There is a way to make this even better - Thrust's wings can be flipped back at the red-grey area meeting point. Where normally you'd flip them up (as with Starscream), you can flip them down, then flip the red part back. This way, the wings will not be in one line with the main body, but a little further back, meaning his shoulders will be able to rotate normally, and the hip-wings won't get in the way of the leg articulation. Of course, do not force the wings - they are not meant to do this, but since the wing assembly joint-peg's both ends are a bit rounded down, it can be done. I have transformed mine a lot of times today and it works without forcing the wing. I'll post pics of this way in my review that'll upload today!
Extensive Henkei Coneheads review (comparison with G1 toys) Well, thanks to Bodhar, the Henkei 'coneheads' arrived yesterday! Usually, I don't give out large sums for TFs (even got my Takara MP01 for 25$ MIB) but this time, I made an exception... they seemed THAT good. And I was not dissapointed. So without further ado - the three coneheads! I will review Henkei Dirge, Ramjet and Thrust, comparing them to the G1 originals! Mind you, my G1 coneheads are not 100% complete, but they'll do for this review. (I'm surprised no-one made that joke before, even when I saw that movie in 1993 I was thinking of the TF Coneheads... ) Now then... "I felt a disturbance in the force. As if thousands of MISB collectors cried out in pain and then were suddenly silenced." Dirge Plane mode - solid blue/grey, yellow wings. The stripes at first put me off, but frankly, I got used to them really fast. Heck, I think the toy'd look bland with simple pure yellow wings! Comparison with G1 Dirge - The blue is a much different shade. The G1 toy is dark, purple-ish blue, Henkei Dirge is a more green-ish blue. This is closer to the cartoon appearance's color, and it is NOT the same blue as Henkei Thundercracker, which is a little bit on the teal side. Robot Mode: Transformation is exactly the same as with Classics/Henkei Ramjet, so I won't detail it. Due to the 'split in two' wings, Dirge's frontal stabilizers stay on the upper body. There are actually two ways they can be positioned - flipped up as Starscream's wings, in which case - since they are mounted on the flipping-part at the bottom, the wings will be correctly on the hips, but upside down - Or, you can leave them as they are, in which case they are in the height of his elbows. However, this way his arms/guns will cover them, and the top of the wingtip will get into the way at shoulder movement, so even with the upside-down wings, I prefer the flipped-up version. Dirge with wings down: Many people noted (and I agree) that Dirge should come with Classics/Henkei Ramjet's missiles, as the G1 toy had large guns as well. Mind you - they are more like gun barrels, not huge bombs like G1 Ramjet's guns, but still, they'd look better. You be the judge. I think I'll look for a Classics Ramjet on the flea market to use as "missile donor".... Comparison with G1 Dirge: Of course, his black parts are grey, as in the cartoon. Which is OK - with black, you could hardly see his features, and he has some awesome paint apps! He has red on the hips, shoulders, knees, plus grey on the fists/feet. His chest-landing gears are grey with silver 'fans' in the middle. The eyes are red as well. He has 5 Con insignias - on both sides of the wings (so they are present in robot mode too) and on the nosecone. Thankfully, chrome so abundant on Ramjet here is only present in the cockpit and the launchers - the latter I still don't get why, but the cockpit looks great this way. All in all - excellent toy, IMHO much better then the Botcon version - which, due to the Ramjet wings, looks like a poor repaint rather then a different character. The stripes on the wings are not as much of a bother as I first thought. QC is great - joints are solid, launcher pegs are firm (in fact I had troubles putting it into his hands, it was so tight). The wings are the greatest assets of the toy, next to that his paintjob which is mostly cartoon-accurate (see below). Negatives: -Bulkier Ramjet Missiles would have worked better on this guy - to their credit, Dirge was using Starscream missiles on his cartoon model - in fact, all Coneheads did. -Total blue arms. I mean... with Ramjet, I understood, due to animation errors he had white lower arms. But Thrust and Dirge alway had grey lower arms. I might repaint him, it bothers me a bit. I can only recommend him - Death to all who says he's not a great toy, as Dirge would say! Thrust coming in the next post!
Thrust Plane mode - He has a more lighter color then G1 Thrust, but it is still more 'maroon' and less red. The color also has a 'metallic' hue to it as the old toy! The wings - more about them later - are grey, same color as his air wents/nosecone. Besides the red-white stripes (G1 heritage) he also has two white lightning bolts on it, which, frankly, are hardly visible due to the VTOL engines. Paint apps are on the sides of the tailfins as well. The VTOL engines are removable, as we know... Due to Botcon no doubt, they wanted to avoid any similarities - in the package, they are mounted on the bottom of the tailfins. Heck, even the instructions show only this method to assembe him - see below, it 'aint pretty. Thrust with all parts - see how the wings actually have a hole in them, the VTOL engine goes onto the hole as a Minicon on a MInicon port, so it is very stable. And, best part - the VTOL fan can ROTATE!!! 8) Something I always wished the G1 toy could do. Heck, something Thrust should have done in the cartoon. What are they good for otherwise? Comparison with G1 Thrust - the main difference is that the body 'die-cast' parts are now grey, not black. But, as you can see - what many people wrongly bring up - G1 Thrust's wings were grey too, not black as the body. So Henkei Thrust is more accurate in this regard then the Botcon version. Also, the VTOLs, although removable, do not stick out. They are a bit smaller, though, then the originals. Robot mode - Transformation is a bit trickier then for the other seekers. This is my own idea, it is not in the instructions - but it works. Basically, when you transform him, first flip the whole wing assembly FORWARD 90 degrees to the direction of the bottom of the jet. Then, grab the small red part, hold it, and -VERY carefully - flip the grey large wing 90 degrees forward as well, so that it is at a 90 angle with the red part. Now, flip the red part 180 degrees backwards! This way, the wings will be on the hips, as with the G1 version, but they will be about 0,8 cms behind his back, and won't get into the way of the shoulders or the legs, as they would otherwise. Mind you, the wings originally SHOULD NOT rotate this way, but I did not have to force my toy much to achieve this pose, so I think it is an option for all of you who have this toy. To complete the transformation, remove the VTOLs and move them to the bottom of the wings (now on the front of the robot mode). Of course the wings can be simply flipped up as with the Botcon version or Starscream - however this is not really G1 toy or cartoon accurate, and the VTOLs get into the way of the guns and shoulders. There are pegholes on the tailfins too, to store the VTOLs there as on the official pictures - this looks so silly, I did not even took pictures of it. Comparison with G1 Thrust: As with Dirge, the wings are correctly on the hip, although they are upside down. The painjobs are wastly different, since the Henkei toy is trying to emulate the cartoon model. He has silvery-white on the hips, shoulders, knees, plus grey on the fists/feet. His chest-landing gears are grey with gold 'fans' in the middle. Oddly, the sides of the landing gears are unpainted red - this looks a bit strange in robot mode, as they are red stripes on the chests. The eyes are yellow and the face is white/light grey, like on the cartoon. It always made sense to me in the cartoon - after all a red robot with red optics would look weird. Thus, Thrust is the second Decepticon (after Shockwave) not to have a red optic. Just like with Dirge, only the cockpit and the launcher's middle is chromed. The launchers are the same as Starscream's which is correct, since the G1 toy had these launchers as well. Granted - the toy's missiles were maroon, but since they were grey in the cartoon, I can accept that. -Overall: A great toy, more complicated and fun to transform then the others. Cartoon accuracy is commendable, and the rotating VTOLs are the icing on the cake! The wings are not 100% as they were in G1, but they are as good as we could get with this mold. A definite improvement over Botcon Thrust IMHO with the smaller, stubby wings which could only be flipped up. Negatives: -Total red arms as with Dirge - whereas the forearms were grey even in the toon (save for some animation errors). Not as much a negative, but I do not understand what the two fake 'screws' at the bottom of the wings are for. Also - in a funny way, Takara finally did not follow 100% cartoon accuracy, as in the toon Thrust's crotch was always red! That's enough for now, as Thrust often says - "But I'll be back!" T(h)rust him he will... Next - Ramjet.
Nice reviews and excellent images. Just as a correction, Laserbeak & Buzzsaw had yellow eyes on the cartoon too. Randy
Ramjet He is not a new toy, but since I'm reviewing all henkei Coneheads, I could not leave him out... -Plane mode: Almost exactly like the old G1 one. He even comes with large missiles to emulate his 'bombs'. Comparison with G1 Ramjet: The body is mostly the same, even the dark grey vents mirror the black body paint. However, the wings are light red instead of maroon - on the G1 toy, his wings are pretty much the same color as G1 Thurst. Also, his doesn't have any tailfin paintjob - instead, the whole thruster and tailfin are chromed in grey chrome. Transformation: Very innovative, but then it's an 'old' toy so I won't detail it, pretty much everybody saw it already. Unlike the Classics version, the Henkei has pure red wings, so it's more G1 accurate in robot mode. Decepticon insiginas are mounted on top and underside of the wings too. Comparison with G1 Ramjet: I think, from the 3 coneheads, he looks the most alike. This is of course, due to the much simpler wing design - Ramjet's are easier to split in two and arrange. His dark grey paint mimics his cartoon style, as well as his all-white arms. He has a lot of gold and red paint apps, even to the small red triangles in the air vents - oddly these are not present on the other two coneheads. I had the Classics version for a long while, but I did not regret trading it for the Henkei - other then the white forearms (which I do not like) he is much more cartoon-accurate. The chrome takes some time to get used to, and I still might paint it over with grey... Ramjet doing what he does best -using his head. "In the left corner, Sir Rumble and Sir Ramjet!" "In the right, Sir Warpath and the Red Knight, with his mentor, Merlin!" And that is the same, 10 seconds later... (The "Exarch of Tyranny" miniature would have worked well as the Red KNight, but I do not have him - so the Lord of Blades is substituting. And a Cormyrean Wizard is standing in for Merlin). Now finally, a few pic of the trio! As you can see, Ramjet is a much darker shade of grey - this is OK, he was darker in the cartoon as well. Once again, thanks to Bodhar in helping me get these awesome toys! If you are a Classics/Universe collector, these are a must-have. We should be glad that Takara made them, as now we don't have to churn out many hundreds of $ to get the Botcon versions - not to mention, these, in many aspects, are much better then those.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for the tip on Thrust's wings - i was trying to figure out how to get the wings out of the way and with a little careful maneuvering this worked like a champ! (it is a little tricky holding the red part still long enough to rotate them)
D'oh! You are right... totally forgot that. Then, Thrust was the 4th only (I think Buzzsaw did appear before Season 2, right?)
Nice detailed reviews. I agree with pretty much all your points. I do wish Dirge and Thrust's gray was the same shade as Henkei Ramjet's just so they matched but oh well. I didn't like Ramjet's white forearms at first either until I noticed that he had white forearms with grey fists in the toon so I like it now. Until I checked that out I also didn't realize that the all conehead's feet were the same color as their body colors. Cartoon accurateness is always a plus with me. Love that pic of Rumble & Ramjet. I always liked "A Decepticon Raider in King Arthur's Court".
Thanks for the pics. I think I may have to pick up an extra Ramjet, although it won't be at the top of my priority list, but I greatly appreciate the comparison pics that you posted.
You are welcome! I found that you can do the same with Dirge, it just isn't worth it as that way his wings are almost not visible from the front. I think, I'll try to even out the red part with a scalpel to make the edges more round, that way the wings can be flipped more easily. Thanks! Frankly I like that Ramjet's darker, he was like that in the cartoon. Thanks for mentioning the feet, I wanted to mention them in the review - it is something that bothered me a bit too until I checked the cartoon. Yeah, that episode was hilarious, especially that duel. Though I always wondered how come Warpath won, when Ramjet's nosecone is - according to previous episodes and his tech-specs - is pretty much indestructible.
I believe so, but they're easy to forget due to them being birds (just like it's easy to forget Shockwave's eye because it isn't two eyes). Very nice reviews! I love the image with Ramjet & Frenzy/Rumble! Randy
i just took a bunch of pics of these two guys, so i thought i'd share all in all, im much more satisfied this time around, unlike the last time i bought henkei exclusive seekers.. the QC on thundercracker was terrible.. these two are great, great paint apps, no QC issues on mine.. solid joints, nice remolds.. almost worth the money
I did the switch-a-roo on the wings and it came out much better than I thought it would. I basically put Henkei Dirges wings on Botcon Dirge. I also added some ReproLabels to finish it off.
Just got mine in today! Thrust is easily my favorite conehead! I always liked the VTOL turbines, and TT gave the postioning of the turbines some versatility. Nice! I took BB Shock's advice with the rotation of Thrust's wings, and he looks great! Time to reorganize my classics/universe/henkei display so all the seekers are finally together!
Got mine today, Thrust is amazing. However, my Dirge has a ding on the bottom of one of the wings, that almost looks like some sort of drill skipped across it. The launcher also won't fit in one of the wings. Looks like it is the hole on the wing cause neither launcher will fit in it. Ah well, other than that, he is a nice piece.
