
Series: Generation 1 Kabaya Gum Transformers
Year: 2003
Allegiance: Autobots
Class: Model Kit
Prelude: For the longest time, I have avoided model kits like the plague. Not sure why, just never appealed to me. But way back in 2003, my then-girlfriend / now-wife bought a couple of knock-off Transformers mini model kits for me and I figured twenty years later I should maybe start to assemble them. So here were have Blaster, or rather a model kit of Blaster, or rather a model kit of a knock off of Blaster. It’s complicated. So let’s just say go!
Robot Mode: This figure here is a model kit, meaning it comes in parts and needs to be assembled by the buyer, in this case that’s me. Apart from the instruction sheets being very, very tiny, the assembly isn’t hard and the final robot is nothing more and nothing less than a scaled-down version of G1 Blaster. Comparing the larger figure to this one here, the only differences are size and color, really. Well, mostly.
This smaller Blaster is as articulated as his predecessor, meaning not bad for a G1 figure, but not particularly good, either. The one thing he lacks is the button that opens his tape deck. The tape deck can still open, mind you, but you need to open it manually. The buttons don’t do anything. Funny side note: according to TFWiki, the official Kabaya Blaster is unable to open his tape deck, but this one here can. There are cassettes among the Kabaya figures, too, so one of the might fit inside here, not sure.
The thing that clearly identifies this figure as a knock off is, of course, the coloring. The official Kabaya Blaster comes in Blaster’s red, yellow, and grey colors. This one here, on the other hand, is mostly grey and blue with some red highlights. Which are, interestingly enough, the colors of Shattered Glass Blaster, which didn’t come out until many years later. So you can use this little guy here as your own version of SG Blaster if you want.
Bottom line: a nice little miniature of G1 Blaster. Nothing more, nothing less.
Alternate Mode: Being practically identical to G1 Blaster means, of course, that this figure here can also transform into Blaster’s boom box mode. The transformation is one hundred percent the same as the G1 toy, naturally, and you have a nice little boom box that you can use with other TF figures. Tape deck still opens, of course. Nothing more I can write here, sorry. It’s a grey and blue boom box.
Remarks: In Japan, confectionary company Kabaya produced a line called Transformers Gum, consisting of small, snap-together model kits packaged with, you guessed it, gum (or other candy), starting in 1985 and being cancelled and revived every few years, it seems (the last time in 2016). And at some point knock off versions of these model kits appeared, differing in terms of plastic color, but otherwise identical. And when I started collecting Transformers in late 2003, my then-girlfriend / now-wife started buying things on eBay for me and these knock-off model kits were among them.
Now the fact that this KO Blaster model kit here almost looks like Shattered Glass Blaster, who first appeared in 2009, is almost certainly a coincidence. Still, it’s kind of fun to pretend that he is SG Blaster and him being more in scale with other early G1 figures than the actual Blaster toy is kind of neat. So bottom line: while I certainly would not have gone out to find and buy these things myself, it’s kind of fun to snap them together and figure out how to fit them into the Transformers franchise. Also, given how easy they are to assemble, they make a good starting point for people who have never done a model kit before, but might want to start.
Rating: B-
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