I do like that Hot Rod quite a bit. He apparently has a nice vivid, bright red deco akin to his Targetmaster self back in the G1 days although they gave him Rodimus Prime's yellow headlights rather than Hot Rod's blue ones and they also cut all of the flames from the side/doors of the car as well as the right and left edges of the hood which sadly matches the worst of all releases (Battle in Space). Still, all that exposed red car-ness does make for a nice clean look on that sharp design of a vehicle mode.
For comparisons, here's Target's up close (note the deco is basically a combo of Hasbro's Classics+BiS):
Here's a closeup of the BiS/Challenge at Cybertron variant (note the similar decos):
And here's an image of all of the past Rodimi lined up together:
As for the price debates going on, I only tentatively agree simply because this figure, particularly the best version of it (Henkei)has been reissued in the past by Takara. Besides that, Takara has also dropped some seriously awesome variants on us such as the Sons of Cybertron and United Rodimus Prime. So while I can agree that it's cheaper than trying to get these figures/versions of these figures
right now, I'm skeptical as to whether or not that will always be true because the next Asia exclusive/reissue/variant is probably waiting in the wings for the patient (as this very set itself proves).
I suspect the higher price might have to do with low production numbers since it's a limited/smaller market store exclusive being a Target release and not an Amazon/Wal-Mart/TrU release, but that's just speculation.
Besides, I just checked and there's at least one of the "good ones" (Hasbro's original Classics version, clear blue windows and all) available for a very reasonable (or maybe not, depending on how much you think those Junkions are worth) price of $40
right here. I haven't checked what ebay sellers are asking for it right now, but based on its age and popularity, I think that's pretty decent. Of course that's still a far cry from $25, so if you want those Junkions the boxed set's a better deal as long as you don't mind the somewhat Battle in Space minimal flameage deco on your Hot Rod.
Would be nice to get this new version of the mold just out of nostalgia. Also, it would be nice to have some Junkions to go with the season 3 and 4 guys.
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