Featured Toy of the Month: Henkei Dinobot!

TFormers.com's Featured Toy of the Month is Henkei Dinobot! While Generations is soon returning Maximals and Predacons to the shelves for the 30th Anniversary, the last Transformers anniversary brought us a figure that's a little bit of both. Click for the highlights below!

Henkei Dinobot's one of a handful of Transformers Universe molds that reached beyond G1 and of those figures he's the best, easily the most screen-accurate rendition of Beast Wars' standout character ever made. The head sculpt is spot-on, a likeness made even more accurate by Takara's bronze plastic and metallic blue paint. Minimal kibble folds away easily to give as close an approximation to Dinobot's streamlined character model as possible. To further the cause of show-accuracy, you have a choice between normal-looking robot fists or the five-clawed hands Dinobot had in the show.

While the original figure's "Rotate Blade" gimmick is downgraded to a standard missile launcher, care was taken to emulate the look of the original weapon. The missile doubles as a short sword, and while it's not as close to screen-accuracy as you might like it does feature the best, most appropriate, least obtrusive use of chrome on a Henkei figure up to that time. As the final touch, a panel in the dino forehead can be switched from displaying a Maximal emblem, a Predacon emblem, or none at all for Beast Mode.

To tell the ill along with the good, the figure has some technical flaws and in striving for the look of Dinobot it limits itself in terms of articulation, especially in the legs. But in terms of a Dinobot figure that actually looks like Dinobot, you can't do better than this. In that context we rated Henkei Dinobot a Good on the Figurereviews.com Non-Numeric Rating Scale. Whether you display him with your Maximals or Predacons, you're looking at $60-80 plus shipping on eBay to have him there waiting for Rhinox or Waspinator. The Predacon-themed Universe figure is only about 1/4 as much, but only looks about 1/4 as good. Unless you're a talented customizer, you definitely want the Henkei version if you're in the market for this mold.