megatron they would lose the copy right. So they really do not have any other choice though they could reuse the names in a different way.

 

And I think there are plenty of neat names in Cybertron. It is not easy coming with names when there are so many Transformers already.  :tftongue

There's also some goofy names in Cybertron... though none as cool as SIGNAL LANCER!

True. true.

 

But they can't all be winners. And I do not mind a goofy name that much. A goofy colorscheme on a Megatron I do mind which is why I am not fond of GF Megatron.

 

No offense but Signal Lancer is not the greatest name either.

The problem is that if Hasbro does not use the names Optimus Prime and Megatron they would lose the copy right. So they really do not have any other choice though they could reuse the names in a different way.

The fact that Hasbro released three Megatrons and seven Optimus Primes in 2004 alone is just a bit of an overkill in terms of protecting the copyright on those names. You only need to release one toy with that name within a certain period...

 

The main line faction leaders could easily be assigned new original names, and Hasbro could just release some other peripheral figures like Spychangers or repaints and sell them as Optimus Prime and Megatron for that year. Until Beast Wars, Habro survived 11 years of Transformers without needing to release half a dozen Optimus Primes and Megatrons each year. In fact, by 1995 Hasbro had released "only" 10 Optimus Primes (original, Pepsi, Decoy, PM, AM, Classic, G2, Hero, Laser, Gobot) and 6 Megatrons (original, Decoy, AM, G2, Hero, Gobot). Copyrights don't expire that quickly... you have to be neglecting a name for several years for it to expire on you. With the movie coming out next year, we know that the names will be used again and the copyright secured then... the BW reissue line has also maintained the Optimus and Megatron names, as will most likely the Classic Neo line and Titanium series.

 

With so many Optimus Primes and Megatrons already being produced each year, I don't think we really need yet another Optimus Prime and Megatron for the "main" TF line (e.g.: Cybertron).

 

So I'm not against Hasbro using the names altogether, I just think that they could stand to tone it down and give some new original names a chance. :)

 

Bring on Sentinel Prime!! I also think that the name "Gigatron" could work very well in Hasbro markets.

True. true.

 

But they can't all be winners. And I do not mind a goofy name that much. A goofy colorscheme on a Megatron I do mind which is why I am not fond of GF Megatron.

 

No offense but Signal Lancer is not the greatest name either.

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Dude... I was being sarcastic.  :tftongue