I tried it with a small blade and one breast panel opened, but the other one barely budged a teeny bit... so I thought "bugger it"... just not worth the effort/grief for such a minor part of the transformation - you can still form the basic robot mode without it. And I don't want to be doing this every time I transform this toy to robot mode, especially in the middle of a toy play campaign... it'd interrupt the play something chronic.
Didn't look too different to me. In fact, one Japanese TF fan who was with me at the last Osaka meet thought that he was looking at an imported Hasbro version, until I pointed out the Japanese text on the packaging. He was surprised that the toy looked so "Hasbro." But admittedly neither of us had a Hasbro Bumblebee on hand for a direct comparison.
Well yeah, he does have those massive Sailor Moon eyes.