Masakatsu Saito
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Masakatsu Saito (斎藤まさかつ Saitō Masakatsu) was a prolific mechanical designer and illustrator who provided TakaraTomy with concept art for the Transformers brand for nearly twenty years, usually alongside legendary designer Takio Ejima. Coming on to the company in 1982, he started out working on sticker sheets for the pre-Transformer line Micro Change and bounced around the office working on properties such as Dunbine and the Transformers - adjacent Blockman before coming on to the Transformers brand proper around halfway through The Headmasters supplying rough markups for the packaging artist. He was promoted to full-on concept artist for the next year's Super-God Masterforce and just kept going from there, having a hand in the development of wide swathes of TakaraTomy Transformers from the headliners of 1989's Victory all the way through Dark of the Moon. Some of his most noteworthy contributions include Armada Unicron, the Generation 1 Action Master assortment, and, most significantly, pretty much the entire Beast Wars toyline. He retired in late 2011 citing declining health.
Known Transformers work
Toy deco
Micro Change
- Jaguar (pre-Ravage)
Packaging illustration
The Headmasters
Toy design
Generation 1
1988 - Pretenders and Masterforce
Pretenders
|
Pretender Beasts | Godmasters | Targetmasters | |||||||
| Cassettes |
1989 - More Pretenders and Victory
1990 - Action Masters
Action Masters
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|
|
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Action Master Action Blasters
|
Action Master Autobot Vehicles
|
Action Master Decepticon Attack Vehicles | Action Master Autobot Armored Convoy |
1991 - Action Masters continued
Action Masters
|
(w/ Vanguard) (w/ Screech) (w/ Basher) |
Exo-Suit Action Masters | Motorized Exo-Suit Action Masters | Action Master Elites |
1992 - Euro-G1 and Operation Combination
| Turbomasters / Road Corps | Predators / Jet Corps |
Unreleased
Action Masters
|
Turbomasters |
1993
The global 1993 production slate consisted of the same toys existing in a sort of superposition of Generation 1 and Generation 2 depending on the market. Don't think about it too hard. Point is, Saito worked on all of the new molds that year.
| Axelerators / Autobot Cars | Skyscorchers / Decepticon Jets | Aquaspeeders / Color Changers | Stormtroopers | Lightformers | ||||||
| Trakkons | Obliterators | Leader |
Generation 2
1994
| Rotor Force | Laser Rods | Heroes | Others
|
1995
| Go-Bots | Cyberjets | Laser Cycles | Auto Rollers | Leaders |
Unreleased
Go-Bots
|
Auto Rollers |
Beast Wars
1996
| Basics | Deluxes | Megas
|
||||||||
| Ultras |
1997
| Basics | Deluxes | Megas | ||||||||
| Ultra Teams | Playsets |
1998 - Transmetals, Fuzors, and Beast Wars II
| Autorollers | Cyborg Beasts | Others | Role Play | Playsets & Vehicles |
Fuzors
| Basics | Deluxes |
Transmetals
| Deluxes | Megas | Ultras | Supers |
1999 - Transmetals 2 and Beast Wars Neo
| Role play |
Transmetals 2
| Basics | Deluxes | Megas | Ultras |
2000 - Mutants
| Mutants |
Unreleased
| Blentrons | Organic triple changers
|
Machine Wars
Car Robots / Robots in Disguise (2001)
| Autobot Brothers | Build Team | Team Bullet Train
|
Others |
Animorphs
| Deluxe Class | Super Class |
Armada
Energon
- Rodimus
- Device Jaguar / Tigatron / Device Cheetus
(2GB thumb drive) - Dinosaurer / Device Grimlock
(optical mouse) - Broad Blast
(USB hub) - Jetpower Optimus Prime
(Jetfire and Optimus Prime) - Thunderhead w/ Major Tungsten (His final design)
- Some of Saito's work outside the Transformers umbrella include the Transformers-adjacent Brave series, the original incarnation of the popular Gridman franchise, and the 90's incarnations of both the pre-GoBot brand Machine Robo and the foundational 1950's scifi franchise Tetsujin 28.
- Saito was baffled when the order came down to design an Action Master Elite from BlackZarak's character model, arguing Western children would surely connect better with his Scorponok form that actually appeared in Western media. He was proven sort-of-correct when the final toy was sold as a different character entirely.
- The Generations 2011 Vol 2 feature on Saito commemorating his retirement (p84-95)
- The Beast Wars Reborn Golden Disk[3]
- The Beast Wars feature in Transformers Generations 2017 (p. 69-77)
- The Beast Wars Again feature in Generations 2023 (p. 68-71)
- ↑ Inner robots only, monster shells by Keita Amemiya.
- ↑ Designed with Kunio Okawara.
- ↑ The concept art included with the Beast Wars Reborn two-pack is credited to Saito by Hisashi Yuki in Generations 2011 Vol 2, p 94.
- Masakatsu Saito at Chinese Wikipedia
- We don't know why he's only on Chinese Wikipedia either.
Alternators / Binaltech
Cybertron
Classics
| Deluxe Class | Voyager Class |
Device Label
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 |
Revenge of the Fallen
|
|
 |
Dark of the Moon
| Human Alliance
|
Gallery
Notes
References
While far too numerous to cite individually, this article is sourced from:
Footnotes
External links
Categories:
- Alternators designers
- Animated designers
- Beast Era designers
- Classics designers
- Dark of the Moon designers
- Generation 1 designers
- Generations 1 packaging artists
- Illustrators
- Revenge of the Fallen designers
- Robots in Disguise (2001) designers
- TakaraTomy designers
- TakaraTomy packaging artists
- Unicron Trilogy designers
