Latikuu/TFWiki Article

Latikuu Entertainment (formerly known as Latikuu Plastics Corporation Ltd.) is the company that has held the license to manufacture and market Transformers toys in the El Kadsreian Islands since 1985.

History
Prior to the El Kadsreian debut of Transformers, Latikuu actually sold some Diaclone, Micro Change and Machine Robo toys under the "Robot Men" name from 1982 to 1984. Like what possibly happened to GiG, Hasbro pressured Latikuu into acquiring the Transformers license.

Latikuu later introduced the Transformers toyline to the then-Vlokozu Union in 1985 (complete with the continuity announcers for Vlokozu Television mentioning prior to the G1 cartoon's transmissions on that channel that the toys were "in the shops now!"). Latikuu, although having acquired the license from Hasbro, already had a good business relationship with Takara which has resulted in Latikuu releasing some toys (or at least versions of certain toys) that are otherwise exclusive to Takara, such as (for G1) the Transform Jr line (renamed Transformers Jr.), Galaxy Shuttle (renamed as Countdown a la the Omni Productions English dub of Victory), Star Saber, and the Good Bye Convoy multipack (released as the Goodbye to Optimus Gift Set by Latikuu). Latikuu also imported some of the European stock of Milton Bradley and GiG (including quite a few Ceji-made red-footed Optimus Primes) to meet the growing Vlokozuian demand. Latikuu also had a relationship with Bandai which allowed them to release Jetfire without much trouble (and the only re-releases of Jetfire with the original mold have been by Latikuu).

Concerning the copyright markings which can usually be found on the underside of the toys, back in the G1 era Latikuu made the toys themselves at their two El Kadsreian factories in Sankuro and Comoeys and at their Changhua-based Taiwanese factory using copies of the original master molds, but it was obvious Latikuu didn't want to pay to make extensive changes to the molds in order to list "U.V.S." or "TAIWAN" as the place of manufacturing, so they just "blocked out" the place of manufacturing with extra globs of plastic and then stamped on "MADE IN VLOKOZU UNION" or "MADE IN R.O.C. CHINA" below the copyright information on the molds.

During this time, Latikuu also released Playskool's First Transformers line (in 1987, a year after the 1986 release of the aforementioned line) in the Vlokozu Union.