When Hasbro decided to release Transformers in America, they bought out remaining stock from Japan and repackaged them in American boxes. The initial releases in the States had the Takara company name written on the toys and were released without the Hasbro logo and the soon to be trademarked Proof of Authenticity sticker ("rub sticker").
The Transformers toy line was a huge success. According to Frederik L. Schodt, "Transformers...reaped $100 million in their frist year to become the most successful toy introduction ever" (p. 156 'Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics', 1986). The Transformers maintained this success long enough to pump out six years worth of action figures, exclusive mail aways, the highly successful cartoons, the Transformers Movie, books, the Marval (UK and US) comics, as well as tonnes of licensed items.
As mentioned earlier, the Transformers originated from Japan. The Japanese Tranformers were different and they had exclusive television shows, such as The Headmasters, Chojin Masterforce and Victory. They also released a few Transformers OVAs such as Scramble City and Zone.
However, the Transformers eventually failed.
The cartoon was cancelled after it's forth season (which only contained three episodes). The Japanese series "Transformers Zone" was cancelled, so the first episode had to be released as an OVA. The comic book version was beginning to dwindle in sales and many fans considered that the toy line was losing its uniqueness and originality. There were also many other toy lines that began to strongly compete with the Transformers' popularity (like TMNT). All these factors eventually lead to the cancellation of the Transformers in 1990.
In 1992, Hasbro attempted to revive the Transformers phenomenom with the release of the "Transformers Generation 2", such as the Dinobots, Optimus Prime, Jazz, Sideswipe and many others. They also brought back their original die-cast metal materials (which is rare for the 90s since this metal is quite expensive). They also released some original Generation 2 figures and sets such as Colour Changers, Rotor Force, etc. These original designs were not very popular though. The old Generation 1 TV show was re-released with a computer generated theme sequence, and transitional graphics and dubbed "Transformers: Generation 2". This was broadcasted on major networks. Marvel comics also produced a G2 comic series which lasted for 12 issues. Around the third year, sales began to decline and the G2 line ended around 1995.
In 1996, Hasbro had merged with Kenner, and they created a whole new concept for the Transformers...the Autobots and Decepticons were replaced with Maximals and Predacons. They no longer transformed into vehicals and weapons of destruction, but were now animals. They had created the Beast Wars. This also lead to a television show, however, this one done in computer animation by Mainframe Entertainment and recorded in Dolby Surround Sound. With the show on TV and the figures on the shelves, Beast Wars has become a pretty successful idea.
In 1997, Beast Wars began expanding beyond the American Continent; over to Europe, Japan, and Australia. However, in January 1997, Hasbro/Kenner decided to give the original cars and planes concept one more try. They introduced 12 exclusive figures to Kay Bee Toys and KBToyworks. Many of these figures were repaints and slightly remoulded European Transformers (such as Predators and Turbomasters). This line was called Machine Wars. This line failed and production was halted around October of 1997. In 1998, surplus stocks were exported overseas to countries such as Japan (were it is part of their Beast Wars II line) and Australia.
Despite the dismal failure of Machine Wars, the Beast Wars line continued to thrive. The CGI animated TV show lasted three seasons, with the second season winning an Emmy Award. Beast Wars became so successful in Japan that Takara began to make a few Japanese exclusive lines and commissioned TV Tokyo to make two Beast Wars anime based on the Japanese Beast Wars figures. These anime were Beast Wars II (Second) and Beast Wars Neo. In 1999, Hasbro added a new twist to Beast Wars -- the Maximals became "Technorganic" and the Predacons were replaced with vehicular Transformers known as Vehicons. Many fans rejoiced at seeing vehicular Transformers making a comeback. Mainframe Entertainment was also commissioned to produce a two-season CGI TV show, which continued the story from where Beast Wars ended. This time, the war was completely waged on Cybertron. Not since the Marvel comics, had fans seen the Transformers fighting each other on their own homeworld.
In 2000, Takara released a new line of Transformers known as Car Robot. The Predacons were still there, but with a new adversary. The Maximals were gone and replaced with Autobots! Utilizing toy technology perfected during Beast Wars, Takara relased a new line of Autobots who not only transformed into miniature scale models of cars, but also has fully articualted robot modes. Takara also re-released the original Optimus Prime (Convoy) toy line in late June 2000 as part of the Transformers' 15th Anniversary in Japan. TV Tokyo also released a new anime, this time combining CGI with cel animation.
At the moment, Transformer fans are enjoying both the more 'organic' Transformers (Beast Machines Maximals, and Car Robot Predacons) as well as vehicular Transformers (Beast Machines Vehicons, and Car Robot Autobots), as well as TV series based on both lines. It seems that Takara and Hasbro are giving the vehicular formula another try, although due to the failure of Generation 2 and Machine Wars, they are being far more cautious...keeping at least 50% of each respective line "Beast", just in case.
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