Dave's Japanese Go-Bots Rant: GO-19 Randy Leaving aside minor tweaks or removal of electronics, this is the only new mold in the Japanese Go-Bots line. It also seems to be the last one, along with the Rescue Roy slight remold. It takes the original Strong-Bot mold and replaces the front shovel with rollers for road-flattening. Pictures of this first came up years ago, before Scrap-Bot was released, but Randy didn't actually come out until fairly recently. I got it on eBay from a dealer in Hong Kong, $3.99 winning bid and $16.50 airmail shipping. Ow. http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/123/Play2b has my review of the Strong- Bot mold, and http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/123/Basic3a for Scrap-Bot, which is a green recolor of Strong-Bot. Randy's color scheme is virtually identical to Scrap-Bot's. Thanks to http://www.123gobots.com for some of the info in this review. CAPSULE GO-19 Randy: An interesting remold of a very good toy. Not worth the sort of markup you're going to have to pay to get this rarity, at least not right now (the price may drop), but worth getting if you can afford it. RANT Packaging: While not the glory days of the Rescue Hero Go-Bots, which had saddle-stitched storybooks included, Randy's box is still pretty nifty. the main box is 16cm wide, 15.5cm tall and 12cm deep, with a rounded top front edge and a tab sticking up in the back to make the back side 23cm tall. Most of the top and front are clear plastic window, with a set logo at the front bottom that includes a Rescue Roy outline. (Rescue Roy is just called Roy in Japan, following the line's habit of giving everyone single Western-style names.) The box is mostly yellow with metal plate and rivet patterns, and metal-pattern-with-rivets banding along the edges in green. The front of the top tab shows Randy transforming in front of a pastel cityscape that looks like it was cut out of construction paper. The left side of the box (as viewed from the front) is a catalog of most of the RHGB line in both modes, missing GO-1 through GO-4 and GO-11 through GO-13. The bottom is just legalese. The right side shows the three step transformation in color, plus a photo of a woman at a cubicle desk and a bunch of text I don't know the translation of. :) The back of the box shows the mini-comic for Randy, something that previous RHGB toys had as separate booklets. Randy is on a dirt road with a bunch of other non-transforming but cute trucks. Panel 1: Randy in robot mode, asking a truck what's wrong. The truck gestures with one of its tires, pointing out all the ruts and potholes in the road. Panel 2: The truck complains about how hard it is to drive on the road (with sweat drop and little puff of exhalation). Randy says "Leave everything to me!" or words to that effect. Panel 3: Transformation sequence. Panel 4: In vehicle mode, Randy rolls the road flat, leaving smooth and sparkling dirt behind him. Yes, shiny dirt. Panel 5: As other trucks drive along in the background, the initial one jumps up and down with glee, thanking Randy. And probably putting new holes and ruts in the road. The box seems easiest to open from the bottom. The inner tray slides out easily, and has instructions on its back for turning it into part of a playset with other inner trays. It's meant to sit between the trays for GO-04 and GO-06, oddly. Maybe because GO-05 is the original Strong-Bot mold. You have to cut the tape on the bottom part to get the instructions out. The instructions are a small B&W photo sheet, and go into a little more detail than the outside of the box, plus show the action feature. The inside of the tray is a sort of tryptich. At the center is a cityscape with road construction leading towards the viewer. The left panel has a brontosaur poking its head up over a mesa and waving (part of GO-04 Greg's dinosaur diorama), and the right has a burning building (part of GO-06 Robert's fire emergency diorama). (Aside: Greg is one of the Reptron molds, Robert is Fire-Bot.) Four twist-ties hold vehicle-mode Randy to the road-patterned bottom panel of the tray, and one rubber band holds the front end together more or less. This is not reusable packaging in the sense that there's no plastic bubble to hold the toy. If you don't save the twist-ties, you can't secure it in package later. There is a slight downward grade on this section of "road", which I presume is also present in GO-05's tray. Mold Differences: The only change in the mold is that the shovel hands are replaced by rollers, each 3cm long and 4cm in diameter. They're on hinges like the shovels, and spin freely on their axes. The front face of each "hand" is divided into quadrants, with a small ring molded at the center. Two opposing quadrants on each have screw-holes. The other quadrants either have pegs (left arm) or holes (right arm) for connecting to make a 6cm long roller in vehicle mode. The roller holds together fairly well, but using the action gimmick to make it rise up and slam down will cause it to separate after a couple of hits. Color Differences (compared to Scrap-Bot): The only color difference with Scrap-Bot is that he has the old chibi-Autobot symbols rather than the G emblem on his shoulders. His rollers are the same green as Scrap-Bot's shovel, and he even has the oddly more yellow green on his pelvis as Scrap-Bot. Overall: Worth twenty bucks? Nah. I just REALLY wanted this remold, so I was willing to pay the extra. It's a very good toy in nifty packaging, but not $20 worth. If you can get it for ten, though, snap it up! Dave Van Domelen, not so sure he wants to pay markup on the last-gasp Europe-only Go-Bots, though.