General Information: Images:
In the meantime, I spent a fairly obscene amount of money to get this Deluxe Class figure because, well, a fanboy's gotta do what a fanboy's gotta do sometimes! This is the Japanese Takara/Tomy version of the figure's release, so while it shares some elements with the U.S. First Edition figures, it also has some differences. The basic card design is the same, with character art in the front, a foreboding dark background and the words "First Edition" down the side. However, unlike the U.S. releases the figure is in robot mode, not vehicle mode and there are Japanese inserts clearly visible through the bubble. I can't say I have a preference over which mode is in the package. The traditionalist in me likes having it in vehicle mode, but another part of me has to admit the robot looks quite striking as well. Frankly, I was just glad to be able to get this figure at all! Thanks Image Anime!
Robot Mode: On the television show, Vehicon has a rather lithe shape. His body is rather top heavy, with long arms that extend down to his knees and a slightly hunched over appearance, this is not a guy you want to mess with. A bit of the live action movie aesthetic comes into play with the use of several sharp looking armor sections and hands with three claws on them. In many respects, this design looks like a natural extension of the Decepticon symbol itself, which features sharp angles all moving upwards, similar to Vehicon's body design. This figure manages to retail several of these elements which include:
Despite the similarities, there are also some significant differences in the design. Overall, the bulk of this figure is significantly thicker than the CGI model, including the arms and legs. However, that simply can't be helped since this guy has to turn into a rather bulky vehicle without the use of CGI trickery. The figure still looks great and is instantly recognizable as the Decepticon warrior. Vehicon is cast in black, purple (two shades) and clear plastic - all the primary colors of the CGI model. His paint deco is done with silver, red, purple and lavender. The color design of the character is more nuanced than "in your face". If you just take a quick glance, you'd think he was only black or only dark purple, but all those colors blend together nicely. My favorite section has to be the chest, where dark purple plastic is overlaid with clear plastic on the center of the chest. Here, pruple paint in two shades make up the outer armor, and then underneath the clear plastic is a Decepticon symbol painted lavender, making it stand out and almost glow. Over the symbol is clear plastic with black "spike" details painted over it. The robot head is painted silver, and while he has clear plastic for light piping, the eyes are painted red to match the animation model. Overall this is a really nice color scheme and it fits perfectly for a creepy Decepticon! Vehicon has twenty four points of articulation in this form. I'm being a bit generous here with the count since a few of these joints (two in the legs and one in the arms) are really there to accomodate the transformation, but they do set up potential posing opportunities so I'm running with it. This articulation includes the waist, which I'm happy to see slowly making a comeback to Transformers figures (when I stop commenting on it, you'll know it's back in full force). The figure includes a small blaster with a triangular barrel, inspired by his on screen weapon. He can hold this weapon two ways. You can either attach it to a 5mm peg hole on the inside of his forearm under his hand, or you can swing the hand back and put it in the hole that was hidden by the hand to duplicate the television show's "hand replaced by weapon" mechanism. There's a lot to love with the robot mode. Show accurate details, a nice paint job and good posability make for a robot mode I've had fun playing with for this review! Transformation to Vehicle Mode:
*Note: This particular feature does not work on my copy of this sculpt. Try as I might, I have pushed the tab on the blaster into this slot only to have it pop out instantly. I'm not sure if this is just my copy or endemic to the entire line of Vehicon figures. This is, perhaps, my biggest gripe with the figure (among a heap of praise).
Vehicle Mode: Where this vehicle suffers a little in design involves the robot head and the front wheels. The wheels of the vehicle are set to make it look like a low riding car, with wheels that just barely clear the wheel wells. That's all good and fine on a CGI model, but on a practical toy this can cause issues if you're trying to move the vehicle along on its wheels. Unless you align them just right, you wind up scraping the robot head on whatever surface you have it on since the robot head sticks out ever so slightly on the bottom of the car. For me, none of this is a particularly big deal since I generally wind up just displaying the figure and not dragging it across the ground, but if a kid were to play with this I could see the robot head and the bottom of the car overall getting scraped up real fast. Something to consider with a figure that generally costs more than $40 US. In this mode, we see mostly darkpurple and black plastic. Clear plastic makes up the windows and headlights, offering a bright contrast to an otherwise dark car. There isn't a lot of paint detail here, but it's not needed. On the Vehicon CGI model, most of the "glowing" parts are the ones that are painted lavender here including parts of the grille and details near the headlights and on the rear of the car. The contrast between the colors looks really nice and I appreciate the addition of a Decepticon symbol in the front of the car. Silver paint plays a role not just on the sides of the wheels, but also on the headlights themselves, which appear to have been painted and then had the plastic pieces put over them - really sweet. While I had trouble attaching Vehicon's weapon to the underside of the toy, I am happy to report it attaches quite nicely to the hood of the car, allowing you to use the blaster as a weapon in vehicle mode. I did find myself wishing it had come with two blasters however since there are two tabs.
Final Thoughts:
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The "First Edition" versions of "Transformers Prime" figures were one of the more frustrating lines to collect. While wave one of the deluxe figures were released in the U.S., other figures were only released in other countries including the "First Edition" version of the Vehicon sculpt. This differs from the "Robots in Disguise" version due later this year. At the time I am writing this (February 2012), Hasbro has said it wants to find a way to get this sculpt out in the U.S., but that venue has yet to be determined (if it happens at all).
