Yotsuyasan wrote:fenrir72 wrote:It may just be your "opinion" about recognizing Jazz and Mirage without those alcohol and tobacco endorsements from the original inspiration vehicles that Diaclone/Transformers used. On my side, I feel Jazz might escape the "Martini" logo but he is very iconic with the royal blue, red stripe and dark blue back ground paterns of Martini. See how his binaltech release looked like an anemic and generic bot?
Gitanes' gypsie girl logo plus the F1 Elf makes Mirage Mirage. As for the former not having a strong presence in the USA, never underestimate an "ambulance chaser" chance to raise some issue to earn a fast buck.
Obviously then, since this toy has no Martini markings:
And this toy has no Citanes markings:
...then you have absolutely
no idea who these two characters are then, right? They are absolutely unidentifiable as Jazz or Mirage, and are thus the worst toys ever! Pardon me, I must throw mine out immediately.
(Well, maybe not my Jazz...)
(Thanks, Reprolabels!)
If Takara makes these characters, I am sure they will have all of the appropriate markings. And at the very least, Jazz should have no problems with importers, since
the laws in question here apply to tobacco, not alcohol. So I don't know why we are even discussing Jazz.
If Takara makes a Mirage, I suppose it is hypothetically possible this problem might rear its head again. I doubt it, as I still think Gitanes, as a company without a US presence (that I know of) would have no reason to object to their sale. (Thus, who exactly would your hypothetical ambulance chaser be going after? There'd be no one for him to sue in a US court of law.) But a hypothetical Hasbro release might still be possible, because I think most people (obviously with you as an exception) will still recognize him as Mirage without the Citanes marking.
Exhaust, on the other hand, needs the distinctive red patch to look like Exhaust. So he has problems that Mirage and Jazz wouldn't.
Anyway, isn't this all rather academic at best? Until such time as Takara actually produces either character in the Masterpiece line,
if they even ever do so, and then once we can see what details are included on their decos, is there even a point in arguing any of this?
Tomy's MP series makes it a point to use official/licensed endorsements for most of their "cars". Sure, being a g1 afficionado, I will surely recgnize those two unless Tomy goes for the previous bastardizing of the brand labels.
On Jazz being Jazz, I think you need to look at those stripes of his, its a bastardization of the Martini logo. You can recognize Jazz by his face with the single piece visor which can be applied to Exhaust too with his modified WJ facade. The color apps of Mirage is at best the Gitanes color fonts too. Sure you can recognize both in their hekei/classic incarnation......which more or less a bastardization of the original product endorsement schemes of the original.
Raising the issue in advance, as this probably never raised red flags when Exhaust was first concieved. Hopefully this gives anyone reading this wiggle room to avoid legal hiccups like this.
Now this line is posted directly at Hasbro if by anychance they get off their butts to make Exhaust available for the USA market (no holding my breathe)
You can use this a reference.
Kyosho manage to get around the Malboor fix by:
1. Rounded out the "angles" of the logo
2. Got rid of those two "badges"
3. Malboro use red color fonts for their symbol so why not color it G1 Predacon orange?
Ask kyosho how they managed to?
And JZGR, that's the point I was referencing, "selling" tobacco products to minors (?) issue Well, either go strict (?) the way PayPal doesn't allow use of their system to purchase adult themed products ( a joke of a restriction if you ask me) or simply go by the CC ID route. or the other options I posted (realistic ones at that).
)
