WFC Megatron Revisited

 

So, after getting the Hasbro version of War For Cybertron Megatron, I eventually stumbled upon the Japanese version.  As a result, this won’t be a full on review as I pretty much covered what I wanted to with my review of the Hasbro one.  Being crammed into Takaratomy’s United line, This Megatron gets some additional sexiness with some shiny paint. 

The most noticeable difference being a much darker colour scheme.


He comes on the usual Blister package.  What I really liked about the United line at this stage as they had some really cool battle scenes of the toys themselves, but with some obvious photoshopping to make them look like they are in battle. These pics are on the back of the box, along with a bio and stats.

As it turns out, all the images of Megatron are actual toy images albeit heavily edited.  They look pretty cool!

Pretty powerful chap there isn't he?

Sexy little picture of the toy gesticulating majestically.  Or perhaps maniacally and a mention of his gimmicks, which is his launching cannon.  Some nice head shots of other figures that were available as well.

Last one of the box, they have some English, which has a translation of his function, which in Japanese is 破壊大帝.  Which is “Hakai Taitei” lit:Emperor of Destruction.  Yet the translation they have used is “Tyrant.”  Close enough and sounds less silly than Emperor of Destruction.  Oh and I see they added Decepticon on the front.  Well, well, well.  I wonder if we will ever see the return of the Destrons?

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Outside of the box he looks very nice and beefy.  Still.



Articulation is exactly the same of course and even though I still would have liked a waist joint, the Megatron is still rather adaptable. 

Here is is next to the US release.  Interesting to see that even though it seems that the Japanese one has fewer paint applications, it does look a lot nicer.  I added a bit of liner on white Megs as he looked a bit drab otherwise and to help add a bit of definition to the sculpt.  The Japanese one doesn’t really need it any as the darker plastic, while not game accurate, does aid the sculpt details quite a lot.

The red paint is slightly metallic looking and very nice indeed.  You can even see a bit more facial detail, just from the darker plastic.  Nice.  The black dot on the forehead of the US one was done by me, but it’s all ready done on the Japanese one.

The only real downer is the Decepticon insignia on his chest.  It has a silver background which causes the purple to blend in a little too much with the background.

He has the allowance for light piping, but his eyes have been painted over. However if you happen to have a strong enough light on hand…


Looks rather menacing I think.  I like it.

You can see the sculpted detail so much easier on the Japanese version one.

I was thinking of selling my US one after doing this, but I did have the opportunity to play around with fusion cannons….

COME GEEEET  SSSOOOOOMMMMEEEEE.

Tanks Mode is still the future tank of random bits, but it looks more metallic and tank like thanks to the darker plastic.

It’s slightly classier looking than the white version, but again, that is all due to the inaccurate game colouring.

At the time, TakaraTomy where including these cards in the toys for use with gaming machines in dept stores in Japan.  Sadly I don’t think I ever saw one, but it included all series at the time, so I have some Animated ones and United ones as well.

I assume the game was some kind of fighting/pokemon sort of thing.

And so there you have it.  A little comparison piece of two Megatrons, what I find most interesting is even though I prefer the TakaraTomy one due to its plastic colour and snazzy red paint, it hasn’t made me think the Hasbro one is total rubbish.  They both have their strengths and weaknesses.  While the Hasbro is more game accurate and has MORE paint than the TakaraTomy one, the TT looks a bit nicer as a toy.  So once again, as with my Japanese Animated conclusions, I am going to say that the TT one looks nicer as a toy, but the Hasbro one is more accurate to the source material.

What a twist!