Joustra

"You need to go on a diet!"

Joustra ("Jouets de Strasbourg") was a French toy company, a subsidiary of Ceji (Compagnie Générale du Jouet), that held the license from Takara to distribute Diaclone and Micro Change toys in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany in 1984 and 1985. Following a brief interlap during with both Joustra-branded Diaclone toys and Milton Bradley-branded Transformers toys were available in the same European markets in 1985, Hasbro/MB signed a deal with Joustra that gave Hasbro unrestricted access to all the figures Joustra previously held the license for. In return, Joustra provided their facilities to Hasbro/MB and manufacturered several Transformers toys for the European market.

History

Joustra was founded in Strasbourg, a city in the east of France, in 1934. The name "Joustra" is an abbreviation for "Jouets de Strasbourg", which translates as "toys from Strasbourg". In 1969, Joustra was purchased by Compagnie Financière Edmond de Rothschild, who incorporated it into the Compagnie Générale du Jouet (CEJI, "general toy company"), who also purchased model kit manufacturer Revell around 1979 or 1980.

In 1984, Joustra began distributing its own Diaclone line in France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany under license from Takara. Despite its title, the line included not only figures from Takara's Diaclone line, but also from the Micro Change line. Because Takara was mainly focused on producing Transformers-branded toys for Hasbro's North American market from 1984 onwards, this resulted in some bizarre transitional releases, with toys featuring factory-applied Autobot or Decepticon insignia stickers being sold in Joustra Diaclone packaging. Following the first wave in 1984, 1985 saw the release of a second wave of Joustra Diaclone figures. However, in 1985, Joustra's parent company Ceji ran into severe financial difficulties and thus struck a deal with Hasbro. As a result, the 1985 Joustra Diaclone figures are considerably rarer in the aftermarket than the 1984 wave.

In 1999, Joustra was purchased by French model kit manufacturer Heller, and is now known as Heller Joustra SA.

Connection between Hasbro/Milton Bradley and Joustra

Yellow-bellied coward!

In 1985, Hasbro Bradley introduced the Transformers brand to continental Europe through their subsidiary Milton Bradley (MB). Besides Spain, all the countries the MB-branded Transformers toys were available in were the same countries where Joustra was distributing its Diaclone line under license from Takara. This meant that any toy released by Joustra was off-limits for MB due to Joustra's exclusive contract with Takara. Since this also included Autobot leader Optimus Prime, Hasbro/MB instead declared Jetfire (a non-Takara toy that was thus not affected by Joustra's pre-existing license) Autobot leader for the time being.

When Joustra's parent company Ceji came in financial trouble in 1985, they struck a deal with Hasbro/MB.^[1] The first part of the deal saw all existing unsold Joustra Diaclone stock being provided to Hasbro/MB, with the toys taken out of their packaging and put into Transformers packaging, with new sticker sheets added. This allowed for a second wave of MB-branded Transformers toys that were not part of the initial line-up, and which can all be traced back to a Joustra Diaclone figure. The hurried schedule also resulted in several oddities, such as the MB version of Tracks being red (the toy's original Diaclone colors) instead of blue (the regular Transformers version's colors), Thundercracker being sold in Starscream packaging with Starscream's sticker sheet, and, most bizarrely, Sunstreaker (whose toy, in its yellow Hasbro Transformers color scheme, was part of Joustra's Diaclone line-up), being sold in Sideswipe packaging with Sideswipe's instructions and sticker sheet.

Following the release of the Joustra Diaclone figures as MB-branded transformers, the packaging for European Transformers releases saw the branding changed from "MB" to "Hasbro", even though in many countries, the local MB subsidiaries still handled the distribution of the toys. As the second part of the Hasbro/Joustra deal, several of the 1986 European Transformers were actually manufactured by Joustra to fulfill Hasbro's massive demand for Transformers product. Oddly, the packaging for these figures alternatively credits them to Joustra, parent company Ceji, and even Revell (misspelled as "Revel"), which was another Ceji subsidiary at the time. Similar to the MB-branded figures, these Ceji-manufactured figures also included bizarre oddities such as yellow versions of the Constructicons (not to be confused with the later, non-combining European 1992 releases of the Constructicons, or the 1993 Generation 2 versions), Optimus Prime with red feet (which even exists in MB-branded packaging), or Pipes as a straight redeco of Huffer, rather than a retool like the US release (nicknamed "Puffer" by fans; not to be confused with a similar Huffer-in-Pipes-colors release by Mexican manufacturer Plasticos IGA, which was later also available in Europe). Some of these Joustra-manufactured Transformers, such as Megatron or red-feeted Optimus Prime, were not only available in continental Europe, but also in the United Kingdom (in English-only packaging).

Joustra Diaclone

Trust us, those little bastards had it coming.

As alluded to above, Joustra's iteration of the Diaclone franchise bore little resemblance to its Japanese namesake. In addition to combining product from multiple Takara toylines, Joustra's Diaclone notably featured more robust fictional support than the original, replacing pretty much all art assets for new packing illustrations and an elaborate pack-in comic called "Duel on Diaclona" (Duel sur Diaclona) by future animation industry legends Paul and Gaëtan Brizzi. This comic saw the Brizzis throw out Takara's "space troopers versus bug aliens" conceit entirely, recasting the robots themselves as the main characters on the exotic robot planet "Diaclona," where the heroic truck robot "Diaclone" and his mostly-car forces did battle against the evil forces of the tyrant "Multiforce 14" and- hey wait a minute.

Much like how Takara's Italian licensee independently named their toyline "Trasformer," the timeline of who was copying whose homework or whether the similarity of conceit comes down to simple convergent evolution remains less clear cut than it would immediately appear, and a definitive answer is potentially lost to the sands of time. One thing that is clear, however, is the influence Joustra's Diaclone exerted on Takara's American efforts, with the names developed for the Powerdashers being ported directly into Diakron and subsequently Transformers itself. Shortly thereafter, Joustra's name for Micro Change's Watch Robo inadvertently inspired the entirety of the Kronoform toyline.

Wave 1 (1984)

Wave 2 (1985)

Joustra Transformers

Milton Bradley Transformers wave 2 (repackaged Joustra Diaclone figures, 1985)

Mini Vehicles Brawn Gears Huffer Windcharger

Cassettes Ravage Laserbeak

Autobot Cars Hound Jazz-Porsche Mirage Prowl Ratchet

"Sideswipe" (actually Sunstreaker in a Sideswipe box) Tracks (red) Trailbreaker Wheeljack

Other Optimus Prime Starscream (alternatively in Starscream's own colors or Thundercracker in a "Starscream" box)

Why are my feet red?

Hasbro Europe Transformers manufactured by Joustra (1986)

Mini Vehicles "Pipes" (actually Huffer in "Pipes" colors, aka "Puffer")		Insecticons Bombshell Kickback Shrapnel		Constructicons (yellow) Bonecrusher Hook Long Haul		Mixmaster Scavenger Scrapper		Decepticon Planes Starscream Dirge Ramjet Thrust		I swear I'm not a parallel import from Mexico!
Other Optimus Prime (alternatively with red or blue feet) Soundwave and Condor Cassette: Buzzsaw Megatron

External links

Source material

• The complete Duel on Diaclona comic at the Brizzi brothers' personal website
• Lettered translations of Duel on Diaclona by Necronomitron on Twitter:

Further reading

• Overview of Joustra's iteration of the Diaclone franchise at TF1.com (archived)
• Articles on various Joustra Diaclone toys at TF1.com (archived)
• "Milton Bradley Transformers" article series at 20th Century Toy Collector:
  • Part 2: The Pre-Transformers Era in Europe
  • Part 4: The MB & Joustra Connection
  • Part 5: Jetfire VS Optimus Prime
  • Part 6: MB Packaging Mix-Ups
• "French Connection" article on Joustra's Diaclone at TFSource
• French Transformers at Fred's Workshop

References