Thursday, December 7th, 2017 9:20am CST

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Through a variety of sources, we have what may or may not be placeholder images (but probably not, given the actual finalised source) for Takara Tomy's take on the third part of the Prime Wars Trilogy toyline: Transformers Power of The Prime (the added 'the/za' is newly confirmed)! The images are found on both Amazon.co.jp and via the web page for Dengeki Hobby Magazine.We're mirroring below what we have so far from the line, but it appears that the shift from Legends to its own line also carries a lack of differences in decoration between Hasbro and Takara Tomy's releases - at least given these initial looks. Check out the images below, spanning from PP-01 Micronus to PP-09 Optimus Prime, and let us know what you think in the Energon Pub discussion board!

This article was last modified on Thursday, December 7th, 2017 9:21am CST

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PO up at Amiami alreadyRoughly around $ 67.00 (Y 7560)for Optimus and Rodimus Leader class.Y 5330 or about $ 47.00As for the "final form" or the products looking differently from the domestic release, some of you are already jumping to conclusion!More or less, the leader class will be released domestically by the end of the month. The Takara revs have at least 5 more months (May 2018) for their debut. Lot's of thing can still happen. Iirc, same thing for the previous releases, the Hb images will serve a space holders until the ACTUAL images of the products are released.Doesn't bother me anyway so long as they are available (ebay has Optimus at around $87.00).

PO up at Amiami alreadyRoughly around $ 67.00 (Y 7560) with TAX for Optimus and Rodimus Leader class. As for the "final form" or the products looking differently from the domestic release, some of you are already jumping to conclusion!More or less, the leader class will be released domestically by the end of the month. The Takara revs have at least 5 more months (May 2018) for their debut. Lot's of thing can still happen. Iirc, same thing for the previous releases, the Hb images will serve a space holders until the ACTUAL images of the products are released.Doesn't bother me anyway so long as they are available (ebay has Optimus at around $87.00).

More like the White Knight. When was the last time Takara used Hasbro products for their own stock images? These aren't the same pictures as the ones released by Hasbro, these are official Takara releases with different product shots. The only time I remember this happening is at toy shows but only after they've released stock photos of their products or in a case like Unite Warriors Defensor where they had one image of the Hasbro version with groove on it but even that was accompanied by pictures of their own version.

PO up at Amiami alreadyRoughly around $ 67.00 (Y 7560) with TAX for Optimus and Rodimus Leader class. As for the "final form" or the products looking differently from the domestic release, some of you are already jumping to conclusion!More or less, the leader class will be released domestically by the end of the month. The Takara revs have at least 5 more months (May 2018) for their debut. Lot's of thing can still happen. Iirc, same thing for the previous releases, the Hb images will serve a space holders until the ACTUAL images of the products are released.Doesn't bother me anyway so long as they are available (ebay has Optimus at around $87.00).

PO up at Amiami alreadyRoughly around $ 67.00 (Y 7560) with TAX for Optimus and Rodimus Leader class. As for the "final form" or the products looking differently from the domestic release, some of you are already jumping to conclusion!More or less, the leader class will be released domestically by the end of the month. The Takara revs have at least 5 more months (May 2018) for their debut. Lot's of thing can still happen. Iirc, same thing for the previous releases, the Hb images will serve a space holders until the ACTUAL images of the products are released.Doesn't bother me anyway so long as they are available (ebay has Optimus at around $87.00).

Yes and no. My wish was for the cheaper Hasbro decos to be dropped in favor of more premium takara style decos. Not for Takara to start cheaping out. But as you get to the post sunbow era of G1, the deco differences between cartoon and toy accuray shrinks incredibly. That doesnt play well for Takaras normal business strategy. With optimus prime being the exception, what could takara really have done to make them different and ask more money? Maybe hydra and buster will end up getting their signature red paint, but what can they really do for the others? Maybe diaclone dinobots, although diaclone is not really Transformers cartoon wise. Just a shame we cant get a version of the poor mans MP-10 with blue fists and some silver paint. The good thing about this though is that us takara collectors will save tons of money this year. Cant complain about that. I dont give a crap about japanese boxes. 90% of them end up in the recycling bin.

Here are my feelings on the matter:



1) 9 times out of 10, these are placeholder images of Hasbro product until Takara has their designs finalized. Trypticon was a (very big) exception to this rule this past year, but it may yet be a one-off event and not a developing trend. Things were business as usual right afterwards when Transformers Legends ended it's half-year hiatus. That is to say, we continued to get Legends products with altered (and in many instances, superior) paint jobs.



2) Even if Takara is going to make Power of the Prime (sic) a direct Hasbro import, yes, I'll be disappointed somewhat, but I'll also be a bit relieved. If Takara offers no differences in product whatsoever, I'll be happy to buy the Hasbro versions locally at a lower cost and months sooner as well.



3) Let's see what happens with a possible relaunch of the dormant Unite Warriors line. Takara may be concentrating more on that going forward, as a bulk of what is new and interesting in Hasbro's Power of the Primes line is very much a continuation of Combiner Wars (and therefore Unite Warriors). Takara's Power of the Prime line up may just be the few things that don't fit with the combiner motif, such as the Prime Masters/Pretenders, some legends scale figures, the leaders, and odd deluxes without a real combiner team, like Jazz. Most of what hasn't been announced yet for Takara's Power of the Prime line so far are Deluxes and especially Voyagers with obvious (combiner) team affiliations. I find it hard to imagine that Takara wouldn't at LEAST give their Dinobots blue eyes, if not red helmets for Slag and Swoop. What we have seen so far announced for Takara's version of PotP, as far as Hasbro decos go, is pretty good already (save for the stickers on the leader figures).

Posted by Wolfman Jake on December 7th, 2017 @ 11:17am CST