Generations Selects (toyline)
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Debuting in 2019, Generations Selects is a series of exclusive figures sold mainly through online retailers, intersecting multiple thematic sublines of Generations. The line consists of special edition redecoes and retools of Generations figures, packaged in brown cardboard mailer boxes broadly similar to the late TFCC Figure Subscription Service.
As with other Transformers lines from 2018 onward, Hasbro and TakaraTomy attempt to make Generations Selects equally available to fans in each other's primary market. U.S. and Canadian fans (except in Québec) can purchase Takara Selects figures from Hasbro Pulse while Japanese fans can purchase some Hasbro Selects figures from TakaraTomy Mall.
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Toys
Hasbro
Hasbro announced the Generations Selects branding in late 2018, with Ricochet and Red Swoop as the nominal debut figures for the line. However, the first figure to reach fans wound up being Combat Megatron, who was made available for order concurrently with New York Toy Fair 2019. Packaged in robot mode, Hasbro's Selects figures have no price markup compared to regular retail figures. Hasbro Pulse debuts Generations Selects figures for the U.S. and Canadian markets while fans in Hasbro's other markets must resort to various physical or online retailers, with the only exclusive being Decepticon Red Wing to the Target website (though he was eventually rereleased to other online retailers in 2020).
Following Ricochet and Red Swoop, who featured a Halo of Primus design on their packaging and were explicitly labeled as Power of the Primes by their instructions, the line transitioned to a new standard packaging design featuring the War for Cybertron Trilogy logo. 2019's releases were labeled as belonging to the Siege portion of the trilogy by their instruction booklets, while in 2020, instruction sheets used the Earthrise installment's graphic design elements, but not the logo itself (except Hot House, for reasons unclear). The Spy Patrol set was also labeled as part of Earthrise during the Toy Fair 2020 presentation. Deep Cover and Ramjet were released during Kingdom and feature the new-for-2021 cardboard packaging tray, but retain the Earthrise instructions graphics.
For Legacy, the line's packaging was given a new look, keeping the brown card box, monochrome black printing, and seal sticker, but now giving each release a unique schematic line-art illustration of the toy within, in a similar style to Takara's previous Selects packaging (see below).
TakaraTomy
TakaraTomy's Generation Selects [sic] figures succeed the niche of the previous 2014 to 2019 Legends and Unite Warriors series, featuring uniquely extensive retooling and higher-budget paint operations for accuracy to each character's era of origin in the Japanese Generation 1 cartoon continuity. Additionally, the Japanese version of Generations Selects features a heavy emphasis on combiner teams, a feature noticeably absent from the War for Cybertron Trilogy toyline. Due to the Transformers market in Japan being smaller and shrinking, Takara's turnout of Selects figures is smaller compared to Legends and Unite Warriors. As with those lines, Takara's figures are packaged in alternate mode.
As per brand unification, Hasbro Pulse releases the TakaraTomy-made figures with no changes save for a black packaging sleeve labeled in English. Soundblaster's Selects branding is unique to Hasbro Pulse's release, with the original TakaraTomy release being part of Siege.
At the beginning of the series release, TakaraTomy declined the usual trend of assigning ID numbers to their Selects releases. By contrast, Hasbro Pulse labels each Takara Selects release distinctly from Hasbro Selects figures on their pre-order page.
However, in Transformers Generations 2021, TakaraTomy gave Super Megatron the ID number TT-GS09 and assigned other numbers to subsequent items in order, thus making TakaraTomy's ID numbers different from Hasbro Pulse's. As for the numbers between TT-GS01 and TT-GS08, TakaraTomy does not specify which items correspond to each number.
Notes
- Shortly before the inception of Generations Selects, Hasbro seems to have tested the concept of "special edition" Deluxe Class figures in boxed packaging with Titans Return Arcee and Grotusque, followed up by Prime Wars Trilogy Blast Off, Repugnus, and Punch-Counterpunch.
Foreign names
- Japanese: Generation Selects (ジェネレーションセレクト Jenerēshon Serekuto)[2]
- Mandarin: Biànxíng Jīngāng Shìdài Jīngxuǎn Xìliè (變形金剛世代精選系列, "Transformers Generations Selects Series"), Biànxíng Jīngāng Shìdài Xìliè Jīngxuǎn (變形金剛世代系列精選, "Transformers Generations Series Selects")
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Tweet by TakaraTomy's official account
- ↑ TakaraTomy does not use this Japanese spelling very often, instead straight-up inserting the untranslated all-caps English phrase "GENERATION SELECTS" into Japanese text.
External links
- Generations Selects at the TakaraTomy website
