Generations Selects (toyline)
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Debuting in 2019, Generations Selects is a series of exclusive figures sold mainly through online retailers, intersecting multiple thematic sublines of Generations. The line consists of special edition redecoes and retools of Generations figures, packaged in brown cardboard mailer boxes broadly similar to the late TFCC Figure Subscription Service.
As with other Transformers lines from 2018 onward, Hasbro and TakaraTomy attempt to make Generations Selects equally available to fans in each other's primary market. U.S. and Canadian fans (except in Québec) can purchase Takara Selects figures from Hasbro Pulse while Japanese fans can purchase some Hasbro Selects figures from TakaraTomy Mall.
Toys
Hasbro
Hasbro announced the Generations Selects branding in late 2018, with Ricochet and Red Swoop as the nominal debut figures for the line. However, the first figure to reach fans wound up being Combat Megatron, who was made available for order concurrently with New York Toy Fair 2019. Packaged in robot mode, Hasbro's Selects figures have no price markup compared to regular retail figures. Hasbro Pulse debuts Generations Selects figures for the U.S. and Canadian markets while fans in Hasbro's other markets must resort to various physical or online retailers, with the only exclusive being Decepticon Red Wing to the Target website (though he was eventually rereleased to other online retailers in 2020). Thus far, Hasbro Selects figures have been limited to straight redecoes, sometimes with "pretooled" alternate heads and accessories.
Following Ricochet and Red Swoop, who featured a Halo of Primus design on their packaging and were explicitly labeled as Power of the Primes by their instructions, the line transitioned to a new standard packaging design featuring the War for Cybertron Trilogy logo. 2019's releases were labeled as belonging to the Siege portion of the trilogy by their instruction booklets, while in 2020, instruction sheets used the Earthrise installment's graphic design elements, but not the logo itself (except Hot House, for reasons unclear). The Spy Patrol set was also labeled as part of Earthrise during the Toy Fair 2020 presentation.
| Power of the Primes | Siege
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Earthrise
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TakaraTomy
TakaraTomy's Generation Selects [sic] figures succeed the niche of the previous 2014 to 2019 Legends and Unite Warriors series, featuring uniquely extensive retooling and higher-budget paint operations for accuracy to each character's era of origin in the Japanese Generation 1 cartoon continuity. Additionally, the Japanese version of Generations Selects features a heavy emphasis on combiner teams, a feature noticeably absent from the War for Cybertron Trilogy toyline. Due to the Transformers market in Japan being smaller and shrinking, Takara's turnout of Selects figures is smaller compared to Legends and Unite Warriors. As with those lines, Takara's figures are packaged in alternate mode.
As per brand unification, Hasbro Pulse releases these figures with no changes save for a black packaging sleeve labeled in English. Soundblaster's Selects branding is unique to Hasbro Pulse's release, with the original TakaraTomy release being part of Siege.
| Wave 0.5 September 7, 2019[1] | Wave 1 September 28, 2019
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Wave 2 January 25, 2020
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Wave 3 February 29, 2020
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Wave 4 March 28, 2020
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Wave 5 September 26, 2020
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Wave 6 October 31, 2020
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Wave 7 February 27, 2021 | Wave 8 March 27, 2021
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Notes
- Shortly before the inception of Generations Selects, Hasbro seems to have tested the concept of "special edition" Deluxe Class figures in boxed packaging with Titans Return Arcee and Grotusque, followed up by Prime Wars Trilogy Blast Off, Repugnus, and Punch-Counterpunch.
Foreign names
- Japanese: Generation Selects (ジェネレーションセレクト Jenerēshon Serekuto)[2]
- Mandarin: Biànxíng Jīngāng Shìdài Jīngxuǎn Xìliè (變形金剛世代精選系列, "Transformers Generations Selects Series"), Biànxíng Jīngāng Shìdài Xìliè Jīngxuǎn (變形金剛世代系列精選, "Transformers Generations Series Selects")
References
- ↑ Tweet by Takaratomy's official account
- ↑ TakaraTomy does not use this Japanese spelling very often, instead straight-up inserting the untranslated all-caps English phrase "GENERATION SELECTS" into Japanese text.
