The Energon Pub

So I'm sure that most people here have seen the Baltmatrix Brainstorm review (and if not, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXvOIS4symw) where he had an issue with Arcana's head getting trapped inside Brainstorm's collar. In this case the head was trapped due to clip in the collar going over the top of a socket instead of into the socket itself.

I found myself also running into an issue with getting Arcana's head out, and based on some advice I saw online I tried "rolling" the head forward while removing it. I got it quite a way with bent paperclips and pressure, but even once the clip was no longer an issue it was still stuck.



It looks like the nubs on the side of the head caused it to get stuck (though the angle probably didn't help). There are two tracks for the nubs in the base of the collar but the tracks end just below the surface, to hold the head in place. It looks like on mine, maybe the nubs are just sliiiightly too wide. Either way once I'd removed the head once and knew what I was looking for I was able to remove and reattach the whole headmaster a few times until the friction of the nubs and tracks was less than the friction holding the balljoint in.

Just wanted to share my experience in case anyone else was seeing this issue.

I don't even remove my Brainstorm's head. Not because of the issues it has, but that's definitely a good reason not to.


I'm hoping a 3rd party group makes a head that not only looks better, but will fit better as well.

So you need to file both ends then? Poor engineering design in this case. Not piling on Tomy but if they wanted to implement an articulated neck, they should have gone the Warden way. The stress in such a thin joint as Arcana's neck will sooner or later break it.

I've read that some folks have scraped off a little of the sides on the grey paint where the head connects with good results.

fenrir72 wrote:So you need to file both ends then? Poor engineering design in this case. Not piling on Tomy but if the wanted to implement an articulated neck, they should have gone the Warden way. The stress insych a thin joint as Arcana's neck will sooner or later break it.

I think a filing on each ear-nub would make it slightly smoother (the amount of force needed to remove the head feels slightly uncomfortable even after a few times) but I wouldn't say necessary. The big issues seem to be that when the figure was put together in the factory the head was put in pretty firmly, which makes it harder to remove, especially since it's your first time and you can't tell how much force to use (that's what she said). I also would have preferred a simpler connection (like Function X-1's neck) but I can't fault HasTak for trying to fit a ball-jointed neck, a flipdown techspec panel, and a levered latch disguised as a piece of cockpit, all in the same small space. Ridiculously ambitious, and not flawed to an unacceptable degree.

Also even if one head/neck has an unfortunate QC issue you can get three of this guy for the price of one Smart Robin, and it's a better figure.

Diem wrote:

fenrir72 wrote:So you need to file both ends then? Poor engineering design in this case. Not piling on Tomy but if the wanted to implement an articulated neck, they should have gone the Warden way. The stress insych a thin joint as Arcana's neck will sooner or later break it.

I think a filing on each ear-nub would make it slightly smoother (the amount of force needed to remove the head feels slightly uncomfortable even after a few times) but I wouldn't say necessary. The big issues seem to be that when the figure was put together in the factory the head was put in pretty firmly, which makes it harder to remove, especially since it's your first time and you can't tell how much force to use (that's what she said). I also would have preferred a simpler connection (like Function X-1's neck) but I can't fault HasTak for trying to fit a ball-jointed neck, a flipdown techspec panel, and a levered latch disguised as a piece of cockpit, all in the same small space. Ridiculously ambitious, and not flawed to an unacceptable degree.

Also even if one head/neck has an unfortunate QC issue you can get three of this guy for the price of one Smart Robin, and it's a better figure.

Of course the Tomy / Hasbro versions wins with the SRP and official product at that. Maybe the feature was too ambitious for the products price category.