Cliffbee.com Seawing Toy Review

Individual Review




Name: Seawing
Series: Generation 1
Allegiance: Decepticon
Function: Underwater Reconnaissance
Alternate Mode: Manta Ray



MANTA RAY MODE
Height: 5cm Length: 12cm Width: 12cm

   A grey, sea green and black manta ray with legs, Seawing has a sea green stripe down his body, grey wings, and black on the sides of his head and on his tail section. He's also got yellow eyes, sea green legs are black feet.

   Sure, manta rays don't have legs, but they're usually not robotic. They can actually retract back to either side of his tail, that way he could fly through the water like a wing (hence the name, I suppose). The front of his head has a flat section with a hole - for when he forms Piranacon mode. Whilst it's not great, the shaping of his cheeks, the big Decepticon logo on top of his nose and the lower jaw are all positives. In fact, the lower jaw is hinged and has teeth, two features that really impress me for a toy this size.

   Aside from the jaw, his legs move at the hips and his ankles hinge accordingly. His handguns can attach under his wings to give him firepower in this mode. He's got quasi-claws on his wings and a fin on his back, helping him look like a robotic manta ray.

   As you might have already worked out, I'm pretty impressed by Seawing's animal mode. The colours are good, the sculpting is effective, they’ve put effort into making a good ray out of a combiner limb. While he's not without flaws (the big hole on his snout), the lower jaw sells this mode to me.

WEAPON MODE
   Essentially this is Seawing's robot mode, face down, stuck to a stand. He looks like a standalone cannon, so I'm happy.

TRANSFORMATION TO ROBOT MODE

   Fold the wings up, and fold the tail section up onto his back. Slide the sides of his head forward, rotate them 180°, slide them forward again to form his legs. Fold down the arms and fold in the animal feet to become the hands.

ROBOT MODE
Height: 8cm Width: 6cm

   The grey, which was dominant in the animal mode is still dominant here, on his head and torso. the arms and groin are sea green. His legs, hands and a stripe down his chest are black. He has yellow eyes - not the rich yellow of the animal mode, but a lemon yellow. I'm not sure that two shades of yellow paint were necessary, but it's nice to see they went to the trouble of using two shades.

   Seawing has some proportion problems in this mode. His arms a e a little too long, but more noticeable is the giant groin. Basically, the central piece of the manta ray's head is now his groin piece, and it almost reaches ground (or table, carpet), The end result is that he looks like a block, since there's very little clearance it's like the legs are a solid piece.

   The other major flaw of this mode is the huge backpack formed from his tail and wings, which makes him a little tricky to stand, though it's not really too much of a pain.

   There are good points. There are small, yet distinct feet moulded into his legs, which are just the right size that they don't stick out from the top of the manta ray's head. He's got broad shoulders, looks nice & brutish, and he's got pretty good facial detail for such a small head.

   Overall, this mode's a bit disappointing. While it's not a total write-off, Seawing's strength is clearly his animal mode.

VARIATIONS

   None that I'm aware of.

OVERALL

   A good manta mode, it seems fairly obvious to me that they started with the animal mode, and added on a robot mode, since the robot mode is nowhere near as good. He has good colours and a cool animal mode - but really the main reason for getting him is for Piranacon 5.5/10

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