Autobot
Jazz (Animated)
Jazz' vehicle mode is
a very stylish futuristic sportscar. It's very "kiddy"-looking, however,
even for an Animated toy, so this may not appeal to some people. The proportions
are a bit exaggerated, as is typical for the Animated aesthetic, with the
back end of the car being the most obvious. It all works together fairly
well, though, and I love the "eye"-like headlights-- the rims at the top
even look like "eyebrows". Jazz his the same blue/red stripe going down
the front of his vehicle mode as his G1 version,
though I wish it would have continued onto the roof, to get some more color
variation up there, considering that this toy is pretty bereft of mold
detailing in most areas. He does have some nifty exhaust pipes on the sides
of his vehicle mode, though, and the black-painted windows are done in
such a glossy color that they almost look slightly transparent even though
they actually aren't. He also has no robot mode extras, so that's a big
plus. One caution about the figure, however-- there's these little pieces
that are capped onto the end of the rear view mirrors, and they can come
off a little easier than I'd like. Add that to the fact that they're teeny,
teeny tiny, and it can be very easy to lose them, so be careful.
Jazz doesn't have a
particularly inventive robot mode design-- flip out the legs from the back
end, flip up the head and flip out the arms and you're pretty much done--
but that doesn't mean it looks bad. Jazz has quite the personality molded
into him-- I love the "hat" and "headphones" used for his head design in
particular, though his actual face is oddly emotionless and a bit long-faced
for a character like Jazz. His proportions are pretty spot on, though his
chest can stick out a little. His vehicle mode extras are pretty much nill,
with all the vehicle parts fitting in with the overall robot form pretty
well. I do wish that the front wheels rotated all the way into his main
body at the shoulders instead of just partway, and that the panel behind
his head could fold out of the way, however. I do like that the car parts
on the backs of his lower arms rotate around during transformation-- it's
not a huge detail, but it allows his hands to stick out from those little
pieces of kibble. Plus, his tail pipes eject to become hand-held nunchuks
in this mode, which beyond being awesome is simply an ingenious idea. Jazz's
color scheme of mostly white-and-black is a bit monochrome, but to the
designers' credit he's got enough patches of those and a few accent colors
to keep it him from looking boring, surprisingly enough. Also, Jazz has
excellent articulation-- he can move at the neck, shoulders (at two points),
elbows, wrists, waist, hips, knees, and ankles, so you can get him into
quite the number of poses. One minor problem I have with this mode is that
his arms are a bit on the puny side for the toy, and are a set a tad farther
back than they should be. This certainly isn't a deal-breaker, though.
Animated Jazz may not
be the most originally-designed Transformer in the line, but he's fairly
solid in both modes, with minimal extras, pretty nice proportions, and
some really awesome weapons. Some of the more inventive toys I'd recommend
first, but I'd certainly give Animated Jazz a "second-tier" recommendation.
Review by Beastbot