Lookit me, I got another Arcee.   The one on the right is Japan's deco.  She's the new one.

There are things I like about the plain ol' domestic version on the left.  I like the use of black, for example.  I think it adds a nice contrast color to her that gives her some visual interest beyond the kind of value-samey white, pink, and gray.  I like that the larger rifle is painted, which if you think about it is a bizarre choice, since why would Hasbro waste paint applications on the rifle?  99% of the time they leave weapons unpainted, since using up your paint budget on the actual figure seems preferable, but both of Hasbro Arcee's weapons have paint.  The smaller gun has just the sliver of gray, while everything that isn't a handle or a peg is painted on the larger gun.  And it's both black and gray paint, too.  (Okay, the larger rifle is pink if you don't paint it, and maybe Hasbro didn't want a pink gun, I dunno.)  Also the Hasbro one's like $15 domestic instead of $30 imported, so,  you know, half as expensive.

But those positives aside, and even though I thought that I'd always prefer the Hasbro deco, I changed my mind a bit once we got to see the TakaraTomy deco.  Since Finally Arcee's First Toy The Way Most People Would Define As Such is kind of a big 30th Anniversary event, I thought it might be worth it to splurge for the "deco the way the designers intended," aka slavishly adherent to the original cartoon colors.  And while import Arcee's larger rifle remains unpainted, there's a lot of stuff I like about the robot's deco that's a fair trade to me.  For example, the paint wraps all the way around her torso instead of ending abruptly at the seams.  And Hasbro's version looks like it was trying to avoid the whole "pink bikini" look by not painting the crotch of the pink bikini, but honestly it just looks like a crotchless pink bikini without that deco there, so, um, whoops.  The gray lower midsection is more cartoon accurate AND its relative darkerness obscures the uncanny-valley organic round tummy-with-a-bellybutton the sculpt has.  So that's nice.  

Anyway, I felt okay splurging because this toy was surprisingly fun to own.  When I preordered her and Chromia, I expected Arcee to be kinda whatevs and Chromia to be the fuckin' bomb, but in person Chromia's remolding makes her a chore to deal with and Arcee's fun.  Shellformery fun, but fun nonetheless.  And so I'm happy to get the more expensive version.  Her toy's a milestone, after all.

Plus now I can steal the painted larger rifle from the Hasbro one to give to the other!  Best of both worlds!   (And eventually scrape out the support struts from inside the new one's palms so she can hold her weapons non-ridiculously, to match what I did with the Hasbro one.)  

look i only said the comics were stopping

When this new Voyager Class Optimus Prime was first introduced to us, we didn't know he was going to be a super robot's torso in some new subline imprint called Combiner Wars.  And so we were all sort of staring at him, scratching our heads, wondering what was up.  New Optimus was lookin' kinda weird.  Photography of him cleverly obscured the combined-robot crotch hanging off his back, and his limb connection points and super robot head were likewise obscured.  Knowing that certain elements were being compromised to incorporate a torso mode, not to mention existing mostly to be the eingineering groundwork for another toy, made everything fall into place.  

Combiner Wars Motormaster is a pretty damn extensive retool of Combiner Wars Optimus Prime.  They look like they share a bunch of parts, but it's always fewer parts than you think.  Yeah, from the thighs down, they're the same toy, but nearly everything from there up is new.  I'm talking like nothing but the fists, the backs of the biceps, and some structural parts of the torso.  The entire front of the cab on either is different, as are the arms and chest and heads.  Functionally, they are the same toy, but their sculpt differs. 

CW Prime is a beefy friggin' Optimus Prime.  He's a little pinheaded, but that's partly due to his transformation -- his neck sits on a rotating panel that obscures his head in truck or torso mode, and there's not a lot of clearance for it otherwise.  The super robot head hides inside his giant backpack.  His chest windows are fake kibble, with the real truck windows placed on the backs of his arms.  His legs transform like basically any Optimus Prime ever.  Motormaster is the same except he gets different sculpted details other than fake chest windows.

Both these guys are meant to be the torso of a combined super robot, so some key joints ratchet very toughly.  The hips in particular are very solid, and their ratcheting resting points are pretty far from each other, which makes the sculpted slant at the bottom of the toes feel silly.  There's no ratcheting point that lines up with how his toes are sculpted against the ground.  

Optimus gets two guns that combine into a larger gun and Motormaster gets a gun and a sword that combine into a larger sword.  The combined weapons are intended for their combiner robot forms.  In torso mode, you can keep their chest clamshell closed, or open it up to place Legends Class Blackjack (or his future retool, Rodimus) inside as armor.  

Optimus Prime's a beefy Prime, very wide and boxy, which are traits we don't get in an Optimus Prime toy much anymore, so I like him for that.  Most, if given a choice between the two, would choose Motormaster.  Motormaster gets far, far fewer toys, and other than the obvious Optimus legs the base toy seems geared more towards Motormaster than Optimus.  

This is Shouki!  You probably don't know who he is.  I'm a living Transformers encyclopedia and I barely know who he is.  This is because he shows up in the Japanese-only series Headmasters, which is dull-as-rocks -- the Headmasters anime was that awkward growing pains period when Takara was seemingly trying to tell Transformers stories our way, but failing, before they say "screw it" and go full-on "this is stuff we know how to do well" the next year with Masterforce.  Anyway, this is Shouki, the leader of theTrainbots.  In the terrible English dub that aired in Southeast Asia at the time, his name was Grimlock.  Yup.

This exclusive toy from Japan interested me because it's finally a toy of Classics Astrotrain as a new character.  Everyone else except Classics Megatron got one of those, and for the past nine years I've been hankering for that Astrotrain toy to be shoehorned as some other character.   I mean, I know why that hasn't happened -- he's a Triple Changing space shuttle/bullet train, and there aren't any other Triple Changing shuttle/trains in Transformers.  But that's why I wanted to see it done.  Like with the Cloud Rodimus I talked about a while back, I like seeing characters get new altmodes via redecoes of other half-appropriate toys.  Shouki transformed into a bullet train, and he does so now.  He now also transforms into a space shuttle.

Now here's where it gets wacky.  It was decided that Shouki's shuttle mode is actually Shouki disguising himself as Micromaster Skystalker's shuttle base, the Thunder Arrow.  To that end, he comes with a Mini-Con partner who transforms into a bow, recolored as Skystalker.  Get it?  Thunder Arrow?  A bow?  And this Skystalker decoy is actually Daniel Witwicky in an Exo-Suit.  WHAT.

Daniel has a little trouble being Shouki's bow, though.  Shouki has some forearm kibble that doesn't really want any wide weapons with 5mm pegs to attach there.  You can force it to make it work, but it's not fun or intuitive.  The whole convoluted idea was that close to being perfect, if not for that detail.  But don't worry, it makes up for itself in other areas.  While Shouki is in bullet train mode, Daniel can be contorted into a new configuration and attach to the top of the train to complete a "Pantograph Mode."  In other words, he becomes the TV-antenna-like contraption you see on top of electric trains that connect them to the power lines above.  This is both ingenius and hilarious to me.  I really like this.  

Shouki himself is very well painted.  The stripe that runs down the side of his vehicle modes even has a gradient.  He's a pretty toy.  However, his colors are pretty close to the colors Astrotrain got over here in the United States back in 2006.  Our Astrotrain was white, like Shouki.  Japan's was dark gray and purple, and so there's no conflict over there.  I lucked out, though, since I'd replaced my Hasbro Astrotrain with a Takara one a few months ago because my white one had yellowed due to age.   And so I have no color scheme overlap.  If you still have an original Astrotrain, though, owning this guy might be harder to justify.  

NOTE!!!!: People keep asking me where I'm going to put my reviews after the Shortpacked! comic ends.  The answer is here, still.  This website ain't goin' no where!  And when I get new toys I wanna talk about, I'll still talk about them here, same as I always have been.  

The Transformers action figure toyline theme this coming year is Combiner Wars, which means most everything combines with other things.  Everything in the Deluxe and Voyager size classes become limbs and torsos, respectively, and a few things in the Legends size class become weapons or armor for the combined robot.

Which is super great if you have more than just four Deluxes!  I got too clever for myself this past week or so.  Amazon.com got in the Combiner Wars Voyagers, and so I ordered them and got them shipped to myself... in California.  It's Christmas, y'see, and so we visit the in-laws down in San Diego most every year.  Maggie goes out there earlier, while I stay behind a few extra days to finish up work.  And so I thought I was being super crafty, getting those toys to myself on the other side of the continent.  Until I got super sick and couldn't fly out to California.  It was just me and the cat this year.  Well, me, the cat, a turkey, and the Combiner Wars Deluxes I had preordered from Big Bad Toy Store, which arrived here while I was stuck in Ohio as the torsos arrived in California.  

So I have some limbs.

No torsos.  But some limbs.

There's three aircraft (which belong to Superion) and one car (which belongs to Menasor), and they all transform basically the same.  You fold the arms up alongside the vehicle, collapse the shins around the thighs, and cover the head with the front of the vehicle.  The legs of the aircraft sort of accordion into themselves after opening up the shins, rather than the literal collapsing of the car's legs, but it's all the same formula.  No actual shared pieces, but very similar engineering.  And it sort of makes sense -- these are all based on guys from 1986, who all transformed fairly similarly then for the same reason they do now: they all have to become limbs that are exactly the same size and proportion.  You can't have a combiner robot guy with one leg longer than the other.  And each guy can become any of the four limbs, so there has to be a common pattern between them at some denominator.  

Each guy also comes with a rifle and a second much bulkier double-barreled weapon that also transforms into either a foot or a fist.  It's a step up over the original versions of these guys, who came with extra foot or fist pieces you just sort of set aside when not in use.  Here at least the feet/fists have something they can do when they're not being feet or fists.  

My favorite of the four is Alpha Bravo.  He's a replacement for Slingshot (who was the only Aerialbot I owned as a child), partly because "Slingshot" isn't a trademark Hasbro owns anymore and partly because four Deluxe-sized jets who all transform nigh-identically is kind of overkill.  Three (Air Raid is in wave 2) is kind of pushing it already.  Alpha Bravo's a helicopter and so he's also super obviously just the Combaticon Vortex in Slingshot's colors.  I like Alpha Bravo best because he's a new character who's a little orange and also because he makes a better helicopter than the two other aircraft are jets.  Jets are flat things and don't lend themselves well to robots (unless you open up like a cootie catcher akin to live-action Starscream) or combiner robot limbs.  Helicopters are taller and rounder and can contain robot parts better.  ...even if Alpha Bravo's arms just peg onto the sides and hope they hide themselves behind those missiles sculpted on his arms.

Drag Strip's a pretty good car, sure, but Alpha Bravo's weapons integrate better into his vehicle mode than Drag Strip's.  And maybe Drag Strip also needs to get drawn by Sarah Stone before I pay attention to him.

So Hasbro's all "FINE, here's your goddamned cartoon-style Arcee toy who transforms into a futuristic sportscar convertible, GAWD."   Twenty-eight years later and probably just as many offbrand third-party Arcee toys later, here she is.  The one you wanted in the way you wanted her.  Probably.

She even shares a case assortment with Chromia, another lady Transformer (who herself is a retool of a previous Arcee toy).  It's a case assortment that can potentially pass the Bechdel test!  And importantly, Arcee is gloriously pink.  They said it couldn't be done in the dude aisle, but here she is.  She's not a rosey red or rusty brown, she's legimately hot pink and white.  Hasbro's all "fuck y'all, we're doin' it."  

The design of this toy was spearheaded by a guy over in Japan who fandom-famously homebuilt an Arcee back in 1998.  Additional design work was contributed from another guy who draws Arcee like this, with a broken Escher Girl spine and cheated-in cleavage.  There were some design drawings for this toy printed in a magazine that echo these choices, and, uh, I am kind of amazingly thankful that not much of it got into the final toy.  There's no sculpted cleavage and the spine isn't as broken.  That weirdly organic-looking tummy's still there, though, and if you look at Arcee's toy from the side, you can still see some of those vague shapes, particularly in the boobal area.  They, like, point up.  Look, for some people Arcee was their sexual awakening, okay???  And now those people make Transformers.

Because of the adherance to the original Arcee robot and car designs, she's kinda backpacky.  90% of the car mode folds up on her back, leaving only the very tip of the hood and some of the rear wheel hubs to serve as the chest and thighs, respectively.  The car parts fold up reasonably well, though since the back bumper kind of juts into the small of her arched back at an angle, she can't really keep her arms straight down at her sides.  It's arms akimbo or action for Arcee!  Other than that, she's a pretty good robot mode.  She'd have to be, considering she's just a humanoid robot person with a car on her back.  Good robot mode, good car mode, not so great Transformer.  

My Arcee is a version of the toy before a running change.  Later versions of Arcee have remolded fists that better hold her weapons.  In my earlier version, there's a small ledge of plastic that prevents the weapon tabs from sliding all the way through, presumably for structural purposes.  The later version removes this ledge but accommodates for structural integrity by closing her fist sculpt.  (The fingers and thumb touch each other now, is what I mean.)  The open palms look better, but they look terrible holding stuff.  And lord does she come with stuff!  It's like Hasbro was crossing their fingers that little boys love weapons more than they hate pink girls, or at least pink-girl-hating parents of less culturally-contaminated little boys.  

There's two guns and two swords, all sculpted to work with Arcee and only Arcee through a tab system rather than the usual 5mm pegs.... probably because Arcee's arms are so damn thin that a 5mm pegholed fist would look conspicuous.  There's slots for these tabs everywhere on her, so there's lots of placement choices.  There's even some tabs on the underside of her front bumper (or the top of her robot shoulder kibble) that I'm not really sure are useful in either mode for space reasons.  In vehicle mode you can tab her guns in any of the many slots, or store them underneath.  The swords hafta remain plugged in visibly, though.  They're too big to hide underneath somewhere.  (the smaller gun plugs in between her arms, and her fists plug into either side of it)

At the end of the day, it's probably the best toy of the original Arcee design that you could get for $15.  There have been some better Arcee toys and there will be better Arcee toys, but if you want one of this particular design, it's actually pretty good for that.  

Good luck waiting for a Headmaster version.

Me, I just want one in the preproduction colors.

We don't get a lot of working Headmaster toys at retail these days and for good reason -- find yourself a random Transformers toy and check out the size of its noggin.  Those things are tiny.  Now imagine that becoming a robot.  The tiniest robot!  We're talking like a centimeter or so high.  Transformers proportions are pretty pinheaded.  They make comic book superheroes look like Charlie Brown.  The original Headmasters all had proportionately huge heads for a Transformer.  They kind of had to.

This new 30th Anniversary Brainstorm guy tries to lessen the head/body ratio math by engineering him in a larger size class.  He's a Voyager, and a pretty tall one.  He's a wedge taller than, say, Springer, and he doesn't look too far off from Jetfire's height.  He feels like something in between.  He's way less complicated than either, which may be why he can command such real estate.  He's definitely larger than the original Brainstorm, while also having a smaller head.  The usual Transformers proportions have persisted despite his gimmick.

He's a Headmaster, meaning his head transforms into a little robot guy (or guy in a robot suit).  Brainstorm's neck is actually Arcana's head.  (Arcana is not named anywhere, but we can assume it's the same guy as the original Brainstorm head.)  Arcana's head is balljointed on his own tiny body, and so Brainstorm's head is also balljointed, which is nice.  Usually the Headmaster gimmick precludes neck articulation.  

To remove Arcana from Brainstorm's torso, the instructions say to pull down on the gray piece across his collarbone.  This accomplishes a little.  It does remove some of the plastic obstructing Arcana's head's removal from that hole in Brainstorm's torso, but you still kind of have to yank hard.  This may end badly in some cases -- as I said, Arcana has a balljointed head, and it seems feasible to me that one day I may yank and pull Brainstorm's head away while leaving Arcana's head buried in Brainstorm's torso.  But then, I have gone through like three TNBA Batmen this month, so I may be viewing things through Paranoia Glasses.  

Brainstorm transforms simply, largely because he wouldn't look much like Brainstorm if he didn't still Transform like the original toy, which also transformed simply.  You tuck his forearms back and fold his legs under the jet.  The shins kind of point a bit far out the back of the jet mode, which I thought meant I missed a step, but everything pegs together perfectly and there are no other moving parts to suggest some additional transformation magic.  The head obviously doesn't have to hide anywhere, since it becomes the pilot.  

I am biased strongly in favor of this toy since Brainstorm has been appearing very importantly in the More Than Meets The Eye ongoing comic book series from IDW for the past three years and this toy is based on that design.  (Minus the Headmaster gimmick, so far as we know.)  The toy is a great representation of that iteration of the character, and so I have fits of glee just looking at him standing on my desk in robot mode.  I should keep that going, I worry about the neck balljoint thing.

Look, I don't know if anybody knows what was going on here.  We finally got a toy named Jhiaxus that's sculpted to look like Jhiaxus but then they tried to color him like the other Jhiaxus and they failed at doing so.  What is even the deal?

I like my orange stuff.  I do!  And I'd be up for an orange Jhaixus, and I certainly was.  But, man, you know why old orange Jhiaxus worked?  There was some color contrast.  He was orange and light gray and black.  New orange Jhiaxus tries to do that but it ends up this entire orange/gray single-value lump.  If you put him in grayscale he'd look all the same color.  That's the problem.  

To be honest, Jhiaxus's "real" colors (white, yellow, teal) don't look great on this mold either -- I've seen people try to paint it up like that and I don't think it really works.  But, at least, it avoids the single-lump-of-the-same-value-everywhere problem.  

Everything else about this guy is great.  He's based on the phenomenal Generations Armada Starscream toy.  He's got heaping amounts of retooling -- new wings, new torso, new head, new weapons.  He's ORANGE.  But orange in THIS way, versus another color that doesn't set apart from the orange at all, is what plummets this toy into the Aw Dammits.  This toy is the result of somebody's Monkey Paw wish.  

Yay, Windblade is here!  I've been needing her toy in my life for some time -- though admittedly, it's not because of her toy specifically, but who her character is and what she represents.  Many of her attributes were chosen through fandom voting, such as her red and black color scheme, her altmode, her weapon, and, of course, her gender.  It's the winning gender option that set a lot of weirdos off, which, as my comic strip had noted previously, it's not like anyone was mad that "male" was an option.  But "female" won, and so here we are.  Viva democracy!

Her character is also important to me.  So often Transformers characters are defined by how badass or snarky they are, but Windblade's strength is in her empathy.  Optimus Prime may often make speeches about how peace and harmony are important while simultaneously beating someone's face in, but Windblade's compassion is presented as an actual important skillset.  Sure, she's good enough with a sword (and getting better with training), but the care in which she interacts with other people wins her more battles.  She easily could have been another aloof loner rebel warrior whatzit, but no.

And so Windblade's toy, the result of a Thirtieth Anniversary Hasbro website poll, has had some equal care taken with it.  In a world of increasingly budget-strained decisions in the action figure industry, Windblade is obviously a case of some extra mile being taken.  In addition to the base figure, which transforms from a robot to a VTOL jet, she also comes with her sword, the blade of which fades from translucent purple into translucent clear.  The sword stows in a scabbard which can be held or pegged in numerous ways -- there's a 5mm port on one end, a grip for her hand on the other, and a notch that can lock into a slot on either of her hips.  The fan can be removed from behind her head and be held in her hand as a weapon.  Her VTOL jets can be rotated forward, plus they spin.  As with recent Transformers toys, there's a plughole under her nosecone (which relocates to her robot mode back) that is compatible with some action figure stands.  

There are a few negatives -- for example, she's not easy to stand.  Due to her wings, she's a little backheavy, and so her tiny footprint is sometimes not sufficient, and the way her heels like to easily fold back up into her legs doesn't help either.  She can be stood if you're patient, but you can't just plop her down on a desk when you're done swooshing her around.  

Her jet mode also has a few holes in it.  The top of the jet is obviously a pair of shins, and there's an open gap between these two parts that looks kinda bad.  And because the toy had so much work put into it, she's a little fiddly.  She's got a lot of joints and hinges packed into her.  Things plug in fairly well in both modes, but there may be some times that stuff moves when you're trying to move other stuff.  

Windblade hasn't really hit North American retail yet (I got mine from Big Bad Toy Store), but when she does, I think she's worth taking a look at.  She's important for many reasons and her toy does some neat stuff.  

I think for this review of Thrilling 30 Jetfire (2014) a pair of columns of pros and cons versus Classics Jetfire (2006) will suffice.

Ways T30 Jetfire is worse than Classics Jetfire:

1. Retail price is twice as much
2. Booster rocket backpack doesn't fold out into over-shoulder guns
3. Jet cockpit doesn't become robot chest mode cockpit
4. Only one missile launcher (versus two)
5. Lots of empty gaps in limbs as a result of saving on number of parts
6. Red chrome dye is already flaking off

Ways T30 Jetfire is better than Classics Jetfire

1. Toy size is twice as large
2. Booster rocket backpack can rotate 360 degrees
3. Booster rocket backpack's jets are articulated
4. More armor pieces
5. Armor pieces can combine to form super weapon with rifle
6. Mask looks better than Classics helmet
7. Mask can stow on rifle when not being worn (albeit goofily)
8. Better robot mode proportions and articulation
9. Jet mode is massively better
10. Not old enough yet to be yellowed hunk of shit

This next wave of Transformers Generations is some crazy shit.  Nightbeat and Jhiaxus, who are really awesome guys who rarely get toys?  Windblade, the bestest new character?  And the guy in the wave I'm least interested in is somehow Crosscut, who's a new toy of a previously e-Hobby exclusive guy?  It's like Hasbro was throwing darts at a dartboard composed entirely of stuff I really dig.  

Let's talk about Nightbeat.  He's a retool of Generations Bumblebee and his retool Goldfire Bumblebee, so this means he's the third use of the mold and the third head for it.  (There'll be a fourth head on a fifth use of the mold next year.)  He almost was made from Reveal the Shield Jazz, which so almost happened that art of that version is on the cover of the comic book Nightbeat comes with.  RTS Jazz is a much better toy (one of the best), but this version made from Bumblebee looks more like Nightbeat in robot mode.  The original Nightbeat was a Porsche, just like Jazz, so RTS Jazz woulda been perfect in vehicle mode.  A muscle car feels a little off.

Nightbeat's in the colors you'd expect him to be -- he's a bright cyan and yellow, grounded by black.  All of his yellow is painted, and the toy valiantly tries to cover up blue plastic with yellow paint.  It mostly succeeds, surprisingly, but there are a few thinly covered parts that look a little greenish.  Nightbeat's new head has lightpiping, but it's painted over in red on both sides.   This time Nightbeat's shins are glued into place so that you can no longer slide them out laterally for robot mode.  Perhaps there were stability or looseness issues?  

There's a way to transform Nightbeat so his shoulder kibble hangs in a way that suggests Nightbeat more -- a transformation alteration that Japan is using for their upcoming Goshooter exclusive.  Just, uh, keep his shoulders untransformed, basically, losing the door wings and keeping them hanging off his biceps.  

His weapon is still ridiculous.  It's Bumblebee/Goldbug's, but every time this toy comes out again with that same weapon, I feel like its ridiculousness increases.  

I kinda wish Nightbeat had gotten a newly sculpted chest in addition to his head.  I also wish he'd gotten to have an orange face.  Yellow is way better than silver like everyone else, but it's not strictly accurate.  However, Nightbeat's face is yellow in the ongoing IDW comics, so maybe that's where that comes from.  

Speaking of which, I strongly need a Nautica for him to solve mysteries with.