I once saw someone on TFW2005 passingly mention that Japanese fans were importing figures like Alpha Bravo and Rook because their decos were Hasbro exclusive and at the time, it was uncertain when if at all, Japan would receive those figures. But I don't know how often this sort of thing happens among Japanese fans, since it doesn't seem to be very often where a Hasbro figure offers something that a Takara figure does not.
I wouldn't say that Hasbro's figures have inferior decos, but I will say that they seem to use a more varied color palette than Takara, though whether that is a plus or not is YMMV. It does seem that Hasbro has the advantage in that they release figures earlier than Takara and of course, for a lower price, though I have no clue how much it costs to import a Hasbro figure into Japan, so I can't say whether it's economical for a Japanese fan to do so. I've heard things about Japanese anime fans reverse importing American DVDs and Blu-Rays because they are vastly cheaper than Japanese ones, and hence wondered if the same logic applied to Transformers figures.
I also found a channel called Channel Cube (
https://www.youtube.com/user/TheChannelCUBE), who also seems to be a Japanese reviewer that has imported and reviewed Hasbro Transformers.
