Dave's Japanese Movie TF Rant

     Hyper Hobby exclusive Legends Bumblebee

     Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Japan/HHBB

     Part of my latest batch from Wonkimus Major, the September 2007 issue of
Hyper Hobby Magazine comes with an exclusive clear Legends Bumblebee.
     http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Movie/Legend1 for the original version
of the mold.

CAPSULE

     Hyper Hobby Bumblebee: Looks nice, but starting with a so-so mold.  Got
it for novelty and in part for the magazine, if you have to pay import
overage on this don't bother unless you're a Bumblebee feti...completist.
980Yen cover price.


RANT

     Magazine: Tied up with a ribbon, the toy exclusive is inside a
reinforced cardboard box stuck down the middle of the mag.  The magazine
itself is mostly pictures of new and upcoming toys from various
manufacturers, and some fan works.  Transformers gets about 1.5 pages in the
"Takaratomy Toy Terminal" on pages 74-75.
     Page 74 has pictures of Voyager Megatron and Leader Brawl, a bit about
the movie, a shot of a reissue G1 Bumblebee and teeny pics of the exclusive
Protoform recolors in the top half.  The bottom half of the page is dominated
by Legends Bumblebee recolor, with a bit of Barricade in one corner and a
little comparison pic of regular Legends BB and the clear one.
Transformation instructions and various notes (like "don't raise the
shoulders like that") fill the rest.
     Page 75 has some VOTOMS stuff along the bottom, and is otherwise a mix
of the usual teeny pics of various toys (ah, nostalgia for TV Magazine).
Nike Ultra Magnus, MP06 Skywarp, movie Arcee (with the "wrong" wheel
positions in robot mode that I use because the right ones limit motion),
Meantime, High Score 100, FAB Megatron and Blackout, TF chess set, Micron
Booster 4, Sea Clamp (from a BW reissue?) and in-package shots of the latest
round of G1 reissues of Megatron, Prime, Starscream and Soundwave.  [Update:
Sea Clamp and Motorarm are being reissued, but not DJ, and the instructions
remove reference to the combining ability.  Weird.]
     The TTT continues for a few more pages, but no more TF content.  There's
some nifty Mazinger toys a few pages further on, though.  Loads of Gundam
throughout, Bandai definitely dominates Hyper Hobby.

     Packaging: The toy itself is in a strong corrugated cardboard box 21cm
by 14cm by 2.5cm printed in red on the front, further braced by a # shape of
cardboard inside, and then wrapped in a sealed bag in car mode.  The front
art hints at the transformation instructions and has various trademarks and
copyrights, but there's no internal paperwork.

     Color Swaps: Yellow replaced by a clear amber with strong UV glow.  The
wheels, thighs, shoulder joints and spine are black plastic.

     Paint Apps: Metallic blue on the eyes, a bit of silver on the face,
silver Autobot symbol on the collarbone.  They avoided putting more paint on
it in order to emphasize the clear plastic.  I suppose this is the "stealth
version" or something.

     Overall: Well, it looks nice, and is joining my Clear TFs Windowsill
with Burning Beast Convoy (Robotmasters) and the Stealth Recon Team.  :)  But
it's not a mold that thrilled me in the first place, a clear or smoky
Barricade would have actually been worth pursing on its own.

     Dave Van Domelen, may or may not review the Mini-Revoltech Evangelions
he got in the same box.  And probably should get around to starting that
Death Star/Darth Vader review.