Primal and AirRazor- love in the air ;)

[Onslaught Six]

And as for which TF series get more shipping, O6, I'm sure you haven't missed all the crap Animated gets?

But Animated's relatively new, and it's mostly died down since the series ended. BW's is *still going on.*

Like O6 said though, BW has more than others. And, that segment of the fanbase is more vocal.

I really don't see that BW necessarily has more than any other TF franchise. Granted, that part of the fanbase is pretty vocal, but that doesn't mean they write more fanfics. If you actually go looking for it, you can find plenty of fanfics for any Transformers franchise.

The BW fanbase writes more fanfics about Cheetor fucking Blackarachnia or Megatron banging some terrible original character. Or said terrible original character wanting to bang Depth Charge. (I'm probably getting a little too specific.)

At this point, I would say the great-king-daddy of all fanfic inspirations is "Harry Potter".

A few years ago and I would have agreed with you, but I think Twilight's overtaken that now. I'm serious. (Although I don't know exactly how many of those are supposed to be taken seriously, and how many of them are written by absolute trolls. I haven't read any, ever, so.)

Unfortunately, no, it wasn't doujin. It was an official franchise of Transformers created by Takara, trying to find a new way promote the last few Binaltech molds since those lines didn't do so well in Japan.

The way I heard it was that Galaxy Force was doing terrible in Japan. Us American kids, we'll put up with shitty anime, as long as there's cool toys, y'know? But Japan doesn't give a fuck. So basically all of ArmEnerTron did terrible over there. (I suspect this was part of Takara's reason why Galaxy Force should be a new continuity altogether, which is half of why it's such the huge mess it was.) They gave it the college try, and nobody bought it. (In fact, some of the last GF figures were only available as USA editions in Takara's online store, like Menasor. A shame, since Menasor is fucking awesome.)

Takara's strategy after that was basically to apply only to a select niche market: Adult fans. And in Japan, that means you put little lolicon girls over everything and hope it sticks. This was in 2006. Remember: Japan didn't get Classics until 2008 with Henkei. For real. So it wasn't until after the live action film and the media explosion that TF was suddenly relevant in Japan again.

Here's a release date timetable:
First KP Audio Drama thing aired August 3rd, 2006:
http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Kiss_Players_%28radio_drama%29
KP Convoy is released ~August 10th 2006:
http://tformers.com/article.php?sid=6327
First squicky manga is released August 21st 2006:
http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Kiss_Players_issue_1

That means that the comics came out a little after the toy, and well after the audio drama. In addition, look at this:
http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Y%C5%ABki_%C5%8Cshima

This heavily implies, if not outright states, that KP is official by distinguishing it from his earlier work, like the Machine Robo crossover he apparently authored.

Now, I love you like a retarded brother, G, but you play fast and loose with your facts sometimes, and you always prefer your worldview over the one that actually happened. (Come on, man, you suckered me in with that Matrix Shard bullshit for years, and I went along with it because I was dumb and it was awesome, but no fiction ever actually said that. And those early Car Robots catalogues was 'one' catalogue that 'maybe' said something about the Cybertrons being interdimensional police, and that's all. I prefer to think of them as hailing from G1, and Takara seems to support us now if not then, but still.)

[Gomess]

The biggest gap for me is: If Takara had created it, there would've been a cartoon to cash in! =p

So by that logic: Return of Convoy, Operation Combination, Binaltech, Binaltech*, Alternity, Henkei! Henkei! and United also weren't created by Takara since none of them had cartoons either? Face it Gomess, no matter how you try to deny it, Kiss Players was a creation of Taraka.

...Dude, couple of points:

(1) "=p" is a smiley with its tongue sticking out, signifying irony or humour.

(2) That's an awful argument. "Face it"? Come on now. I've already explained that I'm not in denial, or whatever, but until someone proves that Kiss Players isn't a doujin work, I'll continue to believe what I saw when it came out. Oushima is a freelancer, not an employee of Takara, and as such, his work- officially recognised as it is- is DOUJIN. I think your argument might rest somewhat on the fact that you don't know what doujin are, or how copyright works in Japan. They can still be officially recognised by the original copyright owner, but that doesn't change who initially created them, and that was my whole point.

As for being O6's retarded brother, it's been like seven years. I've analysed world media for a *living* since then, and I wouldn't have gotten very far if I was still the same fancanoning teenager. Like I KEEP SAYING, no one can actually prove that Kiss Players was *created* by Takara, BUT that doesn't mean they don't officially *recognise* it. Why must all discussions be totally partisan? I'm not entiiirely sure who created Kiss Players outside of Oushima, neither are any of you; that's the long and short of it.

Soooomewhat back on track, as someone who's previously been commissioned for art of a certain kind (don't judge me based on what Synjo infamously 'commissioned' me for and subsequently ragequit over), I can assure y'all that Animated remains a more popular choice than BW in that neck of the woods, probably simply by virtue of it being the most recent series.

...If that even counts as "shipping". I think we've rapidly changed gears from "Romance in TF" to "Sex in TF". Such is life!

[Dominic]

Takara included it in their official timeline. Even if that timeline is meant to represent the genesis of the brand, (similar to the TFU packages in '08), rather than story, that makes it official.

The way you are describing it, anything produced as work for hire or otherwise resulting from something other than top down directives is not official.

"Kiss Play" is reprehensible. But, it is official.

[Onslaught Six]

You can't argue with the publishing dates, G. Toys and radio play hit first. Unless you know something we don't.

[Gomess]

Like I said, I don't know much about this specific example. If Oushima came up with the initial concept, oversaw the toy designs and wrote the radio plays, then in all likelihood it's his own work (doujin), but one that's been recognised as official by Takara. That means it's official, did I not make that clear? =/ If Takara came up with the initial concept, and just hired Oushima to write the stories around the toys, that's all well and good too, and also means it's official, but I've seen no evidence of that. Hopefully I've made it clear that that's irrelevant, though.

I mean reeeeaally, I think you guys missed my point. I have no problem with Kiss Players being an officially licensed TF / Takara / whatever product. But within "official" there's a distinction between "created by the licensee" and "recognised by the licensee" that I thought was relevant here, as it's essentially Oushima's baby. Tone of voice can't be communicated through the internet. No biggie.

[Dominic]

It is not unheard of for licensees to take submissions, effectively claiming those submissions for themselves. First contracts for writers often involve that they surrender their IP to the publisher.

Even if KP was written before Takara claimed it, Takara claiming it makes it official.

[Sparky Prime]

The BW fanbase writes more fanfics about Cheetor fucking Blackarachnia or Megatron banging some terrible original character. Or said terrible original character wanting to bang Depth Charge. (I'm probably getting a little too specific.)

And how does this prove BW fans write more fanfics like that than any other TF franchise?

...Dude, couple of points:

(1) "=p" is a smiley with its tongue sticking out, signifying irony or humour.

I know, but it still doesn't excuse the idea that not having a cartoon somehow means Takara didn't make it...

(2) That's an awful argument. "Face it"? Come on now. I've already explained that I'm not in denial,

Yet you're trying to stick to the idea that it was doujin despite all of us telling you it wasn't?

If Oushima came up with the initial concept, oversaw the toy designs and wrote the radio plays, then in all likelihood it's his own work (doujin), but one that's been recognised as official by Takara. That means it's official, did I not make that clear? =/ If Takara came up with the initial concept, and just hired Oushima to write the stories around the toys, that's all well and good too, and also means it's official, but I've seen no evidence of that. Hopefully I've made it clear that that's irrelevant, though.

As I said before, the Binaltech line wasn't doing so well in Japan and Takara wanted a new way to market them to try to boost sales. The Transformers in Kiss Players were some of the last few Binaltech figures (although some still never got released in Japan), they were not overseen by Oushima at all since they already existed. The only toys he oversaw in the line was the human partners for the purposes of the storyline Takara hired him to create for them.

[Gomess]

Takara claiming it makes it official.

I knowwwwwww arrrgggghhhfffflllbbbbgggrrrrllllle

Can you guys just go back to talking about robot sex before I go nuts? D=

[138 Scourge]

Can you guys just go back to talking about robot sex before I go nuts? D=

This has gotta be the only time where robot sex is the lesser strain on one's sanity.

[Gomess]

Can you guys just go back to talking about robot sex before I go nuts? D=

This has gotta be the only time where robot sex is the lesser strain on one's sanity.

*I* can't believe I said it either. Sorry for the non-British outburst u gaiz, but there's only so many times one can reiterate the same point.

Soooo Kiss Players is official, yeah???