TF Views

Animated seems to suffer from this sort of cheatsey, "almost but not quite" level of articulation, I find. The toys are stunning to look at but not as fun to play with, but I can respect that given how much of a sucker I am for good visual design. BA looks interesting enough, I have to wonder why she's shelfwarming.

Also, I saw one original Animated Prowl when I bought Sentinel but decided to wait until Samurai Prowl. Am I a fool?

donosaur wrote:BA looks interesting enough, I have to wonder why she's shelfwarming.

Character's a bit blah, toy's rather small for it's price point, femmes in general don't really catch on with the Target Audience. Anyway:

Bleach Yasutora "Chad" Sado- Okay, so this ONE Toynami Chad figure has been shelfwarming at Borders for AGES! MONTHS! As evidenced by the thick layer of dust that's built up on top of the bubble. Well, I like Chad, and it looked like a decent enough toy, so I took pity on the little guy and snagged it. It's not bad. First off, it's WAY more poseable than your average Toynami figure, which means it still falls short of the standards set by other toys. If you thought Armada Wheeljack's one wrist swivel was wierd, get this: Only one of Chad's elbows is jointed. His 'Armored' arm is static all the way through, it can only swivel up and down at the shoulder. His left, normal arm, has an elbow joint, a shoulder joint, and a bicep swivel, BUT the molding of his sleeve and chest prevent that arm from raising up past his chest at the shoulder. It's...really wierd. There is a neat trick with the poseability of his right arm though: The fist is sculpted at *just* such an angle that it looks neutrally sideways when it's at his side, but ends up in a fingers-down punching position when you raise it up. Clever. Anyway, as annoyingly wierd as the arm joints are, the legs kinda make up for it. He's got a very limited swivel waist, swivel hips (t-crotch), mid-thigh swivels, knees, and his feet even have a little wiggle room. Plus they had the forsight to sculpt his shirt to allow the hip swivels to get clearance, so thanks for that. So he does have a decent amount of variety in terms of poses, but you're gonna go nuts working with those arms. Anyway, the sculpting on this thing is top-notch, especially on the face and right arm. He's got a bit of a thinner, softer look to him; this is definitely the anime character design for Chad. The only other issue I can think of is kind of a nitpicky one, and that's the lack of accessory. From what I saw, the other figures in Toynami's Bleach line all came with an accessory: Ichigo came with his Zanpaku-To, Rukia came with Kon (looked to be poseable!), and Orihime came with Yoruichi in cat form. Chad just comes with...his stand and a lot of confusion over his arm articulation. One last bonus though: he's about the right size to pal around with my DC Universe Classics guys. Okay, he's a bit tall, but that's okay, Chad's supposed to be huge.

Mao-Chan vol. 1- Sometimes, I think it's possible to love Ken Akamatsu too much.

donosaur wrote:Sentinel Prime. Man this face sculpt is amazing, plus he's THE TICK.

I have yet to find a Swoop, but seeing as how my $7.77 buying has gone unchecked, I'm considering picking up a blackarachnia. I mean, why not, right? She's a shelf warmer though, so I was wondering what you guys thought of her.

I'm not an animated fan, but BA is one of the two Animated figures I own (the other being Soundwave). It's an improved version of the Beast Machines transformation with the animated aesthetic and a head that is similar to Transmetal 2 BA from Beast Wars. It's a pretty decent figure, and certainly worth the $7.77.

BWprowl wrote:Transformers Armada Vol. 1- While their own stuff is fair-to-middlin', IDW is quickly becoming my reprint heroes. Between the Best of UK stuff, the Marvel G1 collections, the MTMTE trade, and now this sucker, I'm quite happy with them. Call me crazy, but I really liked the introductory arc of the Armada comics. And is it the Moonbase storyline that's next? I dunno, I heard that was really good.

"Armada" was a good series over-all. I liked the "Fortress" arc, volume II, a bit better than voume I. But, volume I worth reading. "Worlds Collide", volume III, is not bad. It is defintely an even driven story, but it is not the horror that a few of the guys here paint it as. Unlike "The Gathering, "Worlds Collide" has a coherent, if noisy, story.

Dom

donosaur wrote:
I have yet to find a Swoop, but seeing as how my $7.77 buying has gone unchecked, I'm considering picking up a blackarachnia. I mean, why not, right? She's a shelf warmer though, so I was wondering what you guys thought of her.

Blackie's the first Animated toy I picked up. She cool. Looks good in both modes, and the grappling hook's pretty nifty. I had her hanging off of my desk for about a month just because I could.

I actually like Animated BA. Yeah she's a pegwarmer, but I think that's due to the fact that her and Ratched were shipped alone in that assortment. Heck I'm starting to see alot of Cyberton mode Primes, Prowls, and Lockdowns sitting now as well since most stores have been instead of putting out wave 4 been putting out a heck of alot of wave 1.