Translated & Interpreted by Jeremy Barlow © Soundwave's Oblivion 2026
For the Transformers franchise, I was responsible for coordinating the development as a whole, from Beast Wars II (Second) through to Car Robots.
As soon as I received the assignment for Beast Wars II, I had a solid image of the new Convoy in mind within about a week: the leader would be a lion, and I wanted a “barbaric” silhouette, like a muscular, macho man clad in a lion’s pelt.
Of course, I had also considered a design with the lion’s face on the chest in robot mode, but there was already a character with that kind of feature appearing separately around the same time, and the idea was also rather too commonplace. So Lio Convoy ended up with the appearance everyone knows today.
The products already scheduled for release, the repurposed overseas Beast Wars products, were for the most part quite far removed from the kind of heroic image familiar to us Japanese. So, with the newly developed products, we emphasised a Japanese style of heroism in order to provide a balance. Thankfully, we achieved a result that we were satisfied with, and I was relieved.
As for the subsequent Beast Wars Neo, most of the products this time were entirely new items developed domestically, so we were able to build the lineup around animals that were familiar to us. Those Shigaraki tanuki figures are a perfect example of that, aren’t they? (laughs) I think the protagonist, Big Convoy, also embodies the same stylistic spirit as the earlier Lio Convoy, but taken to an even greater extreme. As for the Matrix, well, that was my decision. (laughs)
I am currently in charge of the Micromaster series. While reissues are popular these days, we are working hard to develop this line around a concept designed to satisfy everyone: replacing the stickers used on the original products from ten years ago with paint, making that paintwork even more detailed, and at the same time keeping the price substantially lower. We have also named the product series “Micromaster” in order to emphasise its newness.
We also included story material essential to a toy original series, as well as colour pamphlets, even though we were prepared to accept a loss on them. In addition, starting with Six Turbo, Destron coloured versions were introduced, aimed at a more mature target audience.
Perhaps all these various efforts have paid off, because thankfully the series has been well received. We also expanded the amount of retail space devoted to the products, applying the lessons we learned from the previous Sixliner release.
We have many more additions to the lineup planned for the future, so please continue to support Micromaster along with the Transformers franchise.
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