The Energon Pub

Hot on the heels of our first glimpse of Takara Tomy's Transformers Go! figure's from the low quality magazine scans yesterday we now have their official images. Takara Tomy have updated their official website with G11 through G18 plus the Autobot and Decepticon Data Disc Sets from their Generations line. Check out the official images below:

• G11 Optimus Prime
• G12 Predaking
• G13 Shockwave
• G14 Bumblebee
• G15 Bulkhead
• G16 Wheeljack
• G17 Starscream
• G18 Soundwave
• TG16 Decepticon Data Discs
• TG17 Autobot Datat Discs

Shockwave looks... Fantastic...! I mean, ours is stuck with stupid orange bits, but that black looks good... I mean, wow!

I really prefer the Tak Soundwave and Starscream, plus Shockwaves black armor, but everything else I actually prefer Hasbros version.

I guess this means they all aren't getting the meched-out armor in the show after all (since it would be foolish for one market to drastically diversify the toys against the show's look -- it'd be like Hasbro releasing a red a Optimus as their standard Optimus figure and Takara releasing a green Optimus as their standard Optimus figure despite his being red in the show).

Wheeljack's red bits are now brown in these pics, but weren't they white in the magazine scans?

I don't see anything here that I don't need. I'll stick with Hasbro's versions of what few characters I want.

might get bulkhead. thats it

No surprise how amazing most of these look compared to Hasbro. I may consider getting Shockwave, but SS and Bulkhead are easy buys for me...'nuff said!

Must be nice to get cool stuff in Japan.

Oh my. I think i need that soundwave and starscream. Im fine with hasbros shockwave, i never cared for the armor. I also want that prime. I wonder what ripclaw and laser back will look like....

I like Hasbro's Roadbuster-homage way better than this boring green Bulkhead. The only improvement they made was making the windows black instead of light blue.

Starscream and Soundwave got better repaints from TT, but I don't like those molds, so I don't care.

I actually DON'T like Takara's Shockwave. The light grey waist piece is just way too light. Like that horrible whitish-silver plastic Hasbro used to use all the time.

OP and the data discs, however, look amazing.

Thanks to Amazon Japan we have higher quality official images of Takara Tomy's upcoming Transformers Go! line. The figures included are:

• G11 Optimus Prime
  
• G12 Predaking
  
• G13 Shockwave
  
• G14 Bumblebee
  
• G15 Bulkhead
  
• G16 Wheeljack
  
• G17 Starscream
  
• G18 Soundwave
  
• EG01 Optimus Prime
  
• EG02 Bumblebee
  
• EG03 Prowl
  
• EG04 Smokescreen
  
• EG05 Hound
  
• EG06 Megatron
  
• EG07 Starscream
  
• EG08 Airachnid

The images below are linked to their respective Amazon Japan pre-order pages:

DAT STARSCREAM AND SOUNDWAVE!!! i need them.

Shockwave looks magnificent. Logical.

only getting bulkhead

All Deluxes and Voyagers preordered. Looks like I won't be disappointed .

Looks like Takara fixed Prime, Shockwave, Starscream, Soundwave and Bulkhead. No funky colors going on.

No swirly plastics on Bumblebee or Wheeljack either, that's a bonus .

Optimus looks marginally better, but all they did was switch Synth-en green for energon blue, so meh.

They actually painted Predaking's wings, but the voyager is still terribad.

I'm still not sure why people are gushing over Shockwave, all they did was switch the nice dark grey for that horrible looking light grey plastic, though the beast bits look nicer in dark grey, why would you want them? XD If anything, it looks FAR more blue than it should, but that could just be the lighting.

Bee is the same, Bulkhead looks MILES better though. I appreciate the homage that BH Bulk was doing...but it just looked awful.

I'm not impressed by Takara's take on Wheeljack, I'm partial to the BH version.

Screamer and Soundwave though? Ohhhh MAN, did Takara get those right, or did they get them right!?

Va'al wrote:Shockwave looks magnificent. Logical.

He and Soundwave are on my "must have" list. Think I'll pass on Screamer.

As for the Autobots, while many of them look better, Bulkhead's the only one really tempting me away from the Hasbro releases.

Optimus looks pretty good. I don't know whether it's simply the lighting, but his white looking teeth make a big difference to that face. Have to question why they painted the side windows yellow instead of blue, mind. Definite purchase.

I like that they've put the Ultimate Predaking detail of colours on to the voyager, but I'm still waiting on a review of the Ultimate one before coming to a conclusion as to which version to get. (Ultimate Predaking looks to have such a lazy transformation.)

I'm torn on Shockwave as there's little difference I can see apart from a toned down purple (the armour pieces are insignificant no matter what colour they are). Need in-hand images.

Bumblebee. What about it?

Bulkhead looks really boring. They could've at least coloured his weapon to give him a little something.

Wheeljack's pretty boss. I thought the Hasbro version was a bit too busy colour wise, so I like this toned down version.

Starscream looks to have inherited Megatron's colours. Interesting.... Blander colours than the Hasbro one, but so much better.

And I don't know what I've been smoking, but the first thing I thought of when I looked at Soundwave was an Oompa Loompa.

Mkall wrote:I don't see anything here that I don't need. I'll stick with Hasbro's versions of what few characters I want.

Double negative, dude.

Sodan-1 wrote:

Mkall wrote:I don't see anything here that I don't need. I'll stick with Hasbro's versions of what few characters I want.

Double negative, dude.

No caffeine this morning.

That bulkhead will be mine, but I wish they would do that mini hound in swindle colors.

RAcast wrote:Optimus looks marginally better, but all they did was switch Synth-en green for energon blue, so meh.

Only for the sword and windows. His eyes and other translucent plastic parts appear to still be green.

camzilla51 wrote:That awkward moment when your translucent missiles are a different color on the tip than the end poking out.
(Prime, we're looking at you.)

It seems like that whole image is poorly shopped, because it doesn't seem possible to have those two colors of clear plastic exist within the same mold. The windows are blue, yet the shoulder hinges are green? I smell shenanigans.

Still, for what these images are supposed to do, I get the end idea that Takara looks to be promising. Blue where the green was, end of story.

Using two colors of clear plastic for a main-line figure has been done before, albeit rarely. Clear plastic for hinges is a bad idea from the start, so one would hope TakaraTomy uses the regular kind.

camzilla51 wrote:That awkward moment when your translucent missiles are a different color on the tip than the end poking out.
(Prime, we're looking at you.)

It seems like that whole image is poorly shopped, because it doesn't seem possible to have those two colors of clear plastic exist within the same mold. The windows are blue, yet the shoulder hinges are green? I smell shenanigans.

Still, for what these images are supposed to do, I get the end idea that Takara looks to be promising. Blue where the green was, end of story.

Maybe they painted some of the translucent plastic. It's possible to do that and maintain the plastic's translucence, since fan customizer Cheetimus Primal does it often with his repaint jobs.