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"Parlez vou variante?"
|Pre-Tfs | Regular-Release |
In France, Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands a company called Joustra released some of the Diaclone and Microman toys under the brand name of Diaclone. Unlike Gig in Italy, Joustra created new packaging for these toys. These Joustra Diaclone toys were released in France(and various other European countries) when Transformers were already becoming popular in the USA. The result was that some Transformers were released in these Joustra Diaclone packages(sound familiar? That's because Italian tfs had the same problem :-).
To quote Devvi: "The minibots you see here are all Transformers. They all have Autobot insignia's. Not all Joustra toys were Transformers though. Browning was released as well as the two larger Microman tapes that never made it to the Transformers line. The Diaclone Battle Convoy (Optimus Prime) was released and even though the Joustra box shows Transformer boxart, the trailer still has the large Diaclone stickers on the side."
Some other notes: no standard names were used(from either the Microman line or the Tf-line). Joustra created all original names...to go along with the original packaging, I suppose....although Condor has an interesting exception to it :-)
Jazz: (boxed) (insert) (sides) (top)
Starscream: (boxed)
Powerdashers: (carded)
Browning: (pic)
Minibots: carded
Prime: comparison of Joustra and japanese diaclone
Reflector: comparison of French, Japanese, USA, and fake versions
Here's something interesting: what's going on with these instruction pamphlets. Look alike? Check again...those are in two different languages :-) Hmmm. Yes, further proff of the multi-country joustra releases pic
(see also: Maz's Cracking News...)
(Regular release)
But wait! There's more! France also has the distinction of having the 'true' set of Gen-1 yellow Constructicons. Unlike the euro-1.5 versions(which are G2 in design, and come with no combiner parts) these are actually on G1 backer-cards, and have rubsigns. more...
There's also this odd-duck late-release Soundwave with 3 fingers instead of four :-) Similar to the Blitzwing finger variant (see: decepticons) the first two fingers have blended into one. So far, this has been found in France:
comparison of american and french Soundwave | Back of same
And in keeping up with Prime variants, France has one with considerably darker outriggings on the trailer, and a 'made in france' copystamp (among other things- see the prime page for details on that.)(note that there's a recent ko Prime with similar markings).
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