Surviving Transformers: Age of Extinction
Carrying On the
Spirit of Japanese Craftsmanship: An Interview with Designer Yuya Onishi
Almost-Daily Planet Development Committee, Vol. 157
12th September 2014
Translated & Interpreted by Jeremy Barlow © Soundwave's Oblivion 2026
Transformers, the Takara Tomy toy line built around the innovative concept of realistic machines transforming into robots. An extraordinary long-running success, the franchise celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2014, the same year the fourth Hollywood film, Transformers: Age of Extinction, was released. How exactly is this hugely popular Japanese-born product made?To find out, the PLANETS editorial team and Tsunehiro Uno visited Takara Tomy’s headquarters in Katsushika, where they spoke with Yuya Onishi, one of the rising stars of the Transformers design team. Through Onishi’s aesthetic as a designer, we can glimpse the culture and philosophy that underpin Japanese craftsmanship.
Profile: Yuya Onishi
Born in 1984. Joined Takara Tomy in 2011,
where he has been involved in the planning and development of Transformers
products for international markets. As a Transformers designer, he works on
more than 20 products each year. His notable designs include Drift,
Crosshairs, and Bumblebee.
Transformers is a toy brand produced and sold by Takara Tomy. It features a variety of real world products, such as cars, that transform into robots. Celebrating its 30th anniversary in 2014, the hugely popular toy line had shipped a cumulative total of 500 million units, with sales spanning 130 countries. The franchise has also been adapted into Hollywood films, with the fourth instalment, Transformers: Age of Extinction, currently in cinemas to great acclaim.
The reason is that the front grille is shared between the vehicle and robot modes. It might seem like an incredibly minor detail, but I think it’s actually very important. If the priority were simply to stay faithful to the movie design, you could treat the car’s grille as a “dummy” part and use a separate, dedicated piece for the robot’s grille instead, and structurally, that would have been possible.
And yet, you deliberately chose not to use a dummy part, instead using a single shared component. I was really struck by that. It made me think that the designer who created this must have been working from a very firm aesthetic philosophy and set of principles.
Onishi: This is the first time I’ve ever had such a deep-dive interview (laughs). Thank you very much.Onishi: Lately, I’ve been doing a lot of design work for the Transformers movies. But because the transformation sequences in the films are entirely CGI and simply can’t be reproduced in a physical toy, I pretty much ignore them. Instead, I start by thinking about the transformation around the iconic parts of the original vehicle or other source material.
For example, with Drift, the front grille was such an iconic feature that I started the design by thinking, “Let’s turn this part into the chest.” I’d like to be able to study the actual vehicle as well, but the Bugatti Veyron costs more than 200 million yen, so that was obviously out of the question (laughs).
Even when I can’t see the real vehicle, though, I always buy licensed models made by overseas toy manufacturers that faithfully reproduce the original vehicle, and use them as references. If the motif is an animal, I might even go to the zoo. It’s important to properly observe the original subject you’re working from.
Uno: I see, so there’s an anatomical aspect to it. The Transformers designers might be the only people in the world who take cars apart and rearrange them in ways completely different from their original structure.The first thing I designed after joining the team was this Starscream (Transformers Thrilling 30 Legends Starscream TG-28), which transforms from a jet. It was extremely challenging, but I worked out the entire design in just one week.
Come to think of it, avoiding dummy parts as much as possible has been a consistent principle in my designs, from this one right through to Drift. Starscream has a distinctive design in which the jet’s nosecone ends up on the robot’s chest when it transforms. From a design standpoint, it would actually be much easier to fold the nosecone back and attach a dummy nosecone to the robot’s chest from the outset—one that would be hidden when the toy was in jet mode.
But I really didn’t want to use a dummy part, so I was determined to make sure that, even at this small scale, the actual nosecone would end up on the robot’s chest.
—Onishi-san, why are you so keen to eliminate dummy parts wherever possible?
Onishi: In recent years, Transformers designs and transformation processes have become increasingly complex, and there was a period when we had no choice but to use a lot of dummy parts. But, fundamentally, Transformers are toys, not industrial products, so I felt that what really matters is making them easy for children to play with.
For example, even when the vehicle is the same, the process of transforming it into a robot is different for every figure. It’s precisely because there are clues as to how to transform it into a robot that children can engage their imaginations. If you replace the parts that make the finished robot visually striking with dummy parts, that pathway for engaging their imagination no longer works. And I felt that would take away from what makes it fun as a toy.
Uno: Using dummy parts reflects a philosophy that says it’s enough for the figure to look cool both before and after transformation, that the transformation itself is merely a means to an end. The idea is that as long as you can enjoy two different forms in a single toy, that’s all that matters.
But the fundamental aesthetic of Transformers is that transforming the toy itself is the point. So ideally, you wouldn’t want to use dummy parts at all.
“I Want to Pursue the Usability of the Product Itself” (Onishi-san)—From a fan’s perspective, I think Transformers reached a major turning point when it became a Hollywood movie. When Michael Bay’s film was released in 2007, the world was shown the astonishing sight of real cars actually transforming into robots. But the way it was portrayed relied on what you might call a kind of “2D cheat”, extraordinary CGI in which parts would sprout out from places where they could never physically exist. And yet audiences around the world felt a sense of reality in what they were seeing and were captivated by it.
The reason for that, I think, is that there were tangible toys that had their own unique aesthetic: transforming from a car into a robot through a single continuous process, without anything feeling forced or impossible.
Onishi: Of course, it’s about the Transformers aesthetic, but it’s also something I’m particular about as a product designer. I place great importance on the object itself being easy and comfortable to use. For example, this is actually a product that hasn’t been released yet...
—Th-this is Brainstorm! (Generations Thrilling 30 Voyager Brainstorm)Onishi: Yes. This is a product from the Headmaster series, in which a small robot combines with a larger robot to become its head. It’s a modern remake of a toy from the 1980s, using today’s technology. It incorporates a great many elements of product design.
For example, the old toys simply had the head forced on and pulled off, but we’ve added a proper locking mechanism to allow for smooth attachment and removal. What’s more, the small robot can actually ride inside the jet that the larger robot transforms into. When we announced it at an event the other day, people online were saying, “There’s no way it’ll fit inside at this size” (laughs)... but of course, we designed it so that it does!
Since it’s a Headmaster character, I felt that if the jet has a cockpit, it absolutely has to be possible for the small robot to sit inside it. There are plenty of other considerations too, such as keeping the transformation simple and making sure that the hollowed out sections required by the manufacturing process aren’t visible. I’ve designed it with particular care to make the experience of holding and handling it as comfortable as possible, while battling constraints such as the amount of plastic used and production costs.
Uno: Not using dummy parts, or making sure that the Headmaster can actually ride inside the jet that the body transforms into. In other words, creating a Transformer that combines transformation functionality with a cool appearance means bringing function and surface appearance together as one. The mechanism built into the toy and the exterior that expresses its image are in complete harmony. It goes beyond simply choosing an appearance that symbolises the function, the two are genuinely integrated.
What this means is that the greatest message a Transformer conveys is the fact that it can genuinely transform. It can go from a cool car to a cool robot, while neither form contains anything superfluous. In that sense, it represents the fullest expression of a philosophy about what a product should be.
■ A Designer’s Vision Lives in Toys, not Home Appliances or Cars
Uno: I’d like to ask you a little more about your philosophy as a designer, Onishi-san. To begin with, how did you come to be involved in Transformers design in the first place?
Onishi: In a word, because I wanted to master the art of making things. I believe the ideal is for a designer to be involved with a product from start to finish and to propose new visions for people’s lives.
My father worked in architecture, so I was originally interested in designing buildings, and I studied environmental design in high school. Around my second year of high school, I gradually became interested in product design and decided I wanted to go to art school. But for various reasons, including family circumstances, I ended up going to an engineering faculty and studying mechanical engineering instead.
After graduating from university, I joined a home appliance manufacturer and worked in R&D, where I became involved in product planning and design. But at Japanese home appliance manufacturers today, anywhere from several dozen to around a hundred people can be involved in a single product. Partway through, I was assigned to a particular division, and I could no longer be involved all the way through to the product being commercialised. I began to question that way of working and decided that I wanted to broaden my abilities so that I could do everything myself, from beginning to end.
So, to expand the range of things I was capable of doing, I went back to design school and studied car design. After graduating, I received a job offer from a certain automobile manufacturer... and, honestly, I agonised over it. But cars are basically handled by multiple people in the same way as home appliances. This is particularly true of Japanese car manufacturers, where it’s quite common for someone to say, “I designed just the headlights.” That simply didn’t suit me. I wanted to go somewhere where I could work on the whole thing, rather than just one part, and that’s what brought me to Takara Tomy.
And as it turned out, I not only get to handle the design of a Transformer all the way through, but I’m also allowed to design the vehicle itself, the car before transformation, from scratch. So it really feels like I ended up exactly where I wanted to be (laughs).
Uno: In other words, the ability for a designer to infuse a product with a comprehensive vision—something that ought to be possible in sectors representing Japanese manufacturing, like consumer electronics and automobiles, is actually something that can really only be achieved in the toy industry.In fact, the people I know who are involved in manufacturing all say the same thing. For instance, I have a friend who is a designer named Kota Nezu. We recently held a dialogue about Lego for my newsletter (titled "[Special Dialogue] Kota Nezu (znug design) x Tsunehiro Uno: Lego, Blocks More Real Than Reality"), and he also appeared in my collection of dialogues, *Blueprint for a Quiet Revolution*.
Nezu used to be a car designer at Toyota, but he often says, "I actually have a better relationship with Toyota now that I’m independent." He explains that when he was inside Toyota, his role was strictly defined; even when he tried to collaborate across departments, he was thwarted by the company's rigid, siloed organisational structure.
Now, alongside designing actual automobiles, Nezu works on Mini 4WD models. Meanwhile, you, Onishi-san, work on Transformers. I can't help but feel that this situation symbolises the current state of Japanese manufacturing. It suggests that the act of "changing society by infusing objects with a narrative" is something that can really only happen in the toy industry.
Onishi: From the outside, people might wonder, “Why didn’t you go to work for an automobile manufacturer?” But I believe my soul, or perhaps my instincts, led me to choose the toy industry. I feel that individual designers need to put forward more of their own visions.
Take Dyson vacuum cleaners, for example. They’re remarkable. Products that embody such functional beauty and reflect the distinctive creative voice of their designers are selling in huge numbers all over the world. That’s the kind of product that simply wouldn’t have emerged from a Japanese company.
The same is true in the automotive world. Overseas, external designers often establish relationships with companies on an equal footing, and that productive tension gives rise to interesting designs. In Japan, however, designers’ names are rarely made public.
At the moment, Takara Tomy’s official website features a series called Transformers Designers Review. That was something I proposed myself.
When you know who produced your vegetables, you feel more comfortable buying them, don’t you? I think the same principle applies to products. At least in the toy industry, Transformers may be one of the few product lines where the designers’ names are actually made public.
Through this review series, I want people to get a sense of the developers’ vision and the care and personal commitment they put into their work.
■ Carrying On the Japanese Philosophy of CraftsmanshipUno: Proposing new visions for people’s lives through physical objects—that’s the kind of capability that’s hard to find in Japan these days.
Onishi: We see plenty of ideas and applications designed for smart devices, but it’s rare to find products that you can actually hold in your hands, feel the weight of, and use intuitively, even if you’re a grandfather or grandmother. In fact, I think those are precisely the kinds of products that should matter most.
—In this newsletter, Hobowaku, we feature a series by Yoichi Ochiai, a researcher and media artist. Ochiai has also said that “an era is coming when computers will manipulate objects in the real world, rather than simply manipulating virtual spaces within a display” (see Yoichi Ochiai’s The Magic Century). Your sensibility, Onishi-san, that the tactile feel of physical objects matters more than the display, may perhaps have something in common with what Ochiai is saying
Uno: The philosophy behind the kind of product you’re describing, Onishi-san, might perhaps be something distinctly Japanese, something that doesn’t really exist in Europe or America.
For example, if we look at American product design, Apple is probably the prime example. The design of the Mac certainly expresses the image of the simple life that Apple wants to realise, but ultimately, that is merely a symbol. There isn’t a direct connection between that smooth, sleek exterior and the functionality of the product itself.
—The designs of the Transformers in the Hollywood films clearly aren’t based on the premise that they will actually transform, are they?Onishi: Those designs are created by artists at American film studios, and the styling is drifting further and further away from the toys. Every time, I find myself wondering what on earth we’re going to do with them (laughs).
Apple products certainly project an image through their surface appearance. Even before you use one, they give you an image of yourself working in a stylish café. It’s the same not only in America, but with European supercars, too. You might imagine wanting to have a beautiful woman sitting beside you, or wanting to dress in a way that matches the car’s design. Just looking at them makes you picture the scene in which you would use them.
Uno: I believe Japanese craftsmanship is based on a philosophy that differs from this kind of Western thinking.
Take Japanese cars as a prime example. They didn’t necessarily have that kind of “cool” surface appearance in the American sense, like Apple products or supercars. Instead, the experience of using them itself became the message, things like a comfortable ride or good fuel economy. I think the birth of the Walkman in the 1980's marked the moment when this kind of Japanese craftsmanship was elevated into design. But after that, Japan lost its way.
Onishi: Exactly. I love the Showa era, when individuals at the top, such as CEOs, would put forward a vision and then rapidly bring out products based on it. It was an era when top-down leadership worked in the best possible sense.
I’m one of those people who wants to realise the future that was envisioned at the Osaka Expo. The Expo had such a powerful vision of the future: “This is what the future is going to be like!” By now, cars really ought to be flying through the sky. But in reality, we’re still driving around on four wheels, and there’s been absolutely no progress at all (laughs). We need more and more products that can show people new visions of the future.
Uno: In fact, toys, Transformers included, may be the things that have inherited the spirit of Japanese craftsmanship from the 1980's most strongly. What’s more, that spirit has gone on to sweep across the world via America. Just as Scandinavian design, such as IKEA and H&M, is changing the world by following a similar route, I think now is the time to unleash that power and let Japanese craftsmanship change the world.
Onishi: I’d like to take things as far as influencing the artists at the movie studios, too. I’m currently working with Hasbro, which sells Transformers in the United States, and I make a point of getting the best designs back to them faster than anyone else. There was even a time when I produced six different face designs in a single night and was treated like some kind of superhuman (laughs). But that’s where I want to show the spirit of Japanese craftsmanship.Uno: But once you’ve gone through Transformers, Onishi-san, you can’t go back to making things where function and surface appearance are completely separate, can you? From now on, you can only make things where the two are fused together, where the function itself becomes the ultimate expression of the surface. And that’s something that’s impossible at Japanese companies today. …So, when you come right down to it, I suppose the only option is for you to go independent, isn’t it? (laughs)
Onishi: In the future, I’d like to start a company that embodies my own ideals. These days, the things we need in our everyday lives tend to come from specific industries, if it’s a vacuum cleaner, it comes from a home appliance manufacturer; if it’s a car, it comes from an automobile manufacturer. But before vacuum cleaners existed, I think people were free to imagine all sorts of possibilities, thinking, “Wouldn’t it be great if there were a product that could suck up rubbish?”Rather than making only specific types of products, I want to continually develop and bring to market things that are useful to society, responding in real time to the needs of each era and each moment. And I want to put products into the world that, simply by picking them up and holding them, open up a vision of the future.
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