Trigger teams up with top-talent studios and Bump of Chicken for a 40-year love letter to the entire Transformers franchise.
Transformers
The director speaks to us about the film and how elements of Japanese culture have influenced him.
Autobot world leaders…roll out!
The latest edition of Japan’s bi-annual Wonder Festival brought out both male and female cosplayers, plus Sailor Moon figurines, which are well-known stalwarts of any good event celebrating anime and the creative arts. But what about the actual handmade models that put the wonder into the festival?
Amateur hobbyists converge at the event to display and sell unique goods, resulting in an array of never-before-seen models and items that can’t be found anywhere else. From ramen kewpie dolls to seductive vegetables, we’ve got photos of the most imaginative and eye-popping goods you’ll see this season.
Toymaker Takara Tomy took the previous console rivalry of Sega Genesis (known as Mega Drive in Japan) and Sony‘s PlayStation One and literally transformed it. The seemingly run-of-the-mill replicas are actually Transformers. The PSOne turns into the Autobot’s leader Optimus Prime while the Genesis turns into the Decepticon’s Megatron. Both figures were on display at earlier this month at the Summer Hobby Maker Joint Products Exhibition.
So it’s the 30th anniversary of the Transformers, the 20th anniversary of the original PlayStation, and TakaraTomy Arts is the bolder, crazier cousin of the legendary Japanese toymaker TakaraTomy (who distribute Transformer toys in Japan).
What do these three things have in common? Well, TakaraTomy Arts apparently saw that the venerable console and the adored-before-a-certain-Hollywood-filmmaker-destroyed-it cartoon robot franchise were both celebrating a milestone and decided to commemorate it the only logical way: By combining the two into a new badass toy.
I never really felt much about Michael Bay one way or another until he started in on Transformers. Michael, sir, we may share the same first name and I may be willing to enjoy the casual racism and over-the-top violence of your earlier works, but when you start messing around with my childhood… That’s where I draw the line.
Transformers may have never been anything more than a glorified 30-minute toy commercial with a loosely cohesive story arc at its best, but to my child brain, it was my glorified toy commercial…with ROBOTS!
While Michael Bay may have had a field day, and earned literal truckloads of money, destroying my childhood, a Malaysian fan had the incredibly bright idea of using actual Transformers toys to make an awesome stop-motion homage to the venerable 80’s classic.
Okay, so the type of pen that you use in your daily routine may not be the most important detail in your life. But when you have a fun and attractive pen to write with, it helps to make your day just a little bit brighter, doesn’t it? In that spirit, we’ve already introduced you to a line of lovely Sailor Moon pens in one of our past articles, but this time, we’ve found some pens that may be a delight for those of you more into the robot/mecha genre. They’re Transformers pens, and yes, they actually change shapes — so Transformers fans, get ready to “transform and roll out” the letters!
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