Tets' Toys and Shenanigans: A pair of pairs. Animated Arcee(s)

Wooo, Animated how wonderful are your ways. The first series to bring us a real Arcee! (Energon doesn't really count) Is she sexy and good? You betcha!!

Arcee here is a deluxe sized Autobot. The first real Autobot toy for her in my book. The looks is great, you can see the original G1 influence in her animated stylings. Here are some pictures of the Hasbro (HB) and TakaraTomy (TT) versions. I had to get the HB one from Ebay as she was just a Toys R WHAT? (Us) release in the USA. TT's one was a free release, like the HB one should have been.

L-R, HB Arcee, TT Arcee

Enough blabber, what's she like then? Very very nice indeed. Cool articulation for the robot mode, she can twist under the ribs (which is needed as there isn't any waist movement) as well as mid-thigh . The toes are ball jointed to a hinge joint for transformation, allowing for some very cool foot placement equalling cool standing poses. The shoulder are ball jointed to hinges needed for transformation, and this gives her some excellent shoulder/arm movement. Elbows are ball jointed as well. mid fore-arm is a swivel joint, which is needed as the flare bits off the elbows can get in the way of the arm movement a little. The swivel joints negate this problem quite a bit. Her hands are moulded open, and the two swords that she has stashed in her backpack can be clipped in nice and securely. The only downside to this is that the area where her thumbs join the hand is prone to stress marking. These marks are applicable to both versions of the toy too.

L-R HB, TT

The legs have great posability too! However, I could never work out just why she would always stand a bit wonky, until now when I have been comparing them. HB Arcee has a peg that is supposed to go into the the part of the calf, but it is too high/thick and doesn't fit. TT appear to have fixed this little problem. I will have to file it down a bit now.

The vehicle mode is nice and sleek and again reminiscent of the G1 cartoon, with he futuristic car styling. It is a great homage in both modes. My only whinge about the vehicle mode would have to be that it is really hard to get the front wheels flat on the ground and the cockpit flush with the rest. Maybe I am doing something wrong, but if I am, I haven't been able to work it out yet... The rest of the car fits together really nicely. I think the way the 'skirt' of the robot mode fits in well with the window of the car mode to cover the feet, making an engine of sorts. Very well done indeedy. The wings at the back can be taken off, for a more G1 look. however, it does make the vehicle mode look very plain.

Onto the differences between the two now. There is an interesting difference in the plastic used. HB's one has a bit of metallic sparkle to it and is shiny, unlike much of the rest of the Animated line. On the waist and upper arms is some black paint and the feet are painted black. The parts that aren't the pink colour and should be white are a kind of lightblue-ish white. The paint that should be whit is the same colour as this too. The Autobot symbol on her breast is silvercoloured and one on her car caockpit is a white outlined one. Her face is a slightly fleshy coloured pink on it with red highlights on her forehead. Whereas, TT's Arcee has a more matte plastic to it, making it seem less bright, but I have a feeling they are the same colour plastic. There appears to be evidence of the metallic sparkles, but it is hard to see and I think it may just be the way the light reflects off the rougher surface of the plastic. The white areas are a fantastic almost oatey white and her waist and upper arms (which are black on the HB one) are brown here. Her face is a very girly pink with a red dot on the dhin, which seems to give it just a little more definition over the HB version and she has the same red highlight on the forehead. The Autobot symbols are both white outlined with the red inner, making the TT animated series nice and standard across the line in regards to symbols so far.

Quality of the toys feel about equal really. Could I recommend one over the other? Eeerm, probably not actually. Oddly enough, aside from the symbols, the shiny HB one fits better with TT's other Animated figures and TT's matte version fit better with HB's other Animated figures. Personally I prefer the TT one only slightly due to the Matte colouring, symbols, paint detail and colour on the face and for some reason the amount of effort they put into painting her feet (yes, you heard me. The white bits near her ankles, red at the toes and black on the bottom for tread. Maybe it reminds me of Tails' shoes from Sonic the Hedgehog...) In the end though, it's a personal choice. Have a look at some pictures of the two and pick whichever takes your fancy really. They are both as good as each other and one isn't particularly better than the other.

Rest of the Pics.

Hasbro version vehicle mode. The blue-white is the actual colour of the paint.