Generations 30th Deluxe Waspinator (Takara TG-30)

It's been awhile since I reviewed Transformers toys, hasn't it? Well I'm going to correct that. And this time it's just a little bit special, as this one is from the Takara Generations line. Beast Wars fans got excited at the announcement of some love for their favorite characters. One of which, Rattrap, is...still in production limbo thanks to the new Age of Extinction toy line garnering all the attention of retailers currently. The other two are Rhinox and Waspinator, everyone's favorite Predacon with unspeakably horrid luck. I teased Waspinator in my Trash Chomper review, so I'm going to focus on him. TG-30 Waspinator, specifically.



Waspinator's alternate mode is of course a wasp. Or a bee. An insect with a black and yellow striped abdomen that stings. This mode features various shades of green with some brown and a kind of milky clear plastic for the wings and stinger. The abdomen is cast in black plastic, but is entirely coated in metallic golden yellow paint with black stripes painted after. The beautifully segmented eyes are covered in metallic blue...and the clear parts seem to have just the slightest tinge of metallic blue to them when viewed at certain angles. In terms of disguise...I'll be honest. His robot arms and lower legs are just stuck to the sides and bottom of the wasp body, not exactly hiding at all. However, it all holds there pretty securely, so there's that.

In terms of articulation for this mode...he's kind of a brick. The wings are on ball joints, but they're molded as if at rest so it's more to help keep them out of the way later, and that's about it. For gimmicks, pulling back on a lever on his thorax makes the wings swing forward. Except again the wings are molded to look as though at rest, and this is not how animal wings work to achieve flight. The Animated toy did it better. For a size comparison, how about against other Waspinator figures I have? The old Transmetal toy and the Animated Waspinator I just mentioned...



Pretty comparable, actually. So let's get to the robot mode!



Robot mode...wow. I know this is based on his appearance from the IDW comics, but it still practically looks like Beast Wars Waspinator having come straight out of the show! THIS is what makes the bug mode's flaws so easily forgivable. Some dark brown paint makes its appearance in this mode on his thighs and around his face. Speaking of, I love the detail in his face. They even molded in his little teeth AND painted them in! Not everything's perfect on him though, as the bug legs on his arms are really long in order to reach the ground in bug mode and end up getting in the way on occasion as they collide with his wings. They can be rotated around on his arm, or be removed, but nothing really looks right. Back to the positives, while the original Waspinator had a spring loaded missile launcher with the missiles stored in his wings, this time the stinger unfolds into the entire weapon so there's no need to worry about losing anything or getting shot in the eye.

Now for articulation and features. He's got about 15 points of articulation, including ball jointed shoulders, elbows, and hips. And wrist and thigh swivels. The knees are a little limited, as they don't bend back 90 degrees, but it's not a huge issue. The gimmick is still just as pointless here as it was in beast mode, however. So let's have a size comparison for robot mode.



He's about the same size as the Transmetal toy, and a tad shorter than Animated Waspinator not counting the wings. So he should fit in just fine in a Beast Wars collection.

I highly recommend Generations Waspinator if you can find him. He's a fun toy whose positives far outweigh the negatives. I believe the Takara version has the better color scheme, but it's also more expensive depending on where you order it. Definitely worthwhile for any Beast Wars or IDW fan.

But then again, I think Waspinator RULEZZ! so I might be just a tad biased...

Waspinator, wants power, Waspinator wants glory, Waspinator, never gets!  

Waspinator not a bad figure but I think the gimmick they put in, was useless, some point, I might take my Hasbro Waspinator apart and see what makes that gimmick work and disable it, he is a better designed toy compared to the resent BW Rhinox figure, Rhinox's main flaw is the fact he got pin joints and only one ball joint (his head)!

Or you could just not pull on the lever on the back...

Detective Barricade wrote:Or you could just not pull on the lever on the back...

Well, I did say, I "might" take him apart!

Another excellent review, DB! Been looking for this guy in stores, I'm not even much of a BW fan but I don't think I could pass him up at retail. Just looks really, really nice and I'm sure even better in person!