Less than 6 months ago we saw the first two Transformers, Optimus and Megatron, of the Bishōjo line (Japanese term for cute girl). These are a series of statues based off of Shunya Yamashita’s illustrations of various movie, game, and comic characters in the Japanese Bishōjo style.
Well now we have the third offering – Bumblebee. And lets face it, who didn’t see this coming eh? Bumblebee is in everything. I mean, who did you think it was going to be – Blot? Bumblebee continues to bathe in the spotlight in everything Transformers, even if he did take a back seat in Rise of the Beasts. So how does Bumblebee stack up against his predecessors? Lets take a look!
Whereas Prime and Megatron were portrayed as young women, Bumblebee is very much portrayed as a teenage girl, befitting his stature as a younger Autobot as well as being physically smaller than most of his brethren (in G1 anyway).
In ROTB Prime was the worried older brother. Here he is the cool older sister
The colour scheme too is very much a shout out to his G1 incarnation. Yellow dominates the clothing, along with black straps and touches of pale blue (for the windows).
The more you look at this figure, the more nods to Bumblebee’s robot and vehicle modes you notice. These include headlights on the boots, a spare tyre backpack, a V for Volkswagen on the belt and a hoodie which is very indicative of Bumblebee’s robot head.
Headlights on shoesBumblebee Helmet-hoodieV. V is for VolkswagenSpare Tyre backpack (wish mine was in a backpack rather than my gut)
A sticking point for me is the price of this figure. These are static figures with no articulation, but at least Prime and Megatron came with a couple of removable accessories such as face masks and shoulder cannon. Bumblebee comes with no accessories whatsoever. Also Bumblebee is a significantly smaller figure in comparison to the other two. I was therefore disappointed to see that the vast majority of online stores priced this figure the same as its two predecessors. Even $10 or $15 cheaper would have been appreciated.
Smaller, yet just as expensive
Overall, price aside, this is a cute kitschy figure which will look good amongst similar figures on your display shelves. Bishōjo Bumblebeeonce again proves that Transformers can turn into anything, and is much more family friendly than the last time Bumblebee got a human form.
Transformers can transform into most anything right? That’s what makes them Transformers. Over the years we’ve seen them turn into everything from toasters into entire cities.
There is also a history of Transformers turning into humans. Whether that’s having their consciousness put into a human clone like way back in the Generation 1 cartoon, to Pretenders – human on the outside but robots on the inside – like Alice from Revenge of the Fallen.
Bishōjo is a Japanese term for cute girl. Cute being the operative word rather than sexy. This term and indeed anime genre has spawned a statuette toyline called Bishoujo, a series of statues based off of Shunya Yamashita’s illustrations of various movie, game, and comic characters in the Japanese Bishōjo style. This series has contained characters ranging from fighting games to DC characters to even My Little Pony!
So ever wonder what Optimus Prime and Megatron would look like if they transformed into cute girls? Well lets find out!
Optimus Prime
There is a lot of details within this statuette that call back to Optimus Prime’s robot mode. The hair is styled in such a way to harken to Optimus’ antenna ears, the eyes are blue like his optics and there are even goggles on top. Most of the references to robot Optimus are in the clothing and accessories. The majority of the clothing is coloured to reperesent the robot mode colours, there are wheels attached to the boots, she has the Matrix on a necklace around her neck (stealing Galvatron’s look are we Optimus?) and even carries a briefcase indicative of Optimus’ trailer in truck mode.
A nice touch is that you can remove the face and replace it with one that has Optimus’ faceplate. This will appeal to some while others will find it offputting. Either way it means Optimus while in cute-girl mode is still COVID-safe!
Megatron
Like Optimus, there are many details in the Megatron figure that are call outs to the robot form. The hair frames the head like Megatron’s helmet, the eyes are red, the expression is aloof and irritated and the colour scheme of the clothing references Megatrons robot mode, from the grey top to the black skirt to the red on the inside of the trenchcoat.
A dominating part of this figure is the Fusion Cannon. They have made it so ludicrously big that Megatron’s cute girl form carries it akin to how one would carry a rocket launcher, rather than it being attached to the forearm.
The Packaging
These are figures that very few will be keeping MISB. The packaging is such that besides the face you cannot make out the figure within. The boxes are still quite nice though and worth keeping if you have the room. Personally I removed the inserts to use as backing displays for the figures.
Worth Getting?
These are not cheap figures, going for about $200au each, so are really only recommended for serious collectors of either the Transformers or Bishoujo toylines. But one cannot deny that they look great, and can certainly add a bit of variety to ones display shelves. Now to await the Bumblebee figure due to be released later this year!
What do you think of these figures? Really cute or just too weird for your tastes? Let us know in the comments section below!
Blast Effects are becoming more and more popular in the Transformers toylines. What can make a giant alien gun look even cooler? How about a huge coloured laser coming out of the end! Lots of the larger figures in the mainline Transformers toyline are coming with blast effects now, though sadly not many for the smaller bots.
With this new trend, it was only a matter of time until some Third Party Companies decided to jump on the bandwagon, and start producing blast effects for those toys who came bereft of them. One such company is a new Australian business, 3D Damsel, who have been kind enough to send us a selection of their new products to peruse.
Yee-haw!
Note: 3D Damsel have not paid for this review, nor have they tried to dictate the contents of this blog. Bigangrytrev.com would like to thank 3D Damsel for the opportunity to review their products.
Pew Pew!
The blast effects we have received come in a variety of different sizes and blast-effect patterns.
The ones provided came in red
and blue
It is our understanding they are also available in green, which would perhaps suit characters like the Insecticons. It’s really nice to see such variation on the different blasts, making it easy to match the effect you want to the weapon its unleashed from.
Leader-class Bots
Voyager Class BotsDeluxe Class BotsScout Class Bots
Watch out, missile!
One of our favorites was the missile effect, showing the shell firing out with a trail of smoke behind it.
Careful of breakages
This fit great initially, then when reattaching it…
These blast effects are 3D printed, making them more brittle than the rubbery type included with the larger Transformer toys. While by no means overly delicate, it does mean you have to make sure not to be overly forceful when attaching them to the ends of weapons. These blast effects have been designed with hollow nubs on the ends, meaning you either push the nub into the end of the toys weapon, or else fit the hole within the nub over the tip of the weapons barrel.
Overall
It’s great to see an independent Aussie company trying something new, and the effects certainly do jazz up your battle scenes! The blast effects wont attach to every figures weapon, there being so many types, but are versatile enough you should not have much trouble matching them to a wide assortment within your collection. Hopefully down the track we will see an even wider variety of colours such as the traditional oranges, purples and yellows.
Pipes and Huffer have the same alt mode but different robot modes. Which is your favourite?
Such cute little alien war machines!
It’s true that most of the 1986 Autobot Mini-Vehicles are just slight retools of their 1984 counterparts. The likes of Swerve, Tailgate, Hubcap and Outback are simply recolours of Gears, Windcharger, Cliffjumper and Brawn respectively with new face sculpts (OK, Outback got a new gun as well which was pretty slick).
However Huffer and Pipes are the exception. As well as a new colour scheme and face sculpt, the Transformation from Robot Mode from Vehicular mode was slightly changed. Instead of the cab of the truck becoming a hood as it did with Huffer, it became a backpack for Pipes.
But are their alt-modes really the same?
One of these trucks is not like the other one
Well, yeah, for the most part. But there are subtle differences. The moulded grill and headlight motif on the front of the truck has been slightly changed from Huffer to Pipes. The tail-end of the trucks tray, which becomes the robots feet, is slightly more pointed on Huffer than Pipes. Perhaps the most notable difference besides the colour scheme is the smokestacks, which on Huffer and slightly indented, whilst on Pipes they are well and truly, well… pipes.
Overall the differences are negligible, but far outweigh the differences between the other mini-bot recolours of that era. I’d be hard-pressed to say which I like more as both have their charms.
Robot Modes
Huffer: “My elbows go the wrong way!” Pipes: “At least you can still pick stuff up”
Here is where the differences really stand out. As stated, Huffer has a sort of canopy whereas Pipes has a large backpack. From the back Pipes is easily the weaker of the two, having an entire truck cab hanging off his back. However this is where his weaknesses end. His arms are far superior to Huffers, and whilst Huffer could be said to have hands of a sort, it’s the orientation of his arms that lets him down, resembling some form of preying mantis idue to the backwards elbows. The head of Pipes too is superior, having an actual sculpted head that sits in front of the backpack, rather than some form of wide mask half-hidden under a hood.
So to answer Katrina’s question, I have to give it to Pipes, on the whole he is an improvement on his predecessor.
Huffer, being a legacy character from the 1984 cartoon, has turned up in multiple toylines such as KRE-O, Power Core Combiners, Timelines and even Transformers Prime. Pipes however has only had another two outings, both retools of existing Huffer figures. So lets have a look at these to see who is the superior in these new iterations of classic characters.
Combiner Wars
Prime-wannabe’s
If there is one set of Huffer/Pipes figures where the alt-modes are exactly the same then it is Combiner Wars. Not only are the altmodes the same, but the robot modes are exactly the same too, the only differences being in colour scheme and sticker placements. As such, it’s pretty much impossible to pick one over the other. I will say I never understood why they gave Pipes a red face, he looks like Tracks squat brother (or me when I’ve been out in the sun too long).
Kingdom
We finally busted into the Deluxe Class!
The third outing of Pipes, being again a retool of Huffer, is in the Kingdom line. I found both these toys to be quite clever and both are certainly the most toon-accurate versions of the characters we have ever had in their robot modes. Highlights for me included that Pipes now has pipes attached to his outer forearms like in the cartoon instead of the toys arms functioning as the pipes themselves. Huffer now sports a canopy of sensible size, and the way the sides of his alt-modes tray join together to form a very Halo-esque weapon is a really cool idea. I couldn’t fault either of them.
Pipes & Huffer: Both ready to smoke you!
In their vehicular forms, the fronts of the vehicles are actually (bar colour) exactly the same, having less differences than their G1 toy counterparts. The differences only seem to be at the back, where Pipes is toting his pipes and Huffer’s gun and shield serve to form a tray.
But wait, there’s more!
Can’t decide between Pipes and Huffer? Why choose either when you can have Puffer!
Puffer: ‘Even I haven’t heard of me before!’
Soooo…. The story behind this is that in certain parts of the world, when Pipes was released he was a straight up recolour of Huffer, rather than a retooled version. The storyline behind Puffer is that Huffer and Pipes got sucked into a time-vortex (as one does) and they were fused together into the one being. Like so many other extremely obscure characters (who can easily be recoloured from an existing figure), Puffer now has his own official toy. This Puffer though, is essentially Pipes slightly recoloured and with a G1 toy accurate head. Whilst there is little of Huffer to see in this figure, if you can’t decide which you like more out of Pipes and Huffer, then Puffer may be for you!
A reminder that Prime and Magnus aint the only Autobot trucks on the block
Well, for me it is hands down Pipes, and for me that is a purely sentimental reason. Pipes was one of my first ever Transformers, and was the first Transformer I ever got a double of when a mate gave me another one for my 9th birthday. Still have them both too 😊. I liked in the cartoon how Pipes seemed to straddle between mechanic, field medic and a quasi-field commander, whereas except for lifting the odd mammoth, Huffer seemed to do nothing but whine, barely built anything and for the most part simply vied with Gears for title of biggest complainer on The Ark.
G1: Emotions aside, talking about toys then I feel that Pipes has the better robot mode, despite Huffer having hand indents. Vehicular, despite the minor differences, I don’t favour one over the other. Winner: Pipes
Combiner Wars: Exact same vehicle mode so no favourite; in robot mode I gotta take points off Pipes for having the red face. Winner: Huffer
Kingdom: A draw, as though I like Huffer’s robot mode that smidge more, and he has the cool gun and shield that become the truck tray, Pipes finally has dedicated extra pipes, living up to his namesake. Winner: A draw, with a special shout out to Puffer for being such a unique character.
Got anything to say about the figures examined, or Pipes and Huffer in general? Pop it in the comments section below!
As the years progress, we are getting more and more obscure characters from Generation 1 turn up in the Transformers Generations toyline. Characters such as Greenlight and Lifeline who were non-speaking background femmebot characters from single episodes, Zetar & Chromar who were mail-away figures from 1984 that never showed up in any media, and even characters like Scrounge who appeared in a single comic 30 years previously only to die.
Well today we are looking at character/s, who while certainly not obscure, has never really been characters. And they’ve gotten their first transforming toy in a big way! So let’s look at, from the Kingdom line, the Titan-Class Autobot Ark with Teletraan-1.
The Ark
Ship Mode
Perhaps the most recognisable ship in all of Transformers lore, The Ark has been in everything from multiple different comics to multiple different cartoon series to video games. It’s the legendary ship that first transported the Autobots from Cybertron to Earth. And it’s been lovingly recreated here. It’s very big and bulky as befits a ship that is meant to be able to carry 300 Autobots across the galaxy. The details on it are beautiful, if somewhat plain due to the overriding orange colour scheme.
Time for take off!
The Ark comes with different play features such as an opening loading ramp and fold down landing gear. You are able to open up the front to put the tiny Optimus Prime that comes with the figure onto the bridge, which you can then see by looking through the front window.
It is covered in gun ports but sadly none of these are able to rotate. Also disappointing is the lack of paint apps on the ship. It certainly would have helped to break up the orange to have the windows in the observation tower at the back painted blue and for there to be more colour on the internal bridge. However these minor detractions aside, this is truly the ship we all know and love.
Robot Mode
I must admit I would have much preferred the Ark to be able to open up and become an interactive play set, much like the DOTM Ark, than turn into a robot. Don’t get me wrong, the robot/transformation gimmick is cool, and it has been explained in the Kingdom Cartoon, but it still seems odd. However this is a very nice looking Titan-class toy with good articulation, though no individually articulated fingers and the ratchet joints in the shoulders and arms really grind.
Some detractors from the robot mode are the once-again plain orange and grey colour scheme and the fact the gun ports can’t rotate. Since there are some located on each forearm it would have been great to be able to rotate them so as to blast his enemies instead of his own elbow joint. He scales very nicely with Titan-Class Omega Supreme, and one could imagine in fiction that in size they would be on par with each other.
‘Us giant Spaceship bots got ta stick together!’
Teletraan-1
Computer Mode
Teletraan-1 – the famous computer of The Ark, who was consulted episode after episode in the first two seasons of the G1 cartoon. Like The Ark, Teletraan has shown up in various media over the years but as a computer rather than a character.
The figure starts off life as the bridge of The Ark (with a BIG cube of kibble underneath) but can be removed in both modes.
Transformation to the Teletraan-1 computer is basically folding out of panels to make a hollow display, but it looks the business and is infinitely cool. Makes for a lot of play value with your Deluxe-class Autobot figures.
Perceptor goes to look up Femmebot pics, totally unaware that Teletraan is now Mainframe in disguise
It also comes with some very well-known accessories, such as Sky Spy which was the probe used by The Ark and controlled by Teletraan back in the G1 cartoon, and the Golden Disks that make up a hefty portion of the plot in the Beast Wars and Kingdom cartoons.
Yeeesssss
Mainframe
This…. is an interesting choice. The original Mainframe was a non-transforming G1 Action Master character whose bio described him as ‘a walking talking computer terminal’ rather than a regular Transformer. So making him the robot mode of Teletraan-1 is a kinda cool concept. However the two have always been distinct entities to each other so making them one and the same doesn’t really seem to sit right canonically. Still, it’s a nice enough robot mode, though like The Ark itself suffers from being one big blob of orange when it comes to the colour scheme, and he comes with no weapon.
I bulked up
Worth Getting?
For the spaceship mode of The Ark and the computer mode of Teletraan-1 one I’d have to say yes. These are by far the best representations of these iconic mainstays of the franchise we have ever had. The robot modes add some play value too and of course make the Transformer toys actually transform. However the uninspiring colour scheme and the lack of rotating turrets prevent this figure from being a must have. Personally, I’d recommend grabbing as long as you can find it as a reasonable price and have room on your shelf.
Got something to say about this Titan-Class toy? Pop it in the comments section below!
With the Transformers Kingdom toy line hitting the stores we are seeing a shift away from the Micromasters that have made up a decent part of the Siege and Earthrise toylines. Whilst some may be happy for this, others will miss not being able to complete the sets of these classic (if obscure) characters in their updated forms.
Luckily for us, if not so lucky for those with limited online store access, there are still a few sets being released under the Generations Selects line. Today we will look at the latest to be released; it containing three old characters and three (well, 2 1/2) brand new ones! So lets look at the Micron Micromasters set from the Galactic Odyssey Collection.
Motorhead & Runner
Both are recolours of their teammates and will give fans the ability to complete the classic Race Track Patrol. Runner was originally named Barricade in G1, but with the name Barricade firmly affixed to the Movieverse character, this figure has been renamed Runner which was his pre-war name in the Dreamwave comics.
Fireguard & Roadburner
Once again these two are recolours, this time of the Decepticon Micromasters Direct-Hit & Power Punch. And once again we have a name change. Fireguard is most obviously Wheel-Blaze, but since Wheel-Blaze had already received a new figure, they had to rename him and make him a new character.
Disappointingly Roadburner has the cannon of his Decepticon counterpart instead of a fire ladder. I suppose one could argue that it is meant to be a cannon that shoots water rather than laser fire.
Stingracer and Windstorm
Now these two are a bit interesting. The toys are (sigh) yet again simple recolours of other WFC Micromasters that have come before, but they are brand new characters. The most interesting bit is that their colour schemes are homages to MASK vehicles. The Decepticon Stingracer (the brown one) and the Autobot Windstorm have both lifted their paintjobs from toys from the MASK line and even their altmodes have a decent resemblance. I particularly like the colour scheme of Windstorm – the mint green colouring combined with the flame job on the vehicle hood really pops!
Weapons Modes
All these characters can become guns for larger characters or combine to become a double-weapon. Sadly they pretty much suck across the board and there will be few people that use them for this purpose. (For some examples of Micromaster weapons modes SEE HERE)
Worth Getting?
If you are a completionist then yes. If you are after a few new characters instead of the same G1 ones being trotted out time and time again then yes. However if you are after new figures that don’t resemble toys that have come before then don’t waste your time here. Besides colour schemes there is nothing new to recommend these figures, although I must say that the limbs on them are surprisingly tighter than those that have come before. I was able to transform all characters multiple times without limbs detaching, which is something to date that none of the other WFC Micromasters has managed for me. So this set isn’t bad and has a reasonable price point – grab it if you are inclined.
Living in a tiny town like Rylstone it is very much the case that there is only a finite amount of places to go out to eat. For great Mexican there is always Pepino’sand for a decent burger there is The Globe. However there are not many other venues, let alone secluded little café’s the romance the object of your affections.
This Valentines Day I did something that I don’t usually do. Being a relatively blokey Hobby Farmer I tend to stick to only 3 drinks in my life: coffee, water and beer. Wine does not come up on my radar except for something I sometimes I have to drink a glass of at weddings. There is red that gives me a headache, and white that I find bearable. There is the extend of my grand knowledge of crushed grapes. So I don’t generally do Wineries.
So this Valentines’ Day I stepped out of my comfort zone and took my wife to one of the few other places to eat around here – Naked Lady Vineyard.
First off, – misleading name for the place. Upon arrival, unlike Confest, there were no naked ladies. Not a one! No nubile wenches bereft of clothing lying around on a chaise’lounge or splashing about in fountains. It was in fact a lovely little winery a few minutes outside of Rylstone with a big barnlike structure in the center. So whilst there were no naked women, at least it meant I could look about in a relaxed fashion without my wife saying ‘Are you staring at that woman’s breasts?!’
Wine tasting was $5. For that you get to taste 5 or so different wines on the menu, and if you buy a bottle that $5 is taken off the price. My wife quite enjoyed doing this and I did try a glass myself, even if only I could go for the cheap laugh of sniffing it, swilling it around in my mouth and then looking for a bucket to spit it into.
My wife ended up purchasing two wines. I tried the white which was very nice. The red (according to her) was nice too. And… um… it was wine? Phew! Pushed my wine knowledge to the hilt with that one!
What goes well with wine? Cheese apparently. What goes well with cheese? MEAT! Though to be fair meat goes well with everything (I always thought Vegans might be happier if they wrapped their soy burgers in a bit of bacon). And much like Bootleggers, you could order a platter for two that had multiple cheeses and at least four kind of meat.
Classed as an Antipasto Platter (I’ve always been pro-pasto but that’s just me) this platter came with spicy chorizo, huge slices of cured ham, prosciutto and salami slices. It came with a variety of cheeses with varying bite, as well as pickles, chutneys, olives, strawberries, crackers and freshly baked bread goods.
Despite having swapped to beer at this point (they had 3 standard varieties) all of this did go very well hand in hand with the wines on offer. Indeed my wife and I quite happily grazed on the platter for nearly an hour as we chatted, drank, enjoyed the peaceful surrounds and the rare treat of each other’s company without our kids in tow.
So if you are a meat enthusiast, cheese enthusiast, wine enthusiast or even just want to have somewhere different to go to your usual pub or restaurant, I highly recommend Naked Lady Vineyard. And who knows, buy your partner enough bottles of vino and you might get to see a naked lady after all 😉
During the summer bushfires we lost power to our home for several days and as such lost everything in our fridges – including my beautiful range of hot sauces. Sniff… dark days indeed.
It’s over half a year later and I’m still slowly building a small collection back up. As such, when I saw some for sale right in the little town we live near, I couldn’t resist grabbing a bottle.
classy…
So let’s have a look at the latest offering from Bunsters, subtly titled – SHIT THE BED Aussie Hot Sauce.
The Flavour
Now with a name like Shit the Bed you probably aren’t expecting a top of the range hot sauce, full of subtle flavours that complement the heat. And you’d be right! Trying a bit on its own is like getting stung on the tongue by a wasp, a short sharp unpleasant sting to the tastebuds.
Of course, hot sauces aren’t meant to be eaten on their own, just as one is not supposed to drink from a bottle of tomato sauce. They are a condiment to be added to other foods. So I tried this sauce out on a homemade double-beef burger.
I will say that as a supporting flavour this hot sauce does come into its own. The sauce significantly added to the taste of the burger, and whilst still rough around the edges it was fairly pleasant on the whole. The label on the bottle said the hot sauce goes great with pizza and eggs so I added an extra dollop to the fried egg on my burger for good measure.
Bring the Heat… please!
Pfff…. hot sauce for toddlers!
This hot sauce may have an initial bite to it, but it is severely lacking in the heat department, despite Warning: This sauce is extremely hot being on the back label. Whoever wrote on the front label that the heat is 12/10 was either taking liberties with the truth or sorely needs to revisit their high school maths. Even eating this hot sauce straight wont make you yearn for a cup of water or milk and within a minute the heat has fully receded from your mouth. At a measly 35,000 Scoville’s it’s not even a tenth as strong as Mad Dog 357 (which has a level of 357,000 Scoville) and does not deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence as God Slayer Fucking Hot Sauce which comes in at a whopping 6.4 million! Yep, if you are after a heat challenge from your hot sauce I’d look elsewhere.
So… did I soil my sheets?
Promises Promises
The implied claim with the name of this product is that the hot sauce is so lethal it will make you shit the bed. Indeed with some of the heat challenges I’ve done such as attempting Australia’s Hottest Hamburger, I’ve had to get up at 2am in extreme gastric distress and sit on the toilet for an hour or two. Surprisingly, despite the relative lack of heat, around 10pm that night I did have to go sit on the toilet for a while with my stomach churning. However instead of the usual liquid lava boiling from my bowels it felt like I had eaten a dodgy curry or something. And if this had all taken place after I had nodded off, the attack was not that acute that I think I would have dropped a brown one in the bed rather than made it to the lavvy. Nope, no ring of fire for this cowboy’s latest ride.
Is this hot sauce worth your time?
If you are a hot sauce connosuier like me then no. It has an unpleasant taste on it’s own, is average on food and has very little heat. The only thing it seems to have in common with the better/stronger hot sauces is that it causes you gastronomic queasiness, which is meant to be a side effect rather than the main selling point. However given its cheap price point and vulgar name, it’s probably not a bad one to have on standby at a BBQ to give your boozed up mates a chuckle and to stick on a burger.
The Warrior Class toys from the Cyberverse line had gotten a reputation for being pretty poor, and for the most part that rep was deserved. The simplistic paint jobs, transformations and lacklustre modes have made many of these figures an easy pass for most collectors.
However thankfully, like the cartoon which got pretty damn good in seasons 2 and 3, the powers that be decided to improve the Cyberverse toyline too. And they have done so by introducing the Deluxe Class. This class is used by the Generations line and usually involves a higher degree of sophistication in all facets when compared to the Warrior Class, and of late has included blast effects that can be attached to characters weapons.
So lets have a look at the first wave of the Cyberverse Deluxe Class figures – Bumblebee, Optimus, Megatron and Shockwave.
Bumblebee
Sigh, it wouldn’t be a Transformers toyline without about a 150 different versions of Bumblebee would it. Thankfully this Bumblebee is quite good. He looks very screen accurate, comes with a lot more detail than the preceding Warrior Class figure, and comes with his stinger as well as a gun. Very nice!
The vehicle mode is ok. Quite compact with a decent amount of detail. However this is one case where I would say the Warrior Class looks that bit more impressive.
Optimus Prime
Once again, a vast improvement on the Warrior Class toy that came before. Optimus has good articulation, good proportions and it’s always appreciated when you can open an Optimus toys chest to find a Matrix inside. And you can use this one to (simulate) blast the big baddies, just like in the cartoon!
The vehicle mode is ok, not bad but nothing special to write home about. Perhaps a bit better than the Warrior Class due to the better paintjob (always irritates me when Optimus has red smokestacks).
Megatron
My son doesn’t own the Warrior Class Megatron so we had to compare him to another from the Cyberverse line which equated to no comparison at all. Megatron looks very good here – very cartoon faithful and well articulated. I particularly like the head sculpt. Would have been nice for him to have an Energon Morningstar but I guess you can’t have anything.
A pretty decent looking Cybertronian Tank, full of nice angles and Megatron’s arm cannon taking centre stage as the tank turret. Small but feisty and very cartoon accurate.
Fusion Mega Shot
Shockwave
Shockwave has gotten nearly as many Cyberverse toys as Bumblebee, having a figure in nearly every size. And unlike many the Shockwave toys haven’t been half bad. This Shockwave is good but doesn’t particularly stand out from any of the others, though its nice to see him get his arm cord back.
The beauty of having multiple Shockwave’s is that you can convert your other ones into the crab-tank modes to represent the army of drones he has in the cartoon. Once again, this toy doesn’t particularly stand out from any that have come before, though there are multiple ports on the tank mode to put his extra blaster in, giving you more options.
‘My babies. My ugly, ugly babies’
Maccadams/Alchemist Prime Parts
Part of the lure to get these figure is that each character comes with a body part that, when combined, form Maccadams. It’s very tempting as there has never been a toy of the famous bartender before. If you end up with multiple Shockwaves you can always use both legs, which looks a bit odd but saves you buying other figures down the line if you don’t want them.
Cyberverse Deluxe Class – worth getting?
Well they are for the most part the best Cyberverse toys we have gotten so if you are a big fan of the show then you may want to pick them up. If not then you can always bypass them. I found these figures for a staggeringly cheap $12(AU) each on sale so I was more than happy to pick them up at that price. And of course, the temptation is now there to get the next four in order to make Maccadams.
Well the Transformer Wrist-Rest Mouse Pads continue unabated. Having done the most popular and well known female Transformer characters such as Arcee, Black Arachnia, Elita-1 and Windblade, the makers are now moving on to the B-Listers of the femmebot world. And B is correct as while one of these characters is a Femmebot that has been around in the background for 35 years, another isn’t a Femmebot at all!
Moonracer and….. WTF?!
So lets have a look at Moonracer and, quite strangely the Cyber Bee Cosplayer.
Moonracer
A very feminine face and a head that is very indicative of both the original 1985 G1 character and the Generations Toy that came out in recent years. A good enough mouse pad, though the shadowing/lighting they have used for the art causes a faded line to cross the Autobot Symbol on her chest, detracting from the artwork somewhat.
‘I thought my chest plate was more pointy than round. But hey, at least I’m finally getting more merchandise!’
Cyber Bee
Human, Cyborg, Pretender, really good Cosplayer…. what is she?!
I mean, what is this supposed to be? The armour and colour scheme is obviously in homage to the Movieverse Bumblebee. But the face and chest are most definitely flesh. But then she has eyes that are either robotic or supernatural as they are a solid blue. So is this Bumblebee in semi-human form doing a gender swap? Is he donning a Pretender disguise like Alice in ROTF? Is it either a Cyborg or a Supernatural Girl dressed up as Bumblebee for Cosplay? I just don’t know! So I’ve gone with the rationale that she is a Cyborg (part robot part human) that is cosplaying as Bumblebee as, though that makes little sense, it seems to make more sense than any other explanation.
“I hate this weird depiction of me. Whaddya mean ‘thats not what my missile says’?”
So there we go, the latest in Transformers Wrist-Wrest Mouse Pads. Moonracer who is not too big of a surprise, and Cyber Bee, who is very surprising. It will be interesting to see who we get next.
Competition Update
For those of you that entered into the competition to win a Free Mouse Pad, take heart. Not a single person had either Moonracer or, unsurprisingly, Cyber Bee in their top 5 list. So all those who entered are still in the running!
