E-Hobby

e-Hobby is a Takara-affiliated online store owned by Part One, Ltd. Even though the e-Hobby Shop sells all sorts of toys manufactured by Takara, it's best known for offering exclusive redecos of Transformers toys.

History
Part One, Ltd. was founded over 25 years ago and has provided various kinds of services to Takara ever since the days of the Diaclone line, among them products planning, packaging design, character design and promotional planning. Among other things, Part One is responsible for designing the packaging for the Binaltech toyline.

The e-Hobby Shop was launched in early 2001. Even though the address e-Hobby.co.jp was used from the get-go, the site was temporarily also available under the (now defunct) URL http://e-hobby.sputniknext.com/, but eventually permanently moved to its current location in May 2003.

In March 2001, Takara would release the first exclusive toy through the e-Hobby Shop, a black redeco of the original Megatron toy that was reissued by Takara at the same time. "Black" Megatron had previously been available for pre-order at BotCon Japan 2000, since the e-Hobby Shop hadn't been established yet by that time. The deco of the toy was based on an old variant of the original Megatron toy's Microchange precedessor.

The next e-Hobby exclusives after that were reissues of the original Generation 1 Ironhide and Ratchet toys that were part of Takara's store/convention exclusive "Collector's Edition" series from 2001. In Ironhide's case, this was actually the first time the toy was officially available in Japan in its Transformers colors, whereas the Transformers version of Ratchet had previously only been available in Japan via mail order.

In late 2001, e-Hobby would release more exclusive redecos of a toy available at mass retail, namely a black and a clear "ghost" version of Starscream, who had been reissued by Takara a few months earlier. In early 2002, e-Hobby then released exclusive "New Year Special" reissues of Lambor and Alert, who had originally been available as convention exclusive "Collector's Edition" reissues a few months earlier, but had been hard to find in that previous instance. The e-Hobby exclusive "New Year Special" versions would also sport slightly different stickers than previous releases of the toys.

The next e-Hobby exclusive toy after that was Fire Guts God Ginrai, a redeco of the God Ginrai toy which had been reissued by Takara a few months earlier.

With the launch of Takara's "Transformers Collection" line of "bookbox" reissues, e-Hobby would start to regularly offer an exclusive redeco of almost every toy released as part of the line, in some rare cases even two different redecos of the same toy. Many of those redecos were based on old Diaclone or Microchange variants of the pre-Transformers versions of the toys in question, but were given new names and identities, with extensive bio profiles for the characters written by Hirofumi Ichikawa. Exceptions to this rule were the "anime" and silver chromed versions of Streak (who was never given a "proper" reissue by Takara; the e-Hobby exclusive redecos were companions to the TF Collection reissues of Prowl and Smokescreen, respectively) and the gold chromed version of Meister, who were supposed to represent the same character as the toy they were redecoed from.

In cases where no Diaclone or Microchange variant of the toy existed, e-Hobby would take obscure "extra" characters or weird errors from the cartoon series as inspirations for a redeco, or even come up with an entirely new deco. This was how Sunstorm, Road Hauler and Detritus were created. Furthermore, the e-Hobby counterpart to Takara's reissue of Astrotrain was based on an old prototype of the Transformers toy depicted in early catalogs; the e-Hobby counterparts to the Minibot Team were also in part based on decos depicted in an early catalog, whereas the others sported newly created decos, with all six of them being supposed to be based on characters from Tonka's GoBots line; and the e-Hobby versions of the Kup and Wheelie reissue set, Orion Pax and Dion, were based on characters from the cartoon that only shared marginal similarity with the toys the e-Hobby versions would be redecoed from at best.

The only TFC reissues without e-Hobby exclusive counterparts were Convoy (Optimus Prime), Soundwave (with Condor/Laserbeak), the Targetmaster version of Hot Rodimus (Hot Rod) and Stepper (known as Ricochet outside Japan). Meanwhile, the Soundblaster reissue itself wasn't given an e-Hobby exclusive redeco either, whereas the toy's Cassette companions Jaguar (Ravage) and Buzzsaw were released as an e-Hobby exclusive "Cobalt Sentries" two-pack, named Howlback and Garboil, respectively.

In addition, e-Hobby would also continue to release redecos of non-TFC reissues and even of toys that were no reissues at all. Those included a redeco of the Generation 2 Laser Optimus Prime toy named Laser Ultra Magnus, a black version of the Victory Saber gestalt formed of Star Saber and Victory Leo from Takara's Robot Masters line, and a black redeco of the "Hybrid Style" Convoy toy based on G1 Optimus Prime, including new additional weapons based on Hasbro's Generation 2 Optimus Prime toy and new head sculpts for the regular Hybrid Style G1 Convoy toy based on Derek Yaniger's rendition of Optimus Prime in Marvel's Generation 2 comic.

Furthermore, e-Hobby also offered exclusive "USA Edition" versions of 21 toys that were originally released by Hasbro as part of their Universe line at mass retail in the USA, as well as a "USA Edition" of 20th Anniversary Optimus Prime, complete with the Hasbro packaging, the shortened smokestacks, the battle damage and the black gun. In all these instances, the only difference to the Hasbro versions of those toys was an additional e-Hobby sticker on the packaging. In 2005, e-Hobby would also offer a "USA Edition" release of Cybertron Hardtop, but due to the lack of commercial success of the Galaxy Force line in Japan, e-Hobby apparently didn't consider "USA Edition" versions of other Hasbro-exclusive Cybertron molds such as Armorhide, Wreckloose, Downshift or Shortround as feasible, and thus neither of those toys were ever announced for an official release in Japan. However, e-Hobby did later offer Hasbro's limited run version of Primus that included a battle-damaged Unicron head as a "USA Edition", followed by "Blender" (Quickmix) and "Moledive" (Menasor), two Giant Planet-based show characters that hadn't been released by Takara previously due to the commercial failure of the Galaxy Force line.

The three most unusual e-Hobby exclusives thus far were Twincast, Galvatron II, the "Kiss Players Position" set and Binaltech Ligier (Mirage) aka "Rijie". In Twincast's case, the toy was a redeco of an old toy reissued as part of the TFC line (Broadcast, better known outside Japan as Blaster); however, the redeco itself was not based on an old Microchange variant of the toy, but was actually a reissue of a redeco that had previously already been released by Takara as part of the Headmasters line in 1987. In addition, whereas the TFC Broadcast reissue came with Steeljaw, the e-Hobby exclusive Twincast toy was available with Flip Sides, a redeco of the mold originally used for Eject and Rewind (neither of which has been given a "proper" reissue by Takara thus far), sporting an all-new deco. Galvatron II, meanwhile, was the companion piece to a Takara reissue of Galvatron, but whereas the mass retail reissue sported a new deco based on the original cartoon color scheme for the character, the e-Hobby version used the original toy's color scheme instead, but was named "Galvatron II", based on one of the various time-travelling Galvatrons that appeared in Marvel UK's Transformers.

Furthermore, the "Kiss Players Position" set consisted of Rosanna, Sundor and Glit, which were redecos of G1 toys that had been reissued before (Rosanna was using the Rewind/Eject mold that had been previously used for Flip Sides who was available with the e-Hobby exclusive Twincast reissue, whereas Sundor and Glit were redecos of the Laserbeak/Buzzsaw and Ravage molds, respectively), but they were not actually released as "companion" pieces to reissues that were available at the same time. Rather, they were released as part of the Kiss Players line, which was technically Takara's "main" Transformers toyline at that time. Lastly, Binaltech "Rijie" was a clear "invisible" version of the Alternators Mirage toy, which had previously not been released by Takara. Instead, Takara had previously only released a redeco of the toy as "Hot Rodimus" (Hot Rod) as part of their Kiss Players line, sporting a different head sculpt than Hasbro's Mirage version. Therefore, the clear e-Hobby version was actually the first Japanese release of the Mirage character as part of the Binaltech line.

Yet another new twist was added to the exclusive e-Hobby offerings in 2007: Aside from "true" exclusives, e-Hobby would now also offer toys that had been previously exclusively available at Japanese conventions, starting with the Wonder Festival 2007 Winter exclusive exclusive Binaltech Black Convoy, much in the same fashion as Hasbro's Alternators Nemesis Prime version of the toy had previously been exclusive to San Diego Comic-Con 2006 and was concurrently also offered through their Hasbro Toy Shop website. Later that year, Takara also offered the "Fusion Cluster Edition" redecos of the live action Transformers Movie Protoform Optimus Prime and Protoform Starscream toys, which had previously been available at the C3xHobby Convention. In both instances (Black Convoy and the two Protoforms), only Japanese residents were allowed to purchase the toys, unlike the other exclusives which can usually be ordered by foreigners as well.

Reissues

 * Ironhide and Ratchet (available as a set)
 * "New Year Special" Lambor and Alert (available as a set)

Exclusive companions (redecos) for reissues

 * Black Starscream and Ghost Starscream (available as a set)
 * Fire Guts God Ginrai
 * Gold chromed Meister/Jazz and "Anime" Streak/Bluestreak (available as a set)
 * Road Rage and Crosscut (available as a set)
 * Silver chromed Streak (Bluestreak)
 * Megaplex
 * Clamp Down and Deep Cover (available as a set)
 * Road Hauler and Sunstorm (available as a set)
 * Astrotrain in "prototype colors"
 * "Dimension Exploration Researchers" aka "Gobots" (Bug Bite, Bad Boy, Treds, Small Foot, Pathfinder, and Road Ranger)
 * Detritus
 * "Insectron Clone Army" (Zaptrap, Salvo, and Shothole)
 * Overcharge
 * "Cobalt Sentries" (Howlback and Garboil)
 * Magnificus with Ga'mede
 * Orion Pax & Dion
 * Twincast (reissue) with Flip Sides
 * Galvatron II
 * Laser Ultra Magnus

Other exclusive redecos

 * Black Victory Saber (Robot Masters)
 * Clear "Rijie"/Ligier/Mirage (Binaltech)
 * G1 Black Convoy (Hybrid Style Series)
 * Kiss Players Position (Rosanna, Sundor and Glit)

Convention exclusives later available at e-Hobby

 * Black Convoy (Binaltech)
 * "Fusion Cluster Edition" Protoform Optimus Prime (movie)
 * "Fusion Cluster Edition" Protoform Starscream (movie)

"USA Editions"

 * Optimus Primal (Universe)
 * Razorclaw (Universe)
 * Silverbolt (Universe)
 * Snarl (Universe)
 * Reptilion (Universe)
 * Tankor & Obsidian (Universe)
 * Blackarachnia (Universe)
 * Dinobot Striker (Universe)
 * Depthcharge (Universe)
 * Autobot Ratchet (Universe)
 * Inferno (Universe)
 * Dinobot Triceradon (Universe)
 * King Atlas (Universe)
 * Skydive (Universe)
 * Stockade & Magna Stampede (Universe)
 * Fireflight (Universe)
 * Autobot Whirl (Universe)
 * Nemesis Strika (Universe)
 * Soudnwave & Space Case (Universe)
 * Air Raid & Wind Sheer (Universe)
 * Swerve (Universe)
 * Convoy/Optimus Prime (Masterpiece/20th Anniversary)
 * Hardtop (Cybertron)
 * Primus with Unicron head (Cybertron)
 * Blender/Quickmix (Cybertron)
 * Moldedive/Menasor (Cybertron)

Trivia

 * Because e-Hobby is mostly known for exclusive toys and many Western fans aren't aware that e-Hobby also offers regular mass retail toys like any online store, pre-orders for new mass retail toys listed at the e-Hobby website are occasionally mistaken by Western fans as a confirmation that a toy is either exclusive to e-Hobby, or that an e-Hobby exclusive redeco is planned.
 * Another common misconception among fans is that e-Hobby "makes" the exlusive toys. While e-Hobby is presumably responsible for creating the color scheme and decos, the toys are still produced by Takara. After all, Toys'R'Us don't manufacture their own exclusive Transformers toys either.