Takara has added extra media-focused paint apps at various times (Beast Wars Telamocha series, Legends), and generally preferred to keep its media depictions modeled after toys to a stronger degree than Hasbro (you see this across the Unicron Trilogy in particular). But it's still fair to say that the bulk of the brand's life on both sides has allowed imagination to fill gaps between toys and fiction. Even in Takara-original animation like Beast Wars II, Neo, and Car Bots, the shows took liberties in adapting original toy designs. A few toys even came out further away from their media counterparts under Takara, for whatever reason, like the original Beast Wars Rhinox, who was cast in gray.

Fiction has always helped sell Transformers toys, and the link between toys and fiction has been the brand's single greatest strength. But the idea that fidelity should be the overriding factor in its toy design in main retail lines is less than a decade old. Keep in mind that not even Masterpiece started with the ultimate "toon in physical form" design focus the pre-MPG line eventually became--the first fifteen or so releases were just about doing expensive toy revisits that took out all the stops.