BoYs Will bE bOys

Hello ladies and gentleman! good day to all of you. This is my first blog and I'm not sure what to write about. LOL. Well you could say that in includes a little bit of this, a little bit of that..... we'll see what pops out of my brain shall we.

All and all, it's a beautiful warm and sunny Friday afternoon in Malaysia ( Here it's always warm and sunny I suppose ;-p) and the first thing that pops out of my mind is the fact that I found the 8 year old me again! Why? Because of.......... Transformers!!! Come on, you can't say you have not heard of those awesome transforming robots right? Even if you are not the 80's transformers fan, I'm sure you know about 'Bayformers' right? I would not say he destroy the Transformers completely, but something about the movie transformers that I don't like.... I can't really explain it, but it just doesn't feel right in my logic circuits.

Well it all started when I visited an action figure shop in Penang, when I stumble into a few action figures that caught my attention. It was the Arielbots! Wow, I never knew that they would re-launch the arielbots! Transformers fan will remember clearly about the Generation 1 Arielbots toys, it was the coolest toy when they were launch during the 80's, and my cousin had them. To me during that time, he was the luckiest boy alive!

After I've grown up and started working, I always make a mental note to myself that I would locate all the G1 action figures and collect them all! I do stumble across some G1 action figure when I was working in KL, but now, they seem to be..... well... not as cool as I remembered. Well they look ok in alternate modes but when you transform them to robots, they do look a little... how should I put it? Weird? some of them can't move their feet, some of them have stubby hands, some don't have a proper head.... I could go on and on, but you get the idea. Well I can't blame them, but that's the technology during that time, and it was considered one of the best toys during the 80's, but now, I expected a little more. I could not imagine myself to fork out Rm150-350 for some toy that I feel uncomfortable with... Don't get me wrong, but I do think that they are cool, cause they are vintage and I know a lot of transformers fan out there are saving money to buy all of these action figure, but I just couldn't pull the trigger.

Ok, back to Arielbots, when I lay my eyes on them, I just could not stop myself admiring them. They look much much better than the G1 toys. But then when I take a closer look, I noticed that they are not the original arielbots, they are instead made by 3rd party company ( TFC ) that probably think that Hasbro or Takara should come out with a decent arielbots by now, and got tired of waiting, and they decided to take matter into their own hands. And boy, they did an awesome job! It was called Project Uranos , and it was a dream come true for G1 Transformers fans! One look by a fan and they would immediately know who these robots actually is. Well, due to legal issues I guess they can't call them the Superion Project! which would be super cool! I bought Air raid (F-15 Eagle) and Fireflight (F4 Phantom) first and I was really amazed by them, both in robot mode and jet mode. Their size is just nice and they look really accurate in jet mode. Transformation for them is not difficult and they look awesome in robot mode. There were some changes made to their heads, face and body as they are 3rd party figures, but they look awesome none the less. I proceeded to pre-order Silverbolt (SR-71 Blackbird and X-47 Phantom Ray ), Skydive (F-16 Falcon) and Slingshot (AV 88 Harrier II).

There was a new member among the Arielbots and his name is Phantom Ray for the Uranos project. He is the chest piece for 3rd Superion, and he has brought both good and bad review from fans around the world, but for me, I think it's just an ok idea, nothing to shout about. Brought some new changes for superion, but not in a good way I guess. Its quite annoying when you try to fit the chest piece on, and as a G1 fan I still prefer the original Superion chest piece.

Might as well do a review for them, lol. I'll start with slingshot (AV 88 Harrier II).He comes in a nice box with transformation instruction, poster and collectible card, very cool indeed. He forms the hand for Superion and I really like his alternate jet mode, looks very accurate for the British Harrier, good size. and the cockpit opens up too :) As for robot mode, his articulation is more or less similar to the other Arielbots. His paintings are not similiar to the G1 cartoon but it does not bother me much as it is a 3rd party figure.

Transformation for him is straightforward and easy, nothing fancy. Some people do complain that it looks like a robot with a jet strapped on his back, but even in cartoon it is suppose to be like that. His chest can open up to expose some missile pods. ( I think it's suppose to be. )

All fingers in superion's hand can articulate which makes him very posable. Very well done I must say.

Cool collector's card and stats. Love it.

Next we move on to Fireflight (F4 Phantom). Again kudos to TFC for the excellent jet mode, makes you wanna look at it again and again. But as his wings are at the bottom of the jet along with his fuel/missile pod, he does not roll around smoothly on his landing gear. It too, comes in a nice box with all the goodies mention for Harrier. Transformation is fairly similar to all the other arielbots, and he forms the other hand for Superion.

During transformation, do be careful at his tail end, need to force it in and by pressing the end of the jet together, you will find it easier to plug the jet tail in. It requires some amount of force, but still, you need to be gentle ;)