Repaints: The Bad (a.k.a - I see a red door.)

However, for all the good, interesting repaints Takara has put onto the market, the company has shelled out a number of boring, uninspired repaints as well. This stems from Takara's formulaic approach to designing repaints.

As often is the case, Takara will likely create a black repaint of any given figure. It began with Black Lio Convoy from "Beast Wars Second", then Black Big Convoy in "Beast Wars Neo", JAFCon Convoy (a black version of the original Optimus Prime toy), Black Megatron, Black Starscream, Nucleon Quest Convoy (a black version of "Transformers: Masterforce" Ginrai, a/k/a Powermaster Optimus Prime), Black Lio Junior, and Black Rodimus (Hot Rod). If you add these in with the black repaints that were original characters for Takara's own lines, like Black Convoy ("Transformers: Robots In Disguise" Scourge), Starscream and BB (repaints of "Transformers: Generation 2" Dreadwing and Smokescreen), and Shadow Panther (later sold online by Hasbro as Tripredicus Agent), you can see the gross lack of creativity on the part of a company whose main product should inspire creativity in children.

The same goes for the continual glut of clear repaints Takara has produced. At first, when Takara released Clear Convoy (a clear version of the Ultra Optimus Primal toy) it was something special. It was even a nice promotion for the "Beast Wars Second: movie when they released Burning Convoy (again, the Ultra Optimus Primal toy, this time in translucent red) and Flash Lio Convoy. But when the Car Robots line was completed, the Takara clear repaints had clearly gotten out of hand. Every single Autobot, save for Brave Maximus, Team Bullet Train and Build Team had a clear repaint at some point in time. Again, this lack of creativity on Takara's part -- investing time cheaply refurbishing old toys instead of creating a handful of new toys -- tarnishes the company's reputation. (And yes, I say this in light of the fact that some of these clears are very exquisite Transformers toys.)

The Car Robots repaints and exclusives also present another downside to Takara's handling of Transformers, namely the mishandling of exclusives. Time and again, there seem to be few Takara "exclusives" that tend to be just what they should: exclusive. Takara, unlike its American counterpart, tends to very easily manufacture exclusive toys for whomever wishes to dole out the money. When an exclusive characteristic becomes widespread across many toys, it no longer is an exclusive characteristic.

Takara also tends to make overly limited toys, such as magazine exclusives, that offer nothing more than something to gawk at in pictures and have no significance other than the fact that they exist in relative obscurity. One example of this is the PVC Skywarp figure, of which only a relative handful were produced.

Repaints: The Ugly

And some exclusives, whether canonical or not, are just plain ugly. I, for one, have a penchant for ugly toys, but I can understand where the average fan, when seeing a item that is intended to be marketed towards them (after all, exclusives are meant for collectors), want to see something aesthetically pleasing. For an example of this point, see Matrix-Glow Ultra Magnus (a translucent yellow Ultra Magnus), which is a toy that is something vaguely canonical, if incorrect, for all of 3 tenths of a second in Transformers 18 year history). You can also look at Fire Guts God Ginrai, a red/orange version of God Ginrai, which again is vaguely canonical in "Transformers: Masterforce" but still leaves something to be desired aesthetically.

But I still like these toys. Sure, they're ugly, but even ugly toys need lovin'.