The Energon Pub

A few months late

"Among mysteries of science lies the key to victory."

My review for the thrilling 30th release of Jetfire aka Skyfire aka henkeiSkyfire aka Legends Jetfire lol!

It’s been a long time a coming but we finally have a cartoon accurate mold of Skyfire…………not!

Sorry to disappoint you ladies and gents but we have another amalgamation of the original Takatoku mold without any trademarking issue with Bandai or Harmony Gold………most probably with the latter.

Content:

#1 Jetfire jet
#1 battle mask
#1 Scramjet booster
#2 arm canons
#2 leg canons
#1 photon missile launcher/gun
#1 missile
#1 instruction manual

Show and tell















Jet mode



Full face shot with mask



Full face shot without mask (note the light piping)
• Handsome face btw









Full body shot with boosters on











Full body shot without booster



Super weapon combination


Review: Both 30th Anniversary and Legends

Jetmode

Jet is a mix of the original Macross Valkyrie Skull Leader ( F-14A Tomcat and what looks like an F-22 Raptor) so no Harmony Gold nuisance suit. But unlike the Valkyrie which makes use both legs as the main booster, the transformation makes use of the arms as the former similar to this:



Yup, another “Robotech” jet aka the Legios or Alpha fighter.

The Twin booster or “fastpack”, another staple of the Macross homage is included, though not armed like the previous henkei/classic release. It can be rotated 360 degrees during the transform sequence. It can be detached without affecting the jet’s appearance.
You can attach the fore arm guns on them but not the photon missile rifle.
The jet also implements a moving swing wing design during his “super sonic” sorties

The battle mask can be attach to the head or removed during jet mode. Kind of miss how Kawamori Shoji of Macross fame also allowed the lowered head to serve as a secondary weapon which is absent here.

He’s got a retractable front landing gear and 2 permanently exposed wheels on his legs (kind of sucks that Tomy/Hasbro couldn’t retract those)
His cockpit and nosecone are quite detailed. The former can carries two pilot chairs while the latter has what appears to be a twin-machine gun for aerial dogfights.



A good nod to his animation model, the faux cockpit is quite obvious like this shot during his “gerwalk” mode

I didn’t attempt to do a gerwalk btw.

Robot mode



Here is where the mold shines and kind of fails. Unlike his blocky animation model, Jetfire is more of a well-built slim structure in analogy to a human over an uber buffed body builder. The body builder physique maybe Hasbro’s attempt back in the 80s to get around any issues with Takara and Bandai.

All the tiny details you would see in “Skyfire” animation model is present save for the faux cockpit and the verrrrrrrrrrry different back pack.




The robot form is very stable despite the booster though it’s placement (the booster) kind of disproportionally aligned when you rotate it 360 over the Macross and henkei design which towers just right.
In both jet and robot, a lot of mech details in the molding.

The bellyaching

This IS not technically the Skyfire we all have been waiting for. The closest would be the clunker 3rd party Daca Cronos.

A close representation to tide us over until hopefully an MP version is released.



The sucky part of the mold are the glaring hollow parts on his arms and thighs. The thighs are forgivable given his transform style but the arms really are distracting.




Another thing, the hollowed parts on the swing wings….uggh!

Chrome on the arms and leg canons………..mine got a wee scratched because of the rubber band packaging
Other than that, he is one of the best releases for 2014. This makes him more of a Macross “lite”. In both cost and features hehehe

Tomy and Hasbro version

Difference between Tomy and Hasbro? Tomy is slightly whiter and the red patches darker. Armor has black highlights And the cost too. In short, Tomy version looks like the art on the box sans the chrome of the Hasbro version. Chest has more detailing and the Autobot sigil has white highlights.

And the Hasbro version has oodles and oodles of chrome

On a scale of 1 to 5, if those hallowed arms weren’t present, a 5 out of 5. With those gaps, 4 out of 5.


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