Motoki Takaya

His robots are too strong for you, traveler.

Motoki Takaya (高谷元基 Takaya Motoki) is a toy designer at TakaraTomy with a long history of orbiting around the Transformers brand. Coming on to Takara in the 1988, he cut his teeth on the headlining Powered Masters of 1990's Transformers: Zone during his brief stint with the Transformers brand proper. From there, he worked on [[wikipedia:{{#if:|:}}Armored Police Metal Jack|{{#if:||Armored Police Metal Jack}}]],<ref>Japanese patent for Metal Jack armor combination system</ref><ref>Japanese patent for Metal Jack Hyper Red Jack Armor</ref> followed by the [[wikipedia:{{#if:|:}}Gridman the Hyper Agent|{{#if:original incarnation|original incarnation|Gridman the Hyper Agent}}]] of the popular Gridman franchise, the 1999 Micro Millenium relaunch of the mother of all pre-Transformer toylines Microman, the 2012 Beast Saga reboot of one-time Generation 1 spinoff Beastformers, and finally landed the gig for which he is best known among shape-morphing toy robot fans today: the lead designer of the fantastically successful (and fantastically expensive) 2016 revival of the pre-Transformer franchise Diaclone.

Known design work

Zone Dai Atlas

Generation 1

Transformers: Zone

• Dai Atlas<ref name = "SF Land">Interview on Transformers: Zone in Takara SF Land Evolution, p 90</ref>
• Sonic Bomber<ref name = "SF Land"/>
• Roadfire<ref name = "SF Land"/>
• Big Powered<ref name = "SF Land"/>

Return of Convoy

• Sky Garry<ref name = "SF Land"/>

Notes

• Takaya was a Diaclone nerd long before he was a Diaclone designer. He is on the record as having named Dai Atlas and pals' "Big Powered" combined mode after a similarly tripartite toy from the original Diaclone line.<ref name = "SF Land"/>
• Besides designing robot superhero toys, Takaya worked on Takara's Aquaroid underwater robotics line in the early 2000s,<ref>Japanese patent for Aquaroid jellyfish</ref> and was on Beyblade around 2002.<ref>Japanese patent for Beyblade launcher</ref>

• To date, Takaya has produced bougie twice-as-expensive-as-Masterpiece re-imaginings of the pre-Powerdashers, pre-Optimus Prime, and pre-Ultra Magnus. No, you may not see them.

External links

• Gallery of Takaya's prodigious Transformers-adjacent output at TakaraTomy's Diaclone website.

Interviews

• June 28, 2019 Interview on Diaclone in Dengeki Hobby, translated at Soundwave's Oblivion

References

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