(Femme-Bot Friday #76)
In one form or another, the Super Deform phenomenon has always had a connection to TransFormers. Many of the original Mini Autobots (such as my first TransFormers purchase, Cliffjumper) were based on SD-style Choro-Q/Penny Racer toy cars, and there have been several overtly SD TransFormers toys more recently - both official, like Takara's Choro-Q Robo subline or the more recent Q TransFormers, and Third Party, such as Master Made's SDT series or Hero Hobby's Tiny series.
That being the case, the only strange thing about Mukudo's take on an SD Arcee is how long it took to happen, and particularly that it emerged after not only a selection of mainline and other Third Party figures, but after the official Masterpiece as well.
So, let's take a look at this dinky, cutesy and surprisingly late addition to my Arcee collection and see how she compares to other contemporary Femme-Bots...
Considering the number of Third Party figure boxes that have black as their base colour, it's a refreshing change to see something so bright and breezy for the packaging here. The heavy white card is printed with various panels of a weird mushroom design in pink tones over an orange background. The main image is of 'Peach Girl' herself in a cutesy, cheesecake pose, seemingly leaning on herself in vehicle mode, with her gun laid by her side. This image has a bold drop shadow applied and features a Spot UV Varnish over the top. It's a really cool image, though it has a strange pinkish tinge that makes it look artificially aged versus the stark white background... But I'm an absolute sucker for a sensibly-applied spot varnish, amongst other Print Geekery.
The sides of the box keep up much the same pattern - literally in the case of the righthand side, where the curved white section from the front continues and revealed a monochrome render of the toy design printed in pink. The left side has a complete box containing the pink/orange mushroom pattern, partially covered with a cropped section of the image from the front, and the back shows simple, coloured linework images of the figure in robot mode (front view) and vehicle mode (side view, running vertically). It's a shame none of the images are actual product photographs, and none of it really indicates what to expect inside the box, but the design is certainly distinctive.
What you get inside is a fairly typical 2-part, covered plastic tray containing 'Peach Girl' alongside her handgun and sword/dagger weapon, with the heavy, silk-finish stock instructions - printed in full colour, albeit depicting the figure in flat grey with individual sections highlighted in colour in each step - and a plastic bio card somewhat smaller than the usual credit card size.
This figure has been described as being a Magic Square Toy release, but the only branding present is Mukudo (Japanese for 'Innocence', according to Google Translate), both as a cute little robot mascot in the top left corner of the front and a large, colourful banner at the bottom (both of which are also Spot UV Varnished) and repeated at the top of the back of the box. As far as I can see, the only possibly connection to Magic Square is a Weibo URL for 'mstoys', but I can't check it as accessing Weibo requires signing up... and I can't read Chinese. I'll have to assume that Mukudo is either their new name, or the name they're using for this particular toy, on the off chance it becomes a sub-brand covering additional SD figures.
Vehicle Mode:
So, naturally, with the whole Super Deform angle, this ain't a realistic looking car by any measure, but it is nevertheless surprisingly good and comparatively coherent. The front, at least, looks fantastic, and is just what one would expect of a Super Deform Arcee: squashed-up proportions, but recognisable details, although the absence of any sculpted - or painted - headlights seems more than a little strange. The design of the front end is fairly typical, with the white (grey) section at the very front of the bonnet sweeping up to a point in the centre, but the 'grille' section on the very front is here instead a simple strip of cyan paint, slightly recessed from the surrounding grey.
I can see where the designers sort-of attempted to create a believable cockpit - there are chunks within that just about resemble seats, though they would benefit by a bit of paintwork - and, while there's a three-section dashboard below the painted 'windscreen', there's neither sculpted detail nor paintwork to make it more effective. It is worth noting, though, that the 'windscreen' is a separate piece merely tabbed into the top of the dashboard, so some enterprising person may later take it upon themselves to make a replacement which is transparent and adds some of the missing dashboard details below.
Viewed from the sides, she has an awful lot of open space where the helmet panels and visible robot parts don't align and, in fact, it's even possibly to see right through her, between the arms/legs at the bottom and the raised sides of the cockpit. I'd also say, personally, that the back end just doesn't look as convincing as the front, not least because the 'wheel', such as it is, is basically concealed by the rigid ring that looks like a wheel and frames a disc that looks like a simple, Cybertronian-style hubcap and, while the robot's face doesn't quite slide up far enough into her helmet, so she's sort of peeking back from under the rim, with a surprisingly creepy effect. On the upside, she does kind of have rear indicator lights - albeit painted in cyan - set into the protrusions from the rear wheels' framework.
Weapons storage is pretty clever here - her handgun pegs (very tightly) into a socket on her underside, while the sword/dagger accessory becomes the trademark decoration attached to the back end of the car. This keeps the former unobtrusive, while the latter blends into the vehicle surprisingly well given its blue-painted blade.
Robot Mode:
One can't help but find a figure like this cute... It's very much in the style of the Nendoroid series of action figures by Good Smile Company, with positively baby-like proportions (aside from an incongruously large car bonnet chest), simplistic detailing and bare-bones paintwork over smooth, curved, but otherwise largely featureless surfaces.
The arms and legs
show the tabs and slots used in transformation, with small fins on the
backs of the forearms, but are otherwise quite smooth and low on detail, very much in keeping with Nendoroid. The legs feature dome-like kneecaps and subtle panel line-style
detailing just below the knee joints, with tiny blocks of cyan in the
middle. The torso is molded in pink plastic but broken up into three
parts by a strip of grey paint around the waist. The 'knickers' and lower
chest area are slightly raised versus the waist, and there's a tiny
sculpted robo-navel in the middle of the belly. Her backpack, made up of
the rear section of the bonnet, features a couple of touches of grey
paint at the top, to better resemble the traditional Arcee backpack,
even though the car parts that normally comprise her backpack are neatly
folded into the back of her bulbous head. Her hands are minimally detailed,
with the index finger and thumb being slightly raised compared to the
rest of the fingers, which are sculpted in a single block, as if she's
wearing mittens. The only other detail to the hands is a band of armour
running across the knuckles. The arms themselves are broken up colourwise largely by the separate plastic parts, but the forearms feature small applications of grey paint on the inner face, just below the elbow, while the black sections of the shoulders have pink paint on the fronts, just above the bicep swivel, which wraps around to the back, covering another slightly raised band of armour.
Something that seems to have drawn a lot of comment is that the grey plastic used (predominantly) for the head and legs - and consequently the paint used to match it on the torso - is far too dark a grey. While I won't deny that it is grey, rather than Arcee's more traditional white, my own impression is that it's a grey that responds very poorly to being observed in low light. In strong light - be it sunlight or electrical - Peach Girl looks perfectly alright, and the particular shade of the neutrally-coloured plastic is what I'd call 'off-white'... Certainly, in my photos, it looks good, though the shadows are somewhat exaggerated by my awkward 'light tent on a coffee table in the lounge' setup. However, in the evenings, when I've switched on the light in the lounge, the grey ends up almost looking darker than the pink plastic, which it absolutely is not. On balance, I would agree that a lighter shade - or something less neutral and skewing toward a super-pale pink, like the cartoon image on the box - would have been preferable, though she's certainly not ruined by the off-white plastic or paint.
Peach Girl's dinky little pistol and sword may not be exceptionally well detailed, but they seem perfect for the figure. The fit well in either hand and are nicely proportioned to match the Super Deform style. The pistol is rather more solid than a lot of Hasbro accessories these days, though there are large cavities on either side of the front of the gun, just behind the muzzle. Most of its detailing is very basic, but the large 'screw head' detail toward the back is a nice touch. Its trigger guard is cut so that it hangs down in front of Peach Girl's trigger finger, but the grip is a very tight fit on mine, and I'm reluctant to push it that far into her hand in case I can't get it out again. My only complaint about the gun is that the muzzle is closed off - surely it would have been better to make that hollow than the sides of the gun? The sword - or possibly dagger, considering the blade isn't that long - features another 'screw head' detail on either side of the hilt, and the blade itself is painted with the same blue as the vehicle mode's windscreen and 'grille'. Since the grip is a basic 3mm peg, just like the pistol, she can wield it with either forward or reverse grip in either hand, or even wield both weapons in the same hand, making for all kinds of dramatic posing options. Given the tabs on her hips, I'm a little disappointed that neither weapon can be stored elsewhere on her body - I'd have thought it'd be easy enough to turn the 'screw head' details into sockets so they could be holstered/sheathed on her thighs. The tab used for attaching the sword in vehicle mode does fit into the slots on her forearms, but it's a very loose fit.
The head sculpt, being largely formed out of the car's rear end, has a fairly basic look to it. The rear wheels become her 'ears', and angle inward to hug the sides of her face, with the cyan 'rear indicators' adding a bit more colour to the frame around her face. The face sculpt itself is typically simple and, again, very much in keeping with the Nendoroid style. Where those would tend to have some facial details painted in, Peach Girl's robotic face has a couple of deep grooves cut into the cheeks, a cute little nub of a nose and a tiny, smiling mouth below enormous, blue-painted eyes with subtle pink eyeshadow. While the plain eyes are basically very true to G1, I can't help but think a bit more painted detail - perhaps making the eyes closer to the TFPrime style - would have been preferable... and a subtle change of colour for the face would have helped it stand out, too.
Peach Girl's transformation is surprisingly easy and, while the majority of the vehicle shell ends up being the robot's helmet, quite a few of her robot parts serve a function on the car. Naturally, the chest becomes the central section at the front of the car, with the front fenders folding out from the back of her helmet. The front wheels are the robot's shoulders, and the weird nacelles Arcees always have as a backpack end up as the section of bonnet directly in front of the windscreen. The weirdest part is that the 'ears' on the helmet become her rear wheels - and there is a separate ring of a marginally larger diameter that's supposed to roll, but I suspect some kind of burr or mold flashing, or simply a less then optimal fit, because neither of the rear wheels roll very freely. My least favourite aspect of the transformation is Peach Girl's face plate, and this is for two reasons. Firstly, it just pushes up into the helmet, but remains identifiably visible in vehicle mode, giving the rear end quite a creepy look. More importantly, on the functional side of it, it's held in place with one of the smallest screws I've ever seen... and almost lost when it popped out the very first time I transformed her. Honestly, the screw is barely two millimetres long, so there's barely any thread to hold it in. A screw is entirely the wrong component for use on a sliding joint like this - a flat-headed pin would have been preferable. Aside from this, she fits together very well in vehicle mode and, taking her SD proportions into account, is one of the more convincing Arcees on the market.
It has to be said that her articulation is somewhat limited by the weird proportions, but it's nowhere near as bad as I'd expected. Her shoulder joints are a combination of a hinge in the torso and a ball joint in the arm, and the transformation joint can be used to improve clearance around her colossal head if necessary. That said, the arms don't have to be angled out too far to get a full 360° rotation around the shoulder, so it's generally not necessary. The bicep and wrist rotation joints offer full 360° rotation, while the elbow bends to the standard 90°. The ball-jointed hips allow for full 360° rotation, but the wide pelvis requires them to be angled awkwardly while doing so, and this is exacerbated by the design of the armour panels at the tops of the thighs. She can barely kick forward, back or out to the sides without also rotating, yet the upper thigh rotation joint doesn't help much and is, itself, restricted by the wide pelvis and the upper extremities of the thigh armour. The knees manage a decent 90° bend and the ankles tilt inward by a similar amount, but there's no ankle rotation. She does have fold-out heel spurs to assist with posing but she stands surprisingly well without them. Mine has a loose heel spur on the right foot, so it's not so stable as the other... but, to be honest, with the spur being attached to the outside of the foot, it's often not as helpful as it should be.
I wouldn't necessarily call myself a fan of the Nendoroid style, but have to admit it applies surprisingly well to TransFormers. Given the awkward proportions, not least the massive heads, some very creative solutions have been found to keep a largely G1-style transformation on many of them. Had I the space and the funds, I'd love to acquire all of the Master Made figures (particularly Diabolus Rex, their take on Trypticon) simply because the juxtaposition of such cute styling for these city-sized behemoths amuses me... And, really, it goes to show that if someone can design a Super-Deform action figure, at this scale (she's only about 10cm/4" tall!) that successfully transforms into a reasonable-looking vehicle form without resorting to folding most of the vehicle up into an oversized backpack, one has to wonder why Hasbro/Takara Tomy can't do it consistently with more normally-proportioned characters.
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