Takara

How charmingly naive.

With the profits of the plastic potato and their iconic G.I. Joe line, Hasbro execs stormed the Japanese toy market and licensed two Takara lines of transforming mecha, Diaclone, transforming vehicles and jet fighters, and Micro Change, transforming household objects, including a microcassette recorder and a semi-automatic pistol.

The entire grand Manichean epic of Autobots and Decepticons is merely a backstory cooked up by Marvel comic writers like Jim Shooter and Bob Budiansky, explicitly designed to explain to American children why a heroic semi-truck was locked in a million-year cosmic war against a sentient Walther P38 handgun and a microcassette recorder.

The entire Transformers mythos, from the original toy line via the Marvel UK writer Simon Furman, turning the whole thing into a theological epic, through to the Michael Bay blockbusters, was simply the cover story for a cross-media marketing psyop.

A city-flattening, battleship-eating monster.

And in 1986, Takara and Hasbro gave us exactly that.

After giving us cars and cassette tapes in 1984 and dinosaurs and combiners in 1985, Hasbro and Takara set their sights on a staple of almost every 80s toyline.

The playset.

Battle stations.

And for some reason, no purple.

I mean, Trypticon without purple? Now who in the world approved that? 1998, Beast Wars 2, Gigastorm.

Not Trypticon per se, but essentially the same toy, dusted off by Takara for its Japan-only Beast Wars sequel.

But anyway, next to that crowd, I would think that the long neck and the spike tail are fighting over fourth place at best.

So back in 1983, Takara took its Diaclone line into prehistory with a sub line called Dinosaur Robo.

Robot dinosaurs built to fight evil invaders, each one piloted by a tiny driver who sat in a cockpit in the robot's chest.

Sludge was Dinosaur Robo number three, the Brontosaurus, and Snarl was number four, the Stegosaurus.

The only exception, their leader, Grimlock, 'cause I mean, him Grimlock king.

One fun bit of trivia, even after heading to the US as Dinobots, their designs lived on in Japan.

Takara used them as the basis for villain henchmen in the 1990 anime Brave Exkaiser.

Thunder Geist was basically Sludge, and Armor Geist was basically Snarl.

And then Battle Arena, Toshinden, Toshinden 2, Toshinden 3 are all going to be coming back.

These were fighting games by Takara for the PlayStation.

And you'll be able to play them on the modern platform.

So still has the same, you have the same screen multiplayer and butt monkeys.

G.I. Joe created Transformers.

Exactly, and we s- uh, ha- was it Hasbro sold the molds to Takara, and they cast them in clear plastic and put engines and motors and other things in them and made Hinshig-

Little, little, little dudes?

Hinshig?