Dave's Transformers Adventure Rant TAV-08 Greejeeber/Gregevor (Strongarm redeco) Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Japan/Greejeeber Greejeeber is a Japanese-only redeco that homages Greejeeber from Car Robots (aka Rollbar, the green Swindle redeco). Acquired thanks to my old source Wonkimus Major, who has since moved back to America but took a trip to Japan in June. http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/PRiD/Warrior1 - Strongarm mold CAPSULE 1980 Yen price sticker. Greejeeber: Original mold was recommended. This is a fairly obscure homage, reasonably well done, but mostly of interest as a curiosity. RANT Packaging: Same basic look as the Warrior class blister cards from the front, but the cards are about a centimeter wider. Obviously, there's a new logo in Japanese (the line is "Transformers Adventure" there), and other small details differ (like having the TAV08 label). The art on front is new and makes Greejeeber look more masculine, mostly by being toy-accurate and avoiding lipstick. Amusingly, the romanization of the name is not the "Greejeeber" of the toy being homaged, or a more literal "Gurijiba," but is instead "Gregevor". The cardback is very much standard Japanese packaging design, with a profile under an action scene photograph. Plenty of space is given over to plugging the app, just arranged differently than the U.S. packaging. The toy is shown transforming, but full instructions are not printed on the card. In the blister, there's an extra rainbow-ring sticker placed over the real code circle (well, on the chest protecting blister shell piece) so that people can't scan the toy in-package. The blister is attached the same way as PRiD Warrior blisters. Inside the blister is the usual Takara bag full of paperwork, including a catalog and instructions that are as overly thorough as the American instructions are sparse (they also include explicit mention of weapon storage in vehicle mode: fold down the chestplate and put a side peg of the rifle into the screw hole behind it). The catalog is an interesting look at mold reuse, with stuff from Prime and even TF:Animated reused to bulk up the line. The weirdest is probably the Power Battler Junkheap redecoed in blue and white as "Junkion". I took the profile translation from TFWiki. There's a versus pack with Grimlock, and the Roadblock mentioned in the profile is a Constructicon- colored redeco of Generations Scoop. The Car Robots Greejeeber was also a martial artist partial to sauna baths. DECEPTICON: GREEJEEBER/GREGEVOR Assortment: TAV08 Altmode: Truck Transformation Difficulty: Previous Name Use: Car Robots Previous Mold Use: PRiD Weapon: Rifle Function: Martial Artist Motto: "What's wrong with wanting to be clean?" The hotheaded Greejeeber s inordinately proud of his strength, being a master of many martial arts techniques, including Crystalocution. What better way is there to prove how tough he is than to take down the Autobots' strongest member, the Dinobot Grimlock? Unfortunately, his effectiveness on missions is hindered by his repeated partnership with the lumbering Roadblock. The two really don't get along. In his downtime, he enjoys taking sauna baths. Packaging: Five sock ties hold the robot into the blister, with one holding down a chest shield. The chest shield has a scannable code circle, it's just the generic packaging one. The roof is down in package just like with Strongarm, and I'm tempted to leave it down to look like a duster coat and further distinguise Gregevor (I like that better than Greejeeber) from Strongarm. Color Swaps: The wheels, gun, and pelvis stay black. The rest of the black plastic becomes light silvery gray. Blue becomes a sort of desaturated kelly green, but lighter than forest green. White becomes olive green. Paint Apps: The robot head is coated in gloss black paint, then given a pale purple face, deep red eyes, and the vertical part of the crest is painted orange. There's more orange on the vest, pelvis front, and shins, although the plastic colors underneath the orange change how it looks. There's a green that's partway between the two green plastics and probably meant to match the darker green, painted on the shoulder fenders. The left side of the chest has a sort of stretched E shape painted on it. Not really sure why that's there, it doesn't match any deco on the original Greejeeber. The energy burst on the rifle is painted dark burgundy, oddly. In vehicle mode, the green paint is on the front fenders and the bottom of the door, slanting up to merge with the darker green plastic of the rear third, so the paint is definitely supposed to match the darker green plastic. It just doesn't. No such similar effort is made to match up the hood, so the rear of the hood is simply a different color than the front. The headlights are painted silver, but the grille is unpainted. A purple Decepticon symbol is printed on the center of the grille. The lightbar lights are painted red, no paint on the center part. The front and side windows are painted matte black, no paint on the rear window. A pale violet stripe is painted on each wheel as a sort of whitewall. Mold Changes: None that I noticed, so he's got rather full lips. Other Notes: The code circles are not the same type as the American releases. Instead of red-white or purple-white, they use red/green/blue and three shades of graytone to make the codes, so the Japanese game can't scan American toys and vice-versa (I tried...the one American-style symbol that's part of the logo scans fine, but it won't recognize the rainbow rings). The torso in robot mode is, if anything, looser than on my Strongarm. The pets just don't lock it in place well enough to overcome the friction on the shoulder ball joints, so lifting one arm tends to lift both. Overall: Well, no new problems other than slight color-match issues, no new solutions either. Fairly emblematic of the redeco flood in Transformers Adventures, and worth picking up as an oddity if you can get it for a reasonable price (keeping in mind that shelf price works out to $16.04 at current exchange rate). Dave Van Domelen, taking a break before attacking Titan Class Devastator.