Anime Devastator

Have you ever purchased a figure and instantly regretted it?  To be perfectly honest, I've never regretted a purchase.  Ever.  That is until I purchased Anime Devastator, Encore 20A.  As soon as he shipped, I wanted to cancel the order, but it was too late.  It's not that it's a horrible release, not by a long shot.  I just don't see the point, I guess.

In 2011, TakaraTomy released Devastator as the 20th Encore figure.  He was apparently reverse engineered from a set of existing toys since the original mold had been lost to time.  Or KO manufacturers.  I picked up this release since it was easier to get this than to track down decent Constructicons at good prices.  Fast forward to 2013 and TakaraTomy decided to jazz up Devastator with a more yellow version of Devastator replete with a new head sculpt that better emulated his look from the cartoon.  Oh, and Mixmaster would now feature a purple mixing drum.  Imaginatively titled Encore 20A - Anime Devastator, this release seemed to be met with a solid "Ho-Hum" from everyone.  Especially me.

I'm still not sure what prompted me to pull the trigger on this purchase.  Once I got him and opened him up, I just put the decals on and combined the Constructicons into Devastator and put him with the other Devastator.  It turns out that there are quite a few differences besides the head and drum.

Above, you can check out the differences in the heads.  The newer head is up front.  It does look better, I suppose.  I guess he should be tearing down Autobot City.

 Anime Devastator features black forearms as opposed to the purple of regular Devastator.

Long Haul got some paint apps on the front of his truck grill.  He also got his headlights painted.

Mixmaster has the purple drum, plus red eyes.  The silver is absent from his forehead, however.

Scrapper has a more defined head thanks to the paint apps.

Bonecrusher has red eyes and his face is better defined thanks to the application of silver.

Ditto for Scrapper.

Hook has red eyes.  His head looks a lot better.

I think that my biggest problem with this release is that I feel as though TakaraTomy should have just done this release over the original Encore release.  It's just superfluous, I guess.  I'll be more positive on my next post, I promise.

Encore Fortress Maximus Part Two

Welcome to part two of my Encore Fortress Maximus review.  If you missed the first part, you can read it here.

As I stated in my last post, the reason that Fort Max is a two part post is because of frustration.  Frustration not because of the figure, but because of photographing him with the original.  I'm not even going to do much of a review, just give you some of the horrible, horrible pictures that I took and try to erase the entire experience from my mind.  

Here's where the trouble started.  

Last year I built a very large light box using wood and white sheets.  While not perfect, it worked for when I did my post on the original Fortress Maximus,  When I tried to do the picture above, I just couldn't get it right.  I kept adding more and more lights, but it just always looked the same.  That is actually the best looking picture I could get even after adjusting it in Photoshop CS2.  It just looks...rough.

Anyway, as you can see, I haven't put the decals on Fort Max yet.  I'm still debating as to whether or not I should keep him out of the box.  There really aren't any differences between the two, other than the huge honking sword.  I knew it was big, but I didn't realize that it was essentially the size of Scorponok!

There was a small Q/C issue with my Encore Fort Max as shown below:

Original

Encore

 

 

Can you notice the difference?  Besides the sparkly eyes, the rubsign on the Encore is crooked.  ZOMG!  Quick, someone call Tomy!  The sticker is a little crooked!  I want my money back!

Overall, I'm really pleased with Encore Fort Max.  He's a worthy addition to my collection.  And that sword is awesome.  Enjoy the few comparison pictures that turned out decently of Fort Max in city mode!

On the right - no yellowing!

And finally, here's a few pictures of just Encore Fort Max in city mode.

Next post, we get back on track with better photography!

Encore Fortress Maximus Part One

Box Scan from www.botchthecrab.com

 Before I start this review, I'd like to point a few things.  First, I'm working on a buffer system, so this post was actually written a couple of weeks before it was posted.  I'm trying to keep up a post per week schedule, so I'm writing everything in advance.  Second, the reason that Encore Fortress Maximus is a two part post is because of pure frustration.  I'll explain more in the second post.

Ah, Encore Fortress Maximus, how you have haunted my dreams.  As I've posted before, I already own my childhood Fortress Maximus and he's complete.  If I already owned a Fortress Maximus, why would I be so happy and excited to get the reissue?  In one word: sword.  Seriously that's the reason I preordered this guy the second the preorder went up.  On May 2nd, he arrived and I couldn't be happier.

Essentially what I'm going to do with this post, and the one after it, is compare and contrast the two releases.  This first post will cover Spike, Cerebros, Gasket, Grommet, and Cog.  With that out there, let's get started!

Thanks to some unknown quality control issues, Encore Fortress Maximus shipped opened and then resealed.  I'm not really sure what they were checking for, but everything seems to be in order.  Everything that is...except for Spike!  Cue mystery movie music!

Yes, there is something wrong with my Spike.  There actually seems to be something wrong with everyone's Spike, judging from what I've seen online.  Not everyone seems to be aware of it, but it's there.  The thighs of my Spike are assembled wrong.  At least both of mine are, so it's not too noticeable.  I've seen instances of just one thigh being placed on incorrectly which is really jarring.  Take a look:

Raise your hands if you're sure!

The original is on the right, Encore is on the left.  As you can see, the thighs on the Encore are facing the wrong way.  It's not a huge deal, but they're still not assembled correctly.  I thought it might affect transformation into Cerebros' head, but it doesn't.

Actually, the incorrectly assembled thighs give a straighter edge to the top of the head.  One could argue that in this mode, it's an improvement.

Again, original on the right, Encore on the left.  Can you spot the difference between the two?  If you said the sword is the difference, you're correct!  The Encore Cerebros is holding the smaller Master Sword.  

There is another tiny difference that isn't visible at this angle.  I'll show you another angle:

The gun on my original Cerebros has extensive chewing on it.  Ah, the joys of having a dog coupled with an eleven year old's desire to not pick up his toys.  There's one reason I'm happy to get the reissue.  Having parts that aren't chewed up is nice.

Up next is Gasket. Everything here seems to check out.  The wheels are all there, so there's that. I was a little worried because I've seen a few accounts online where people had gotten 2 left arms or 2 right arms.  Luckily this was not the case with me. Spike gets the privilege of riding on Cog's face as he drives down the highway.  I"m going to skip Grommet since there literally is nothing about him to say.

Encore Spike is winning!

As a final point, here is Cog, the combined form of Gasket and Grommet.

Encore Cog is on the left and the original is on the left.  As you can see, they're identical.  Well minus the decals.  I actually thought that the decals for Cog, and by extension Gasket and Grommet, would have been tampographed.

Tune in next week for part two, where I dig into any Q/C issues and play spot the differences between Fort Max and his Encore reissue.