DaveUs Japanese Transformers Rant: Devil Gigatron minirant Generation One PVC figures Welp, I spent a couple days in Ann Arbor this weekend to be the Guest of Honor at "The Big Broadcast of 2001." Since I was in town, I decided to head over to the brick and mortar store Wizzywig, rather than paying postage on my next purchase from them. I ended up picking up Devil Gigatron almost on a whim (a $45 whim, one of the more dangerous kinds)...and now I can't find my original Gigatron anywhere. I'm starting to suspect that one of the boxes I mailed to myself got lost in the postal system, or something. OTOH, I can't find the transparencies of my thesis defense talk either, and that was in the hands of the movers, and I did get all those boxes. Sigh. CAPSULES Devil Gigatron: This is a slight remold in addition to being a recolor. It has all the pros and cons of the original Gigatron, plus an extra bit of clipping that lets you do a few more modes stably. Colors are no better or worse than the original, IMO. Not worth getting if you already have Gigatron and aren't a completist, but if you only get one, get this one. $45 at Wizzywig, other places have it for about that much. Generation One PVCs: Well-sculpted and show-accurate, with a little poseability possible thanks to the "some assembly required" pegs. Unfortunately, there's no way to tell which is which without opening the boxes (other than Arcee being the lightest and Ultra Magnus the heaviest). Worth picking up one or two, but unless you're willing to go for an entire box of 12 or have friends who will buy and trade, don't get too many lest you be stuck with doubles. Recommended. $5.50 at Wizzywig. Geez, gotta be careful...my capsules might get longer than the Rants! RANTS Devil Gigatron: See www.protoformproject.com's techspec archive for the techspecs. His stats are all "unknown" except for a 10 Rank. See my review of Gigatron for basic details on size, joints, etc. http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Japan has it. This is not a complete recolor, mind you. What is clear red on Gigatron is still clear red on Devil G. Same with the gold bits, for the most part. However, the rest is mainly black and white with some silver bits. This has a somewhat stark visual effect, although it's somewhat marred by the wings still being translucent purple (a smoky grey or even clear colorless might have worked better). Four new "official" modes are given in the transformation instructions, which continue the multichanger trend of being a grand tour of modes rather than trying to include all the possible "mode N to mode M" instructions (of which there are 45 for 10 modes, assuming my brain hasn't been fried by all the box-shifting and driving I've done today). Three of these modes (pardon if I get the names wrong, my net connection has been down for an hour as I type this, so I can't look them up), the GigaPegasus, GigaBird and GigaHydrofoil, can be made using the regular Gigatron. However, the GigaElephant requires a new tab and slot arrangement molded into Devil Gigatron. The base of the "thumb" piece (I tend to think in terms of GigaHand) locks into the middle of the wing piece. Regular Gigatron can be put in the GigaElephant shape, but it's less stable because of the lack of this remold. In any case, nearly a hundred total modes have been discovered by fans, many of which are rather similar as you migh expect. But at least they picked for the four new official modes some very distinct ones. I especially like GigaElephant, which is almost as cool as GigaHand. It's even about the same size as Big Convoy's mammoth mode, for Pachyderm Punishment. The only problem is that the instructions are a little vague about how to set the robot shoulders (straight out to the sides). A final note one what might be just luck of the draw, or might be a real difference between Gigatron and Devil Gigatron. My Gigatron has very loose ankle ball joints, making it tough to stand him in robot mode. But DG has ankle joints so stiff it's sometimes tough to get the feet in the right pose for something. Both have cruddy dragon forearms that snap off with the slightest provocation, though. PVCs: Okay, I was tempted to drop $66 on an entire box, but I decided not to, and just grabbed four (I also got to play with a couple belonging to Quenton while in Ann Arbor). I did the weight test to make sure I got Arcee, and I tried to get God Jinrai but ended up with two Ultra Magnuses (one clear, one painted). I also grabbed a mid-range weight and got clear Starscream. The first batch consists of six characters: Convoy (Optimus Prime), Megatron, Starscream, God Ginrai (Powermaster Prime with Godbomber armor), Ultra Magnus and Arcee. Each has a painted variant and a clear plastic variant, plus there's ultra-rare "chase" versions of Convoy and Megatron with melee weapons. Each comes in a 5" (13cm) tall, 3" (8cm) wide and 2" (5cm) thick opaque box with the "Transformers Generation One" logo and a picture of the Convoy figure on front. They're set up to be hung from pegs, and come in cases of 12 boxes. The cost in Japan is 480 Yen, so I got a very good deal from Wizzywig in terms of markup. There is no way, other than weighing the boxes, to determine what's in which box without opening them. For those who want to start trying to figure out what's in each box, here's some masses, in grams. Box, stand and packing bag: 30g Ultra Magnus: 45-47g Clear Ultra Magnus: 40-42g (yep, about 5g of paint!) Clear Starscream: 32g, roughly Starscream: 36g estimated (less surface area, so less paint) Arcee: 11g, roughly Clear Arcee: 9g estimated? And no, I'm not going to act as a clearinghouse for massing the other figures. The only people likely to really get use out of this (unless you carry a scale to the store!) are dealers, after all, and they've probably got the resources to weigh all the figures themselves. All the figures come in plastic bags inside the boxes, and were assembled before shipping. Of course, in handling some of the bits usually fall off each toy. Some of the pegs are determined by simple mold necessity (the knees on UM and Starscream), others are definitely intended to let you pose the figure some. Now some specific comments on the figures I got. Arcee - 3" (8cm) tall. Her shoulderpads are pegged on, and I strongly recommend gluing them on ASAP, since they don't hold on well. The head is pegged on, as are both arms, but that's it, leaving Arcee the least poseable of the lot. Her delicacy is also a problem, at least on the painted version. The shoulder pegs can become stuck, and I ended up twisting off the left arm in trying to get it to turn, oops. Well, I needed to glue parts of the toy anyway. The colors are good, and the Autobot symbol on her chest is printed on quite nicely. Ultra Magnus - Just a tiny bit over 3" (8cm) tall, he's a LOT more massive and bulky than Arcee. His head and shoulders are pegged, as are the rocketlaunchers on his shoulders. His knees are pegged, but there's not much usable poseability involved there, and you may want to just glue these joints. As with Arcee, the painting is very good, although there's a little sloppiness on the rocketlauncher tips. Clear Ultra Magnus - No paint, obviously, but the Autobot symbol on his right shoulder is printed on in white ink. The clear plastic has plusses and minuses (the main minus being that you can see the pegholes), but is well executed. Clear Starscream - A tiny bit less than 3" (8cm) tall, and like Ultra Magnus, the knee pegs don't really allow for any good poses. In fact, the legs look definitely wrong if not in the right position. Head and shoulders are pegged, as are the fists (a definite plus for posing!) and the guns. The wings peg on, but stay on well enough you don't really need to glue them. He has Decepticon sigils on his wings in white. This mold is the best looking Starscream ever, including the decoy. Overall, these are very good sculpts with good paint jobs. If you can get them for under eight bucks (including shipping), it's probably worth picking up a few just for the looks. Dave Van Domelen, has now had a crashed net connection for over an hour and a half...so much for AT&T's boasts of good connectivity. (It connected right after I finished the review, then died again for a couple minutes, sigh.)