Review: #244
Name: Bumblebee
Brand: Transformers
Allegiance: Autobot
Line: Robots in Disguise (2015)
Year of Release: 2015
Size Class: Warrior (Wave 1)
Variations: as of the date of review, the only variation is the TakaraTomy version which has more paint in vehicle mode
VEHICLE MODE:
Robots in Disguise (2015) Bumblebee is technically an upgrade over his Prime version, although in true Bumblebee fashion (since the 2007 movie at least), he transforms into a yellow sports car with black stripes.
A good vehicle mode for the most part, he needs a bit more paint in vehicle mode to break up the yellow, especially the rear which had some good sculpting detailing.
Warrior Class is a new size class which is approximately the size of Deluxe (maybe a bit smaller in cases). Despite that, Bumblebee is still fairly decent and bigger than I anticipated.
His play value in this mode is only restricted to rolling him around. His robot sword also stores by pegging into the bottom of the car.
A comparison shot from another angle with Prime Bumblebee, the new one is more angular and sharper.
A nice vehicle mode that feels solid in your hands and the aesthetics are nice.
TRANSFORMATION:
On par with Hasbro's renewed focus on simpler toys, Bumblebee's transformation is exceedingly easy. The arms lift out from the sides, the rear of the car folds back to reveal his head and the legs are formed from the front of the car, with the roof folding behind to form kibble. For some reason, this actually works quite well and I don't feel too gimped by it.
ROBOT MODE:
Onto robot mode, Bumblebee features an athletic looking robot mode, complete with door wings (situated lower than normal), a chest that's sculpted to look like the front of the car and huge feet.
Due to the simple transformation, there's more kibble than you would like. most of it is the roof of the car sitting behind his legs, while the rear of the car behind his head can be annoying at times too since it doesn't lock into place properly.
The headsculpt is stylized, in line with the cartoon. It's a faithful representation of his face from the series and is situated on a balljoint.
He isn't too small in robot mode either, able to hold his own height against other Deluxes.
His biggest strength and also his weakness is the proportions. I love his bulky, spiky, exaggerated features but the huge shoulders and huge feet in compared to the rest of him feels wrong and looks weird.
The feet lack heelspurs which is extremely annoying. They are on joints which allows it to fold up or down, so to balance him, you will need to angle them carefully.
His weapon is a translucent blue sword which is excellent sculpting. It's not exactly the Star Saber but looks really cool nonetheless.
He's able to hold the sword in either hand but lacks any sort of wrist swivel to use it to his full advantage.
In terms of articulation, the kibble does get in the way, especially his feet kibble which doesn't allow his knees to bend to 90 degree even though the hinge joint allows it. You also need to spread his legs apart otherwise the kibble will knock into each other.
He needs more paint in this mode too, if you look at a few customized figures out there with added paint details, you will see how much better Bumblebee could have looked. All the sculpted details are there, it just needs some paint to highlight it.
A good robot mode overall even though there are some flaws. Don't misunderstand, Bumblebee is great fun even if he is not as cleverly engineered as other figures.
OVERALL:
Bumblebee succeeds in being a fun toy while also being simpler than toys that came before him. His vehicle mode is very strong while his robot mode has some minor flaws, not enough to drag him down severely however. If you like the aesthetics then Bumblebee is a worthy figure to purchase.
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