D-64 ONSLAUGHT

Onslaught is my absolute favorite of the original four Scramble City leaders, and D-64 Onslaught was the first time I ever saw the spring loaded launcher feature that's exclusive to the Japanese releases. I can't explain how I felt when I found out the Japanese version was that much better than what I grew up with. I felt kind of ripped off after having lived my whole childhood with the launcherless US Onslaught. Then again, it's not every day that I find out something new about these old TFs, so I was excited as well. Once I found out that Japanese Onslaught had a launcher, I figured Japanese Motormaster and Silverbolt must have had one, too. So ultimately D-64 Onslaught was the beginning of my search for the other two guys, and the reason I started my site.

So I'm looking at the box and I notice two things. First, the character art is way bigger on this box than on the US release. I would later find that the larger boxart trend also carried on with Japanese Motormaster, Hotspot, and Silverbolt. So the character art while essentially the same for the two countries is different in size. Then I noticed the American and Japanese boxes both have one thing in common-neither show a spring loaded launcher version anywhere on the packaging. All throughout the Japanese package there are pictures of the toy in all modes-trailer, base, and robot, but none of them is of a D-64 with the launcher. Even the transformation sequence printed on the top panel of the box doesn't show a launcher-equipped Onslaught. That seemed weird to me. I don't know if the D-69 Japanese Bruticus giftset has pics of a launcher equipped Onslaught on it's box, so if you have one let me know.

I'd say D-64 is the most common of the first four Scramble City leaders because I've found a whole lot of them on Yahoo Japan. I've noticed that the boxes indicate D-64s were made in both Japan and Macau. Unlike the Macau made D-50 Motormaster, Macau Onslaught's box does not say it was printed in Hong Kong. So the implication is that D-64s not manufactured in Japan were 100% made in Macau, right down to their packaging. Another quirk I've noticed is that all of my grey chested D-64s were made in Macau and all of my silver chested versions are Japanese. I haven't found a single grey chested one that was made in Japan, nor have I found a silver chested one made in Macau. Coincedence? Or maybe all grey versions hail exclusively from Macau?

Once the box is opened, Onslaught is found sitting snugly in the standard issue Takara stryofoam. If you look closely you'll notice there's actually space to allow for the olive knob in Onslaught's back. This gap is also present in the styrofoam insert that comes with the Japanese Bruticus gitset. It seems to me that Takara knew what they were doing when they made the styrofoam inserts for their Onslaughts and Bruticuses. It's as if they intended to package and ship all of their Onslaughts with the spring loaded mechanism intact. Or, if they wanted to, they could stick in non-launcher versions and those would fit just as well, but I've never found a launcherless version in the Japanese packaging. The inner packaging used in the US release is a plastic bubble, and I haven't heard any rumors of a Japanese plastic bubbled version. I do know one thing-Japanese Onslaughts don't fit into US bubbles. The launcher sticks out too much. I'm also pretty sure that there were never any metal chested Japanese D-64s. So any instance of a metal chested Onslaught with a spring loaded launcher is a fake. One guy I know swapped parts to make a metal chested launcher equipped Onslaught for himself. Why anyone would do this is beyond me. Each variation is pretty unique but instead of having two nice variants, that guy ended up with one frankenstein Onslaught that's not half as desireable to me as having the two seperate versions. I have D-64 Japanese Onslaughts with both grey and silver chests.

There's a little hole on the peg that 'launches' the smaller vehicles forward, and I use it to store Onslaught's chest shield in base mode. It looks pretty cool that way. D-64's instructions don't actually say to do this, but I think it adds extra surface area for the launcher to meet up against the rears of the smaller vehicles. This restricts access to the trigger and doesn't really make a difference when launching the smaller guys, but it looks great! I think he's got the best looking base mode anyways.

So basically you know if you've got a loose Japanese Onslaught if you look at the bed of the trailer. You'll see that big olive colored peg sticking out, and there's a long black trigger in the shape of a rectangle just forward of the peg. The US release version has two olive rectangle-shaped pieces of plastic instead of the trigger and the peg. In the picture to the left, both versions are shown in vehicle mode with the Japanese one on top. The double cannon has been removed from both. Duh.

Eric Smith sold me a loose D-64 for $15 (Thanks Eric!), so I took it apart to provide some views of the inner workings of the launching mechanism. The picture on the upper left shows the launching mechanism in the locked & loaded position. The one in the middle shows where exactly the spring fits, and the one on the right shows the 3 pieces that make up the launcher and the space where the parts all fit.

I found a variant on the triggers of D-64. Some have a small raised circle or "button" while others do not. So there's a 'smooth' version and a 'button' version.So far I haven't seen a grey chested D-64 with a "smooth" trigger, but just because I haven't seen one doesn't mean it couldn't exist.

D-64's instructions show how to operate the launcher. The knob is spring loaded and moves back and forth. To operate the launcher, the knob is pulled back towards the truck cab, where it locks into place. The trigger can then be pressed and the knob will shoot forward! However, when in base mode the double cannon obstructs the trigger, making it really tough to use the launching mechanism. Access to the trigger is easier if the double cannon is removed, but the instructions (in step 4 of the ramp mode portion) don't say to do this. Click on the picture to the upper left and check out the instructions for yourself. And finally, for a review I wrote of a really big supersized G1 Onslaught bootleg, check out the SKORBIA. It's in the Combaticons section there.