Hironori Kobayashi

Mr. Alternity. Also known as Mr. Masterpiece. Previously also Mr. Binaltech.

Hironori Kobayashi (小林 弘典 Kobayashi Hiro'nori) is a designer at TakaraTomy. He joined the company in 1999, and the first toy he designed was Car Robots Speedbreaker (better known as Robots in Disguise Side Burn outside Japan).

Among his main achievements are several Micron Legend/Armada toys, the Alternators/Binaltech toys (with Hasbro colleague Mark McCall), the Masterpiece toys and the recent Alternity toys. Kobayashi is currently part of the "Domestic Product" team, i.e. toys that are primarily intended for the Japanese market. Previously, his job description was "Head of Hero Character Team, BOYS Enterprise Department, Marketing Division".

Toys that Hironori Kobayashi is known to have had a hand in designing

Car Robots/Robots in Disguise

• Speedbreaker/Side Burn

Micron Legend/Armada

• Convoy Super Mode/Super-Base Optimus Prime
• STD Convoy/Super-Con Optimus Prime
• Rachet/Red Alert
• Jetfire
• Land Military Microns/Land Military Mini-Con Team
  • Bomb/Bonecrusher
  • Crack/Knock Out
  • Shot/Wreckage
• Space Microns/Space Mini-Con Team
  • Apollo/Sky Blast
  • Move/Payload
  • Mir/Astroscope
• Air Military Microns/Air Military Mini-Con Team
  • Recon/Terradive
  • Flame/Thunderwing
  • Glide/Gunbarrel
• Unicron

Binaltech/Alternators

• Smokescreen
• Lambor/Side Swipe

Masterpiece

• Convoy/20th Anniversary Optimus Prime
• Megatron

Alternity

• Nissan GT-R/Convoy
• Nissan Fairlady Z/Megatron

External links

• TakaraHobby interview with Hironori Kobayashi from the early stages of the Binaltech and Masterpiece lines (English translation here)
• Translated interview with Takara's Binaltech team
• Translated interview with Hironori Kobayashi about Alternity