Originally Posted by KidDynamite

Notes from the panel:


- Panel included Aaron Archer from Hasbro, Greg Lombardo from Hasbro Marketing, and Yokei-san (hope I got that right) who has been with Takara since the 70īs
- Hasbro and Takara teams meet face to face 4-6 times a year and are in daily contact by phone
- In the 80īs Yokei-san had to move to Rhode Island for a year to assist with the launch of Transformers in the US because email and fax was not in widespread use yet and everything had to be communicated by phone or mail.
- models are created in Japan
- color schemes are designed in the US
- Takara and Hasbro work together on animation
- thereīs always a struggle between marketing being happy and the designers being happy
- very early Energon design ideas were shown, showing the idea behind combination
- early Energon story ideas were shown
- many early G1 designs were shown
- early G1 Prowl and Jazz sketches were shown...Prowl was originally a yellow sports car
- an early design for what would become Metroplex was an Easter Island inspired design...lots of grass and rocks and statue heads. Transformed from an island to a Macross inspired ship to a robot.
- early Megatron design, looked a bit like Browning
- several early G1 Optimus Prime designs were shown. Yokei-san also shared a story about how the toy came about as a collaborative effort by several designers who had to pick up the slack when one designer was not doing his work on time
- no comment on Takara-Tomy merger
- Lucky Draw in US wonīt happen..too hard to arrange. Theyīre still trying to work out the details of the fan-designed figure contest mentioned a year ago
- They are looking into doing more Masterpiece items, have several ideas, but arenīt ready to comment yet
- Japanese reissues are chosen based on what molds they can find. Mirage is definately gone, as is Wheeljack. Theyīve looked.
- Energon product was hard to find at the end of the line for several reasons. For larger figures, there was too much old product still at retail. For smaller figures the line had not been selling well early and then started selling well towards the end and Hasbro couldnīt pick up production fast enough to meet demand. Also, stores donīt like to order much towards the end of a line.
- It was asked whether Hasbro asks car companies for licenses or vice versa; answer was a little bit of both.
- Astrotrain is the only future reissue Hasbro has planned and is basically only coming out because it was already done when TRU wanted to stop the line.
- As an example of how hard it is to keep G1 molds in good shape, they shared that the RID Car Bros molds are GONE, worn out from too much use. They cannot be done again. And those were used as recently as a year ago, so imagine how hard it is to find 20 year old molds in good shape.
- There was a bit of conflict back in the 80īs over the idea of making the robots sentient aliens; Takara designers preferred the Diaclone idea of mech suits.
- It was asked whether the Speed Planet toys were designed to roll well as a design feature; answer was yes.
- They havenīt started on the movie line; the time cycle is shorter on movie toys
- Hasbro has little influence on the story of the movie
- The next line wonīt be until after the movie line and they havenīt started working on it yet
- There probably wonīt be large giftset reissues in the US, but theyīre keeping the option open in case a retailer asks
- No WSTF in the US due to safety issues
- Archer does the tech specs, said it was hard because kids like strong characters so he canīt give low scores much.
- Forrest Lee writes all the packaging bios.

Keep checking back for panel updates, weīre having at least one person at all of them.