Like Soundwave was re-released in Japan in new colors as Soundblaster, so too was Blaster re-released in new colors as Twincast.  (Blaster's name in Japan was "Broadcast," and so "Twincast" was a better new name for him in that context.)  But I'm not as fond of Twincast as I am of Soundblaster.  See, in the hilarious Hong Kong dub of the Japanese Headmasters cartoon into English, "Soundwave" was rebuilt into "New Soundwave."  But Blaster started out being called "Billy" and was rebuilt into... "Blaster."  Owning Twincast, then, doesn't mean I own a guy with an awesomely dumb name.  It's just Blaster in wacky colors.

One of my first memories of being part of the online Transformers fandom was learning about the AMAZING and VIOLENT and TO THE DEATH fight between Blaster and Soundwave in the Japanese Headmasters cartoon.  I was told all these things about how those two just friggin' go at each other like crazy people, and how it's super adult and gritty.  And then, you know, of course years later I got to watch what actually happened, and, well...  Let's just say standing and shooting at each other at point blank range for like fifteen minutes without anything happening, before the pair just leap at each other at the same time and punch each other in their respective chests, before both of them randomly explode... eh.  It was oversold.

(The hilarious English dub, of course, made the scene fairly entertaining, but YouTube isn't being handy with it at the moment.)

But these redecoes of Blaster and Soundwave are why it happened!  Blaster was rebuilt into Twincast, and no more would he be called "Billy"!  He was a grown robot.  And you got to buy him!  Again!  Like "New Soundwave," he was retooled to be able to hold two cassettes at once, though this didn't do as much aesthetic damage to Blaster as it did to Soundwave.

And just like New Soundwave, Twincast's stickers have become paint detail instead.  And also like New Soundwave, Twincast's Encore reissue attempts to make his face look more show-accurate.  Instead of being all silver, now his face is yellow with blue eyes.  This is a welcome change to me, not because of the show-accuracy, but because non-silver faces on Transformers are things I enjoy.  Another change, related to the exchange of stickers for paint, is the smoothing over of the tech detail on his cassette-door chest so they could tampograph an Autobot symbol on there.

Of course, getting Twincast was just a symptom of requiring the new Mini-Cassette guys who came with him, who I'll talk about later.