Terence Ho since 1981(The Last Ronin)

Henkei Henkei! I couldn't pass up Skyfire when I picked up Henkei Sunstreaker from Edbomber.com which is now known as Toydojo.com . I picked up Henkei Skyfire for $45 when he was going rare at the time. I could remember him being so rare that he went as high as $80 on Ebay.com. Without further delay, lets take a look at him. The pics were taken back in 2012.  Boxing:

What good is Red Alert without his buddy Inferno? If you are a G1 fanatic then you know the history between them. For starters, long story cut short, they had each others back as both of them were pretty much fire rescue... can't believe I'm using that word. Red Alert is more security administrative but he helps fight fires nonetheless. Inferno, however, was more battle prone, always eager to fight rather than stand on the sidelines. Red at one point was injured during a sneak Decepticon attack and suffered paranoia, thinking that the autobots wanted to deactivate him. Not to mention, he thought Inferno betrayed him when Inferno left his side to help Optimus Prime in battle. Later on, Red befriended Starscream though the latter easily betrayed him to side with Megatron again. The autobots came to Red's aid and Inferno saved Red from an impending explosion from the Negavator , a weapon that Starscream and Red intended to use to destroy anyone that stood in their way bef...

It was inevitable that I ended up getting the other Sunstreaker/Sideswipe mold known as Red Alert. Originally released back in 2009 as an Henkei exclusive, Hasbro catered to fan demand for a western release. By the time then, The Classics Robots in Disguise and Universe line sailed away and thus came in the Generations line. Red Alert came just in time to become part of that line. What were the results? How did it fare with the Henkei version? Well, I can tell you the Hasbro one at least. Boxing: Okay thus far.

So I decided to post the two last days here in my Northwest trip; both Sept 5 and 6. More emphasis on the 5th of course since my last day was only half a day. So this time we weren't in that much of a hurry to get back to Seattle. Because due to morning traffic, we held off driving to Seattle until 9:00AM from Portland, Oregon. Darn, Portland had very good weather at this time. Hallelujah! First off, Breakfast at Panera bread! The pics shall fill you in. Forgot what this was but the apple one was mines. So we headed to our road trip back to Seattle. 3 hour drive here we come.... ugh! My sister wanted seafood, so we stop by Alki point when we arrived in Seattle roughly a little after 12PM. You get a nice view of the harbor and the city of Seattle from a distance.

  "In the days of Megatron, it was not like this."                                      - Astrotrain in "Five Faces of Darkness Part I"           At long last, I decided to finally open up Henkei Astrotrain. Now I understand that he is probably not as popular when he first came out. I could still remember picking him up 4 years ago for $26 at Bigbadtoystore.com . After awhile, he became rare and his market value went as high as $60. What was it? Was it because he was a triple changer or was it because he had a pretty neat G1 color scheme (Henkei version that is). Let's see what the fuss is all about. Boxing and contents samples: Yep, the neat thing about the Henkei versions is that they give you a stat/trading card and neat black-and-white Manga...

Henkei Sunstreaker apparently wasn't enough. Eventually, I had to get the Sideswipe mold which is nearly identical to the Sunstreaker mold with the exception of their head sculpts. The decision to get the Hasbro version rather than the Takara Tomy was simple: The extra add on- his engine aka his rocket pack.  I was lucky to pick him up MISB for $30 shipped when he was becoming rare to find at the time. Well, without further delay, here is Universe Classic Sideswipe. Boxing:  

By the time I jumped on the CHUG (Classics, Henkei, Universe, Generations) line, I pretty much missed the boat on the Universe and original Classics line. So in order to get some of these figs, I had to go on Ebay or solicit fellow TF fans on unwanted TF figures. The Henkei Mirage (Ligier in Japan) was going for a walloping $50+ at the time, so my only option was to hopefully get the Classics at a cheaper price. Thankfully, I did. Someone was selling Universe Mirage for $25 used. Take note that Universe Mirage was also the first figure I bought out of the box. Let's get started. Alt Mode:

As you can see, like I said in the Prowl post, I was randomly opening up figures from different lines. In the west at this point, they were releasing Reveal the Shield figures. A gimmick which saw the return of the rub stickers of the 84' G1 era. In Japan, to carry on the different name tradition, Japan named their product line : Transformers United . However, Takara opted to not go with the rub stickers. The first couple waves of the United releases saw a few re-releases of previous established molds, but rather than sporting their chrome moniker, the United releases saw the debut of metallic paint instead. The results were mixed as many collectors cherished the idea of chrome. Most folks in the west saw the metallic paint as trivial at best wheras the Henkei era just blew everyone's minds away with the G1 accurate color scheme. Not to mention, in Japan, certain Transformers such as Optimus Prime and Jazz were called Convoy and Meister respectively as examples. In the Uni...

Another beautiful day in Sea.... err..... so we woke up about 5AM in the morning of Sept 4, 2014 because we had a rendezvous with destiny in Portland, Oregon. So that means.... ROAD TRIP! So from 6AM to 9:30AM, we had loads of pit stops, driver switches, and naps in between. Thank God we weren't really hungry so we stopped off first in Portland's International Rose Garden. Then again, Extended Stay America had free coffee and breakfast so that was good enough. I took enough Nutri-grain bars and muffins to satisfy me.The sad thing about the Rose Garden now is that you have to pay for parking, which used to be free when I was here back in 2010. I guess the city is losing money. I remember a lot of locals would come here to play, shoot archery and rifles, and walk their dogs. Lots of empty parking spaces because nobody wants to pay. Once again, photos for your viewing pleasure.... My sister. Family Pic.