The Energon Pub

[Starscream]

As we have all seen the past, the Japanese versions of certain toys are quite different from the US versions. Some noteworthy specimens would include Energon Skorponok / Superlink Megazarak, Masterpiece Prime, armada tidalwave / micron legend shockwave.

Being a crazy collector, I like to have every release of each character that I collect. I was sure that Takara would make a lot of changes to paint schemes and such for the movie. We were even told that Movie Prime would have die-cast at first! Eventually, the toys were released in Japan and the sad news that they were identical was becoming apparent. This was unfortunate for me because I all ready pre-ordered a bunch of japanese toys from FantoFan! I didn't cancel any preorders and they finally arrived the other day.

I got to checking them out and opened a few just to make sure. Obviously Bumblebee is quite different with blue translucent plastic instead of painted windows. So if Bumblebee is so different, wouldn't it be possible that the other figures were made in separate factories than the Hasbro versions? If this were true, wouldn't differences be possible, if not certain?

So I opened up Deluxe Jazz, protoform starscream, and FAB starscream. I scoured them figures and compared them. My results? YES, they are different and came from different factories.

-Colors or paint and plastic are not identical (it is difficult to make identical batches of paint / plastic in two different places)

-Paint apps are in different shapes for example, the headlight paint app on Jazz.

-Translucent areas are of a different consistency than the US versions. Less opaque

Now I realize these differences are nominal to the average collector. I'll admit these are very basically the same figure. But to people like me (insane) they are very much different. You are talking to someone that has 5 or 6 G1 Soundwave molds because each has minor differences.

I didn't open Movie Leader Prime yet, and probably won't. I have a few more batches of these things coming and once I get them, I'll post photos of comparisons.

I thought you all might be interested in this information though.

Ta

[Starscream]

yeah ok, useless without pics.. I'll see if I can fix that.

[Bumbled]

Yer... at least you have 1 version of the toy