Things you never realised about Transformers (toys etc)

[UltimateGalvatron]

Sorry I thought you meant from 2013 BACK to Beast Machines

[SuspectimusPrime]

The trademark for Beast Hunters may very well have expired considering, if it was ever filed at all. Even if they had filed it, TFPBH came out in 2013, and let's assume that the trademark was filed in 2012, that's still a good thirteen year gap. Surely any trademark would've expired by then. We didn't see Hasbro using the Beast Hunters name at any time between 1999-2013 so there doesn't appear to be any sign of them maintaining the trademark through usage. I suspect that the homage was done more out of opportunity.

Digressing here. They should be able to register them for 10-year periods, and even if after the trademark's expired, if it is unused by any other company then the original company has a choice of renewing it. Fees are usually involved, but they are negligible (at least in Australia) compared against the ridiculous 7 month waiting period of lodging a whole new trademark.

[UltraMarginal]

Digressing here. They should be able to register them for 10-year periods, and even if after the trademark's expired, if it is unused by any other company then the original company has a choice of renewing it. Fees are usually involved, but they are negligible (at least in Australia) compared against the ridiculous 7 month waiting period of lodging a whole new trademark.

That's quite interesting, hardly a digression, thank you.

[GoktimusPrime]

Digressing here. They should be able to register them for 10-year periods, and even if after the trademark's expired, if it is unused by any other company then the original company has a choice of renewing it. Fees are usually involved, but they are negligible (at least in Australia) compared against the ridiculous 7 month waiting period of lodging a whole new trademark.

C'est trés possible mon ami. In which case, glad to see Hasbro finally using that trademark.

[Handsprime]

As seen in the Action Pose thread, Cybertron Metroplex does in fact, have a city mode. While it isn't offical (and it only kinda resembles a city), it can be a good place to put your mini-cons on.

[griffin]

After seeing a group photo of the Q-Transformers toys in packaging, I didn't realise that they are a mix and match of Hasbro and TakaraTomy names in English on the packaging, but they all have the TakaraTomy names underneath in Japanese... and it doesn't seem to make much sense (to me).

The "Gen1" Bumblebee is labelled in English as Bumble, Sideswipe is labelled as Lambor... however, the "Gen1" Red Alert is not called Alert in English, Jazz is not called Meister, and Hot Rod is not called Hot Rodimus. And yet, the Japanese name is on the packaging in Katakana.

Why not have all the English names be their Hasbro names if they are different instead of just half of them, or have all of the Japanese names be the Hasbro names in katakana if they are different to the TakaraTomy names.

[Bladestorm]

I don't know why they do the strange inconsistent naming either but they have already used "Optimus" and "Optimus Prime" in the QT series thus far, so perhaps they are trying to avoid "english" confusion by calling the G1 version Convoy (and that's what he was called in the original 84 Japanese version right? so it would make sense)


Similarly they've used Bumblebee with the Age of Extinction version so perhaps they want each vehicle to have it's own unique "english" name?

[griffin]

The influence of the Movies has indeed been affecting other non-Movie Transformers lately in Japan, but some of these were using their TakaraTomy names in English, while others were using Hasbro names in English... and I have a feeling that QT-19 will have "Convoy" on the packaging to differentiate it from the Optimus and Optimus Prime in your photo.
That in itself could be a reason for Optimus and Bumblebee (to have different names on each toy for Retailers & buyers to differentiate between toys that have the same character name), but the other ones I listed in my earlier post are the only toy of that character name... so that's not a consistent reason.

[GoktimusPrime]

Remember that the English language in Japan is mostly decorative. Most people in Japan don't speak English and wouldn't pay much attention to it. It's similar to how Hasbro (USA) uses the Japanese word for 'masterpiece' (傑作; kessaku) on their recent MP packaging despite the fact that most Anglophones don't speak Japanese, and also despite the fact that Masterpiece Transformers are never called kessaku in Japanese -- it's only ever called マスターピース (masutaapiisu: Masterpiece); if you look at any Japanese MP toy, they use only ever use the English word "Masterpiece" and never the Japanese word "kessaku." But both sides are doing this to give a foreign exotic appeal to their products.

Images
TakaraTOMY MP -- notice how "Masterpiece" is written in English or Katakana (masutaapiisu):
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-txFd5Fd_sk...ng%2BFront.JPG
http://static.seibertron.com/images/...9_mp23%201.PNG
http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/...path-prefix=es
http://static.seibertron.com/images/...cc8cb0e186.jpg
http://intl.rakuten-static.com/t/9db...5056b7016d.jpg
Hasbro MP -- notice that the Japanese word 「傑作」 (kessaku) is used:
http://news.toyark.com/wp-content/up...oundwave-1.jpg
http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-...1398782759.jpg
http://www.actionfigurefury.com/wp-c...-sdcc-2013.jpg
http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-...1398955859.jpg
http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-...1406334294.jpg

Last year I saw someone wearing this shirt -- 'glass stain' style image of Megatron with the Latin expression pax per tyrannis; an attempt at saying "Peace through tyranny" in Latin. But it's grammatically incorrect, as it's using the nominative case of 'tyrannis,' instead of the accusative case; thus the correct translation is pax per tyrannidem. I pointed this out to the person wearing the shirt -- he had a chuckle, but otherwise wasn't fussed by it. There's a group of Resident Evil Umbrella Corps cosplayers whose uniforms all have the word "Umbrella" incorrectly written as アンブしラ社 (Umbshilla Corps); evidently whoever made the logo confused the Hiragana character 'shi' (し) for the Katakana character for 're' (レ). I pointed this out to some of these Cosplayers, and again, they laughed it off but didn't really care. I also used to train with a Karate teacher whose name was also written incorrectly in Japanese on his black belt; I won't use his actual name, but it'd be the equivalent of a guy named "Bob" having his name written as "Bab" on his black belt. When I pointed this out to him, he was amazed... but didn't go ask for his black belt embroidery to be redone.

And that's pretty much how most Japanese people feel about English -- if you point out that something may be incorrect, ultimately, most won't care. The language use is ornamental, nothing more. I'm not saying that I agree or approve of this, but it's what it is.

What I find more interesting are:
* Bluestreak -- he's actually called ブルーストリーク ("Bluestreak") instead of just 'Streak', which is his Japanese G1 name. It seems that the toy is based on Binaltech Bluestreak. I don't think it's a trademark issue, as TakaraTOMY used the name 'Streak' for the Masterpiece toy, so I'd say it's directly based off the BT figure.
* Jazz -- is called オートボットマイスター ("Autobot Meister") instead of just 'Meister.' This suggests that TakaraTOMY may have lost the trademark to the name 'Meister,' and has thus tacked 'Autobot' in front of it. This certainly isn't the first time that this has happened -- Henkei Inferno is called サイバートロンインフェルノ ("Cybertron Inferno"), and Henkei Octane is called デストロンオクトーン ("Destron Octone"; bearing in mind that "Octone" is Octane's JP G1 name).

[GoktimusPrime]

Generations Gears... his instructions show photos of Generations Swerve, and got a Decepticon purple background!
http://www.transformerland.com/image...ions-68500.jpg