Remember that interview in the pages of Figure King No 144 that featured an interview of Shog Hasui in Japanese? The page also revealed two early prototypes from the Transformers Animated toyline and reveal the partnership between Takara and Hasbro. Thanks to Sol Fury and SydneyY of Transformers World 2005, we now have a translation of that interview!

How it Began
Transformers Animated began in 2005 and was meant to be the successor of the Transformers Cybertron series. While they were hearing rumblings of Transformers live action movie, they didn't know when it was actually going to come out. After the movie was given the greenlight, Animated was put on the back burner to concentrate their efforts on the movie line. They resumed Animated project in October 2006.

The Style of the Robots
When Hasbro first sent over designs of the robots, they looked more like American heroes with armor and less like transforming robots, Hasui recounted. While he wasn't sure he could pull off the design from paper to physical action figure, he felt enthusiastic about the new challenge and something that a design concept and transformation that is quite different from Galaxy Force.

Eventually, Hasui decided that instead of just having the figure transform and shifting pieces here and there, he would use the vehicle pieces to convey strength and size. For example, he designed strong characters with very large forearms in robot mode. He recounts that Hasbro gave him a thunderous applause when he presented the idea.

Bulkhead may look menacing here, but Hasui rounded his shoulders and head to convey his gentle giant-type persona

Each robot was designed to ensure that when you saw the character's design, you could understand the character's personality right away. Bulkhead's massive arms conveyed power, but his round head and shoulders indicated a gentle soul. He also wanted to indicate that Ratchet was a bit of an old-timer and gave him a little gut so that his outline would become more distinctive.

The designs that you see of Optimus Prime standing like a character of a GI Joe poster was not by accident, either. Hasui described that he purposefully designed the character to give him a certain stance that screamed, "I am the leader!"

He also explains that their backs were more streamlined in this series, as opposed to other series where excess parts were held there. However, with the new design idea, pieces were put in other parts of the body to convey various things about the character. This was also the first time that the style of the character was designed with the storyline of the show in mind.

Hot Rod was originally the leader, but his speed characteristics were transferred to Bumblebee

G1 Homages
It was Cartoon Network's idea to incorporate the G1 homages in the toys and cartoon. Hot Rod was originally the show's leader. The character eventually became Bumblebee and the speed component of the character remained. The Hot Rod and Rhinox designs (seen above) were some of the original toys designed for the series.

He notes that when he joined Takara in 1999, Hasbro and Takara both used Generation 1 names because they wanted to. The personalities and designs did not fit the names that were attached to the figure. During his time on Transformers Armada/Micron Legends, he designed Starscream with G1 cues simply because he felt like it. He says that he is happy to see that G1 style cues are now seen throughout all figures

Hasbro's Involvement
Hasui noted that he and Eric Siebenaler worked very closely and would bounce ideas off of each other. He believes that because of the two-way discussions instead of choosing the best out of two options, which is how the relationship worked before, resulted in a higher-quality product in Animated.

Most of the designs were driven between Cartoon Network, Hasbro, and Takara. Siebenaler worked as a go-between Hasui and Cartoon Network when they found that certain designs could not be made into figures and had to be changed.

The Impact of Animated on Revenge of the Fallen
Hasui said that he could not have made the new Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen designs if he had worked on the film before Animated. He says that the new capabilities he gained working on Animated is what made some of the Revenge of the Fallen toys possible.

He also added that since drawing Animated, he no longer draws straight lines, but adds slight curves here and there to show off the muscles of the character.

Once again, thanks to Sol Fury and SydneyY for their great work!

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