Bandai

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Bandai Co., Ltd. (株式会社バンダイ Kabushiki-gaisha Bandai) is Japan's largest toy company, founded on July 5, 1950, headquartered in [[wikipedia:{{#if:|:}}Taitō, Tokyo|{{#if:Taitō|Taitō|Taitō, Tokyo}}]], Tokyo, and Takara's biggest rival. Currently, Bandai is a subsidiary under [[wikipedia:{{#if:|:}}Bandai Namco Holdings|{{#if:||Bandai Namco Holdings}}]] after the main company bought/merged with [[wikipedia:{{#if:|:}}Namco|{{#if:||Namco}}]] in September 29, 2005, and later formed its video game division, Bandai Namco Entertainment. They're the holders of some of the most popular intellectual properties in Japan like Mobile Suit Gundam, Macross, and the Tamashii Nations series of high-quality anime-based figures, as well as having the license to produce merchandise for other popular mass-media franchises like Star Wars and Naruto.

Bandai's main interaction with the Transformers brand stems from a multitude of their then recently-acquired mecha franchises serving as the original pre-Transformers figures for various characters, the most popular by far and away being the Macross 1/55 VF-1S Super Valkyrie which would then become Jetfire. Bandai Namco Entertainment has also served as a distributor for Transformers videogames in Europe during the 2020s.

Overview

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Generation 1 Roadbuster, originally released by Takatoku Toys as the Dorvack 1/55 Mugen Calibur

During the 1980s, when Bandai had very little direct presence in the North American market, they not only licensed their {{#if:Machine Robo|Machine Robo|Machine Robo (toyline)}} toyline to Tonka as GoBots, but also licensed several other molds to Hasbro for the Transformers line that they obtained when they bought out another Japanese company, Takatoku Toys. These figures were:

  • Jetfire (Macross 1/55 VF-1S Super Valkyrie)
  • Roadbuster (Dorvack 1/55 Mugen Calibur)
  • Whirl (Dorvack 1/55 Ovelon Gazzette)
  • Barrage (Beetras Beet-Gadol)
  • Chop Shop (Beetras Beet-Gugal)
  • Ransack (Beetras Beet-Vadam, originally unreleased)
  • Venom (Beetras Beet-Zeguna)

Since the Transformers cartoon would air in Japan, these toys were dropped from the animated lineup to avoid giving Takara's rival free publicity... with the exception of Jetfire, who instead got a name-tweak and extensively-changed animation model, probably due to Hasbro wanting some form of advertising for a very expensive item. More can be read about the whole kerfuffle in this wiki's dedicated Super Dimension Fortress Macross page.

About four decades later, the Transformers and Macross franchises would again interact in 2024 with the announcement of a Transformers × Macross 7 toy that is to be released as part of TakaraTomy's Synergenex toyline, later revealed to be "Basara Prime".

Notes

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  • Former Hasbro Chief Executive Officer Brian Goldner was an executive at Bandai's American division before joining Hasbro in 2000.
  • Japanese Voice Actor Volcano Ōta was also a former production manager at Bandai's Japanese division before he retired in 2015 to pursue a voice acting career.
  • Another small interaction between Hasbro and Bandai has also occurred in the 2010s: the Japanese company had originally partnered with Toei to create the Super Sentai toyline in Japan, whilst in America and other countries, Bandai had partnered with Saban to produce the Power Rangers toyline since its inception in 1993. After twenty-five years of producing Power Rangers toys, Saban and Bandai parted ways in early 2018, making way for news at Toy Fair 2018 that Hasbro would be producing Power Rangers toys starting in 2019. Power Rangers would later be acquired from Saban by Hasbro for a whopping estimate of $522 million on May 1, 2018.<ref>Hasbro to Acquire Saban Brands’ Power Rangers and Other Entertainment Assets</ref> The deal was finalized a month later on June 12, 2018, making Power Rangers a fully-owned property of Hasbro.<ref>It’s a Done Deal – Power Rangers Officially Part of Hasbro Inc.</ref> The Super Sentai toyline is not affected and will continue to be produced through Bandai.
  • The design of Walkie Talkie Robot - a toy originally made by Hong Kong company Artlight and later repackaged by Argentinian company Comando Toys as an official The Transformers product in 1987 - is very clearly ripped off from Godmars, the titular lead mecha of Rokushin Gattai Godmars, a property owned by Bandai. Surprisingly, it does not seem that Bandai raised any legal objections to this... Probably owing to the Walkie Talkie Robots being an obscure enough release (it did not even have a page on this wiki until 2025!) that they simply never noticed its existence.
  • In 1997, Bandai ignited a yo-yo craze with the introduction of the Hyper Yo-Yo. This is why Takara thought it was worth to release a Transformers: Beast Wars Laser Light Yo-Yo.
  • Rather than Bandai, Harmony Gold USA is the highly controversial American holder for the Macross / Robotech license in the US. They attempted to throw a failed SLAPP suit against Hasbro in 2013 over the G.I. Joe and the Transformers jet-mode Jetfire toy, and ironically, they would also release a version of the VF-1S mold in its original Hasbro-created Jetfire color scheme (as well as a second variant in white and purple presumably cashing in on Shattered Glass) during 2023.

References

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<references />

See also

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Takatoku Toys

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