MP-07 is Grimlock!?

[kup]

True, the blame for Greenscream is squarely Takara's fault not Kawamori. After reading the history of it, that much is clear.

Takara basically hired the wrong man for the job, Kawamori may be skilled and revered for his Transforming mecha designs but his style simply does not generally suit Transformers. Takara basically wanted to have some sort of cooperation with Kawamori due to his 'celebrity' status in the Japanese geek world and unfortunately they gave him the completed MP Starscream mold and asked him to do as he wished to improve it. Kawamori did just that, he incorporated his own style on the existing mold without keeping Transformers or the character of Starscream in mind. By his own account he mentions that he wanted to do thing like give the figure a 'Samurai' look and that sort of thing which is more in line with the look of his own designs rather than the Starscream character.

As Gok mentioned earlier, chances are because Takara gave Kawamori the freedom to do as he wished with the mold and his 'celebrity' status, they could not deny his 'improvements' without offending him and his millions of fans. So they just had to go with it.
To his credit however, he did improve the Plane mode considerably and his changes there did not directly affect the 'Starscream' look of the alt mode. His mistake was actually changing the tail fins of the plane by attaching them to his hip instead of his legs. That change with the tail fins attached to the hips were not necessary to the improvements made on the the alt mode but he did it anyway and it severely handicaps the figure's articulation and contributes to taking away the Classic Starscream Seeker look. He could have left them on the legs but he wanted that 'Samurai' look so he attached the tail fin assembly to his hip to resemble swords. Of course the next thing and the one with the most impact were the colors and plastic used. Kawamori is mostly a transforming mecha model designer, not a toy designer. His target audience are mainly collectors and adults who would not normally play with the toy, so he went for what he perceived as appropriate plastic for the mold which is generaly good for model kits but terrible for Transformers. He also attempted some form of realism with the colors and therefore went for the seaweed green (dont ask) and dark magenta like chest, again he went for his own style forgetting or not knowing that this toy is supposed to represent the character of Starscream.

Takara should have given Kawamori strict guidelines in which to make his improvements but instead gave him the freedom to modify the mold as he pleased. Basically they hired the wrong man for the job.

The facts above were actually taken from Kawamori's interview on MP Starcream, so they come straight from the source.
________
Silver surfer vaporizer