Kobayashi: Meister was made as an example for our discussion about manufacturing costs. We had applied for license permission just in case, but basically it was never meant to be. The Corvette we made next was under the supervision of Takashi Kunihiro, and we continued its development under the assumption we would be granted the license. However, at the very last stage, we were denied permission and were forced to store it away for the time being.

Bumble [Bumblebee] was the character we made after that. We had planned for it to be both Bumble and Cliff [Cliffjumper], and even drew up blueprints and character designs. Unfortunately, by that stage we could not get the license as smoothly as we were hoping and had to store that design away too.

For us, we had wanted to choose models according to the designs of the earlier lines, but in reality, we often weren't able to. We understand that many of the fans were disappointed, but then, so were we. There was even a case where we were given permission verbally but were told "No" at the very last minute, right after we'd finished the prototype. There were numerous difficulties.