I photograph a lot pinker than I am.
So there’s this exclusive three-pack of Classics Rodimus, Galvatron, and Cyclonus that’s been released in Southeast Asia with no sign so far of release anywhere else. Sometimes I get paid in toys for art, so I figgered I might as well check them out since Big Bad Toy Store had the set in stock.
This here is “Challenge at Cybertron” Rodimus in front of his regular American retail self. He’s an attempt at doing the toy in pure cartoon colors, taste be damned. I was super-interested in this toy when a few stolen samples of him showed up online just before BotCon. I was interested because it looked like he was pinkish purple. Hasbro and Takara try their damnedest to pretend that in the 1986 Animated Movie that Hot Rod is totally red and orange and yellow. Ha! It is to laugh. He’s frigging pink. Magenta-ish, even. Early in the toy’s design stage, Hasbro was gonna release him in pink, before they realized that holy crap no this is a boy’s toy that would be financial suicide. The production version was dark red, and every Hot Rod or Rodimus since then has been too.
And so photos showed up online of this Rodimus who looked pretty damn pink. So pink the plastic had a translucent quality. Hot damn, I said! That’ll be mine!
The actual toy is not pink. In person it is a very brilliant red which that is pretty damn opaque. Think of the color of, say, raw meat. Or maybe watermelon. Vaguely orangey, very vaguely pinkish, but definitely red. Denied once again!
Dayglo Playskool
As a result the toy is a different kind of eyesore. I think I kind of like it, but it’s definitely an acquired taste. This toy is the Eighties punching you in the face. Other than the missed opportunity to do the first pink Hot Rod ever, it’s a valiant effort to make the toy look like the cartoon model. The fists are painted entirely over in light gray, as are the spoiler in a drab yellow and the fronts of the legs in dark gray. Most noticeable is the canopy area which is no longer a translucent blue, but the same solid raw meat red as everything else but with painted light-blue windows.
Contrast it with the original Classics Rodimus toy, with its attempt to update and subdue Hot Rod’s original look into something more palatable.
The “Challenge at Cybertron” Rodimus is both horrible and great, in comparison, and I waver on whether I prefer the cartoony one or not. It certainly stands out more on a shelf, good or bad.
And one of them has to go. I don’t need two Classics Rodimuses. We’ll hafta see which one it is.
The easy solution? Go back in time, get the Henkei Rodimus when he first came out, then sell the other two.
Or, keep both and buy the Protector addon set to put the one you like the least in.
Why would I go back in time to buy the ugliest of the three?
I would totally have bought a real Pink Hotrod too, so you have my sympathies.
Hehehehe Hot Rod was Decade pink before it was cool :p
ONORE HOT ROD!
Kamen Rider Rodimus?
Okay…that would be insanly odd and cool all at the same time!But he would need to transform into a motorcycle, just to make the whole motiff fit.
You mean like Accel? :p
Heh, buy four of all of them, dedicate a room to dispaly them, wait twenty years, and you could have your collection go for twenty grand. Saw a repeat of Pawn Stars tongiht and that’s exactly what happend to one guy. In the offchance that no one has posted this already, have a look:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AKK4VE0hV4
someone in an article on either Seibertron.com or TNI said this set was going to be a Target exclusive, but there was no evidence of this being anything but conjecture. Even if it were true, you’re probably better off having bought it now, as opposed to waiting half a year or more only to be beaten to it by scalpers.
Its Target exclusive according to Auto Assembly.
Heya Walky!
Don’t get rid of either of them. Save them both, and when the Protector armor comes out from FansProject, use one for the ‘Rodimus Prime’ form and have the other as..well…Hot Rod.
Since they’re so different in color, one might look better in the FP armor than another, and that way you have the best of both worlds: your favorite Hot Rod beside a great looking Protector Rodimus Prime.
And if push comes to shove and you like both equally well, then just at random change them out and display them that way!
I don’t think I’m going to be interested in Protector. Spending that much on Rodimus Prime causes my brain to short out.
Did you see the prototype at Botcon that Vangelus put a video up of on his YT channel?
It’s very awesome and looks like it’d give the City Commander armor a run for its money for sure!
I did see it. (And its “do not photograph” tag.) I just don’t care much about Rodimus Prime.
So does that mean you’re more of a Hot Rod person, or are both just sorta incidental characters to you?
I am not sure why they had that “do not photograph” thing there, considering a Fansproject representative was standing there talking to Vangelus as he was recording the video, and like Japanese conventions/toy trade shows, they obviously didn’t stop anybody else from photographing it.
This must be some sort of asian formality thing.
I really like this, primarily because of it’s wonderful gaudeness! I regret not picking up the original isse of the mold and while I have zero interest in the protector armour (Flagrantly illegal stuff is still illegal guys), I do hope that either this set comes out at retail here (Which according to news from AA isn’t going to happen), or a repaint of the mold does come out.
I need me some Rodimus. And that isn’t freudian at all.
Pfffft. Rodimus Minor straight up owns all these oldsters with their Twen-Cen pastel pastiches.
I will never, ever get the appeal of any of these resin garage-kit companies. Protector in particular strikes me as something that isn’t even GOOD and that people just like because it is some kind of Rodimus Prime substitute. How people can still want it when we’ve seen what the Masterpiece toy will look like is beyond me.
they probably just want one in scale with Classics/Universe/Generations. I agree, Protector isn’t all that great, and the City Commander armor, while accurate, couldn’t really, well, move. That being the case, it’s hard to say that the Bruticus and Superion sets weren’t gorgeous, and Defender/Springer is better than anything Hasbro has done as far as Triple Changers go.
I’d stick with the original Classics Rodimus… The second one looks so cheap to me.
The only solution I can see is to have Batman punch both of them in the face and see which one gets up first.