Hunt for the Decepticons Banzaitron

Series: Hunt for the Decepticons
Allegiance: Decepticon
Categories: Voyager
Year: 2010

Decepticon Banzaitron is a master of at least seven different martial arts for one reason, and one reason alone -- his fighting skills easily allow him to defeat and dismantle his opponents. Then he gathers up the pieces and sells them to the highest bidder. No one's parts are worth more than the Autobot leader's. He looks forward to commanding the highest prices imaginable for even the smallest piece of Optimus Prime.

Remarks: Banzaitron here is a straight-up repaint of ROTF Bludgeon, so look for the full review there. Just some words on the differences here. First off, this figure is, of course, a homage to G1 Banzai-Tron (apparently the hyphen wasn’t trademarkable?), originally an Actionmaster toy, and has gotten the appropriate paint job, consisting of grey, bright green and some gold and red highlights. Bludgeon’s skull face has been repainted to look more like someone wearing a red half-mask. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that the toy is now a spitting image for the old Actionmaster, but there is some resemblance. Probably as good a job as was possible without any design changes. Apart from the colors, though, it’s the exact same figure as Bludgeon.

Banzaitron (or Banzai-Tron, for that matter) never appeared in any fiction until IDW picked up the Transformers license and made him head of the Decepticon Secret Police in their G1 comic series. He also featured in the Botcon comic of 2010, complete with an exclusive figure to go with it.

I’m not sure why Banzaitron of all Transformers was selected for the inevitable Bludgeon repaint. Don’t get me wrong, the repaint looks cool and it’s still one of the best Transformers figures to come out in recent years, but Banzaitron isn’t even remotely as popular a character as Bludgeon. So the bottom line is: still a great figure, worth getting if you missed out on Bludgeon, but I’d still recommend getting Bludgeon instead.

Rating: B+