Perfect Effect PE-DX10 Jetforce Revive Commander

You have to hand it to Perfect Effect: when they know they have a winning figure, they really make the most of it. Last year, I picked up their upgrade set for Super Ginrai and their Powermaster Optimus Prime/Ginrai figure to spruce up an already excellent Takara Tomy Legends Super Ginrai figure which only suffered by relying too much on the engineering of the older Combiner Wars/Legends Ultra Magnus figure. PE's Jinrai Prime figure was quickly repainted into PC-17 Core Magnus - designed to replace CW/Legends Ultra Magnus' integrated truck - and PC-20 - designed for the Primitive Skateboarding exclusive black repaint, which could then comfortably function as both a Nucleon Quest Super Convoy and a Powermaster Nemesis Prime, considering the exclusive toy's colourscheme didn't match either.

But what happened next was perhaps the most interesting development of the mold: a strange hybrid which paid equal homage to God Ginrai/Apex Armour Powermaster Optimus Prime and the deus ex machina/MacGuffin-powered combination of Optimus Prime with parts pillaged from the corpse of Jetfire at the end of Revenge of the Fallen.

Needless to say, that is very much my jam.

However, given my prior history with Perfect Effect, I'd been a little reluctant to buy the PC upgrades, let alone another complete figure... And, with my finances being less than ideal over the last year or so, I'd put off buying this set even though there were no reports of horrific QC problems like those of Leonidas. It eventually got to the point where he was no longer available via my usual channels. However, just as my birthday rolled around this year, and around the time my folks made polite enquiries as to whether there were items not on my Amazon wish list that I might like to be treated to, I found JapanWorld House of Robots - another website based on the Continent (in Rome, Italy, specifically), who had a limited stock of him remaining, and ordered him forthwith. Fortunate for me, considering they now no longer have him in stock!

So, let's take a look at Jetforce Revive Commander and see if he was worth seeking out...

Perfect Effect PC-18 Upgrade Kit for GodJinrai

Picking up the upgrade sets for Powermaster Optimus Prime/Super Ginrai had two effects on me. First and foremost, it somewhat restored my confidence in Perfect Effect's output... but, perhaps just as important, it left me wanting to ensure my Legends Godbomber/Super Ginrai combination was as good and 'complete' as it possibly could be.

The stock Godbomber figure is far from perfect and his components, when added to Super Ginrai, leave the figure substantially less stable than he was in his basic form. Given that the PC-16 set puts a little bit more weight onto the robot's back (in the form of Jinrai Prime's legs), his weak ankles leave him even more prone to overbalancing and falling over backward.

With that in mind, to be perfectly honest, the only part of this figure I was really interested in was the ankle supports for the God Ginrai gestalt...

Perfect Effect PC-15 Upgrade Kit & PC-16 Jinrai Prime

TransFormers developed along some very strange lines during the Prime Wars trilogy. We were treated to the second ever G1-style Ultra Magnus toy which transformed as a unit rather than being a white Optimus Prime with power armour (the first being the Masterpiece figure), and that led to a reinterpretation of Powermaster Optimus Prime (and Takara Tomy's Super Ginrai remix) in which the 'cab only' Optimus Prime - and the Powermaster feature - was bypassed in favour of keeping with Titans Returns' HeadMaster gimmick and the single-unit transformation.

While I like Super Ginrai and enjoyed him as a single unit, the moment I saw Perfect Effect were producing upgrade sets - the first being essentially supplemental parts for the second, a fully transforming, independent cab - I knew I was going to treat myself to the full Super Ginrai/Powermaster Optimus Prime upgrade, and ordered both PC-15 and PC-16 as soon as they became available.

Perfect Effect PE-DX05 'Beast Muscle' Leonidas

Every so often, a Third Party release comes along that has my attention from the very first images. There's no real pattern to it, but there's frequently a connection to my earlier collecting habits.

One of the stranger examples is this - Perfect Effect's pre-Beast Wars reimagining of Lio Convoy. Granted, I'm a fan of the original, and I love the Collectors' Club's 2015 Membership Incentive version, but this is a version of the character who transforms into a robotic lion... which basically doesn't make sense in the context of Beast Wars... or, really, any TransFormers continuity.

But when has that stopped me buying something potentially awesome?

NB: This post has been sitting in my drafts for well over a year... Nothing unusual for me, in the grand scheme of things but, in this case, there's a very good reason...

Perfect Effect Perfect Combiner PC-01 Combiner Upgrade Set Black Version

When Perfect Effect first introduced their Combiner Wars upgrade sets, they came in only two colours - black and purple, the latter being tailored toward Hasbro's Menasor. Black would seem to be aimed at Defensor but, at the time, the only CW gestalts available were Superion and Menasor (the latter never completed in Europe), and it was only later that Perfect Effect released the white version, specifically coloured for Superion. I ordered both versions of the set at the same time, so now I can reveal how awesome it looks on Defensor...

Perfect Effect Perfect Combiner PC-05 Combiner Upgrade Set G1 White Version

I honestly think Hasbro/Takara Tomy had the right idea in turning the Combiner Wars hands and feet into secondary weapons for the Deluxe class components of each team. After all, the G1 characters all had their secondary weapons, most of which had to be simply removed and set aside for gestalt mode, making them a bit of a waste of space.

By combining these secondary weapons with the hand and foot requirements of each gestalt, the became more efficient in design, and the potential was there for something very good.

Unfortunately the execution left a lot to be desired. The hands all had massive, protruding knuckledusters - theoretically quite cool and useful, but ugly and unwieldy in plastic form - while the feet ended up being far too small and, with no real ankle joint, they rarely presented a stable footprint. Together with frequently loose hip joints, they conspired to make the completed gestalt wobbly on his feet, and the poseable thumb/heel had no discernible benefit.

This is normally where the Third Parties step in, and so I was very pleased when Perfect Effect announced their 'Perfect Combiner' upgrade sets, which take the idea to a whole new level of brilliance.

Perfect Effect Motobot PE-DX02 Aranea

(Femme-bot Friday #23)

Perfect Effect's Motobot RC was certainly an interesting addition to their lineup, considering some of their underwhelming early efforts. As their first foray into full-size transforming figures, it was highly ambitious and pretty well executed. I'd been keen to get my hands on one of them from the first moment I saw them, however, my interest in the original Motobot paled into insignificance when the first remolded variant was announced... because rather than just rehash the same basic design with a couple of new parts, the remold was every bit as ambitious as the original, and they had only the core structural parts in common.

Plus, the remold - hinted at in the comic packaged with RC - was an intriguing Beast Wars/TransFormers Animated mashup homage to Blackarachnia in Perfect Effect's own futuristic biker-bot style.

Apologies in advance for some inconsistency in the photos - what's here comes from two different sets of photos, taken at different times on different days, and in very different conditions...

On 'Action Figures'

By and large, when I got into TransFormers, I lost interest in 'normal' action figures. Nothing at the time compared to the fun of a robot that was also a vehicle. I do find it interesting, though, that the TransFormers Collectors' Club is operated by the same company as the GI Joe Collectors' Club. Sure, the two properties have crossed paths in the associated fiction (GI Joe became the B-Strip in the UK TransFormers comics for a while, long before the first GI Joe Vs TransFormers story surfaced). In fact, the way the two properties have interacted seems to have been a kind of barometer for the fortunes of Hasbro's military action figure line: each time its popularity wanes, there's a crossover... and in recent years, that's even happened with the convention exclusives.

Back in 2013, the San Diego Comic Con exclusives included two GI Joe vehicles repainted to resemble TransFormers characters (VAMP/Hound and Skystriker/Jetfire), a humanoid Bludgeon figure, and a (non-articulated) figurine of Ravage to accompany the Baroness. The year before, Cobra's HISS tank got repainted into Shockwave, and the year before that, the Skystriker was repainted as Starscream (packaged along with a Cobra Commander action figure with a Megatron gun accessory). This year, the TransFormers Collectors' Club itself - rather than the GI Joe club, strangely - is getting in on the act, repainting TF Prime Soundwave as a Cobra BAT and the Wheel Blaster Bike from the GI Joe: Retaliation movie toyline as Technobot Lightspeed. I'm not convinced of the wisdom of the TFCC in releasing a non-transforming TransFormers character as a GI Joe crossover exclusive, but it has been suggested that interest in the GI Joe club has been waning, and this is Fun Publications' attempt at bringing in new members... from their other pool of collectors.

But I digress.

About ten years ago, one of Takara's 'other' toylines, Microman, was celebrating it's 30th Anniversary, and did so with a whole bunch of licensed figures. I ended up buying a selection of Aliens Vs Predator figures (horribly fragile - several broke within days), Street Fighter and Batman figures, on a whim and based on how cool I thought they looked. Microman are approximately the same size as the main GI Joe range of 3.75" figures, but rather better articulated, so I thought it'd be interesting to try posing some of my Microman figures along with some of the motorbike TransFormers (and Third Party figures) just to see how they work.

To begin with, here's the obvious choice: Perfect Effect's Motobot RC with Microman (or, more accurately, Microlady) MA-10, Catwoman...

There's no arguing that RC is a large bike and, from this angle, Microlady Catwoman seems a bit too small in comparison. Her leg is sticking out quite a way, though, and her foot is more-or-less in a comfortable 'riding' position. As it turns out, the main problem is that the plastic of her leg, being unyielding, doesn't fit around the body of the bike as well as a real person's leg would, and the ball-jointed hips don't offer quite enough freedom of movement to let her 'hug' the bike the way a human would.

The figure's waist, chest, and dual shoulder joints allow for an excellent riding position in the upper body, and the neck has just enough range to allow her to look forward while riding, where a lot of human action figures still only have swivelling necks.

From this angle, the figure seems to be the right size for the bike - in fact, a quick glance at the kickstand reveals that it is Catwoman's leg propping up the bike, rather than the miniscule, flip-out foot. This speaks volumes for how well-scaled they are, given that her backside is more-or-less in the tiny block of 'seat', her arms look natural enough and the hands connect very securely to the handlebars. It's almost as if Perfect Effect designed their Motobots to scale with Microman figures. In a way, the only thing that lets this Microlady figure down is the large, solid buttplate, which never moves naturally and, on mine, at least, seems to rattle around loosely.

This Catwoman figure has been in storage since not long after I bought her and, annoyingly, when I got her out of the packaging again to take these photos, I found one of her shoulder joints broken. If I remember correctly, the mid-2000s were a bad time for Takara's quality control, and the 2004 anniversary was just the year before the merger with Tomy. Still, Microman figures were always well-designed, even when they weren't well-executed, and I actually had a few toys from the early 'Micronauts' toyline (the Mobile Exporation Lab, Warp Racer, Ultronic Scooter and another three-wheeled thing with a double-barrelled missile launcher) distributed in the UK by Airfix so I had some fond memories of that style of figure.

Other than Catwoman, I have Batgirl, a comics version of Batman, the Christopher Nolan/Christian Bale version of Batman and a weird futuristic Batman with chromed flight gear, Sakura and Chun Li from their Street Fighter series, a couple of Predators, two Alien Queens (one was going to be a birthday present for a friend, but we had a falling out not long before the day) and a set of Alien warriors, at least one of which broke within seconds of opening the packaging, and all of which were slightly floppy in one joint or another.

I know where Sakura, Chun Li are... and they're with another figure (but I can't remember which one!)... so, assuming I can find them, there may be further photos along these lines. Perhaps the Nolan/Bale Batman riding Aranea..?

So... Action figures have their uses, after all...

Perfect Effect Motobot: PE-DX01 RC

(Femme-Bot Friday #11)

Perfect Effect started out making small and, frankly, quite odd accessories for TransFormers, some of which transformed. My first experience of their figures was PE-01R/F, a pair of TargetMasters modelled after G1 Frenzy and Rumble (and given the correct names for the colourschemes, rather than following the long-running error in the G1 cartoon!). I'll write them up in detail eventually but, suffice it to say, I have mixed feelings about them.

The company very quickly graduated - like so many other third party toymakers - into full-blown TransFormers-style figures, starting with a Reflector analogue then, in 2012, only three years after their debut on the scene, releasing one of the most ambitious third party models that had been seen at the time - a homage to G1 Arcee by way of TRON, which nodded to both the live-action movie interpretation and TF Prime. RC initially came in pink (G1 homage) and blue (TF Prime homage, perhaps), so I had to carefully consider my options when choosing which to buy for myself. With MMC's Azalea already on my shelves, I began to feel the need for more pink femme-bots to balance things out.