Arcee Hasbro,Takara and Nightbird

If you had told me a year and a half ago that I would own 2 different paint jobs of the most recent Arcee, AND a remold of her, I would of spat the tea I was sipping out of my mouth! Because, a year and a half ago, I thought this mold was a piece of poop. *insert grey prototype arcee that is floating about the internet here, but you have to google it yourself.*

I hated her midriff with that weird robot belly button sticking out, like a Hill Billy wearing denim shorts. Buuuut, when the colour picture came on the scene I wasn't in hater nation any more, my ice wall had been broken down.

I speedely preordered her and when she arrived with Chromia and Windblade (I had ordered the 3 all together) my whole world changed. My hopes and dreams for Windblade had gone out the window with the discovery of those rubbish heels. I was all about the Arcee mold now, she was this feminine, dainty, fox of doom.

With the success of the Hasbro mold, Takara stepped it up a notch and did a more G1 movie accurate colour scheme. She oozes G1 one with those big ass granny pants she has on. Gone has the garish black plastic at the hips and the black neck, although I actually quite like the black on the original I think it helps brake her up.

"So why the hell not knock another character out of this mold?" thought Takara, it's only been God knows how many years since we have seen Nightbird. She's never made any other appearances apart from G1 and maybe a few cameos in comics. Takara went down the Impossible Toys route and made a transformable bot out of this Arcee mold. Nightbird rocks an amazing flat silver paint job with purple and black accents, plus a new head sculpt, Toping the hole thing off she has Energy Ninja forks just like her 1 episode self. You gotta love an evil same mold sibling; Wheeljack had Exhaust, Prowl had Barricade, and Prime was the evil nemesis, and now Arcee has Nightbird.

I would love to have the fourth version, I sadly don't own Combiner Hunter's Arcee or whatever she's called.

Sadly, some people have no clue who Nightbird is, so have no interest in her.

Acording to some fans the black on the original Arcee puts people off.

The Takara G1 paint job can look a little powdery and the lipstick makes her look slutty. Which might be a turn on for some people?!

In my eyes, each brings a little something to the world.

Why do I own more than 1 version of a mold? Is it completist syndrome? "Gotta catch them all!” ...

...For me, even a re-paint can feel slightly different or conjure up different nostalgic feeling. My brain thinks theres a little story to each repaint.

Takara is pre-war. She then moved on to a really brutish colour scheme because she joined the Autobots and kicked tail-pipe , followed by her black stealth re-paint (as if she regreted the in your face colour scheme and the fact she was way to obvious in any shadow she lurked in).

98% of the time Takara repaints are better than the Hasbro counterpart (they did get it wrong with FOC Skywarp). Be it a better quality paint app, nicer plastic colouring, or even just more screen accuracy. Takara just do it better.

We can all say honestly in some way we are guilty of buying a mold in more than one colour scheme. Why we do it? Because we are crazy collectors and one is never enough!

Thanks for checking this post out.