TRANSFORMERS: Made Possible by the Cultivation of Expertise and Craftsmanship

“There hasn’t been a single instance of something we were unable to do. We have always found solutions.”
Hisashi Yuki and Tomoya Miyake of the TRANSFORMERS Product Development Team speak confidently about their achievements. TRANSFORMERS are super robot life forms loved in the United States and throughout the world. Despite involving complicated structures able to transform from shape “A” to shape “B” through a number of disassembling or uniting procedures, production began from just two illustrations.

We would come up with a number of patterns in our head, then incorporate them into a 1/1 blueprint to connect the missing links. It was by no means easy work, but we were able to bring all 30 years of our accumulated know-how into the process.
The blueprint was filled with a multitude of parts with a precision rivaling that of a skilled craftsman. When we say a multitude of parts, we mean more than 200 individual pieces, which made the blueprint itself the life of the TRANSFORMERS. And, throughout the process, we took great care with them. This included striving to make them cool and conducting thorough reviews.

“All members of the development team were involved in checks at each stage of production. At times, some acrimonious opinions were exchanged, but we were able to create the TRANSFORMERS based on team consensus. Regardless of whether they are heroes or villains, there was no compromise in our pursuit to make them cool. For kids, anything they buy becomes their hero.” More than 100 types of TRANSFORMERS are sold each year. The developers themselves profess to be fans of TRANSFORMERS, whose skill and imagination are firmly ingrained in all products.