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Thursday, December 1, 2011

Versus: Beast Wars Terrorsaur

If you are a fan of Transformers then you probably know by now that Takara strives to produce show accurate figures as opposed to Hasbro. That's not to say that Hasbro hasn't released some great decos on some of their figures, but on average the Takara version seems to be the superior deco. One case that couldn't be more true of this is Beast Wars Terrorsaur.

Terrorsaur was a fan favorite character due to the portrayal of his character on the awesome CGI Beast Wars television show. However when Kenner/Hasbro released the first figure of him they strayed from the CGI character model for some reason. While the toy is a rather excellent "flipchanger", the Hasbro decor is horrible. Why did they decide it was a good idea to omit the yellow from the "beak" on the dinosaur's head? Why did they think a stripe of green spots down the back would look good? If you don't follow me take a look of this screen capture of Terrorsaur first.


Now take a look at the deco on the Hasbro version of Terrorsaur.


Where did that purple come from in addition to the green spots? What about the black on the body? Honestly until I realized the Takara version got the deco right I had no idea the Hasbro figure was that ugly. Trust me though - wait until you see the comparison pictures.

Before we take a look at the Takara version be forewarned that if you want to track down this toy you better pack some patience. I don't even remember how long I looked for this toy it took me that long to find it!


The best mode alone is reason enough to purchase this version. Not only are the ugly green spots missing, but the red plastic is much brighter and vivid than what Hasbro used. The addition of the yellow paint on the "beak" and the eyes also makes a huge difference.


Gone is the purple on the head, fists and legs. The black has been replaced with a more show accurate gray. The deco on this figure is down right sexy.

I'll leave you with some side by side comparison pics to truly show you in the words of G1 Soundwave - "Hasbro inferior, Takara superior".



1 comment:

  1. I'm wondering if the reason for the differences (at least in this case) was that the toys had to be developed a lot sooner than the show and thus may have reflected earlier designs for the characters that were changed by Mainframe in process. A lot of the other characters are dead on, but Terrorsaur and Tarantulas are some of the worst offenders of being inaccurate. Of course since Beast Wars aired later in Japan it may have given them more time to accurately represent the color choices. I dunno, just a theory. Takara is notorious for dolling out better paintjobs.

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