Earlier this year we started what we called our "Lucky Draw Research Project". This mini-project involved us trying to track down any and all hard evidence relating to the Takara Japanese Exclusive campaign prize draw Transformers figures known as Lucky Draw toys.
The project, which we had technically started several years ago with online research, involved us spending quiet a bit of time and an awful lot of money to buy back issues of various Japanese toy , TV and collectors magazines. There were a few issues to get over with the research.
- Language barrier - though our Japanese is far better than it used to be thanks to some lessons a few years ago
- Lack of online information, other than on the Lucky Draw Transformers website
- Age - the magazines we were after date back to 1997, with some issues required from 1987/1988.
- Range of magazines - the magazines, which are released monthly included TV Boy, TV Magazine, Hyper Hobby Magazine and Comic BonBon (that's over 10 years worth of 4 magazines, at 12 magazines a year), which works out at 480 magazines.
Anyway we bought over 150 magazines over a month and had them shipped into the UK (which was a whole new story) where we had to sort through them, document the information and then scan each of the magazines for evidence. We decided to scan any and every page which featured Transformers on them, as well as a few other series which we liked such as Microman.
Anyway the first batch of updates are now available on Transformers At The Moon in our In The Media section. The new galleries include Lucky Draw Transformers toys, Transformers protype and testshot toys, a Beast Wars II manga and much more. The Issues also include the Hyper Hobby magazine which featured the Black Rodimus Convoy toy currently on eBay:-
- Comic Bon-Bon July 1997
- Hyper Hobby Magazine Issue 20
- Hyper Hobby Magazine Issue 21
- Hyper Hobby Magazine Issue 22
- Hyper Hobby Magazine Issue 23
- Hyper Hobby Magazine Issue 24
- Hyper Hobby Magazine Issue 25
- Hyper Hobby Magazine Issue 26
- Hyper Hobby Magazine Issue 28
- Hyper Hobby Magazine Issue 29
- Hyper Hobby Magazine Issue 30
- Hyper Hobby Magazine Issue 31
- Hyper Hobby Magazine Issue 32
- Hyper Hobby Magazine Issue 33
- Hyper Hobby Magazine Issue 34
- Hyper Hobby Magazine Issue 35
- Hyper Hobby Magazine Issue 36
- Hyper Hobby Magazine Issue 37
- Hyper Hobby Magazine Issue 38
- Hyper Hobby Magazine Issue 39