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Post by Hanyoutai on Apr 1, 2024 10:59:47 GMT -5
I haven't had a chance to do a text look over to see if anything in the interview is new, but some of the concept arts look new to me.
We don't currently have it in any form of ebook yet. I don't think anyone else has gotten to turning it into a pdf but I could be wrong. I prefer not to do so myself while it's actively being sold and promoted.
(Was really hoping it'd be in ebook form too since HJ posts ebooks of their actual magazine, but no dice. Maybe because they had to compromise on some images and didn't want to make it more obvious.)
EDIT: Now that I've had time to take an in depth look at the book, my original thoughts on it are more or less unchanged. I was seeing a lot of reviews saying that the images looked terrible like they'd been cut out of a box image, but the only low quality images that stood out to me were the core BLOX Zoids (not all of them, but the Matrix/Chimera BLOX and a few others) and the BR Mura sets (which I'm guessing were photographed over a dark background to show the clear and so look strange on a white background). Otherwise, the images are all pretty good quality imo.
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Post by Hanyoutai on Apr 2, 2024 20:16:08 GMT -5
I've finished looking through the interview, and it's pretty typical of what we've gotten in recent times. These are pretty mild but I quite enjoy hearing their insight into what goes into the development of physical products. Here are a few of the talking points from the book.
1990 Revival It seems that when Zoids 'ended' in 1990 staff was already quite attached to the idea of bringing it back, so almost as soon as it'd ended, they began looking into plans for reviving it. They found a lot of support from distribution who fondly remembered the series and were excited to support Tomy if they wanted to approach the series again. They mentioned some fun challenges in such a revival: Having to not only locate molds and make sure that they were still in good condition, but also making sure that they still fit within child safety standards for toys during the new era.
A Bone Frame It seems that the mental image of a body that looked like bones wearing a militaristic outer armor goes as far back as the Liger Zero. This was the idea they had in mind, but as the new generation Liger it underwent tons of design sketch concepts, and ultimately they landed on the idea of the CAS. It's cool to think that this concept would emerge with a more bone-like frame in the Masterpiece Zoids line and later be fully realized by Zoids Wild.
Rex Rival and its CAS Units The Berserk Führer was originally drawn as a concept for the Geno Saurer way back during the 1990 revival. I think we already knew this from earlier concepts posted in sources like DHM, but ultimately they chose the design based on the Death Saurer since it matched the anime better. However, NC0 was short, and Tomy wanted to continue the franchise past the end of it, so they were in talks with CoroCoro about this. At this point, when Zoids appeared in the anime didn't line up with their development process, time wise. This leads us to a discussion about the lack of CAS units for the Berserk Führer. After reflecting on how CP units required you to have a Zoid to use them on, they came up with the idea of making Zoids that were, themselves, customize parts, but could also be played with on their own. Ultimately the concept for extra armaments for the Führer was inherited by the SS Zoids such as Diloforce and BLOX.
Zoids Fuzors Zoids Fuzors was born when Hasbro, enthusiastic about how well business was going, was sad to see NC0 end with only 26 episodes. They expressed interest in Tomy making another tv series and they began working together on the next installment, Fuzors. While Fuzors ultimately didn't perform well in North America, it was carried out in Canada, Australia, and the Philippines.
Old Concepts Still On The Brain I think this was touched upon in some Dengeki Hobby issues forever ago, but soon before HMM began, DHM started a series of articles talking about the next step of Zoids. They introduced the concept of movable models (at a time where many people didn't consider non-motorized figures to be 'Zoids') with the Tateishi Store Murasame Liger. Soon after, the first HMM, the Shield Liger, was revealed. It seems Tomy themselves were interested in higher-end products aimed at adults who grew up with the tv anime series. However, they felt at the time that it was still too early. So they talked to Kotobukiya, who they'd work with on art statues and such (I'm guessing from other series? I'll leave this one up to people with better anime awareness than myself) and handed them the plans they'd been working on. Kotobukiya has continued to produce kits aimed at older audiences ever since, which gave Tomy the time they needed to explore new Zoid designs, ultimately leading to Zoids Wild.
A Change In Scale With Zoids Wild they changed the scale to 1/35. We already know this talking point from CoroCoro articles, but the reason behind the scale change was because it was important from a story writing perspective that Zoids and humans could be depicted in the same frame, interacting with each other. In the CoroCoro article they expanded on this, talking about how this made Zoids feel much more like characters, which resonated much better with children than the pilots being isolated in a cold box that was disconnected from the Zoid at almost all times.
External Motorized Components When developing the Wild Liger it seems they had quite a bit of trouble getting it to work because the power unit would end up too big. Nakase (one of the staff members) recommended attaching the mechanisms to the outside as added parts, which was a breakthrough. This brought us a lot of interesting components, like the motorized Wild CP units.
Lack of Runners Complaints about the difficulty of assembling products apparently existed even during the 1990s revival testing phase, but they chose to move forward with it anyway. They removed runners from Wild to create a healthier impression regarding assembly kits, which continues to be more and more of a challenge to market to younger audiences. By removing the runner, it was more like putting together a puzzle.
What's On The Horizon When asked about new projects in the works for Zoids, they said that they were hard at work and feel that they'll be able to make some kind of announcement in the near future, so to look forward to it.
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Post by Maethius on Apr 3, 2024 14:13:10 GMT -5
All of this stuff is really interesting to me! I love the line, but I also love product development and learning about the philosophy and processes behind it.
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Post by Snowflake on Apr 3, 2024 15:55:47 GMT -5
Kind of depressing to have real confirmation that the current doldrums are much worse then the original gap between OJR and NJR. I was wondering what the impetus was for how a lot of Wild zoids are doing what the grade-ups did in a lot of ways, making the mechanisms part of the unit instead of just the main body... I wonder if this idea that kids wanted to see pilots riding zoids rather than sitting in 'cold cockpits' has any merit, since I mean, kids for 50 years have enjoyed cockpits more than anything. Ask what their favorite lego parts are... anyway I sure hope runners aren't gone for good, those things are like, part of the process! ... really this is just.. mostly depressing.
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Post by Hanyoutai on Apr 3, 2024 17:16:23 GMT -5
It's less about the 'cool factor' and more about making the Zoids feel more 'alive.' There are instances of interaction in the other series too, but Wild went way beyond that. This allowed kids to get more attached to Zoids as characters and not just tools. Just like how Zeke was more of a 'character' (and was also a Zoid that Van could ride on and interact with face-to-face.) As the new child viewers grew up, so would the machines. They'd go on to develop more militaristic tones in Wild Zero as kids moved on to wanting more 'grown up' shows. I greatly enjoyed the lack of runners, as it allowed me to enjoy the build process again without having to balance work hand strain and hobby strain pain. It revitalized my love of model kits after HMM had driven me to stop building entirely. I wouldn't worry about them being 'done away' with, though. They're already continuing to utilize sprues for all kits aimed at older audiences, since they don't have the barrier of keeping a 6 year old's attention. They're an important part for many builders~ Anyway, Probably last update on the book but I wanted to throw out an example page of what makes up most of the book, since it seems quite important. Zoids books don't really seem to do sample pages so you're usually going in completely blind. There's around 130 other pages in this style. The encyclopedia section (making up most of the book) is in this style. As a bonus wanted to share this delightfully funky "Shield Liger II" (early Blade Liger) concept. The way they drew in the parts under the cover makes it look like a 1/24 style Liger to me, but I love the gatling gimmick. They made a good choice with the final Bladey design but its interesting to see just how radically different early concepts are. There's about 150 other concept art pieces, not including some that had multiple concepts in 1 pic. * The concepts are almost all in Japanese. I translated the text to English because it was relevant to the concept.
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Post by dchan on Apr 4, 2024 10:15:58 GMT -5
Thank you for the interview summary Hanyoutai! I got the book too and have been studying Japanese for about a year now but basically still could not understand anything haha.
Love hearing about the development process, and exciting to hear there's more in the works!
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Post by Hanyoutai on Apr 4, 2024 12:41:45 GMT -5
Sure thing! And man, do I feel that. My apologies I forgot to clarify in the post (got distracted proofreading) but this summary relies heavily on google translate. I started studying at least a couple years ago but without the 5-6 hours of recommended daily study time, I've learned a few thousand kanji and still can't read hardly anything, haha. Largely thanks to not practicing enough grammar. Gotta trudge ahead!
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Post by Snowflake on Apr 4, 2024 13:18:02 GMT -5
coooool gatling liger
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bill
Lieutenant
Posts: 326
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Post by bill on Apr 4, 2024 20:36:02 GMT -5
I like that too. Almost a Descat mk2.
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Post by Maethius on Apr 5, 2024 10:11:46 GMT -5
Looks wonderful! Anything on prototypes, rumored kits, or other side-blurbs? I love the large, clear photo record.
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Post by Hanyoutai on Apr 5, 2024 14:02:21 GMT -5
The book doesn't contain any prototype picture sections. They do discuss a bit about the process, such as the transition from using numerous 2d drawings to being able to use 3DCAD to better imagine part interference, and the use of mechanical prototypes for both eras. You can probably find a good deal of prototype images looking for coverage of the recent Big Zoids Expo, though. There were a lot on display.
The exception that comes to mind is a discussion about Zoids Wild. There was apparently a Malaysian Exploding Ant in the works that made it all the way to the prototype stage, but they eventually determined that, compared to other Wild Zoids, its gimmick was pretty visually underwhelming even if it looked neat on paper. There's a (tiny) sketch contained that shows that it would've been themed after a WWII grenade. The abdomen would, during its walking mode, extend near the top and drop off, allowing the ant to walk ahead while leaving an exploding 'grenade' behind. Though, in terms of its real-life mechanics, it looks like this was probably just the ant's butt falling off as it walks along. Probably pretty underwhelming to most audiences, though would've worked well as a media-only Zoid.
Don't recall anything on rumored kits. It's more about the history of the core series.
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Post by Maethius on Apr 8, 2024 13:12:10 GMT -5
Exploding ant.... ^_^ ... "EAT MY BUTT!!!" +BOOM!!!+
It still looks like a great book. My focus is on trying to obtain a DS, though... and I have no idea how to do it!
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Post by Darth Escargot on Apr 10, 2024 15:57:10 GMT -5
Got this today. I kinda wish it was hardcover, but other than that it's pretty great for the price. You get a nice little compendium of basically every kit ever released in Japan plus a bunch of really cool concept art.
What strikes me the most about it, though, is that it's the Deathsaurer on the cover and not a Liger. I'm sorry, but I'm from the 80s, so this matters to me. Seems we have a new poster child.
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Post by Maethius on Apr 11, 2024 14:08:08 GMT -5
Could have been Gojulas, too! Really want to nab one of these, but would really LOVE to have a complete book with Euro and US releases and all the concept art on the planet!
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Post by Darth Escargot on Apr 11, 2024 14:29:45 GMT -5
I think at this point we just have to live with the fact that the NJR days were the height of the IP's popularity, so it was never going to be Gojulas - that one was king in the 80s, especially if you lived in Europe and knew it by it's proper name Zoidzilla, heh. Deathsaurer was the main villain Zoid in Chaotic Century, and apart from IIRC one episode where Irvine briefly pilots one, every Gojulas you saw in that show was somewhere in the back serving as artillery, unfortunately.
Now what I want to see next is an AZ Genosaurer because they could use that as a basis for a Breaker, and a BF, and even a Gayryuki.
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