The Energon Pub

I am curious as to whether or not there are any noticable differences between the Hasbro and the Takara/Tomy versions of the Transformers Movie toys. I have already seen that the Takara/Tomy Deluxe 1970 Bumblebee toy has translucent plastic windows and missiles instead of the painted ones of the Hasbro versions.

I would like to collect the movie figures but I am a sucker for the highest quality ( I chose Binaltechs over Alternators because of the die-cast metal, better paint applications and superior packaging), so has anyone got movie figures from both Hasbro and Takara/Tomy? Or has anyone compared them? I know it's not a question of die-cast vs plastic anymore but from the pics I've seen the Japanese stuff seem to be painted to a higher standard. Is this correct or is there no difference? Maybe someone has been photoshopping their images?!

Any insights would be appreciated. Also, does anyone know if there is going to be a bigger Bonecrusher toy? I don't think Deluxe class puts him in scale with the others!

PS. I apologise if this has already been discussed, I've been away from the forums for a good while!

I can't remember where I found the post, but from what I can recall, there aren't exactly extreme differences between Takara and Hasbro Movie toys, other than '76 Bumblebee.

My stance on this is if you already have the US versions, the Japanese versions are so similar you'd be better off saving your money for something else. True the packaging is slightly better (the bubble detaches from the card without destroying the packaging) but '76 BB aside you are paying way more for for the same thing you already have with a few more paint apps.

I have a Takara '76 BB (only Japanese figure I bought) and the US version. Package wise, the same identical card. Japanese version has a sticker on the front though. Japanese BB also comes with clear blue missiles and windows. Tomy/Takara seemed to put forth as little effort as possible in releasing these (probablly cautious since they didn't know if the movie would tank or not).

While some of the Japanese releases are better than the US versions (and in some cases the US are better) the TF movie line isn't one of them. Hope this helps.

It's like Snaptrap said, I think that Takara went cautious on this line because they didnt know how the movie would go, and thus how well the line would sell. No point putting lots of extra work on poorly painted American designed figures if the movie and line were going to flop.