I think they started out of fairly even footing. Both had hot toy lines, both had cartoons that were popular with the boys demographic, both had the comic books.

But then GI Joe ended up with periods of being in and out while Transformers pretty much just kept chugging ahead. While they may have started out at the same mark we had years of very little GI Joe to draw in new fans while Transformers had enough going on to draw in new fans to replace the kids who had grown out of it.

Joes just had horrible luck with cartoons like GI Joe Extreme or Sigma Six while Transformers got lucky with hits like Beast Wars and Transformers Animated. Even when Transformers made cartoon mistakes like Beast Machines they could just import a Japanse Transformers series to stay on the air while there was nothing Joe on the air.

Transformers also had more luck with improving the toys. Transformers could make really big leaps forward to make better toys, but Joes until the 25th line only seemed to hit with just tweeks to same figure style.

When we only had a few chances to add new fans over 25 years Transformers had an almost solid 25 years to add new fans then the math isn't that hard.

Of course I think we might be on the edge of some catch up. While Transformers might have gotten out of the gate first it's still a Micheal Bay film so with some luck GI Joe will be more about GI Joe and Cobra to bring in some new fans even if it's not exactly our GI Joe. 25th Joe single packs are still flying off shelves like crazy and that's just with us GI Geezers and our kids to buy them so imagine how they will fly if the Joe movie is good. Plus if Hasbro takes what they have learned from hits and miss with cartoons maybe we will get a good cartoon post movie to help us get in more new young fans into our hobby.

I think the big 'silent' factor is that the Japanese market is so much bigger than the American market. The nation's about the size of California, but their population's right about the same size as all of America. However, due to that crampedness, Japanese boys and men can't really be 'distracted' by sports since there's literally no room for big empty fields to play in. So their percentage of geeks is pretty much equal to the entire male population.

So, if you're Hasbro selling 2 different toylines to two countries (not exclusively, but majoritively) and one of them's, let's say, 200% a bigger market than the other; which toyline do you put your emphasis behind?

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I've always believed that GI Joe was "Star Wars" for kids with discriminating tastes - with GI Joe you got exceptional detail and maximum articulation and playabilit. I agree with J_Man but I think it's also because GI Joe betrayed it's core fanship in 1987 with ridiculous sci-fi characters and the over-the-top GI Joe movie. It also dropped the quality GI Joe cartoon and superior quality GI Joe vehicles (from model kit quality to single stamp vehicles).

With the core fans gone and the loss of its identity in the late 80's GI JOE started trying to be all things to all people - dino-riders, anti-drug task force, eco-warriors, street fighter! It became GI Jack - Jack of all trades, master of none.

Meanwhile Transformers maintained its less lofty business plan, make robots that change into things. As something sci-fi from the start they could introduce stupid concepts - like headmasters - and work them into the story line and their fans would buy into it. It helped that Transformers has concurrently been developed in Japan and the US, so it has always had something to offer the fans.

In an ideal world, GI Joe would have never dropped the quality detailing in its toys, nor the realism that made it so cool, sub-teams would have coonsisted of only new characters from which they could have spun off into their own seperate but compatible toy-lines (imagine a whole space-men versus monsters line of toys that were fully compatible with GI Joe, made special cross-over appearances on each other's cartoons, but never expected you to believe that Roadblock was an astronaut). A quality cartoon would have been maintained, and there would have been no mid-90's hiatus. If things had worked out like that - GI Joe would be as big as Transformers.

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HUH?! Japan's population is less than half of the United States, probably closer to 1/3 than 1/2 even. I would say, if anything, that their toy geeks are only a slightly higher ratio to population than ours, but are much more rabid/fanatical when it comes to their toy buying.

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Huh, doing some factchecking, I see you're right, stad. I've had them numbers bouncing around in my head for about 20 years, and backtracking I see they weren't even correct in the 80s. Where the hell did I get them numbers from? My bad.

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Tell that to the Action Masters.

Hasbro was all about trying new things when sales slipped.

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Hasbro doesn't sell to Japan. Hasbro has a partnership with Takara-Tomy (formerly just Takara) the company that originally designed and sold the toys that became Transformers. Takara-Tomy markets to Asia (or southeast Asia at least) while Hasbro markets most everywhere else. They also partner on designing the toys: Hasbro creates the concept designs and Takara-Tomy does the engineering to turn the concepts into toys.

Here's some info on Takara from the TF Wiki: http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/Takara

As for why Transformers have been more popular? I'd say it's a combination of having a more consistent cartoon presence and being driven by character concepts as opposed to characters.

In Transformers, you can have a 'Prime-type leader character' without it having to be G1 Optimus Prime, or a 'yellow kid appeal sidekick character' without it having to be G1 Bumblebee, etc. G.I. Joe doesn't have that. You can't really have a 'Duke-type character' or a 'Destro-type' character without it being the originals.

It seems like the G.I. Joe mythos is too dependent on Larry Hama's characters.

Very good points raised. The general consensus then seems to be that transformers are a cooler concept, more flexible as a toyline/universe, had a stronger cartoon presence, and more consistent toy output. That, and Joe may have been hampered internationally (and at times domestically) for being 'military.'

Given all that it makes sense. I appreciate the new insight I have gained. It will be interesting to see if the 25th + movie synergy will revitalize Joe in any major way.



If only, brother.... if only....

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Gotta agree with you on that. Esp. when the GoBots were able to sell. I'm sorry, but something as confusing as CyKill (sp?) getting marketed to kids, wow...honestly, was it a guy robot or chick robot?

Also, one thing about transformers, and as we're about to find out with the new star wars show coming up this fall, they've gotten good at reinventing themselves and learned from past mistakes..not just their own lines, but gi joe as well. Esp. with star wars, as some of the EU stuff they tried in the 90s worked and some of it, at least in the comics,..eh, it gets too soap opera'y and stops being fun star wars.

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The biggest factor, IMO, is Universality.

Transformers is a single brand that attracts fans the world over. The word "Transformer" doesn't really get translated, like McDonalds or Coke. It is what it is. In Spain? Transformers. In India? Transformers. In Japan. Super Robot Lifeform *Transformers*.

What GIJoe lacks is an International audience... an ability to expand past the US, and sometimes Canada. In England, GIJoe became Action Man, then Action Force. Even now the Action brand is well remembered in the UK while GIJoe gets an "Oh, yeah, they changed the name after a while..." In other parts of Europe, GIJoe had other names... Gyperman, Action Team, Falcon (in Brazil and Argentina)... as far back as the 12" heyday, Hasbro had a hard time selling the concept of GIJoe, America's Moveable Fighting Man overseas.

And in the 60s and 70s, Hasbro was dealing the drug that was, for it's time, a revolution in toy design. A Real American Hero and it's ilk are hardly revolutionary... "better than the rest" sure, but nothing other toylines couldn't replicate to an acceptable degree. Toylines that then appealed to kids around the world.

G.I.Joe just has it's limits that way. Not everyone in the world is an American Patriot. Hell, not even all Americans are patriotic. So unless the concept can be easily retooled for an International audience (the way the Movie is trying to redefine it: as "Action Force with the brand name slapped on") you're never going to see the kind of popularity Transformers has.

Generation 1 is everything from 1984 to 1991, so Galvatron, who came out in 1986, is G1. The purple Ramjet was in Generation 2... which continuity-wise is considered to be part of G1.

They've never attempted to tie all the different universes together, except to state that Primus (their god) and Unicron exist in all continuities as singular beings.

Hasbro doesn't have anything to do with Transformers in Japan, because, under agreement, TakaraTomy owns the brand in Japan, and thus sells all the Transformers there. That's why American TFs they import have a TakaraTomy sticker on them (and vice versa)

Normally, Transformers doesn't do very well in Japan because of a crowded market, a downturn in the popularity of mecha, and because Transformers evidently just don't interest the Japanese. Japanese kids aren't into Transformers. Japanese mecha collectors prefer Gundam or whatever. So TakaraTomy is left with a small niche of Japanese Transformers fans. Interestingly, the 2007 Movie line doubled TakaraTomy's profits for the last quarter of 2007.

You have also forgotten the fact that Japan's population is rapidly aging, which is why the toy industry there is more collector-centric: they don't have a choice. They are running out of kids to sell toys to. By comparison, North America still has a relatively young and growing population where children still completely outnumber collectors for the majority of mainstream toylines, and thus companies can still be comfortable in making decisions that may piss off adult collectors

Btw, some of your comments are... pretty stereotyped. Cramped conditions means lack of sports? From what I understand, average Japanese school students play far more sports than most average western students because its a part of their daily curriculum.

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Not always the same sports played in the United States, but Japan has it fair share of sports nuts and in shape nuts. US major league baseball has gotten some of it's players from Japan. The Japanese national rugby team is often at a disadvantage in height and weight, but they still play hard.

The show we call Ninja Warrior makes stuff like American Gladiators look like kids stuff. The course is just insane. Thanks to the popularity of that show they have an indoor sort of Ninja Warrior amusement park where ordinary people can try out their own skills. The stage Muscle Musical is also pretty big, and while wrestling is more show than sport they have some really impressive talent that pulls off insane moves.

Saying they don't have sports because they have crowded cities is a bit like saying New York City doesn't have sports because it's crowded. Sports are just really international so where ever people live around the world they make room somewhere to not only play sports to watch them as well.

I think that the fact that TF stayed on TV is a great help.
GI Joe didn't.

Transformers went 3D then went anime following kid's interest. Throughout the years.
Sure GI Joe went also anime for about 8 episodes and the series looped back to the beginning again and again (that stupid robo-dog story killed saturday mornings for me) so it killed kid's interest.

TF is big in Japan and usualy what's big over there becomes big here the year after.
(Quicker now that we have the NET).
GI Joe doesn't have that much follow up outside America except for hardcore fans like us.

Lets face it, transforming robots are cool and some parents might prefer to buy a robot (even if he has a laser gun) that turns into a car than a military toy...

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You know, I just pointed out that Transformers is not popular in Japan at all. Its really obscure there.

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