The History of Transformers

Our world today is now going bionic. In fact, this is evident in the past couple of years where futuristic sounds, high-tech gadgets as well as ultramodern infrastructure are favorably doing well. Not only that, as the Transformers live-action film series that’s based on the toy line was also released in this era. Simply put, now is the Transformers’ generation.

Yet before we go back to the future, it is important that we should primarily go back to basics first and see how the Transformers did back in the day before the time began, and up to the present time.

Actually, Transformer toys were the result of a joint effort between Hasbro, Takara, and the comic book writers Jim Shooter and Denny O'Neil, who worked for Marvel Comics. The toy line was originally created and produced by Japanese company Takara Tomy which is formerly Takara and branded it as Diaclone and Microman.

In 1984, Transformers had invaded the US toy industry by bringing together the naming skill from the comics, the marketing from Hasbro and the toy line from Takara. Also in the same year, Hasbro bought the distribution rights to the Diaclone and Microman toy lines and rebranded them as the Transformers in order for them to distribute it in North America.

Hasbro would go on to buy the entire toy line from Takara shortly after giving them sole ownership of the Transformers toy-line, branding rights, and copyrights, while in exchange, Takara was given the rights to manufacture the toys and the rights to distribute them in the Japanese market.

If truth be told, the Transformers toy line is typically divided into two main factions: the heroic Autobots and their opponents, the evil Decepticons. On the other hand, Decepticons are also called Destron or Deathtron in the Japanese version of the franchise. Transformers toys are sold at numerous price points, and various Transformers series make use of distinctive play features.

Today, Transformers toy line has already expanded into different aspects: from toy lines to animated film and TV series, to comic books, and even up to live-action film series. When you come right down to it, there’s no stopping Transformers in invading the mainstream using the present-day media and merchandising. In fact, they’ve done it for about 25 years now.