In Japan, The Headmasters were a bigger deal than they were in the US as far as I'm concerned. The US was introduced to the Headmasters and Targetmasters in the three part end-of-series "Rebirth". The Japanese had an entire season of episodes dedicated to the Headmasters/Targetmasters line. Maybe directly (or not) as a result, the Japanese toys from this series got a better treatment from Takara than they did from Hasbro. The packaging was nice, the toys started to have included with them very colourful and highly collectible character cards. Just looking at the above picture of the box front and pic below of the box back for Mindwipe, you can see the Japanese designation "D-87". As you may or may not know, all the Japanese Transformers releases had a designation. 1-15 were the first Cybertrons (Autobots), 16-24 were the first Destrons (Decepticons), 25-30 more Cybertrons, 30-37 The Constructicons, 38-39 and 44-47 Cybertrons, and 40-43 plus 48 and 49 were Destrons. These made up the first batch of Japanese Transformers releases. After those initial slightly confusing designations, Takara split the two factions into C-50 and onwards for Cybertrons and D-50 and onwards for Destrons at the start of the 2010 line (Scramble City et cetera). It gets a tad more complicated later but the Japanese numbering system for TFs is not really the main purpose of this article so I'll leave it there.

Looking at the box back, specifically in the techspec area, just to the left of the techspec graph there is the Japanese text that outlines Mindwipe's function and capabilities. Behind that is a big "VS". This is evident on the backs of all Japanese toys from the 2010 and Headmasters lines and also the exclusive giftsets like Goodbye Convoy and Goodbye Megatron. Always a cool feature I thought. Then of course there is the Japanese logo for "The Headmasters" which sits nicely in the middle of the main flap on the box front. As I said, extremely well presented. This translates to the insert also:

Mindwipe looks fantastic in the styro packaging. Very well displayed, wings spread, and even if the toy is unsealed and used, it can always be put back in the styro and will not lose any of its display value and appeal. Always an advantage of Japanese TFs over the US TFs and the bubble packaging most of the toys came in. Here's a close-up of Mindwipe's Headmaster partner "Vorath":

Pictures of a loose US Mindwipe in both modes:

Now, a little more on the paperwork. Here's a pic of all the stuff that comes in this nice package:

Unfortunately myself and Rickie forgot to include in that picture the standard Japanese Headmasters catalog. Nevermind, that's the least cool item in the paperwork baggie. The sticker sheet is pretty much identical to the US one:

But the instructions are standard Japanese, smaller non-glossy sheet type thing instead of the booklets synonimous with US releases.

And finally, my favourite part. The Japanese exclusive collector's card:

The art and colour is just lovely, and I've seen Rickie's substantial collection of cards from various Japanese TFs and they are fantastic to leaf through, truly impressive. You can see on the front of the card that he is called "Wipe". Hmmm..anyway, that was the name given to him for the Japanese line. Some other Japanese TFs had different names, "Convoy" for example.

Not just a pretty face. The back of the collector's card contains Mindwipe's abilities, function, designation and statistics. As I said, very cool feature.

So overall, I feel Takara's presentation of this particular series of TFs was better than Hasbro's. The card and extra display capability really swing it for me. And to finish, a nice picture showing all of Rickie's Japanese Decepticon Headmasters and Targetmasters together at the time of first writing of this article:

All the best
Maz