Alex

Thanks. I'm not really good at doing reviews. Mine are more observations. Or is that the same thing?

Grimlock......really glad I bought him. First the gimmicks- Wagging the tail causes Grimmy to shake his head from side to side. The instructions list this feature as "SHAKE ONE'S HEAD". Um.....yeah. When the jaw is fully opened, pushing a button on the side of the head snaps the jaw shut. The light up sword/gun gimmick has already been reported. This is very nice. The gun is pretty much standard but the sword has a sort of internal, ridged structure which looks very nice. Kind of like an internal power element. The eye-colour is nice. Very easy to change. No skinning knuckles like on MP SS. Also, when you transform the chest to dino mode, the Autobot symbol dissapears. Build Die-cast content is actually much more than I relaised when I played with the sample a few weeks ago. The crotch is metal which I knew about but also the claws which are pretty heavy duty. The main frame within the torso is also die-cast. Articulation is very nice. ball-joints for the shoulders/dino-legs. The hands are both articulated. The wrists spin on both. The right hand has only thumb articulation. The left has thumb and finger articulation but on last three digits are fused as one piece. Do be careful as the thumbs can fly off if you push them in the wrong way. it only happened twice to me and I was being a little rough. Should be ok for you. Dino-arms are very articulated, on ball-joints also and individually articulated fingers. There's shoulder, elbow and wrist articulation on these. Does it hold poses well? Oh yes. It has very tight joints and a lot of clearance for the head so you can pose him in some very Grimlocky poses. Transformation Transformation is actually very straight forward. The legs need a lot of flipping and pulling. Flipping the torso up or down for transformation automorphs a little. There's very little that can go wrong in this transformation scheme. Everything worked for me first time without having to use the instructions. Going back to the other mode was just as easy. It's not fiddly like Megs or SS. Can't think of anything to warn you about here. Nothing feels weak or likely to break when transforming. Wish I coukd say more but it's everyhting you would expect from the Grimlock transformation. Other stuffs The weapons are designed to be hald in the glowing hand but DO attach to the left hand, but more sort of clip on to the top of the hand with a teeny plug. Unfortunately, I haven't found anyway of storing these weapons on the dino-mode but i've heard a RUMOUR that it can be done. Not sure though. The sword and Gun are nice but there's no extra add on to give them actual handles. They just have the pegs. And I am not much of a fan of the red chrome they used on the sword. It feels a little cheap, maybe a little OTT. Sigh....onto the other....things. The bow-tie, apron, tray, energon goodies..............hell, let some other poor fool review these. I ain't gots no time for these. Now, the brain-wave transfer helmet is reallt nice. Has a sucker on one end so I currently have Grimmy trying to increase the intelligence of my iPod. It has clips that keep it on snuggly. It is very nicely detailed and one accessory I like. Not much competition there though. The booklet is nice, nothing to write home about. Same as every other MP booklet. Robot and Dino-ala modes Grimmy's dino mode is just pure love. It is a great combination of the toy and cartoon representations. He has some very unobtrusive gimmicks (mentioned above) so he is really nnice to just go stomping about your room with. He solid. The wagging tail feature leaves a large section of the tail a little loose. But you can lock this by movin g the robot feet up into a tighter position. His Mouth has all the detail on the inside, even a teeny poseable flame-thrower. His had is nicelt articualted but the wagging tail/moving head gimmick means the head is ratched at the neck but will favour one side unless you position it correctly. There's as much articualtion in this mode as you'd expect. Tails wags, head moves up/down and side-to-side. Arms are very articualted. Robot moxde is really nice, the gold is a little weal for me. Would have preferred a warmer gold than the pale we have here. Again, it's nice to see the mix of toy and cartoon. it works very well. The dino had is designed to clip on the back but the clip doesn't really work. No matter though as it holds in place well anyway. the kibble is only that and the wings which are not technically kibble anyway. The waist has articualtion and disconnecting the waist a little can give you a little more movement to help him look down at the puny humans (read CMs mac figs) that he reets in his job at the restaurant....shudder (see Other stuffs above) Verdict Very nice toy. Very nice representation of Grimlock and the most faithful toy you'll get ina long time. Nothing lets it down but as I pointed out, less campy accessories would have been nice. This and the Toynami Tread are probably the two things that impressed me the most this year. So Grimmy is in good company there

Just picked up MP Grimlock. Haven't had a chance to open him up yet but the box is HUGE. Maybe twice the depth of any other MP (besides the perfect edition Convoy). Feels pretty light though for such a big box.

Yeah. MW to Bandai- "LISTEN TO OUR COMPLAINTS!!!!!! BOM-BAH!!!!!"

I don't know about that. The main body of the 25 transformed. Though it does kiiiinda look like the 19 might only need parts-forming on the head and lower arms alone. i hope so.

Nice. Funnily enough lastnight was the first time i've watched Japanese tv in ages. In the mornings i'm always fresh and wide awake. This morning I was exhausted and half dead when I woke up. Japanese tv is just mentally exhausting.

Jay-zus. Just making my way through the japanese dub of "Beast Wars". The comedy is really off-putting. Silverbolt with his SUPER formal, overly-polite Japanese screeching, Rattrap breaking the fourth wall every minute to ask what the Yamanaka family in Osaka are having for dinner and Depthcharge with his "Ito Maki Maki!" every time he transforms. Unfortunately, this is considered perectly acceptable.

So What I got was a clear hair Hikaru who had an over-zealous painter at the factory. Never liked those clear-hair versions anyway.

The paint quality is exactly the same as it was on their initial release. I thought that they would add more of the highlights that the subsequent series sported. But sadly, no. And I was kiiiiinda hoping that they would tweak the sculpting a bit. The first release Hikaru flight suit is really flat compared to the Max.

Something I noticed on the re-issue Hikaru that I got was that they have not used the solid hair for this release. The hair on mine is the clear piece that has been painted solid.

I believe that it was already confirmed that the final DT story would be I am a little skeptical about the above rumour.

Just posted this in the TF thread but for those of you with Animated Blurr, I see in one of the hobby shops over here that you can mod him to give him double jointed knees. It looked like the guy unscrewed the one screw on the black part on the knee and shaved a tiny bit off around that area to allow it to move backwards. Definitely going to do this to my Blurr. Made it look reeeally nice in those running poses. The upshot is that you can now pose him in those "damn that was a knackering run" crouching poses or more dynamic running poses too.

What annoyed me was that, like Animated Magnus, the arms are located so far behind the head that when you aim them forward, he suddenyl has teeny-tiny stublets for arms.

Edit

That is pretty bad. See, I don't understand why Bandai justifies this by saying "oh, we're making it to be a robust toy that will stand up to loadsa rough play." The exact same audience who buys Yamatos will be buying these. Why do they assume we would treat these any differently to a Yammie? And for a guy with Mikhail's reputation....this is just embarrassing.

I'll be getting the Red Toynami Tread next week and I was wondering what the mold differences were between it and its blue brother. \ The head is vastly different?

So, John Tuturro may be voicing Jetfire according to current rumor Very simialr to John-Rhys Davies voicing both Gimli and Tree-Beard in LotR. I actually quite like this move if true.

I'll try and take some tonight. What I don;t get is that most customized Gundam models that Madarake sells usually go for upwards of 60,000 for a customized 1/60. Why would they buy a customised Valk for what has to be around 1000en at the most? I guess custom ized 1/60 DXs are not worth much as the purpose of the 1/60 is for it to stand up to a LOT of play. This is more of a display place but should still stand up to handling multiple times. It is clear-coated after all. And the Revoltech neck mod is really a great little mod.

Well, best day evar. Found a 2100en 1/60 Alto. The reason for the low price? The guy at the store told me that it was broken at the neck. I look, only to find that it has been modded with the white double-hinged Revoltech joint. In my mind, i was like "but that makes it even cooler! Broken!? Next he tells me that it's all marked and dirty. Yep, with a pretty cool custom paintjob. He then tells me that it's been befouled with dirty decals. Yeah......which further increase the awesomeness. (and what IS with these "No STEP" decals? Who is walking all over the Valks in the first place?) So I happily payed the obscenely low amount and plan on selling my boxed Alto. YAR.

Well, this morning I accidentally knocked the box which holds the pieces for the 1/100. Scattered them all across the floor of my bedroom. Couldn't even muster the will to pick each and every single piece off the floor so I left it for when I get home tonight. GAH.

The point is that the time you spend assembling and RE-assembling the vf100 is far greater than the initial assembling of the kit. At the very least you could say that this is a kit except pre-cut and painted. The definition of kit is quite wide but it kinda fits under that banner. I am actually really liking it though. It's fun to pose and very space-friendly.

True. But the kit is exactly the same price and it's hardly that much bigger than the 1/100. Not enough to make a difference to anyone. And the total amount of "build" time for the 1/100 really.....reeeeeeally outweighs the 1/172's.

Good points there Graham. The thing that gets me about this line is why release the 25 at all? Why not go straight to the other valks? If people wnat a representation of the 25 then they have the perfect transorming 1/60 and 1/72.

Heh. I love the audacity of Bandai to have the tag-line: "THIS is 100% perfect. THIS is VF100s." Printed in large letters on the box. What exactly is their definition of "perfect"

Just a heads up for those who have either Alternity Convoy. The peg on the foot that plugs into the hole of the leg. The ring is cracking and no longer holding the foot in place, causing the leg to seperate. I don't have this toy myself but i've read a few posts and heard it first hand from at least two people.