'I' On Malaysia

Keeping the momentum going this week is perhaps one of the more keenly anticipated waves of Animated deluxe figures of late, mainly because of Swoop’s presence in the wave which completes the Animated Dinobots…

We also have the first repaint of the Animated series (which is immediately followed by the second and third as reviewed in an upcoming post) and another new mold in the form of Sentinel Prime.

I had to go back and check my own blog but, yes, the last lot of Animated Deluxes hit the shops back in the middle of June!  2 months ago!!!  And what is worse is that I already had half of this wave back in May after paying a visit to Singapore.

Taking a month to arrive on Malaysian shores, the second wave of Universe releases consists of Acid Storm and Galvatron.  Also arriving in the past two weeks have been the first wave of Voyagers, the first wave of Ultras and the second wave of Legends all of which makes August the month of Universe.

I’ve not had chance to post any new articles for the past few weeks due to work, holidays and just general laziness!    That doesn’t mean that the influx of Transformers has stopped though and, if anything, it has only gotten more intense.  Universe, Marvel Crossovers, Encore, Binaltech, Animated…  It has really been a busy 3 weeks!!!

Things seem to be getting a bit slow in Transformer land this past few weeks which explains why Toys’R'Us was offering $25 and $50 vouchers when you spend a certain amount and have those vouchers expire at the end of June…  They knew there wasn’t going to be anything released!!!

Animated Deluxe Wave 2 is a small and, in some respects, a minor release as it includes two of the least recurring central characters in the series thus far.  Both Blackarachnia and Ratchet are supposedly central characters, even having images shown in the intro to the cartoon, but seem to have the least amount of screen time and probably the weakest toys in the Animated range yet.

Movie related items may be on the decline but there are still some exclusive/limited editions out there that I’ve yet to get my hands on (Vardia Red Starscream for example, if I ever decide I like that strange colour scheme) but one less to have to track down now is the Wonderfest Winter 2008 Transformers Movie Arcee G1 Colours.  I’ll just call it Pink Arcee for short in a slight homage to Black Arcee that TakaraTomy also released.

I want to start off by saying that I’ve classed these as Wave 2 even though there isn’t a wave designation for Jazz and Soundwave just yet, but I’m guessing they’ll be in Wave 2 along with Blackarachnia and maybe Ratchet.

*UPDATE* - Now confirmed as Wave 3 with Oil Slick and Snarl.

Transformers Animated gets it’s (kind of) official release this week; kind of official as these items were picked up on my trip to Singapore over the weekend where they were launched on May 20th – they aren’t due to be released here in Malaysia for another few weeks yet… 

So what delights did this official launch bring us?  Besides the Voyager class Megatron, Starscream and Bulkhead that have been previously reviewed on this site; we now have Deluxe class Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Prowl and Lockdown, Animated Activators Bumblebee, Bulkhead and Starscream.  Also due are the Battle Begins twin pack of Optimus Prime and Megatron, Leader class Megatron and Bulkhead though these weren’t part of the first releases in Singapore (unfortunately).

Bumblebee finally gets the repaint treatment (excluding ‘Red’ Bumblebee / Cliffjumper) and is probably the first time that the repaint looks nicer than the original.

Stealth Bumblebee’s story is that Bumblebee feels too conspicuous and always draws attention so feels that he has to change his colours to distance himself from all the images of him on the Internet.  Ahhhh, the problems of being one of only two Concept Camaros on the road! 

Simply enough then, what was once yellow with black stripes is now black with yellow stripes.  No battle damage this time, and no awful Allspark blue, but Bumblebee now sports his battle mask instead of his regular head.  Unfortunately, this is where the model falls down as the head mold doesn’t seem as polished as the old Bumblebee head and I think they were trying to aim for too much detail on there.