Bot Reviews: Transformers: Robot Masters Star Saber

I talk about Robot Masters a lot in these reviews (like here, here and here), considering its status as an obscure little Takara-only mid-2000s crossover line. But I was way into the line for a while, and it did produce a few interesting figures, including one or two that are still a little bit of a grail for collectors in 2021, like this guy.

Star Saber was the Autobot leader in Transformers: Victory, the 1989 iteration of Transformers in Japan. As a character in the Victory anime, he was really just one of those kind of blandly heroic leaders who were a selfless paragon of virtue and determination, without much else going on, though he was raising an adopted human son, which was a bit interesting.

That, and he did have a pretty unusual, cool design, the same way Star Convoy and Super Megatron would a couple years later, in that he looked less like a Transformer, and more like some kind of Gundam, or Super Sentai mech (long before they became Power Ranger Megazords), or just any kind of Super Anime Robot. Despite his obscurity, Star Saber’s a bit popular in the west, likely due to his neat design, combined with the still-lingering afterglow of “cool semi-niche thing from Takara.” However, he’s still niche enough that he hasn’t gotten much love on the merchandise side of things, outside of his G1 figure. It’s a testament to his popularity, though, that he’s the only late-Japan-G1 figure to have gotten the Masterpiece treatment, if you’ve got the money.

However, when it comes to the mainline, he has yet to see any love, not even one of those crazy extensive Takara retools they sometimes do. And so, this mid-2000s Robot Masters figure is the closest thing that, as of right now, he has to a mainline figure, and it commands a handsome sum on the secondary market because of it. So, let’s have a look, and see if he’s worth the fuss.

Star Saber Robot Mode

Okay, to be fair, this is a pretty cool design. Between his flared boots, towered shoulders, winged chestplate, and tall, mouthplated head, this is some real effective super-robot styling. Another great part of this sculpt is that they tilted his design more towards the proportions of his cartoon animation model, something Robot Masters was a bit inconsistent about. I particularly like his surprisingly soft, cartoony faceplate and eyes.

Star Saber’s got a lot of color on him, and they don’t seem to have skimped on the paint apps. Furthering the Gundam-ness of the whole package, he’s mainly white, with bits of red and blue, and accents of gold, yellow, silver and black. Again, it’s all hyper-accurate to his cartoon model’s color layout, with only a couple tiny things missing here and there.

 

I’m also pleased to say that, while Robot Masters was a budget line, he’s pleasantly hefty and chunky for his size, unlike the model kits he resembles, and thanks to being a kid’s toy instead of a model kit, the little antenna on his shoulders and helmet are rubberized, and won’t snap off.

His biggest issue, to me, is simply that he scales with almost nothing. He’s a little bit shorter than your average Siege Deluxe, meaning he can’t even squint-test his way into the mainline.

On one hand, he wasn’t really intended to scale with the mainline, with all new-mold Robot Masters being created at roughly the same uniform sub-Deluxe size across the board. On the other hand, if you’re a collector in 2021, it’s definitely a factor with him.

That being said, he does sort of fit in with Legends, or Core-class scale, if you’re collecting those, since Star Saber was generally presented in fiction as a larger robot. So, if you’ve got a Kingdom Core Optimus Prime, Megatron, and others, he can fit in with them (I’m going to sidestep the fact that I sold most of my legends ages ago).

Most Robot Masters figures were pretty articulated, in that standard mid-2000s way, but Star Saber is oddly limited for the line, likely due to all that the figure has to do at his size. So, here’s what he’s got for jointage: His legs can split outwards at the hips, and move very slightly forward and back, but his hip-skirts block most of their motion. He’s got a waist joint, interestingly, but somewhat limited arms: His shoulders are on a ball joint, but can mostly only move forwards and backwards thanks to his shoulder pylons, and he’s got swiveling elbows. And that’s all he’s packing. With no knees, or head, he feels scarcely more bendable than a G1 figure.

Still, I’ll admit that it doesn’t bug me the way it sounds like it ought to. That being said, I do wish his arms at least had outward motion. Bricks aren’t inherently bad, but he suffers from it, mostly thanks to his accessories.

Of course, as befitting his name, he’s armed with a big sword. It’s a silver blade, cast in a somewhat-bendable rubbery plastic, attached to a red plastic hilt (with some blue accents), on a thin blue handle, and it looks pretty nice.

That being said, I’ve heard that the thin little blue handle is prone to breakage, and sure enough, it’s a surprisingly tight fit to get it into his fist. I’ve had him for several years with no problems, or stress marks, but I’ve always given it a careful twist-and-wiggle when putting it in his hands.

His other accessory is a solid blue laser gun, and while it’s also a tight squeeze, it doesn’t feel as fragile as the sword. Like I said earlier, both of these accessories look nice, but beg for better arm articulation, as it feels like there’s not much he can do with either of them except wave them in a perfect vertical line on his left or right sides. Even a wrist swivel would have greatly enhanced the sword.

Saber Transformation

Star Saber’s basically the same kind of super robot as Powermaster Optimus Prime, in that he has a smaller guy folded up into his chest. To take him out, you fold back his head, and slide the torso out. Two things here: Firstly, I love that they’ve replicated the original toy’s feature of his head being a helmet over Saber’s smaller head, and retracting it was something he did in the cartoon at least once.

Secondly, sliding Saber out of his torso means moving him on rails that glide him upwards, which make taking it in and out satisfyingly tactile.

Once he’s freed, you just fold his chest down to form legs, fold some wings in, and you’re done.

Saber Robot Mode

Saber looks, for all the world, like an oversized Titan Master. I call him oversized, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he scaled well with the larger G1 Headmasters.

His various shades of unpainted plastic give him Kabaya model kit vibes, though he’s built a lot more solidly, with his red torso, grey arms and thighs, and red shins and backpack.

He’s got some silver to pick out his facesculpt, and a red Autobrand on his chest, but otherwise is simple and clean. He’s also got a surprisingly nice headscupt for his size, with its Prime-like helmet, visor, and faintly smiling mouth. I suppose this is what happens when that head doesn’t need to jam itself into a neck-port.

His articulation is interesting, compared to a modern Titan Master. He moves at the shoulders and hips, and actually doesn’t have a mono-leg, meaning you can move both his legs separately. At the same time, his head’s fused in place, and while there’s joints in his knees, they’re only used for his transformation, and so point the opposite way from actual knees.

For his weapon, you take the hilt of Star Saber’s larger sword, fold the handle down, and peg it onto his arm as an oversized combination shield/gun.

At this scale, it’s just impressive he’s got anything going on, and this works pretty well for what it is. And in an undocumented feature, his larger blue gun can also peg into his arm, making him the most heavily-armed Master-sized robot ever.

I’ll also note here that the original figure (and Masterpiece) actually had an additional layer to this Russian nesting doll, in the form of a “Brainmaster” figure that went inside Saber, but it’s naturally impossible at this size, and I don’t miss it (it didn’t really exist outside of transformation stock footage in Victory anyway).

Saber Transformation, Again

Saber’s transformation is Micromaster levels of basic. Do a belly flop, fold two sets of wings out of his back and legs, attach the shield/gun over his head, and you’re done. The one tough part is getting that accessory to peg in over his head just right. Just wiggle it around until you hear a tiny little snap.

Saber Jet Mode

Saber transforms into a little red scifi plane with two sets of wings, and jets in the back. He’s pretty basic, but looks good for the scale.

What’s really impressive in this form is how many dedicated paint apps this mode has to itself. He’s almost entirely cast in red in this form, and he’s got blue painted cockpit windows, white accents on all four wings, the gold lines from Star Saber’s chestplate on his back end, and painted dark grey thrusters. They didn’t have to go this hard, but they did.

Granted, he has no features to speak of, and when viewed from the bottom, he’s still Visibly A Guy with a Big Hat, but hey, he’s tiny, this is as good as it gets.

V-Star Base Mode

The remaining armor that Saber slotted into is called the V-Star, and on the original toy, it could assume a sort of Battle Base mode. It isn’t an advertised feature on this release, but after squinting at pictures of it, I realized this version could still basically assume that mode by doing the splits, posing the arms in a Naruto Run position, and folding the head forwards, so his shoulder and head spikes position themselves like guns.

I can’t help but think this was planned, as that’s the only reason I can see that his robot legs would have the ability to do the splits like this. On the other hand, the fact that it’s not advertised means I can’t really criticize it for being kinda halfhearted (and that IS what the original toy’s looked like, just with legs that compressed better). I do vaguely wish Saber could actually see over it, though.

 

V-Star Transformation

Anyway, the proper transformation of the V-Star involves just flipping the head back, and folding the legs out to attach to the arms, and hide the fists. It’s a bit tricky to get his leg assembly straight, as it wants to rest in a diagonal pattern, and requires a bit of squeezing.

V-Star

This is some Megazord business. See, while it manages to not look like a folded up person (minus the obvious robot head), the V-Star transforms into kind of a flying block of nothing, with some wings on the side. Still, that was what the original looked like, and it still manages to radiate that Super Robot charm because of it.

The same deco is stil present in this mode, but folding out the wings exposes a couple of large Autobrands, atop some white accents.

For features, if you want, you can store the blade of his sword on the left side of this thing, inside a specially-molded clip, but I’ll admit that it doesn’t look very good just hanging there, and only fits very loosely. An actual good feature, though, is that Saber can ride the platform, thanks to a pair of dedicated pegs on its back, though you can’t stash the blade there at the same time.

Also, while it’s not intended, if you really want to stash his blue laser gun somewhere, it can fit into pegs on the inside edge of the V-Star’s back end. It’s kind of asymmetrical-looking, but the whole mode’s already got that kind of jank, so it fits just fine.

Jet Mode Combination

Again, there ain’t nothing to this transformation. You just take jet-mode Saber, fold his back wings away, and his front wings up, and then slot him into the front of the V-Star, along those same convenient railings that his combined robot mode used.

Star Saber Jet Mode

You know, it’s still got “pile of parts” syndrome, but it’s interesting how much better this whole thing gels when it’s got a proper cockpit on the front, which is the only real difference here. While this combined jet mode’s still pretty puny, the combined height and width is almost enough to make him work as a small Deluxe, instead of the odd scale he was previously at.

Since this is just two previous forms mashed together, it’s hard to find much new to say here, so I’ll end with another look at that iffy weapon storage.

 

Overall

Honestly, while I kept bringing up problems throughout this writeup, this guy’s still nifty, and does a lot of impressive stuff for his size. Fundamentally, everything except his sword hilt feels good to mess around with, and he makes for a good fidgety desk toy. I can’t ignore that he’s got a lot of little flaws, though. He’s disappointingly bricky, his accessories all have issues, and he doesn’t really fit with any particular modern line. But he looks nice, he’s fun to transform, and he’s the kind of novelty that stands alone in a collection really well.

But that novelty is definitely not worth the 200-ish dollars he’s going for on eBay, not by a long shot, not with his issues. It seems to be a recommendation I make often, but this is another one to file under “recommended, but only if you get an oddly cheap secondary-market shot at him,” like I did. This mostly just makes me want a modern Generations take on him, really. There’s the skeleton of one here, they really just need to upscale it and add more joints. But as for this one, he also combines! And, barring any unforeseen developments, you’ll hear about that next Monday.

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