The toys of the Transformers Part1

 Hello everyone! My influenza was cured. Please be careful of your health condition continuously.
Then today's blogging theme is the "Toys" of the Transformers. toys are well-known and sold in lots of countries, so this is the very important element of the Transformers' media.
I'll introduce the toys' origin, history, variety and some secret stories for two weeks.
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 Last week, I talked about the beginning of the toys of Transformers.
 Even the toys of first generation surprised people in those days, the technology of toys has been improving now. Then let's trace the evolution of technology of toys using only the same character "Optimus Prime", the leader of the Autobots. Please compare these three generations of toys.

Optimus Prime (Generation 1)

[1] Optimus Prime (Generation 1)

 This is the first series of the toys.(This toy on picture is the reproduced edition.) This series started to be sold at 1986. The robot mode has fewer movable joints than recent toys, so the posing variation is limited and awkward a little. The arms, legs, knees move to one direction.
And because of simple transforming gimmick, even the robot mode remains the shape of vehicle mode especially the front part.
But the image of animation is reproduced  faithfully. The part of container also transforms to repair base.

One of the features of Transformers' toy is "Every characters can be the leading." In the animation, in fact, not only the leader but every character used to be main character. So this factor make the viewers want to collect many kinds of toys.

                                                                                   




                                                                             






[2] Optimus Prime (Masterpiece)

 This series is an attempt to remake the old toys by resent technology, called the "Masterpiece".    
Compared with Generation 1, we can see the    
joints are suppler than former one. The proportion got better.

 [3] Optimus Prime (movie series)
This series started in 2007, the year the Hollywood movie started showing. And this design is same as the character in the movie.
The modeling became more detailed.
The "ball joint" made the very smooth and free movement . The ball joints are a ball and a concave parts like this;
↑↓−●)−↑↓ 　＝ (−●　＋　)−)
The ball joints are used most of toys now.

And there are more gimmicks and devices in it.
We can't image the another mode easily because the gimmicks became more complex. Therefore the difficulty of transforming got higher.

From 2000, the American company of toys "HASBRO" which tied up with TAKARATOMY (≒TAKARA) has taken the initiative of planning and promotion. And the Japanese company has taken the part of design of toys.

Today's blogging is over. 

Thank you for reading!