The Energon Pub

i realized some thing when i got some TFs today, WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED!??!!!?? the TFs went from good quality to ****. almost every TF has problems. you are lucky to get one that does not have any problems. is this changing the way you collect? it sure is to me!

I was lucky enough to get Sunstreaker without the uneven chest issue. He does however have the loose arm panel issue being reported of Sideswipe. You win, you lose.

I guess I've been extremely lucky I've bought a lot new figures over the past year and I've only had a few problems, and they were minor ones that I corrected. I have every TFA figure deluxe size and up and have only encountered one figure that had to be returned, all the rest were perfect. TFU I've had a few more problems with, but nothing major. My Sunstreaker is one with the crooked chest, Tankor's head doesn't come up quite as far as it should, nothing too major though.

To be honest it surprises me how well most figures come out. I mean these things have multiple parts that all have to fit together relativy well for them to transform, and they're being put together and painted on an assembly lines by low paid workers.

The clear plastic in the sliding piece on the hinge of Sunstreaker already has stress marking somehow. Sideswipe has a loose door panelt hat prevents his trademark arm shields. And my Acid Storm's chest assembly has to be forced into place to make it transform properly. His hinge and nosecone assembly's a bit loose too. I think the rising cost of production has made Hasbro cut corners and get a little sloppier. But that could just be me. For some reason it seems like only the Deluxe class figures are getting plague by bad QC.

As for it changing the way I collect, I suppose so. I'm not a 'consistent' collector, I get what I can find, like the look of and can afford at the time but after the paint reports I passed on Prowl, a figure I would have liked to have owned. I guess there's always Bluestreak. I reckon Ironhide's problems put me at about 50/50 right now with that mould.

For me it has changed something: I find myself buying two of a figure now. The most recent example is Animated Skywarp. I got one, he had a very loose left leg and left launcher, and uneven plastic on the feet.

Basically the launcher would not stay in place, and the feet looked ugly. The leg was just a minor annoyance because the other leg was tight.

So I got another one, this one had very loose arms but the feet and left leg were okay. So I just took the relevant pieces off and frankensteined a perfect figure together by combining the two.

The remaining imperfect figure now sits on my desk, and I play with it now and then. But it's unfortunate that I had to do it at all.

I got two of Titanium Skywarp and Henkei Skywarp too. Luckily no part swapping was necessary because two of them were perfect. The extras had flaws so they don't get to be in the display case. I don't even like the Titanium Seeker mold so I'm thinking of getting rid of the extra one somehow... but that's not relevant here.

So... I wonder how kids feel about Transformers with all these joint and bodywork issues?

I'm lucky in that the TFs I've bought have had very few problems. The problems I have had have been with Sunstreaker and Sideswipe and their chests and armplates.

Tekka wrote:So... I wonder how kids feel about Transformers with all these joint and bodywork issues?

Most kids are not as picky as adult collectors.

It's not easy for me to put myself back in that perspective. I don't recall any of my childhood figures having many flaws but it's possible I just passed over them without noticing.

If I were a child of this day I can't help but wonder if it would matter to me if my favourite figure had a bad joint or chipped/uneven plastic.

I know the first thing I did on transforming my Animated Skywarp was frown at how I couldn't get the launcher to pose because it kept flopping down. Not to mention how easily the legs, head, fins and hands keep popping off... everything but the legs would be so easy to lose.

If someone with an Animated Starscream complained to their parents that it kept falling apart, I can't help but think it would only damage the brand's reputation and sales in the future.

If it's not enough to get them thinking about buying something else already, I do wonder what it would take.

I've run into only two real problems in TFs ever. My Universe Blaster's cockpit is crooked....he collects dust now. Also, My Animated Ratchet's left leg pops off easily, but I've avoided it, not a big deal. I have heard of these QC problems. Unfortunate.

My Blackarachnia's grappler did break on the first day too, made me sad, but it could have been my excessive use of it.

I'm one of those lucky people who haven't ever had any major issues with any figures...
The one exception is that my Classics Bumblebee has an arm panel that tends to pop off. But in the grand scheme, how can I complain?

I don't play with my figures, and don't transform them a lot.

So if any figs I get in the future have major issues, it still probably won't really bother me.

I'm just happy that Classics are back, and that we're getting so many great figures!!!!

Has it changed my collecting habits?
Yes and no.

I've only been collecting for about a year now, and I'm far from a completist.
I've got 2 MPs, 2 Movies, 4 Animated Deluxe, 3 U2.0 Deluxe, & 1 U2.0 Voyager.

The MPs were the first TFs I got, and they are frickin' awesome.
The two Bayverse TFs (Brawl & Arcee) are good quality, but their molds were a bit kibble-heavy for my taste.

Then I got my Animateds.
Lockdown was the first, and he had leg issues (which I made worse by trying to fix) and the limp-wrist problem (which was easy enough to fix).
Prowl's legs are loose, but that's forgiveable.
To be quite honest, as much as I like those figures, they were a real turn-off, to the point where I almost stopped collecting.

The other two (Oil Slick & Soundave), being from a later wave, seem far more sturdy.
I had been set on getting them anyway, and I was really relieved that they were of better quality.
So that kind of salvaged my opinion of TFs in general, but not necessarily the Animated Line.

The Universe 2.0 figures (Sunstreaker, Sideswipe, Acid Storm, & Tread Bolt) have really been great.
There's been no real problems with any of them, which makes me want more, which has been rather hard on me in terms of money.

I do have a bit of a theory, though:
The Animated line - which had quite a few issues - was made for American release, right?
The Classics/U2.0 line - which seems to have had less issues of lesser severity - was made with Henkei release in mind, correct?
I'm probably way off base here, but could it be that the Animated line (A) just wasn't as important or (B) was such a change from the norm (e.g., Classics) that it was difficult to adapt the manufacturing process to the Animated style.

I do have a bit of a theory, though:
The Animated line - which had quite a few issues - was made for American release, right?
The Classics/U2.0 line - which seems to have had less issues of lesser severity - was made with Henkei release in mind, correct?
I'm probably way off base here, but could it be that the Animated line (A) just wasn't as important or (B) was such a change from the norm (e.g., Classics) that it was difficult to adapt the manufacturing process to the Animated style.

I never been one to think Takara > Hasbro in terms of QC. I have been collecting for quite a while now and have figures form both companies, and they pretty much seem the same to me. As for TFA being less important, doubtful. TFA has it's own cartoon that it supports, they have quite a bit invested the entire TFA franchise. Classics on the other hand was originally only a filler line to bridge the gap between Cybertron and the movie line. Classics didn't get the Hendkei treatment for quite some time after their initial release. I just can't believe that they were thinking, "hey at some point classics will get released in Japan so were better do a better job on these." I have to assume that the same factories that produce classics also produce Henkei. That's where the molds and assembly lines are already set up. The only real difference in classics and Henkei if the addition of chrome and the paint schemes. That just my two cents.