The Shogo Hasui fanboy in me was shocked in disbelief when it was revealed in the livstream that he's the TT designer behind Blitzwing. I wonder what happened that left us with two seriously half assed alt modes here. Was it scheduling, likw what happened with ER Starscream? or Hasbro's insistnece to include the Energon hands? Or could it be somthing else that we might never know. Hasui has given us three great SS86 Dinobots, and an incredible Legacy Tarantulas of late，so it's not like the quality of his design output has suddenly dropped. Would be nice to read about it in an interview somewhere. Ben mentioned in the stream something along the lines of "you guys know Hasui san very well" so we know Hasbro are aware of the celebrity status Hasui holds in the fandom. I do wonder if the sometimes too honest interviews Hasui did with Japanese publications may not sit too well with Hasbro (the inadverdent effect of fan translations), and in turn influence TakaraTomy's decision on who to put in the interviews in the future.

Anyways, let's talk about transformation first, as some of the decisions made here really hurt the alt modes imo.

Transformation:
G1 Blitzwing was an ingenious design in terms utilizing geometry and difference sufaces of the same parts to turn froma beige tank to a purple jet. Hasui clearly wanted to do something different here, instead of re-using the G1 engineering like he did with Sixshot. The main sticking point was probabaly the robot shoulder articulation, so the back half the tank no longer connects to the arm/shoulder blocks that form the front. The jet wings now form from the leg panels instead which I thought is a really nice touch. But these two decisions create the problem of all that excess tank mass doing thing in jet mode. If the turret wasn't there, these chuncks could possibly swing inwards. As is, they are an asbsolute eye sore in jet mode.

The only real prolem I have with the tank mode is the(fake) jet nose being too long; I know it's in the character model but it was flush with the front of tank. It even has a dedicated fake translucent cockpit only for this mode! Admittedly to have waist articulation, theres' only so much you can fit in the chest cavity, but maybe the tank treads could've slit forward to at least be flush with the jet nose?

There are some really nice Hasui touches still, like the extra panel folding over to bulk up the 'bot mode chest, and how the cannon is stored inside the turret, but I can't help but thinking the overall design should've been better.






Tank Mode:
It's a nice modernized tank, with some heavy armor plates over the treads (which also help the other modes as there's less treads visible compared to the G1 design). The turret turns but the cannon has indented upward rotation mainly for transformation, it doesn't look natural in any position other than horizontal.

The Energon hands are okay in this mode. I was gonna try these on Menasor but the hands are so damn hard to untab from the forearm part I gave up and gave them to the kid next door. Awkward design and a waste of mold/parts count imo.








Jet Mode：
The front proportions are more cartoony compared to the G1 toy, which is amazingly realistic, but it's cartoon accruate. The sword has no good place to store that doesn't look silly in either tank or jet mode.








Bot Mode:
This is where this figure shines. Great toon accuracy. Silver details esepcially the thighs really pop. Incredible head sculpt.

The beige panels on the inside of his arms seem to have been originally designed to fit a tab on the purple part, but the tab's no longer there. So now the panel doesn't tab in anywhere.

On my copy, the backpack doesn't tab in bot mode, luckily gravity still makes it sit flush on the back.





You can tell he's much denser in hand and has more parts packed in than a Voyeger figure.


Articulation wise, he has a dedicated up and down neck joint, which will help in flying poses. The shoulder articulation is generally unhindered, but the arms don't go back very far.








Overall:
I got him on sale and I don't think he's worth the full retail. I knew this was gonna be a bit of a disappointment going in, but in hand I really think the alt modes could've easily been handled better. As mentioned, I would love to see an interview with Hasui about this one, or the development insights from the Hasbro side.