AEON
AEON Co., Ltd. (イオン株式会社, Ion kabushiki gaisha, stylized as ÆON), based out of Japan, is the largest retailer in Asia, running everything from convenience stores to "hypermarkets" to entire malls. They formerly ran the JUSCO (ジャスコ Jasuko, short for Japan United Stores Company) "hypermarket" style retail chain in Japan, but changed the chain name to AEON in 2011.
They have had several Transformers exclusives over the years under both names, primarily in the form of promotional freebies given away with qualifying purchases, but they also carried "USA Edition" toys otherwise unavailable in that market.
JUSCO exclusive toys (2000-2010)
Car Robots (Robots in Disguise)
JUSCO is perhaps best known for their initial Car Robots exclusives, particularly the "Original Spychangers" ("original" as in "unique", not "the first"). These six clear-plastic toys were direct-mail premiums to members of their "Peppy Kids Republic" (元気キッズ共和国, Genki Kidzu Kyōwakoku), a sort of subsidiary/offshoot for selling baby goods and children's clothing. Since membership was open only to kids 12 and under and the toys were individually shipped blind-packed, getting the entire set of six was extremely difficult.
| Original Spychangers | Promotional Flip Changers |
Legends of the Microns (Armada)
The other thing JUSCO is known for is their Legends of the Microns promotion... and mostly it's known for how ridiculous it was to obtain the set. One Micron was blindpacked inside Convoy Super Mode's box. In other words, if one wanted to get all three Mini-Cons, they'd have to buy at least three Super-Base Optimus Prime toys, the biggest and most expensive toy in the line (at the time), and even then they weren't guaranteed to get three different Mini-Cons. It was, veritably, the most evil store promo ever, and thankfully never repeated again.
| USA Edition Deluxes | Promotional Microns |
Superlink (Energon)
Like most retailers, the promotional freebies for Superlink were focused on Energon weapons rather than Microns. But JUSCO also got a unique piece of merch on top of that.
| Promotional Energon weapons | Promotional Super Real Figure |
Universe (2003)
While Takara did not have their own version of the 2003 Universe toyline, they did import a number of toys from it as part of the "USA Edition" import series.
| USA Edition Ultra Class |
Galaxy Force (Cybertron)
JUSCO had perhaps the most unnoticed Galaxy Force promotional campaign, at least by Western fans. The "Convoy Power Up W Campaign" gave away all-white versions of the Hellflame Microns, a promotional team split across three different retailers (JUSCO being one of them). For whatever reason, the white versions kind of slipped under the fandom radar.
Promotional Microns
|
Transformers (2007)
For the live-action movie toyline, JUSCO had a single promotional Micron. Curiously, while only specific movie-based toys would qualify one for the freebie, the promo's instruction sheet used the classic Transformers logo, which could be taken to mean it was a "Generation 1" character. You know, if you like.
| Promotional Microns |
Animated
The Takara Animated toyline went a little bit nuts with the Starscream clones for promos and contest prizes. While most were at least based on actual in-cartoon clone characters, JUSCO's part of the promo appears to be a toy-original "character".
This was also the last exclusive released under the JUSCO name, as the chain changed to AEON in 2011.
| Promotional EZ Collection |
AEON exclusive toys (2011-present)
Prime
| Deluxe Class | Promotional Microns |
