(Femme-Bot Friday #1)
What better way to kick off a new feature than with a transforming female robot
that wasn't even made by Hasbro/Takara Tomy?
As a general rule, I can be quite
late to the game when it comes to third party products.
Loads of them look
interesting but, with my financial circumstances being what they were over the last few years, I was rarely able to
preorder anything and, by the time I
had some spare cash, many were either sold out or being sold on eBay
for multiples of their original price. Such is life, since third party models tend to be
short-run.
Mastermind Creations' Azalea wasn't even really on my radar - I saw it
publicised, sure, but its alternate mode just seemed to be a
folded up action figure with a few bits of chassis attached... and it wasn't even a 'proper' vehicle mode. Not being a regular reader of the IDW comics, I was equally
not sold on the robot mode - it looked like a
decent enough figure, but a bit too
angular and
boxy compared to the lithe, curvy likes of
Energon Arcee,
TF Prime Arcee,
TF Animated Blackarachnia, or even
the first live-action movie interpretation.
I confess that it was actually
a video review by Vangelus that got me interested,
not only because he showed off the figure well -
both the good and the bad - but because
he explained the whys and wherefores of the colourscheme and the repaints. I still had
some reservations,
not least that there were many
other femme-bots I'm
more keen to get my hands on (
Perfect Effect's Motobot,
TF Animated Arcee and the new
Generations Arcee, to name but three), but I found this available on eBay at a reasonable price, so I took a chance.
