Dave's TF Kiss Players Rant Atari x Autorooper Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Japan/Atari [Additional information added 3/27/07] One of my frequent sightings reporters, who goes by "Wonkimus Major", got transferred to Japan for a year by his job, and we made arrangements to do some trading while he's over there. I've sent him Classics, he's sent me some RobotMasters (still in transit by surface) and also found me the Atari x Autorooper set, which was light enough to airmail, so it got here first. :) I'm not really interested in getting the full sized sets (unless they go on deep clearance or something), but the "WST"-sized Autorooper was something I wanted to get, so I splurged. Hm, maybe that's not the verb I really want to use in reference to this line? Ah well. CAPSULE Atari x Autorooper: A somewhat fetishy vinyl figure, a collection of audio plays in Japanese, and a rather impressive 1:80 scale mini-TF. I wouldn't recommend paying all that much for this, since it's the mini-TF that's the main draw, although if you know Japanese the CD might make it worthwhile. 2625 Yen at the store where Wonkimus found it. RANT Background: Okay, a quick precis for those who have managed to thus far totally avoid knowing about the Kiss Player thing (if you want more info, http://www.toyvey.com/kisskiss/ is a pretty good resource, and has synopses of the radio plays that come with this set). For the most part, this is a Binaltech/Alternators recolor line with new accessories and a storyline that involves a sort of "magical girl" thing where Transformers get special powers from kissing (and merging with) human girls known as Kiss Players. Yes, there's a lot of skeeve factor involved. A LOT. Lolita complex, tentacles, vore, bondage and biteplay among other kinks. If you don't even know what all of those are, I advise you NOT to seek out more information about Kiss Play. The main storyline involves a radio play done in very short chunks, rather than a cartoon, although there were a few short manga installments (with very disturbing art) to go along with it. The toy line is mainly full sized Binaltech remolds in all plastic (rather than the extensive die cast metal used in Binaltech) with vinyl figures of the TF's Kiss Player partner, and various other accessories (a surfboard/sword for Convoy, a fishing pole blaster for Hot Rodimus, a traffic cone gun and a Kremzeek for the full sized Autorooper, etc). The Kiss Players are about the right size to fit inside as drivers. The set I got was notable for not being this type. :) Packaging: A box 16cm tall, 14cm wide and 10cm deep, with clear windows on five sides. A clamshell blister inside holds the vinyl figure of Atari and the World's Smallest Transformer-size Autorooper in vehicle mode. Behind the clamshell is a jewel case with a CD that has several episodes of the audio story, but since I don't know Japanese, I can't really review that part. The liner notes and a trading card are bagged separately. The front panel is mostly open, showing the cringing Atari figure and giving her a speech bubble in the upper left. A friend tells me it reads, "Sonnani no zokunaide kudasai," or (very roughly) "The sort of thing to make your dreams come true..." In the upper right is the Kiss Player logo, a cutesified Transformers logo, basically. In the lower right is an illustration of Atary, her knees up to her chest, looking mortified (one of her default expressions...the other is "terrified"). Across the bottom it reads "ATARIxAUTOROOPER" in large print (Auto Trooper, although I prefer the Autrooper spelling). In smaller text under that, it says, "Illustrated & Figure Sculpted by: Yuki Ohshima". In even smaller print under that is the Mazda RX-8 licensing note. [Correction to speech bubble courtesy of Doug Dlin: That's a little TOO rough. "nozokunaide" is one word, and the whole sentence translates as "Please, don't peek at me like that."] The top panel is also mostly clear, with the logo again, and "more than meets the eye" followed by a heart symbol. The right panel shows Autorooper leaning down as Atari leans up to kiss him, with a clear window circle between the two. At the bottom it has the EDC logo and lists Atari as an Earth Defense Commando. The left panel has nice painted art of Autorooper in robot mode, a smaller photo of the mini toy in robot mode, and a small window showing the vehicle mode. There's some text that seems to indicate that Autorooper is an EDC mech. The bottom panel is the usual legalese, plus "Transformers KISS PLAYERS (heart) Produce by Yuki Ohshima!" and bust shots of the two characters. The back panel...well, it touts the included CD, and has a window slice to show the CD. The main art is of Atari seated, in a "showing off the panties embarrassedly" pose, but a tiny Autorooper is standing in front of her crotch, facing her. Um. Yeah. At least the trading card and liner notes front uses the slightly less creepy front of box art. [Later note: According to Doug Dlin, there's a "Fantastic Voyage" sort of story on the included CD, where Atari is infected with Legion stuff and she kisses Autorooper to shrink him down so he can go inside her to fight it. Creeeeepy blocking of the art aside, Autorooper enters through Atari's mouth and fights the Legion inside her stomach, but the story abounds in innuendo and double entendres.] The trading card merges the front art of Atari and the left side art of Autorooper on the front, and has photos of both on the back. Oddly, the photo of Atari makes it look more like she's playfully flinching away from horseplay, while the toy itself looks more like cringing in terror. There's also plenty of stats on the back in Japanese. The front of the liner notes has the same art as the front of the trading card, and a slightly different speech bubble. Page 1 has the kissing art from the left panel and what I presume is a summary of the storyline. page 2 shows the Atari figure from multiple angles and provides what I expect is Atari's bio note. Page 3 and the top of page 4 cover Autorooper's instructions, while the bottom of page 4 shows design art for Atari and the remolded Autorooper head (Autorooper is a remolded Meister). Page 5 has photos and art of the Autorooper toy, and his bio note. Page 6 appears to be a bio note on Atari's voice actress, and repeats the "Autorooper staring at Atari's panties" art. The back cover has photos of the toys and the legalese from the bottom of the box. The CD itself has the kissing art in bluetone. The CD itself has about a half dozen short audio pieces (half a minute to a minute and a half) plus one longer piece nearly ten minutes long. It worked fine in my player, but since I don't speak Japanese, it wasn't too helpful. :) The inner clamshell is basically two trays taped together to provide a bubble around each toy. EDC: ATARI Function: Whimpering, apparently Kiss Play Partner: Autorooper I'm not going to spend much time on this figure. It's a vinyl statue, and despite being the main toy in the package, it's not the main reason I wanted the set. If it were standing up straight, the figure would be about 4.5" tall at the head. She's wearing a sort of meter maid outfit with a gray-purple armband proclaiming her membership in the EDC. The uniform, including little hat, is a very light lavender with purple-grey piping and a reddish-purple ribbon-like tie. The skirt is very short, and yes, you can see up it. She has white shoes and rimless round glasses made from clear plastic. A small pistol in a white holster is on her rump. Her hair is a sort of dark gray, and her one open eye looks lavender. While Atari is supposedly an adult, her build is the typical lolicon pre-teen look. She's in a "just fallen down" pose with bent legs, right hand supporting her on the ground, and left arm raised to ward off some threatening figure (probably a Legion, one of the robots containing part of Megatron's split essence). Her facial pose is a cross between flinching in terror and slightly playful, I'm not sure if that's intentional or just a slip somewhere in sculpting. EDC: AUTOROOPER Altmode: Mazda RX-8 Police Variant Kiss Play Partner: Atari From what I've read, the Autoroopers are supposed to be non-aware drones built using reverse-engineered Cybertronian technology to act as support units in the EDC's fight against Cybertronians. Yeah, both Autobots and Decepticons have been kicked off Earth. In addition to the usual power boost given by Kiss Play, Atari's personal Autorooper also gains self-awareness as a result of her kiss. Vehicle Mode: At 55mm long, this is roughly a 1:80 scale version of the mold. It seems to be made entirely of white plastic with a very strong UV glow. The police lightbar on top is a shallow V shape, and painted solid red (or maybe it's red plastic). The headlights and rear turn signals are painted silver, while the brakelights and front foglamps are red. It's painted black along the bottom half all the way around, with the slight swoop up to a point in the front that characterizes Japanese highway police cars (i.e. Prowl). The windows are also black, and there's a black E.D.C. printed on the sides and back. On the roof behind the lightbar is a Japanese character (also seen on Atari's armband, it looks like a cross between a 7 and a 3 with a - through it) followed by 04. A gold star is printed at the front, on the black part. The hubcaps are left unpainted, but the tires are painted black. [Later note: it's "Ne 04," which marks it as Xiao Xiao's Autorooper originally. This jibes with the manga, in which Atari first Kiss Plays with Xiao Xiao's mech after XX has been defeated.] The wheels roll freely and the doors open to reveal a detailed interior. The front seats are permanently folded forward, but there's also rear seat details. Opening the doors pretty much eliminates the car's stability, though. Transformation: Surprisingly close to that of the original Meister figure (http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Alt/Meister), despite being less than a third the size. The front seats even fold together to form the abdomen. The arms are on very thin pins that pop out of their sockets very easily, though, and the elbow joints are stiffer than the pin holders are strong, so odds are pretty good you'll pop the arms off while trying to get them out. The feet are simplified, and of course the muffler is in gun mode to start with, rather than folding bits out. Robot Mode: A total of 55mm tall, but if you go from toe to top of head it's closer to 45mm. Unfortunately, due to the simplified feet, the rear wheels prevent the figure from actually standing up on its own, the wheels extend below the feet. Well, if you're REALLY careful, you can get it to stand, but it looks like it's up on its tippytoes. Also, the car roof doesn't fold down all the way, so it forms a sort of cape. It's just pegged on, though, and can be popped off. All of the parts are white plastic. The eyeslit is red and there's tiny black vent marks on the faceplate. There's black details on the thighs and shins. The gun is unpainted. The joints are delicate as all get-out, but extensive. I can see why they don't try this level of articulation on Mini-Cons. The shoulders are simple swivels on the pins mentioned earlier. The elbows are restricted ball joints that function like a hinge plus an upper arm swivel. The waist bends forward and back, but doesn't turn. The hips are restricted ball joints, the knees are pinned hinges, and the ankles are universal joints (hinge and swivel, although the swivels are very loose). Overall: A kid would break this in ten seconds, but a kid probably shouldn't be given anything from Kiss Play anyway. The best "WST" size toy I've yet to encounter, an impressive bit of miniature engineering that would probably have to sell for $10 on its own to be profitable. Dave Van Domelen, finally beefing out his Japanese review section after a year of inactivity.