Toy Review: Transformers Movie the Best MB-16 Jetfire (Leader)

Review:  #517
Name:  Jetfire
Brand:  Transformers
Allegiance:  Autobot
Line:  Movie the Best
Year of Release:  2018
Size Class:  Leader
Mold Status:  repaint of ROTF Jetfire

PACKAGING AND CONTENTS:

As part of the Movie the Best line (exclusively in Japan), Jetfire comes in a huge windowed box.

The back shows off the stock photos as well as the scenes from the movie that he appears in.

JET MODE:

Based upon the version that appeared in the Revenge of the Fallen movie, Jetfire transforms into a SR-71 Blackbird jet.

This version is a repaint of the original mold, giving it a more accurate paint scheme to match the onscreen model.

One thing that might surprise you is that Jetfire is absolutely massive, even by the older larger Leader standards from back in 2009.  Above is a comparison against TLK Optimus and Jetfire is not only much bigger, but also much much heavier to boot.

Unfortunately, like with a lot of jet Transformers, the jet is basically a nice shell on top with thick robot undercarriage kibble.  This is made worse since Jetfire has a soundbox and battery compartment.

The weapon in robot mode can store underneath the cockpit.

While the huge amount of undercarriage kibble is a turn off, it is still an impressive jet mode purely for its sheer size.

TRANSFORMATION:

Jetfire's transformation is simple in concept but annoying in real life.  Most of the jet pieces stay in huge chunks on the robot's back but the front and cockpit split to form the arms.  You then manipulate the undercarriage kibble a bit to unfold the legs.  The negative of the transformation is the number of panels that seem flimsily attached and that you need to move around to hang off the robot.

ROBOT MODE:

Jetfire's robot mode is always an odd one since it plays up on the "old" factor.  He carries a walking cane, stands with a hunch has a "beard".

The amount of kibble on this guy is no joke.  Most of the jet is on his back although the thrusters look nice on the sides.

The headsculpt is a bit inaccurate since it was still based on concept art.  Due to the gimmick, he doesn't really have much of a neck articulation, only able to loosely turn from side to side.

Speaking of the gimmick, he has a lever on his torso to activate his "mech alive" feature, a series of moving gears as well as sounds and lights.

In terms of size, he is much bulkier than contemporary Leaders but lost a lot of height compared to jet mode.

He's a bit shorter than the Leaders from days past and above is a comparison against Buster Optimus Prime from the ROTF line.

The articulation on this guy is not the best.  The arms are fine with multiple joints but the legs are really limited as they're in the backwards-facing shape that the movie designs are so fond of.

That isn't to mention that Jetfire is so top heavy that you can't really have his legs in much of a dynamic pose lest fall over.

His main weapon is a gatling gun which doubles as a spring-loaded missile launcher.

He can hold the gun in his hands and the gun looks a bit wimpy due to its small size.  One of the annoying things about this figure is how loosely he holds the cane, posing him will cause it fall out.

This is an okay robot mode, there are too many flaws for it to be fun.

COMBINED MODE:

The last feature of Jetfire is that he is able to combine with ROTF Leader Optimus to form the jet powered Optimus from the climax of the film.  Basically, Jetfire unfolds and expands from robot mode and then attaches onto the back of Optimus as a gigantic backpack.

One of the good things is some of Jetfire back kibble detaches to form a gun for this mode.

Combining Optimus and Jetfire isn't too difficult but the end result isn't worth it and feels very much like an afterthought.  As Optimus' legs is attached to Jetfire's, the combined mode has effectively no articulation.

Then to make matters worse, you can't pull his arms forward too much otherwise his shoulders interferes with the backpack kibble.  Nevertheless, this is still a cool bonus and the sheer size of two Leaders combined is always impressive.

OVERALL:

Jetfire isn't a stellar toy but this was the most accurate representation of the character at its release.  The figure sacrifices too much for the combined mode and you can feel that the designer did a rushed job.

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Book Review: Is this a Zombie? Vol. 1

Review:  #868
Title:  Is this a Zombie? Vol. 1
Series:  Is this a Zombie? – 1st volume
Author:  Shinichi Kimura
Comments:  It starts off well enough, the main character is a zombie, kind of weird but acceptable.  Then the heroine turns up being a Magikewl Girl, which is still satisfactory.  Unfortunately, one the other characters turn up, including a vampire ninja and a magic user, you start to feel that there are too many things trying to be squished into one coherent plot but it doesn’t work.  They feel too discrete and it doesn’t help that there’s no clear objective of what the manga is about.  It tries very hard to put in some fan service and humor but feels predictable and clichéd.
Rating:  5.5/10

Miss Hokusai (2015)

Miss Hokusai is based upon the historical manga series and is set in Edo, 1814.  It follows O-Ei, who is the daughter of a renowned artist Tetsuzo (later known as Hokusai).  Set during the period when O-Ei reaches adulthood, we see her interactions with her father, her sister and the various other painters that comes to the studio.  O-Ei lives with her father and she has skill in painting as well.  The film feels very episodic with lack of a strong coherent objective so it can feel directionless at times.  The focus on O-Ei's sister, O-Nao, who is blind, is one of the best aspects of the film.  As the sisters look after each other and eventually convinces their father to visit O-Nao while she was sick, you can appreciate the bond between the characters and how frail that this is.  There are some mythological elements which contrasts against the rest of the film and the pacing is definitely slow.

Re:Creators (2017)

Re:Creators is a 22 episode original anime not based on any existing property.  However, it was adapted into a manga at the same time.  The anime starts off simple enough, following high school study Mizushino Sota in normal day to day life.  He is an aspiring light novelist and heavily follows gaming, anime, manga and light novels as sources of his inspiration.  While watching the latest episode of an anime, he is suddenly transported into its world.  Once he is transported back to his own world, he realizes that the anime's heroine has come with him.

The heroine that came from the anime is Selesia, a powerful swordswoman with her own mecha and other special abilities.  The story quickly sets up its premise; it is revealed from the mysterious Military Uniform Princess that various characters from media properties are being transported into this world.  She asks them to join her, to find their creators, and get them to help rewrite a better world.  We're soon introduced to multiple characters that came from games, anime and manga.  The unique thing is that they all retain their abilities, even if it breaks the laws of physics in this world (aka multiple characters can still fly, shoot magical projectiles and transform).  It becomes harder and harder to conceal their battles and destruction from everyone else.

Through it all, Sato somehow gets involved, and remains involved, in all of this.  joined by Meteora, a knowledgeable and naturally curious girl who was a NPC from a game, they seek to find out the aim of the Military Uniform Princess, and the reason for bringing so many "fictional" characters into this world.  Re:Creators does give you some food for thought, especially through the eyes of a fictional character realizing that everything about them, their world and all events were just made up by someone for entertainment.  As they come to grips that their creators is not some god but rather just another normal person, it can become philosophical.

Unfortunately, for all its potential with its concepts, Re:Creators ends up feeling bland and generic.  Before you're even halfway into the series, you already feel that the pacing is seriously off with too many boring scenes that don't add much to the plot as a whole.  The only saving grace are the animation quality and the awesome theme song that plays.  The slow pacing of events leads to a recap episode of all things.  It tries too hard to be different, having the main character give snarky commentary throughout and mixes in some new animation.  It even ends with some sort of meta reference to the anime industry as a whole but comes off as just another waste of time.

Character motivations are one-dimensional.  You have one group that wants to destroy the world to save theirs, and the other group wanting to protect the world from them.  Despite each character having a rich backstory that you'd expect would have been to exploit, the script doesn't realize this.  Battle scenes start off strong enough but soon after, it falls into predictable territory.  The animators don't even try and just have characters swing against each other in the same fashion again and again.

Some of the characters are pretty dense.  When you listen to and believe in someone who is known to be deceptive, then you would at least have some doubts.  No, instead, the character believes it at face value and doesn't listen to anyone else.  Sato is hinted to be related to the Military Uniform Princess in some shape or form.  It teases it for around half the season but when it is finally revealed how (and the guilt that he had been feeling inside all this time), it drops the ball and is a fairly uninspiring tale.

As the series builds up to its finale, and the ultimate showdown, it doesn't quite get up there.  Even up to this point, viewers will probably feel a sense of disconnect with the characters, they're just not very interesting.  The Military Uniform Princess is always one step ahead and thanks to the characters constantly spouting exposition, it feels draining.  The battles are flashy and look good but again, it lacks that spark to make them engaging.  Everyone is also so melodramatic which kills any tension.

The story is set up in such a way and the antagonist is so overpowered that you wonder how it is going to possibly end.  The climax is pretty much the second half of the season and it ends in a way that is plausible.  That being said, the last episode felt like filler because after all the goodbyes, there's still something like half the episode left.  Overall, Re:Creators has an interesting premise but ultimately ends up being quite an average anime.  It's not great but it's not bad either.  It never reaches beyond its grasp and thus relies on the more established tropes in the genre.

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Suikoden (PS1)

Suikoden is a JRPG originally released in 1995 for the PlayStation and was later ported to Sega Saturn and PCs.  Since it was an early PS1 title and a JRPG to boot, it retains the 2D sprite graphics from the SNES era.  This does allow the presentation to age quite well.  One glaring flaw is that the game needs a good tutorial because it does not explain anything.  It's really frustrating since the game has such an outdated design too and you have no idea how to even use magic.  The descriptions for things are hidden within the inventory menu so you need to already know the item's or spell's effect during battle because it won't tell you then.  Suikoden has a simple turn based combat system.  You can have up to six characters in your party, and they can all participate in battles.  You can arrange the characters into two rows, therefore formation is important as some characters can attack from the back row while others cannot.  You can also use an item, defend or cast magic.  Two characters may also have the option to join together and complete a unite attack.  For weak enemies, there is an option for auto-battle.

Magic is based upon whatever Rune you have attached to your character.  While there is no MP bar, spells have a limited number of uses before you have to rest at an inn to reset it.  One of the biggest draws to the game is that the player can recruit up to 108 characters to their cause.  While not all are usable in the party, the majority of them can.  It's not obvious though and some are hidden quite well.  Each character has different stats that suit them to a particular role, however, the game is designed such that you can theoretically pick any party and still be able to beat the bosses.  Even though there are so many characters, a lot of them do not have much characterization and feels like they are there just to make up the 108.  If a character dies in battle, they're usually dead for the whole duration as there is no mention of resurrection during early game.  Having your party wiped out means restarting from the last save.

Due to the game having so many playable characters, your party changes all the time.  This is forced upon you due to story reasons and it gets annoying as inventory is tied to characters.  Furthermore, you need to upgrade their equipment again and this makes it really expensive.  You can only buy defensive equipment as each character keeps their original weapons, but they require sharpening at a blacksmith to increase in attack power.  The worst part is when you have geared up all your party members ready to go and the game forces upon you an additional character so you need to kick one out.  The last thing is that newly recruited characters are much lower than your party's levels at the time.  Experience scales, so while you'll have characters whose levels are 10+ lower than what you have currently feels like a massive disincentive to use them, they jump in levels to catch up really quickly.

The game has not aged well in terms of menu design.  The clunky inventory management system is the biggest negative.  You need to move a piece of equipment to a character's inventory before you can use it.  Finding items in treasure chests will automatically put it to the next character with free slots.  If one character doesn't have any medicine in their inventory, they cannot use it while another character might have six of them at the same time.  You'll eventually get used to it.  It's also very easy to get lost and not know where to go next.  As expected, the game features random encounters which are quite low in the beginning... but then you get to the point where it is a battle every two to three steps and it starts to get really annoying.  The early bosses are easy until you get a tiny bit further into the game and bam, it throws you with a hard hitting boss that can attack the whole party at once.  It does not help that when just before facing the boss, you got two new characters with horrendous armor, forcing you to grind enough money just to buy the decent equipment.  You end up having to rely on the money exploit to get the best gear at any point and it's a shame that they made everything so expensive.

As you can only save at save points and inns, it hurts when the developers did not put a save point right before a tough boss.  If you accidentally stumble upon them (and there is no indication at times that you're about to face a boss) without preparation after trekking through a tough dungeon and lose, it's frustrating to lose all that progress.  The story hast he player take control of the son of General McDohl.  Able to name the player character, he finds himself joining the Imperial Army along with his friends.  Of course, this soon takes a turn for the worst and he ends up travelling the world in order to eventually save it.  The story can be quite political at it calls into question the corruptness of the Empire.  While the story is very slow in the beginning, and doesn't really pick up for most of the game, during the last part, you might realize that you are enjoying it.  As you get closer to recruiting all the characters and seeing your army grown, it gives a sense of satisfaction.  True, the story never goes above the simple plot of the hero defeating the corrupted emperor in order to save the world but it carries its charms.  The game is short for a JRPG though, taking only 15-25 hours, depending on whether you are following a walkthrough or grind for money.

There are a few sections where the normal battle system doesn't come into play; rather, it changes into a rock, paper, scissors type of minigame.  It's really annoying given that it is down to luck for the earlier battles.  You eventually gain abilities that make it a lot easier.  It doesn't help that some of them you are meant to lose, while others will dictate whether or not a character dies permanently.  Overall, Suikoden is still a solid JRPG in this day and age.  The menus and inventory system has definitely not aged well but everything else, from the story to the sheer amount of playable characters (which is still unique to this series because it's not a monster collection, each character has their own backstory, however brief).  The sprites and 2D graphics shouldn't be a barrier and the random encounters aren't too bad, so Suikoden is well worth a play if you are interested to see what all the hype was about.

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Book Review: Attack on Titan Vol. 8

Review:  #867
Title:  Attack on Titan Vol. 8
Series:  Attack on Titan – 8th volume
Author:  Hajime Isayama
Comments:  The arc involving the Female Titan ends in this volume.  Yes, this means that we finally know the identity of the Female Titan and while some may have figured out, it is still somewhat of a shock.  As Eren confronts it, unfortunately, he remains split and is frustratingly hesitant and useless.  This is in contrast to Mikasa and Armin who has the strength of will to act and do what needs to be done.  The fight scenes were subdued and it feels like a missed opportunity to have Eren and the Female Titan duke it out with no holds barred.  Even with the conclusion of the arc, it was all for naught.  Due to the circumstances, nothing is answered, in actuality, even more questions are raised.  At this point in time, it is getting frustrating with the piling mysteries and nothing in the horizon that even remotely suggests any sort of revelation.  The ending is a cliffhanger that is supposed to inspired mystique but since we already have a ton of those, it doesn’t have that great an impact.
Rating:  6.5/10

Toy Review: Transformers Generations War for Cybertron Siege Skytread (Deluxe)

Review:  #516
Name:  Skytread
Brand:  Transformers
Allegiance:  Autobot
Line:  Generations - War for Cybertron:  Siege
Year of Release:  2019
Size Class:  Deluxe (Wave 1)
Mold Status:  new

JET MODE:

Like the original toy which this is based upon, Skytreaad is split into two alternate modes, a tank and a jet.

The jet looks good... to a certain degree.  Unfortunately, he has a massive block of undercarriage kibble which are the robot arms.

The kibble feels really lazy and that if the designer put more effort into it, they could have streamlined it better.

While Skytread is sold at the Deluxe price point, as he is split into two alternate modes, they each are approximately the size of a Legends instead.  Above is a comparison against Legends Beachcomber and Deluxe Lockdown.

The two robot guns can peg onto the underside of each wing.

Otherwise, one gun can also peg onto the top.

It's an okay jet overall, the kibble really lets it down though.

TANK MODE:

The other alternate mode is a tank, and you need to have at least one of the robot guns to peg as the turret.

The back is slightly hollow and you can see the leg joints.  The figure still feels solid though.

The second gun can still peg onto this mode, acting as a secondary turret next to the main.

Like the jet, the tank is approximately the size of a Legends.

A solid tank mode but a bit generic.

TRANSFORMATION:

The two separate alternate modes combine into one to form the robot . The jet forms the top and the tank forms the bottom.  The transformation scheme is really simple and Skytread holds no surprises.  The jet has the undercarriage unfold to become the arms and then the rest of the pieces open up to form the torso.  The tank then unfolds somewhat more complex than you'd expect to form the legs.

ROBOT MODE:

Skytread's robot mode looks really good and is a nice union of two distinct modes.

That being said, he contains quite a bit of kibble.  Most of the jet sits on his back and isn't integrated that well.  He falls into the trap of the jet mode being just the robot mode with a jet on top.

The head sculpt is nice and looks great.

Once in robot mode, he is approximately Deluxe height again.  Above is a comparison against Legends Beachcomber again as well as Deluxe Hardhead.

Skytread has strong articulation and he has molded blasters on the outside of his fists.

One of the most useful joints has to be the ankle tilts, it makes him really flexible.  Due to transformation, he lacks a waist joint.

He has two weapons, both being blasters but different lengths.

Each gun can fit into either hand via a simple 5mm peg.

As part of the Siege line, he has plenty of spare 5mm peg holes to pair him with a Weaponizer if you so wish.

An strong robot mode that is more than the sum of its parts.

OVERALL:

Skytread is a nice figure if a bit generic at times.  He doesn't do anything special and the main gimmick of his being formed from two alternate modes isn't terribly amazing either.  That being said, the robot mode looks good and is a solid toy overall.

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