Toy Review: Sonic the Hedgehog x Transformers Collaborative Blue Booster

Review:  #908

Name:  Blue Booster

Brand:  Transformers

Allegiance:  Autobot

Line:  Sonic the Hedgehog x Transformers Collaborative

Year of Release:  2025

Size Class:  N/A

Mold Status:  new

VEHICLE MODE:

Blue Booster's vehicle mode is based upon the blue race car that Sonic drives in the Sonic racing series.

It's a good vehicle mode, and he looks good from all angles.  There's a decent amount of paint applications, including the rear taillights, and the red rims.

He is roughly Deluxe size, but as you can see, he's quite a bit shorter than the usual vehicles.

The canopy can open up, although you can't really sit anyone inside, not that the sets comes with a Sonic mini-figure or whatnot (which now seems like a missed opportunity).

He is comically short, so he feels stunted and deformed.

It does look slick from the front though, the curves look really good on this figure from certain angles.

He comes with two accessories, but they can't both be stored in vehicle mode, so the shield is designed to peg onto the item capsule and be set aside.

The item capsule itself has two sides that you can rotate between, one side is an Autobot insignia, while the other is the invincibility power-up icon.

The wheels roll and that's the extent of the play value.

Blue Booster comes with Wingtail, which is based upon the vehicle that Tails drives, and yes, they do look good as a set.

A good vehicle mode, the only negative is the short length, which is semi-accurate to the games, but just looks really deformed in physical form.

TRANSFORMATION:

The figure kind of starts to fall apart from the transformation, in terms of that it is not designed very well.  The front extends to form the legs.  The back splits into two along with the arms.  Then you stand him up.  It's a simple transformation, the problem is that the way the pieces are jointed together seem to be awkwardly placed and doesn't move quite the way you would expect them to.

ROBOT MODE:

Blue Booster's robot mode is nowhere near as good as vehicle mode.

He has blocky limbs, which isn't necessary a bad thing, but they are too big and so will get in the way of each other, especially his bigger shoulder pads.

The head sculpt (and the robot design as a whole) is based upon Sonic the Hedgehog.  The head sculpt manages to straddle the line between robotic without being too organic and still look familiar to its inspiration.

Again, he's roughly Deluxe size in robot mode, although he feels lighter and more fragile, given that he has a lot of hollow parts (which is surprising given that this is a Collaborative figure, and they usually don't skimp out with overly hollow parts).

Next to Wingtail, they look fine, Wingtail is a bit more cartoony than Blue Booster.

Articulation is theoretically good, he has joints for his head, shoulders, elbows, waist, hips, knees and ankles.

He comes with two accessories, a shield, and the item capsule which has a fold out handle.

The shield attaches to his forearm, while he can hold the item capsule, so it's kind of like a handle weapon.

The articulation is theoretically good because in practice, for one reason or another, such as the tighter joints and awkward placement of said joints, Blue Booster is not fun to pose.

Blue Booster can at times even feel like a floppy mess, even though it's not actually flopping.  The legs in particular are not great, and his arms feel like solid blocks.

The design is also overly simplistic, so it's lacking some sculpted details that can elevate the sophistication of the design.  Instead, it's too cartoony and looks off.

It's not the worse robot mode in the world, but it's not great either, and it's a slight disappointment given the usual higher quality of Collaborative figures.

OVERALL:

Blue Booster is one to get if you can either find the pack cheap, or you are a big fan of Sonic the Hedgehog.  The figure has flaws, in terms of that it feels like that there was a lazy designer, or that the budget was too tight so they had to cut some corners.  It's fine if you just leave him for display but if you wanted to pose and play around with the robot, it can be disappointing.

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Toy Review: Transformers Earthspark Aftermath (Deluxe)

Review:  #907

Name:  Aftermath

Brand:  Transformers

Allegiance:  Decepticon

Line:  Earthspark

Year of Release:  2024

Size Class:  Deluxe (Wave 6)

Mold Status:  new

VEHICLE MODE:

Aftermath transforms into a purple tow truck, that has a vintage look to it, although the giant cow catchers at the front are a dead giveaway for this robot's allegiance.

While the front looks good, the back is so so.  There's a silver exhaust sticking out the back.

Aftermath is a decent-ish size for a Deluxe, although along with the rest of the Earthspark toys, he is a bit lighter than a Generations figure, as he's a little bit more hollow.

The tow hook assembly is good, at least it's not a mess like some other figures, although the hook is molded in such a way that it is difficult to actually find a Deluxe car to tow.

Looking from the bottom, it is more obvious how incomplete the rear part is, as there is a big hollow piece there.

Despite the flaws, Aftermath has a certain charm to him.

TRANSFORMATION:

Transformation is relatively simple for a Deluxe figure, but compared to other Earthspark figures, he is maybe a little bit more complex.  The back splits to form the legs, unfold the feet from the back, and fold the front wheels to complete the shins.  While the front forms the torso by pulling the arms out, rotating the cow catchers for the shoulder pads and folding the hood down.  The balljoints are tight, especially the shoulders, making it feel like you're going to shear something off.

ROBOT MODE:

It's great that we get a new and unique character when the line is focusing so much on a new take on the same characters.  Aftermath looks great with his bulky looks.

He has a massive backpack though, it's the tow hook assembly sticking out of his back.  While it's show accurate, it's still not amazing on a figure though.

The head sculpt is really good, it has enough detail without being too busy, and he looks very Decepticon-like.

He might look like he's big and imposing, but in reality when compared to other Deluxe toys, he's only the average height.

From the side, you can see how much his backpack sticks out.  Another thing to note is that he has noticeably hollow limbs, so he has a lighter feel to him compared to what you'd expect from his looks alone.

Articulation is good, he has joints for his head, shoulders, elbows, waist, hips, knees and ankles.

He comes with two weapons, one is a blaster and another is a hook.

With the blaster, he can hold it like a conventional gun.

Otherwise, his forearms has 5mm holes on them, so you can peg those weapons onto his forearms just like the show.

The purple plastic used here has a slight metallic sheen to them, and the purple paint used on his head definitely has some sort of metallic flake.

His shoulders are kind of awkward to pose due to how big they are, and how the balljoint is situated, and he does have flat feet.  However, this is still a unique robot design that looks great.

OVERALL:

Aftermath is one of those original characters that is visually interesting and made a good translation from onscreen to physical toy.  His vehicle mode has flaws, and the transformation isn't particularly amazing, and his robot mode also have its own issues, but as a whole package, and how he looks, Aftermath is a not a bad figure at all.

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Didn’t I Say to Make My Abilities Average in the Next Life?! (2019)

Didn’t I Say to Make My Abilities Average in the Next Life?! is a 12 episode anime based upon the light novels. This is an isekai anime, and there isn’t really too much of a twist here. At least the protagonist this time around is a girl, who died doing something heroic, and since she stood out in her past life due to her abnormally high intellect, requests god to be reborn into a very average person. It mostly succeeds… but she’s still a magical prodigy.

Going by the alias Mile, she attends a hunter school, which upon graduation she will be able to join the hunters. Mile looks unassuming, just your typical noble dainty lady, but both her physical and magical prowess are exceptional. Upon her first day in the city she foils a children kidnapping plot. Joining the school, she is clearly the best student. Of course, being an otaku in her previous life, she’s a bit socially awkward but is determined to change that, and joining the school, she manages to meet and get along with three others.

Despite the first two episodes setting up Mile arriving and attending the school, it has never been the focus. After a quite scene setup where Mile trains the others given she is just so clearly out of their league, there is a time skip to the graduation. Perhaps, it’s just an easier way to explain and justify the overpoweredness of the four member party now. It also avoids all the early awkwardness as instantly they are like lifelong friends. It can be a bit of lazy way to go about it though.

The rest of the season kind of like a slice of life, but just the girls going about their early days as hunters, and enjoying life in general. They are clearly overpowered, so they have the potential to just take on any quest and succeed, get rich, and live out their lives. However, they’re all young and inexperienced, and so must go through the regular rites of passage. There are many episodes where it fleshes out their backstories, diving deeper into their family, however, the plot is very episodic, as everything basically will be resolved within one episode.

Mile still retains a lot of her knowledge from Japan, and she often uses the science from this previous world to help now. It has potential for her to become even more overpowered and utilize her magician clever ways, but it’s only lightly touched up and more often than not, it is used for laughs. This is because Mile is a huge otaku, and she gets excited over typical anime things, and even goes so far as to general and reference those anime herself.

To be fair, there’s no overarching objective to the anime, so there isn’t any urgency in anything the characters do. There’s also little incentive for any sort of multi-episode spanning plot arc, thus, it can be too laid back and chilled, leading it to being bland at times. That said, the season finale had some interesting tidbits about this world, which sheds a little bit of light into why magic is created by nanomachines. It’s also at this point that the anime gives up any pretense that Mile is not the most powerful character in the whole world.

Overall, Didn’t I Say to Make My Abilities Average in the Next Life?! is an average anime. It had an interesting idea, reincarnating a character that doesn’t want the overpowered abilities. However, it ended up being more of the same from what you’d expect of the isekai genre. Mile is slightly different in that she prefers to have a fun normal life, but can’t help but still be dragged into all sorts of situations.

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