Flame Toys FuRaiModel Kit Arcee

(Femme-Bot Friday #88)

So, after enjoying the Windblade kit, it was a foregone conclusion that I'd want the Arcee kit as well. This model kit seemed to take a while to arrive - first revealed back in 2022, it wasn't available (in the UK, via my usual channels) till late 2023, at which point I snapped her up and, unlike with Windblade, started building her soon after she arrived... and, instead, this draft has been sitting around waiting for me to complete it for more than two years now.

Just like Windblade, Flame Toys' second Femme-Bot kit met with a mixed reception but, Arcee being dearer to the hearts of fans of a certain age, it was perhaps even more vitriolic. It's a strange thing to observe, frankly, that the 'mom/babysitter' character from the 1986 animated movie - who was clearly designed with the male gaze in mind - is somehow not 'allowed' to be sleek and feminine, even though Hasbro's most recent versions of her have been precisely that, just with an entire car shell stuck on her back.

As I've said before, the very idea of non-transforming TransFormers is anathema to me, but it's been apparent for some time that Hasbro themselves - and even Takara Tomy, to a degree - are incapable of designing good Femme-Bot figures, and it's really been up to the Third Parties to innovate. And, while this isn't a Hasbro or Takara Tomy product, it is officially licensed... and, because I really enjoy model kits, they've become an exception... as future Femme-Bot Fridays may continue to demonstrate.

For the moment, though, let's take a look at this new interpretation of Arcee, to see how she compares to other depictions of the character.

Flame Toys FuRaiModel Kit Windblade

(Femme-Bot Friday #84)

I've affirmed many times that I am very much against TransFormers merchandise - and particularly in the form of action figures - that does not transform, but model kits are something of a grey area. I went through a phase, some years back, of collecting Gundam and Macross model kits, because I found building them to be quite therapeutic. Some Macross models can even have the bonus of being transformable, since the variable fighters have been part of the anime from the very beginning.

My exposure to Armor Girls Project, Frame Arm Girls, Variable Fighter Girls and Eastern Model ATKGirl brought an interesting new angle to both action figures and model kits, blurring the line between them at least to the same degree as the Gundam kits I've built, and with just enough 'mecha' vibe to pique my interest.

All that said, when Flame Toys started producing licensed TransFormers model kits, I wasn't overly impressed by their exaggerated take on G1 and Beast Wars. They were all weirdly-proportioned and unpleasantly angular - different from the source material, yet cartoonish enough to put me off. IDW-based designs, such as stealth bomber Megatron and Hot Rod, looked better but I didn't feel compelled to buy into the line because, ultimately, they were non-transforming TransFormers, and that didn't sit right with me.

That was, until they showed early photos of their proposed Windblade kit. Windblade has, so far, got the short end of the stick. Created during the 30th Anniversary, her first toy was flimsy, unstable and showed signs of features having been trimmed to fit a budget. Remixes for RID2015, Titans Return and Cyberverse just seemed to get progressively worse, and improvements in Takara Tomy's versions were largely limited to additional paintwork. The problem was that Windblade was seemingly conceived as a robot, first and foremost, meaning her jet modes were invariably tacked-on rather than designed around her. This alone made her ideal for the model kit treatment, and Flame Toys took a markedly different tack in her design, versus the more established characters.

The bottom line seems to be that Hasbro and Takara Tomy are still having trouble creating feminine robot forms out of jet aircraft without dumping most of the nose on the back and leaving the lower legs rather hollow. Thus, a model kit for a non-transforming figure of Windblade's robot mode seems to be about the only way to present her as a solid-looking character, at least somewhat based on the interpretations of her from the comics... So, let's take a look...