Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers (toyline)
 |
| |||||||||||||||
Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers is the ostentatious title given to the first year of the Generation 1 franchise in Japan. Released in 1985, one year after the franchise had been launched in Hasbro markets, the various aspects of FSRLTF combined Hasbro's 1984 and 1985 products into one large line.
Overview
The toyline consisted of most of the toys released by Hasbro in 1984 and 1985, most without significant deco changes. The only significant difference in most of the toys is that the Japanese versions' missile launchers are still fully functional, due to differing safety standards for projectiles.
There are two items with big changes from their US releases. Astrotrain was released in a more NASA-accurate white-and-black deco, but would change to his Hasbro colors for his re-release the following year. Megatron's deco was from a different version of the Micro Change toy: matte grey plastic and blue trim, no scope/stock/silencer parts, and an additional silver-chrome sword accessory. On top of that, the original bullet-firing mechanism was kept intact as well.
Even among those toys without big changes, there were some big differences in how the toys were sold. The "Cassettrons" were sold individually (and came with a clear-plastic tape case) rather than in two-packs. Reflector, a mail-away item in Hasbro's line (not available until 1986!) was a standard retail release in Japan, while several retail toys in the US were relegated to mail-away status in Japan. And there was the "VSZ" set, a multi-ack that was the only way to get Skids and Sunstreaker and Buzzsaw (who was replaced by Rumble as Soundwave's pack-in partner).
In the end, several toys were simply never released at all in the original line. While most of these toys are obvious omissions like the non-Takara molds (Jetfire, Omega Supreme, the Deluxe Vehicles and the Deluxe Insecticons), this list also bizarrely includes Ironhide and Gears, both of whom were pretty dang prominent in the cartoon which was brought over to Japan, including the Gears-focused episode.
Toyline
Retail releases
| Minibots | Cassettron | Insectrons | Buildrons | |||||
| Cybertrons | Triple Changers | Dinobots | ||||||
| Jetron | VS packs
|
Others | (Spectro, Spyglass, Viewfinder) |
Mail-aways
| Minibots | Double Changers | Jetron |
Post-series releases
The sheer number of "new" toys of these characters released over the last 30 (and counting) years is insane, so we're not going to list them here, but rather point you to this list of post-"G1" "G1" toylines. However, there is one toy we need to point out in specific.
In ???, Primus
