"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. I wish I knew what they were talking about.
First Alt Mode: Shuttle
The Shuttle is nicely done. Though I can't see how any Decepticons can fit in him, The shuttle is a terrific and great modern representation of his shuttle mode. For novelty purposes, you can stick his gun under the belly of the shuttle. He has chrome (an Henkei trait) on his boosters and the purple looks fantastic. (J/k about the fitting of the Decepticons.)
2nd Alt mode: Shinkansen (Bullet train).
Forgive me as I was shooting his figure on different locations with different lighting. That is why the coloring is a little off. Its great that he has a 2nd mode though it is not entirely a faithful adaption of the G1 locomotive. You can stick his gun to make it an attack vehicle, something the locomotive lacked. Nice effort by HasTak though.
Robot Mode:
This is the mode everyone all waited for. He looks great no doubt. He really looks like his robot mode from G1. I actually did not notice this until I looked carefully, but his purple outline (kinda like V-shape) on his chest piece is actually chrome as well. If anything, it looked very similar to the metallic paint the United toy line featured later on. My only gripe with this figure was that his arms was closely tied to his shield, which was originally the head of the bullet train. You can pull his hands out enough to stick his gun but I really wish you could toggle with his shield a little more. But no biggie.
Henkei vs Hasbro Astrotrain.
-Hasbro Astrotrain is predominantly white colors then followed by purple, red and black.-Hasbro version released earlier in 2006
-Hasbro version colors identical to the earlier G1 toy color scheme.
-Hasbro gun is purple as opposed to grey for Henkei
-Hasbro has a Decepticon rubsign whereas Henkei has visible decepticon logos on each of his wings.
Link to Hasbro Astrotrain: http://tfwiki.net/wiki/File:ClassicsAstrotrain.jpg
Final words:
So I am pretty sure that Astrotrain was fun to play with at the time. Not to mention he had his very articulate G1 cartoon color scheme. Sadly as the years passed, HasTak decided to release voyager versions of Springer, Sandstorm, Blitzwing and other triple changers that stand like behemoths next to poor deluxe Astrotrain. I have yet to open my Springer, Blitz, and Sand figures though I hope someday I would. For those who have no idea how tall they are compared to Astrotrain, just look at my Megatron and Astrotrain pics above. I guess a voyager Astrotrain is in the works? For now, Classics or Henkei Astrotrain will have to do in your classics lineup.For a little more pics on Astrotrain, visit my picassa page: Henkei Astrotrain D-03
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