Outside? Inside? No, thinking ABOUT the box: your thoughts on Transformers packaging

[Sabrblade]

I don't know if this was tied to any late changes from the original plan Sabrblade mentioned (which I remember being utterly baffled by even at the time); no idea if the timings would result in that.

Takara's initial plan to dub Animated as a movie prequel (and the immediate scrapping of that plan) was all their own initiative. By the time Animated was getting ready for release in Japan, it was on its way out in Hasbro's markets, around the time when Hasbro's final Animated releases got relegated to Toys 'R' Us exclusives instead of mass retail, and when Hasbro was just about to launch their new Aligned continuity.