...why?

 

Because Prime was not only ludicrously expensive to make, but was a toy sales disaster? Prime is one of the biggest reasons why we have less shelf space for Transformers, besides the Age of Extinction toyline.

 

Do you even understand why the cartoons exist? They are glorified advertisements for the toyline, Hasbro makes no money from the shows themselves. That's why some stupid Aligned crossover movie would be financial suicide, because there's nothing Hasbro would make money off of as a result since the majority of the associated toylines have long since been ended.

Prime was such a disaster in Japan that Takara literally made an entire new franchise of Transformers just to avoid having to air Beast Hunters.

 

Prime ended on its own terms with what most would call a great ending. They did continue it with a sequel series to build Bumblebee as a leader, but they couldn't commit to that and just revived Optimus again, really undermining TF: Prime's ending. Not saying that a better sequel wasn't possible, but there was no point in a sequel in the first place. Most of it was already wrapped up quite nicely.

 

Yet Prime is coming back in Legacy. Obviously Hasbro still thinks it's worth making figures for anyway.

 

Aren't the leakers saying they are heavily G1ifed? They probably want to make G1 versions cause they know they will sell better, I wouldn't expect them to try and make money off full Prime stuff for the next 10-20 years

 

Of course I know why the cartoons exist. But you can always produce a new and better toyline, all you need is a story. Why did the Japanese hate TFP? Whatever the reason is, fix that, and come up with better but evocative designs, and get rid of the awful "RID 2015" look. You don't have to CALL it "TF Prime".

 

You literally know absolutely nothing about the situation if you actually believe that TF Prime was straight up TF Prime in Japan. It was not, it was called Arms Micron, where all the weapons were actually mini-cons. Also, Airachnid had a HAREM OF MEN she wanted to put Jack into - this is not a joke, this is a straight translation of the Japanese version dialogue. Hell, the Japanese line was also bigger than the Hasbro version because unlike Hasbro, they actually made certain characters, specifically Unicron and Breakdown, the latter of whom took ten years to finally make it to the west as a Pulse exclusive (not counting the Botcon version which was some kind of alt. universe DOTM Megatron).

But trying to explain how it could have gone south in Japan...would require understanding Japanese culture to a degree most people who don't live in Japan wouldn't be able to comprehend. It's fucking weird over there. The fact you didn't even know it wasn't called TF Prime in Japan just underscores how much of the situation you don't comprehend since you didn't even bother looking it up.

 

Oh good LORD. Please stop making assumptions about me, you're embarrassing yourself. I'm a lolita fashion aficionado since the late 90s and I'm friends with the people who own the Angelic Pretty shop here in San Francisco (the only one in the US). I understand Japanese culture pretty well actually.

I was unaware that they actually called the show Arms Micron, but that's because I can watch TFP in English and it hasn't ever occurred to me to try and watch it in Japanese (unlike TF Victory) or read it in Japanese (unlike Kiss Players, which is even more terrible than you think it is). I did know Airachnid wanted Jack for her harem, but that's not the kind of strange I wouldn't have expected.

Actually one of the reasons I would really like to know why it bombed over there is because I have read exactly enough of Kiss Players to know that I don't want to read any more of it. I'm kind of curious as to what they did that made everyone mad, given what I know other Japanese continuities have managed to do (although most Japanese fans are also embarrassed by KP).

 

I mean I’d imagine that part of Prime’s failure in Japan was because of that one dubbing guy’s habit of turning “serious” shows into parodies of themselves with baby humor and obnoxious voices. Not saying Prime was perfect, but it was at least watchable with the tone it had.

 

The only show that deserves a continuation is Animated.

 

If course they will be. We don't need leakwrs for that. When animated gets new toys, they will also be g1fied. That's the generations look. The only figure where I could see a better prime style figure (because the first one sucked) would be knockout. But even he will be g1fied. Hope he gets a good figure this time.

 

I'd also kill for some Generations style figures for the OG Rescue Bots crew.

 

I can see that. Also the creepy Airachnid stuff, but Japan has a pretty high tolerance for creepy. (KP again.)