Here we go, the post the absolutely no-one looks for, my yearly wrap up toys and toys of the year.
It's been a pretty low amount again, but more than last year, but then again the quality has been generally pretty high.
Here is the link to last year's one, which also has the link to all the previous years as well.
Let's go.
Deadend
Still the same as in my initial review, a bit of a disappointment. He makes some nice colouring to Menasor's calf.
BreakDown.
Also, the same as in my initial review. He makes some nice colouring to the back of Menasor's arm.
Oh shit, this thing, it still bumbs me out man, but I just can't get rid of it for some reason. Bloody Targetmaster, if it wasn't for that little gun guy... Old Pointblank would be out on his arse.
I'm including this guy because he is finally complete (with the arrival of Breakdown). He is GOOD! So god damn good Very poseable, full of presence and just great to look at. I do wish he had a bigger sword, you could open his fists and a the ability to look down.
Cosmos
A very solid effort for my favourite minibot and fat guy. He is now accepted as Lakitu thanks to the Velocitron comic thing and I like that. Cosmos is great. I find it remarkable that he has managed to get some pretty solid toys made of him each time. What a blessed life he leads. He was a TTMall exclusive though here which means while a bit of a pain, at least one could get one.
I sold Override soon after finishing my blog post and don't miss him/her/it at all.
Clampdown
I'm a sucker for Lambo cars and pure white paint jobs and this guy does the tricvk nicely. His colouring makes a nice difference to Red Alert and so they look similar, but different enough. I like his black boots too. He's a cop, and looks it too.
Needlenose
More Targetmasters and Needlenose comes with two. They are pretty much the same chunks of coloured plastic they used to be, but with new moulding, making them look a little nicer. Needlenose while feeling a little light is actually pretty damn good too. He fits nicely with Spinister from the Siege line and manages to do what he needs to do rather nicely. I have a particular fondness for the guy, since he was my "Starscream" replacement, since I didn't have any seekers when I was a young un.
Sludge
Sludge here is the Leader version of the toy, and it's nice to have a massive version of this guy finally. The Dino mode is derpy fat Brontosaurus through and through. My only complaint is that his gun hiding on his belly in dino mode really lessens his impact a lot and the black limbs kinda slim his look a little in robot mode. He should be a chunky, ass kicking monster of a robot. Nice headsculpt though.
Tarn
OOoh, this is a tricky one. I remember loving the look of him in pictures, and on the box and initially when I got the toy, but somewhere I came to the conclusion, he looks all right, but he just isn't very Transformer-y. The lean robot mode does feel very comic book, but not quite Transformers. The tank mode falls entirely into the horrible category of "Folded up robot, that makes a space tank" and while that is kinda Transformer-y, it's also lazy and disappointing.
I like Tarn for being something different, but also dislike it for the same reason. It's weird, I'm not able to reconcile my feelings for him.
What an abusive relationship we must have.
Kickback
Ooh delicious, I wasn't going to get this guy, because he is a just robot that lies down, and I thought the Legends version was fine and dandy. Yet, I saw this guy on clearance for 1500 yennies and I thought, yeah, why the hell not? So I got him and he is exactly as I thought, fine enough and the bigger version fits well enough with my smaller one. The energon wing things are really stupid though.
Soundblaster (core Class guy)
I picked up this guy as Soundwave was a TTMall exclusive and it's not worth buying a single small guy from the mall by itself. Soundblaster though was a general release and I picked him up on a whim and he is really good. He comes with a mini Buzzsaw! Has a lot of articulated joints and is generally a pretty fun little toy. Very satisfied with this guy.
Shrapnel
I like the Insecticons, they are pretty cool. This new Shrapnel is very acceptable. Nothing exceptional, he get the job done nicely and is a great representation of the toy and cartoon version. It looks practically nothing like am insect though. So I guess, as a disguise it's a bit of a failure, but what are you gonna do?
Scraphook & Axelgrease
Gonna slap these two Junkions together here, as they share the same design and stuff. I got Scraphook first and thought he was awesome! Nice Mad-Max vehicle mode really revs mah engine, and his ability to be plugged in for armour mode for other bots is cool. I also really like his modular nature with weapons and where to place bits and pieces on him, making him a lot of fun. You can make him a sort of hotrod car, or a tough truck, or a battle truck, just by rearranging bits and pieces here and there.
Same for the robot mode. Also, he has facial hair (always a win in my book) and a great head sculpt. You can transform him without disassembly, but I will say that the way the back of the vehicle plugs together and you have to plug his elbows in is a bit inelegant and a right pain in the arse on the first go, as you practice a bit more, it becomes easier.
Axelgrease is the same as Scraphook essentially, but an even Mad-Maxier car. Seriously, it takes serious vibes from Max's car, The Interceptor, especially with big barrels on the back. The colours are great, her head sculpt is nice and generally she is pretty fab. However maybe due to mould reuse (2nd time?) or changes in plastic, the elbow and arm transformation on Axelgrease is frustration central. The arms pop off at the shoulders and because you need the joint to be at an angle to shove back in again, it becomes really hard to do smoothly.
Much swearing was involved the first time. If I got Axelgrease before Scraphook, I wouldn't have bought a second version of his mould.
Crashbar
A pretty sweet looking Junkion guy this one, with some sweet, sweet facial hair sculpting. I like him, he kind of transforms like Animated Prowl, what with his front and back tyres becoming left and right legs. AND he splits in half for weaponising as well. He doesn't feel quite as malleable as Axelgrease or Scraphook, but he is still an absolute buttload of fun!
Armada Optimus Prime (Commander class guy)
Hrm, usually these commander class fellows take the cake in my toy of the year. But (spoiler alert) Old, Oppy here hasn't done that. Many many moons ago, TakTom did a poll to find out the Autobot leader that people liked, and Armada Prime rated pretty highly.
Then in 2019, at Wonderfest, this majestic sunnavabich showed his face in prototype and I was in from that moment. It LOOKED Awesome!
Although Legacy Prime here is not the same toy, it's pretty goddam good.
While not a major fan of Armada at the time, I have decided that it wasn't that bad as a toy line. The gimmicks were nutty enough for me to dislike at the time, but kind of enjoy nowadays, and the PS2 video game was the tits mate, and a major part of why I have such fond memories of Armada.
However, while this Optimus is a fine example of a toy, it kinda drops the ball on a few points. The normal robot mode is pretty sweet and the combined mode is also nice, but it has a pretty poor base mode and no Minicon shenanigans going on anywhere. So, it's god n all, but not as good as the preceding Commander figures.
Studio Series Snarl
The leader class guy. I like Snarl, he's my favourite Dinobot because the chrome gold on the G1 toy was juts BEYOOTIFUL! Also he's a grumpy old bugger, like me. So this leader class figure tickles my fancy mightily. My main complaint is that the legs and dino head aren't the same nice gold colour the plates and tail is, which sucks, but he does manage to do everything else right.
Oddly he is included in the Studio Series line and the box makes references to the old 80s movie, which he is barely in...
Robot mode looks big and tough and grumpy. He has a sword. Dino mode is that weird Stegosaurus of the 80s shape. He looks good in both modes. A very solid fellow.
Swoop (Core class guy)
Picked this guy up as Swoop is my number 2 Dinobot. For a core class toy he's pretty solid. Money well spent. Very much just a Mini-me version of the POTP Swoop
Crasher
Eh, this one is still sitting in it's box, so it shouldn't really count until next year... But, I suspect it'll be fine. I just like Gobots that have been sucked into the Transformers universe and Crasher was particularly memorable.
See Thru Book Prime (Core Class guy)
Eh, this guy is fine... The book cost about the same as a core class figure, so it was ok I guess, for a novelty. Pretty good I guess for a little guy, but the hips are super hindered by a flap and some flanges that hang off his waist for some reason. I suspect something was cut out for cost reasons to simplify the robot. Out of my 3 core class toys, this guy is the weakest.
GITD Toxie
So this year I've had a serious hard on for GITD action figures and I saw on Amazon they had some of the Super 7 figures still available (While I was searching for the Voltron toy), and so I bought a couple of them. One of them was GITD Toxie from the Toxic Crusaders cartoon, a cartoon that was spawned from a very not-kid friendly movie, the Toxic Avenger. Starnge times, Robocop, Aliens, Toxic Avengers, all getting kid orientated toys, and cartons, while not being kid orientated movies at all.
Anyway, I digress, Toxie here is most interesting as he glows in the night time and turns red when exposed to UV light. Usually the sun. Wow, double whammy.
He's pretty cool, for a guy with a mop. Comes with some random weapons and a mop. Interestingly, I think I've discovered that when GITD figures have colours to their plastic, they don't glow as well as others. Toxie and my skeleton Godzilla are both green and have a much weaker glow thatn other figures. Toxie though is a pretty solid action figure, a tad larger than I expected, but nice enough. Not quite worth the 10,000 yen the Super 7 figures seem to go for here in Japan, but decent enough if you're dealing in BurgerBucks.
GITD Foot soldier
While I like the old TMNT, I am extreeeeeemely picky about my action figures I buy for them. While crusing for Voltron, I saw that Amazon had some of these guys left and I grabbed them, because they glow blue. GITD toys that aren't green seem to be a rarity, which I think is mainly becuase green seems to be the most noticeable colour for glowing. Blue and red always seem to ahve a lower er, glow-output when compared to green.
Anyway, I grabbed this guy, and yeah, he's ok. He glows blue, has a bunch of weapons that don't quite scale with him well enough and also glow blue and a very nice box, which also glows.
I was pretty impressed with the packaging of both Toxie and Footy. But the first one I got had a stuck elbow, which I heard is a pretty common issue. Luckily the replacement does not.
AquaShooters! Series 11 (and AQ in general)
I think I generally decided to not include gacha in this thing because it's just Gacha, but here I am, these guys should get an honourable mention as I still like them. Series 11 came out this year and rather easily I managed to get them all. So that was great. They are a tad flimsy at times and their feet are pretty small, but since I've found a way to jam some magnets in their tootsies, things are going smoothly. I didn't expect to see a new series as I thought AquaShooters! was replaced by...
Gashapon Quest.
A kind of D&D/Dragonquest gacha series that takes cues from AquaShooters! Each series seems to have two characters and a bunch of armour and weapons to choose from and you build them like a kit.
While the AquaShooters! seem to be pretty solidly made, the GashaponQuest figures are a little simplified. So I thought this was a cost saving thing from Bandai and I'd never see AquaShooters! again, but series 11 (above) tells me I will.
Gashapon Quest, while being a cool idea, you build a kit figure and then get accessories/armour for them, is a bit of a gip. Each series has two characters, and 5 sets of armour/weapons for a total of 7 options.
So there is a fairly good chance of doing a bunch of gacha rolls and only getting armour/weapons sets, which are useless without a figure for it to go with. At 500 yen a pop, it's pretty annoying to end up with a shitty leather belt & pouch set and doesn't feel good.
But when you roll a figure 3 times in a row, it does! The resale market is your friend for this series. dang. But also your enemy as people charge BS amounts for the figures.
Also, annoyingly a LOT of Gashapon Quest seems to got for online gacha. Which I've done once and was a bit of a pain in the arse to deal with.
I like it, but I also hate it!
So, enough crap, my toy of the year is:
SNARL
He just manages to do everything he needs to do right, and what he does wrong (ahem, feet and dino head colours.) aren't wrong enough to bother me badly. A very solid figure and its juts plain good fun to fiddle with.
It's odd though, essentially aside from Pointblank and Override, I've not been terribly disappointed with any of the figures at all. So while the year hasn't been majorly stacked in numbers, the quality has been pretty high and I am more than satisfied!
Other Honorable mentions go to:
Commander Rodimus Prime, this guy is still hanging around as he is so much fun to pay with!
Selects Galvatron & Legacy Jhiaxus. Two dudes who just seem to look so good, they've been my desk toys since the last Toy of the year post!
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