A little bit of love for Henkei Hot Rod.

[Tetsuwan Convoy]

I was excited to get this guy and have been looking forward to his update for a while. Armada Hot Shot is not a very good toy asit is filled with crappy gimmicks that take all the cool out of him and yet I found myself wanting one after playing the PS2 Armada TF game, as it made the figure look quite good. Obviously it was altered quite a bit. So ever since then I have been wanting a better Hot Shot. Incidentally for those who want to have a better look at the series toys, Takaratomy still host the website here.

Hot shot was called Hot Rod in Japan, and since Henkei is the same, I will now refer to him consistently as Hot Rod (HR).

HR is an odd toy. He comes with his Minicon partner Jolt, and a couple of guns. Affectionately known as "Giant Bazooka." The MD only had one, but now he has 2. Lucky guy. Not documented in the instructions is the optin to mount eh bazookas onto his fore-arms, much like the look of Animated Hotshot from Transwarped. I think it looks pretty cool!

Naturally he has better movement, no crappy springy gimmicks but still suffers from massive shoulders. I presumed they would stay there, as that is the looks of the guy and they have been improved greatly, but still manage to get in the way quite a bit. Leg articulation is way up and his arms are about the same, let down only but the shoulder pads... He is much better balanced than before as well.

HR comes wit Jolt, a little red helicopter who in the original toy would activaet gimmicks. Now he just helps out I guess.. Jolt is smaller than he was before and transforms differently too. He is light and can't stand up very well at all as he has no heels at all. Strange, but I don't think HR would have been complete without him. He has elbows and a pretty well defined face. No knees...He can connect to HR in 2 ways for powerlinking.

Powerlinking is when the minicons would join to the bigger bots to add some power. Jolt can still do this, but it doesn't actvate anything and just looks like there is a helicopter joined to HR's shoulders. Still, better than losing articulation for some rubbish gimmick IMO. In vehicloe mode, he slips under the spoiler for a bit of rear-helicopter action(tm) Again, no gimmicks. Slightly different config from the first as the first toy had the option of moving the blades of the chooper to the rear of the car. This config is missing fromthe Henkei version.

Light piping has been included for this guy. It works ok, but the shoudlers get in the way of the light, so its rarely as good as it could have been. His Visor can slip down over his eyes to simulate the yellow version of Armada Hot Shot when he had hi Giant Bazooka up and ready. This option was removed for the "Powerliked" version that I have which is why it isn't in nay pics. With enough light and the right angle, you can still get his eyes to shine through.

His vehicle mode is an excellent copy of the first, just a little smaller. Still sports the Insignia on his spoiler which is the only one he has.

The Bazookas can be mounted underneath the car as exhaust pipes and look nice. No Jam, but we have Hot Rod instead. Oh I managed to negelct taking a pic of the flames for his gun when in vehicle mode. It actualy looks quite good, a nice tight Nitro-type flame coming out. Might get on to that later actually. The hole in the rear window is where Jolt' nose goes in for vehcile mode...

The Verdict
Overall a pretty good update for an originally pretty crap toy. Updates is (in my mind anyway) what the Henkei/Classics/new Universe should be all about. Some good movement and balance as well as a limited but still nifty sidekick. The yellow blends well (best I have seen so far for the henkei) and he has some good personality to him. I give him 7/10

Lots more pics here that I didn't use, including comparisons with AR Powerlinked Hot Shot

Extra info. The comic that comes with him has him state that he is the Future leader... I wonder what Rodimus thinks about that?

[Stompy]

The original wasn't severly crappy. Just a little crappy . This update is amazing and corrects pretty much all of the originals failings.

I personally like the space marine look of having huge shoulder pads and helmet. The twin cannons look the works and while I'm not a fan of too much chrome, it makes sense as they become twin exhausts in alt mode. I think Universe version doesn't have the cannons at all. So Henkei is the way to go.

Excellent pics and a great review TC.

[kup]

The Verdict
Overall a pretty good update for an originally pretty crap toy. Updates is (in my mind anyway) what the Henkei/Classics/new Universe should be all about. Some good movement and balance as well as a limited but still nifty sidekick. The yellow blends well (best I have seen so far for the henkei) and he has some good personality to him. I give him 7/10

Nice review - It is certainly a nice update and improvement over the original crapstacular toy.

The irony is that this new toy is using pretty much toy engineering pioneered during 1995-2000 to update a 2002 released toy!

[kurdt_the_goat]

Very nice! Now if you could please deliver mine personally to my door, that'd be great

[GoktimusPrime]

The original was quite crap-py. Remembering that it followed on from Car Robot/RiD - going from the toy line that would inspire Binaltech/Alternators, to Armada where articulation and form gave way to gimmicks... it did leave a bad taste to the palette of many fans.

This is how Armada should have been done back in 2003. (-_-)

[SilverDragon]

This is how Armada should have been done back in 2003. (-_-)

Yes. Never mind that kids are the primary buyers of the toys, everything should cater to OUR demands! No gimmicks! Articulation! Insanely complex transformations!

SARCASM LAWL

Also it's interesting to note that Armada (simplicity, loads of gimmicks) followed RiD (complexity, low on gimmicks). It's possible that the complexity was too much for kids to really handle, and so it was scaled back. I'd love to get my hands on an Armada-era toy one day, so I can see how it was.

[GoktimusPrime]

Complex articulation started with late G2 in 1994-95. It then became standardised during Beast Wars and Car Robot was basically Beast Wars toys done with realistic/licensed vehicular alt modes. And all these lines were aimed at kids, not collectors. It wasn't until 2000 that we had a collectors-targeted line with the Japanese G1 reissues. Then it wouldn't be until 2004 that we got more collector-specific lines (what Takara calls "high end" lines) with Binaltech and Masterpiece. So the suggestion that Car Robot wasn't meant for kids is not true. Just look at the cartoon - that is NOT a story written for adults. It's not necessarily a bad story, but it's definitely written for children. The fact that Brave Maximus is powered by the love of children all over the world (ahem).

And kids aren't stupid. We know when a toy sucks because its integrity has been sacrificed by gimmicks - even back in G1. That's why toys like Battlechargers and Firecons weren't terribly popular. A lot of G1 fans bag out Throttlebots too, but I personally think Throttlebots are cool because it's a reasonably fair balance between gimmick and playability. When Action Masters came out in 1990, I was simultaneously thrilled and bitterly disappointed. Thrilled that we finally had Transformers with articulation, but bitter about the fact that they couldn't transform (and questioned how the hell Hasbro could even dare to call them "Transformers"). Then in 1994-95 I was absolutely ecstatic to see Transformers with full articulation and that could still transform! Combat Hero Megatron gave me all kinds of joy. Then the introduction of 9-point ball-and-socket jointed Transformers (e.g.: Cyberjets) made me fappy. (fap + happy)

It's not as if I've somehow forgotten what Transformers were like when I was a kid or how to appreciate them from a child's POV. I still do play with my TF toys as much as I can - even in public places.

[kup]

Having a toy aimed at children is no excuse for it to be mediocre, specially when it was done better in the past when targeting the same age groups.

[STL]

Having a toy aimed at children is no excuse for it to be mediocre, specially when it was done better in the past when targeting the same age groups.

Yeah there is. It's called what the market will tolerate.

Anyway, onto the Henkei Hot Shot toy itself. Looks stunning. Those chrome guns have me really, really excited about this toy. Our RK order should be here in the next few days... cannot wait!

[Gutsman Heavy]

the launchers are very nice, but for me JAAM is the true winner.