- The 40th Anniversary of the Zoids Franchise!
- The Start of the Celebrations
On August 31st 2022, Takara Tomy began preparations for the celebration of Zoids' 40th anniversary. The series was first founded in 1983, and plans were scheduled to begin in October. Their first hint at these celebrations was the above main graphic, featuring five of the anime protagonists in a beautifully rendered promo. This image and its customs were created by the same folks behind ANIMAREAL, who handled all of the incredible realism images of Zoids: Field of Rebellion.
Because we saw a promo like this before (shown right), and saw it turn out to be for a Mobile Game (Zoids Field of Rebellion), which was fiercely unpopular with most of the Western audience, many people were understandably sceptical about what this promo was going to turn out to be. While I loved FOR, I was admittedly also under the impression this would be the result! At the same time, I figured we'd see more than a mobile, with celebrations starting to early.
After a few days had passed, updates came almost every day for the first portion!
- First Promotional Video
- Launch of the Anniversary Line
The very first teaser we got of the actual celebrations was the above video, which featured a variety of TT products, with Zoids placed right at the start. The video announced the start of the Anniversary line, starting with the AZ-01 Blade Liger (scheduled for October), which would be followed by the AZ-02 Liger Zero and AZ-03 Murasame Liger, both scheduled for 2023. These kits were all recreations of the MPZ-01 Shield Liger from the Masterpiece Zoids line. This wasn't something anyone had expected, as Masterpiece Zoids had ended years prior.
- Launch of the Official Website
On September 8th, Zoids Official posted the official website for the 40th Anniversary Project. This featured a dynamic page with the main graphic and a placeholder page for the Anniversary Zoids series.
- Our First Product Photos
Also on August 8th we saw our first look at the product photos for the AZ-01 Blade Liger. This kit looked like an absolute beast, and it was one of the fastest turnarounds for announcement --> to product photos we've ever seen.
