In the picture of them all, is that the OS KO of AOE Prime?!?!?    

Not sure and it's hard to tell from this photo, but he looks a lot bigger to me than he should compared to the other primes on display. That's hysterical if it is.

 

@Deruji, @Sam and @Timesynch:

Thank you so much for the effort guys!! Much appreciated!

 

Did you see that yuge G1 Optimus, too. Must be KO.


KO rulezzzzzzzzzzzzz!

 

Loopaza's scans are up

Full 26 page scans in the thread below.

Figure King No.241 - 26 Page TF Special


Roundtable interview pages.

 

““Dosconvoy” (laugh) [Sumo/Fat-Convoy. ‘dosukoi’ is a Sumo exclamation]”
See, even takara recognised the weirdness that is CW prime

 

I think they're referring to Energon Prime. He was called Grand Convoy in Japan, wasn't he?

 

That's right. They were referring to Energon Prime aka Grand Convoy. Not to be confused with UW Convoy Grand Prime (CW Ultra Prime).

 

Well, it still works either way. Regardless I respect their humour

 

LOL so even the designers themselves knew Fatimus Prime (Energon Prime/Grand Convoy) looked silly. Not sure why they did not design him with better arm/leg sizes so he does not appear to have a giant torso compared to his limbs.

No, I really don't.... Never understood why anyone wanted that. Due to Sunbow's lazy animators forgetting the wheels that just magically appear?   Maybe it's not important to me because I grew up on the Marvel comics, and there Prime often did have wheels on his legs, depending on what artist drew him.
As a kid, I often used pause/advance to check transformations to make sense of them (as I either never seen the toys in stores, or in cases like the Combaticons, they looked nothing like the animation models). I still remember wondering where Prime\'s rear and front wheels appeared from...   Same as his magically disappearing trailer. (I would not be surprised if Takara did something silly like merge his trailer into the robot mode for the new MP to replicate that, because cartoon accuracy is a god to them)

 

Sunbow's animators may have missed things sometimes, but they didn't forget to draw on the wheels.

In the original art done by Shōhei Kohara based on the Diaclone toys, there were tyres:




But when Battle Convoy became Optimus Prime, Floro Dery refined the designs to make the robots look a little more 'human':





Optimus Prime's character model (which btw was the same for the cartoon and comics) doesn't have visible wheels anywhere.

By the same logic MP-10 should also have wheels on his hips.


As for the transformation in the cartoon, that was definitely explained:

 

So fattimus prime is quite the official name, then

 

Wow those are some some cool designs! Make way more sense than the actual ones used

 

Fascinating. Always enjoy hearing from these folks.

 

Many thanks @Deruji, @Sam and @Timesynch!

A fascinating read, love that they make jokes about the toys, and each other.

Edit: Just ordered Figure King, so will enjoy it even more thanks to your hard work translating this interview.  

 

This is easily doable with the same flip-around mechanic as UltraMagnus' feet. The thighs will then occupy that space in vehicle mode.

 

Tipping my hat to all the scanners and translators. That was a fun read  

 

My favorite quote about not changing the design. I’m not sure if he’s just talking about the G1 toy design or animation design. I assume it’s the latter?

But, if you do that, then there is no meaning in making something new. I think, isn't it an old fan's ego?

 

Imagine if we just got a line of toys in generic boxes with the name Grand Convoy on it. I don\'t think we\'d be seeing them lasting over 30 years.

It is funny when the Japanese say, \"we got this toy back and it was our old Diaclone but now it was a Transformer.\" The story and cartoon is what made the line into what it became. There were a lot of transforming toys in the 1980s but Transformers is what stuck around. Diaclone as it was would have just been a novelty.

 

If they are really going to upgrade Star Convoy, then that's good!

But I have only one question...

When will they make Guiltaur?!!

 

These dudes are so cool! It’s always great reading interviews with them!
So awesome how Kunihiro talked about studying the ‘07 movie frame by frame to design ROTF Leader Prime.

And I just gotta say that I’m so relieved that none of them did MPM-4.