iGear MGT-01 Custom Arcee (Delicate Warrior) Review

Sunday, September 4, 2011


The fembot Transformers fans have been waiting years for

Introduced in Transformers: The Movie (1986), Arcee is one of the Autobots stationed on Earth that helped transform Autobot City to defend against the Decepticon. Being the soft sensitive of the main characters, Arcee becomes the motherly figure to human Daniel Witwicky in series 3 of the Transformers G1 cartoon.


If you didn't notice, Arcee is inspired by Princess Leia from Star Wars

Even before the 1986 movie, Hasbro/Takara had tried for years to develop a G1 Arcee but none had made it to production. Their latest attempt in the Titanium line may have spun the wheel for third parties to develop their own version of Arcee.

Hasbro/Takara's latest attempt in the Titanium line:

Thunder thighs. It's neat that her gun comes from the back of her alt mode.

With the cancellation of the Titanium line and Arcee not likely seeing production, a few third party manufacturers stepped in to deliver an Arcee to the Transformers fandom. iGear's version is highly influenced by Hasbro/Takara's prototype:

Box Front:

The flap, window, and grid design invoke a G1 look to the packaging

Box Back:

Most of the fembots from the Transformers G1 cartoon - from left to right: Firestar, Chromia, Elita One, Greenlight, and Arcee. Just missing Moonracer.

Inside Box:

included in the plastic packaging are Arcee, 2 guns, blue beads for the stand, the blue round stand base, the stats card, and the instruction manual.

Closer look at Arcee:


Guns:

Both are identical. Based on the gun she used in the 1986 movie to shoot a hole inside Unicron to send water flooding into the tunnel

Front:


Rear:

Her pelvic area is exposed

Right:

Her big thighs serve as the rear wheel wells.

Top:

Two holes near rear of Arcee allow her to mount guns in alt mode. The seats are nice painted shiny brown and they even included a small steering wheel on the left side made out of the same plastic as Arcee's hands.

Bottom:

A jumble of Arcee at the bottom.

Arcee compared to Hasbro Classics Rodimus:

Fits right in style with the classics line

Mid-transformation:

The chest piece and head are held by a single hinge arm. Bend this carefully so you don't the break the hinge around the pin areas. Nothing really pegs into place but held together and in place by the tight joints.

Front:

Since the chest piece doesn't peg into anything, it can be slightly off center. Unlike the cartoon, her face isn't painted slightly pink. The lips are nicely painted without any smudge or bleeding. Most of the pink on Arcee is painted except the front of her car, shoulders, and toes. They definitely chose a really good pink paint that closely matches the pink plastic. Her design highly resembles the MC Axis released Super Hybrid Model Arcee in 1987 - even down to the pink toes!

Left:

Light piping comes from the side of her head. It's a nice design idea rather than make the back of the head blue but light doesn't get in as easily compared to the back of the head.

Right:

Notice the hands are a different plastic and more clear than the white plastic used on the rest of Arcee. Her elbows are double hinged, ball jointed shoulders, double hinged knees, hinged and ball jointed legs, ball jointed head, and ball jointed hands. Although her feet look small with her heel, her hinged foot and hinged toe make standing her fairly easy and being well balanced between front and back of the figure helps.

Back:

The backpack is reasonable since she had one in her cartoon form.

Transformers Animated Arcee compared to Delicate Warrior:

iGear's Arcee compares well to Hasbro's best version of Arcee. iGear's version has much less kibble on her leg and hides the swivel and ball joint in the arms.

Delicate Warriors compared to Hasbro Classics/RtS Rodimus:

Arcee is a tad taller than most other classics deluxe toys but not too out of scale.

Transformers Classics collectors finally have an Arcee worthy to add to their collection. She follows the cartoon design very closely, easy to pose, high quality build, and definitely fits into your Transformers movie (1986) Classics collection. The only thing stopping most collectors is the high cost of the figure. At almost 9 times the price of a standard deluxe, Arcee is one of the most expensive deluxe figures being offered by Hasbro/Takara or any third party manufacturer. The closest comparison is Fansproject's triple changer Springer but his MSRP was around $88 and he was a triple changer! If you can afford it, Arcee is definitely a nice figure that you won't regret picking up. Your Transformers movie (1986) Classics collection won't be complete without her.



Eric Toy Score: 4.0 out of 5

Publisher: iGear
Year: 2010
MSRP: $109.20


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