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So I got this guy after throwing a low-ball offer on eBay. I've had the Hasbro version, and always thought it was the better of the two, but after both LG Brainstorm and Hardhead ended up winning me over, my curiosity got the best of me.
I have to say, despite wishing I could pick and choose a little from each, the Takara version is really awesome, despite being on that most seem to dismiss. His blue plastic is a much flatter color with no metallic flake or swirliness, which makes him look better, IMO.
While he's missing some paint apps the Hasbro one has, the ones he has are "smarter" so to speak. Like Hasbro has the toy-accurate paint on the biceps which adds a lot of nice detail to the arms, but this one uses the red pinstripe at the elbow and the blue hands and joints, which does a much better job of breaking the arms up instead of them being all gray, and makes them more dynamic overall. I also like his light gray plastic a lot, although the Hasbro version's isn't actually bad, the detail pops more on this.
I'm indifferent about the paint detailing around his chest. Looks weird until you get used to it, but I could take or leave it. The gunmetal gray on his feet goes a LONG way to making the entire lower half of the robot more interesting, though.
Took me a while to get used to his head. I was planning on just swapping the face of Hasbro Highbrow over, but it doesn't look right on this body, somehow. The silver face and bright blue visor on this one go much better with this deco, and with the other Takara bots, too. If Takara ever releases another Headmaster set with a Hasbro-style Highbrow head, I'll jump on it, though.
