Transformers Reviews

Prowl

May 28, 2008 7:32 am Ryan Animated, Deluxe, Toy Reviews

OK, I can’t sleep, so I’ll hammer out a review. Because I love him, this time it’s Animated Prowl’s turn to take centre stage.

Prowl, like his G1 counterpart, is wearing police colours. Unlike his G1 counterpart, he’s also a motorcycle and a ninja. Sadly, the deluxe Optimus Prime is too large to ride him without looking silly. He’s got a nice looking gold and black deco, with very little robot showing through. At first glance, it’s hard to actually see where they might have stuck the robot in there. He rolls, he’s got a kickstand, he’s a good looking bike. The lightbar is a nice touch as well. But what else can I say about his vehicle mode?

Transformation from Awesome Motorbike to Ninja Robot

Separate the rear section, and slide back the covers over the hands. (Roll up his sleeves, in other words.) Rotate the arms around, because motorbikes with arms are neato. (I like partial transformations.)
Rotate the shin section around the rear wheel, and unfold the foot. Do the same for the front wheel/leg.
Open up the cover over the gas tank and lift the head out.
Rotate the front part (with the windshield and side panels down relative to the part with the gas tank until the peg on the front part locks with the hole at the waist.
Rotate the crotch piece until the feet point the right way. Close the gas tank cover.

He’s not too shabby in robot mode, either. Being a fairly small vehicle, he’s a small robot. Just kidding. He’s the same height as Optimus, but he’s bloody skinny to make up for it. The gold and black deco continues here, with some tan mixed in at the thighs and hands. He’s light on kibble in this mode too - they integrated the wheels into his robot mode well, and I’d almost swear he could read the displays on his dashboard (are they called dashboards on motorcycles?). Remember when I said that if all the Animated toys were as posable as Optimus, it’d be a good sign for the line? Yeah. He’s that posable, if not moreso. He does suffer from a few loose joints, and his light weight makes balance a bit tricky, but he’s every bit as agile as you’d expect of a ninja robot from space. Did I mention he’s a ninja? Good. Like any good ninja, he’s got a few weapons hidden about his person. The lightbar kibble on his arms rotates around to become a weapon of some sort. I picture it as being like a tonfa, but I’m not sure that’s what was intended. Secondly, the wheel covers on the outside of each leg come off and unfold to become the shuriken used on the show. Pretty nifty, I think. Last, he’s got his traffic light flail. Both the shuriken and the flail can be loosely held in either hand.

Articulation Breakdown

Head - Very limited ball joint and a swivel joint. Pretty nice.
Arms - Ball joint shoulders, ball joint elbows.
Waist - Ball joint.
Legs - Ball joint hips, dual swivel knees (the joint at the hubs of the wheels may not be intended to be used as a knee, but the one at the actual knee joint is very limited, so you can use the other joint to get some more flexibility), ball joint toes.

Score

Deco: Rating: . There are a few glitches in the more delicate areas of the paint applications (at least on mine, the eyes are uneven), but it’s very nice overall. I wouldn’t mind some more more colour on the arms, but that would probably hurt show accuracy.
Posability: Rating: . There’s not much Prowl can’t do. He’s very flexible, and would have got a 5 if it weren’t for the loose joints that make it hard to get him to hold the poses he’s capable of.
Transformation: Rating: . It’s a simple, clean transformation. Both modes hide their kibble well, without a lot of tricky steps to get rid of it, because most of it hides in plain sight.
Badassery: Rating: . Ninja ninja ninja ninja ninja. Do I need to continue?
Vehicle Mode: Rating: . No detail missing that I could spot, stands up nicely with the kickstand. A solid representation of the model from the show.
Robot Mode: Rating: . Comparing it to screengrabs from the show, it looks to be a very show accurate design. The unfortunately placed peg between his legs was either going to cost a point for being embarrassing, or earn a point for being hilarious, so I decided to just ignore it for the scoring.