Bot Reviews: Transformers: Robot Masters Sideways

How about we take a break from the new stuff, and look at something weird? Robot Masters Sideways is one of my favorite collection oddballs, and there’s three layers of uniqueness going on with him, so I’ll go chronologically.

Let’s start with Road Pig, the Decepticon he’s repainted from. Road Pig was released right at the end of Generation 2 in the 90s, at a time when Transformers was just starting to experiment with modern articulation, replacing the old barely-poseable bricks of Generation One (and, honestly, most of G2). He was part of the short-lived Laser Cycle subline, consisting of him, the Autobot Road Rocket, and a couple of cancelled repaints (again, this was right before the line itself went under), who’s gimmick was a) they were motorcycles, and b) they had light-up weapons. Road Pig had no major fictional appearances to speak of, and was your textbook D-lister, but he was one of the earliest Transformers I owned. I had no idea who he was, but I liked the look of him, and his nifty little gimmick, before he became broken and lost to time, like kid’s toys do.

Next, there’s Sideways, the trickster introduced in 2002’s Transformers Armada, the first chapter in the “Unicron Trilogy” of toylines, shows and comics. A chaotic faction-swapper who changed into a purple motorcycle, Sideways was secretly a minion of Unicron, who was there to deliberately keep the Great War going as long as possible, to pave the way for his master to arrive. Outside of that, and his later appearances in the Trilogy, he’s best remembered for his stint as a rude, deliberately unhelpful guest-host on the Ask Vector Prime letters column from Fun Publications. The Unicron Trilogy was never an area of great interest to me, and in fact, I dropped out of Transformers as a hobby during its run, but at the same time, I like the idea behind the character.

Finally, Robot Masters. I’ve reviewed items from this series before, but to recap, it’s a funky mid-2000s toyline exclusive to Japan, that served as a time-travelling Crisis Crossover between various parts of the franchise. There were quite a few brand-new figures in the line, but a fair amount of old toolings were dusted off and put into service, and so we saw Road Pig dusted off, and painted up into a new version of Sideways. Got all that? Bottom line, it’s weird, it’s a tooling I remember, it’s a character I didn’t have, it’s a funky deco. Let’s see how he holds up.

Robot Mode

Sideways is between size classes compared to modern figures, standing taller and bulkier than a Core, but much smaller than a Deluxe. Despite his articulation, his sculpt and design very much contains that retro G1 chunk, in that he’s a squat, boxy bot with big vehicle bits hanging off of him, mainly his motorcycle front on his chest, and wheels on his back and knee.

That chunkiness is part of the charm though. Another sign of the time period is how there’s a sort of lack of sculpted detail on his robot bits, it’s all pragmatic squares and joints and construction pieces, something later figures would put effort into hiding. He feels much less deliberately-sculpted than even the following year’s Beast Wars figures, with less of an attempt to humanize him.

The big exception to this is his unusual, weirdly nice headsculpt, a sort of polygonal helmet with a mouthplate, that always reminded me of some kind of early 3D video game character.

One little detail I only recently noticed actually helps sell the character choice: His clear laser weapon hanging off of his right arm is actually pretty similar to the clear missiles that hung off Armada Sideways’s arms.

But in terms of really selling the character’s identity, and the figure in general, the colors are the star here. He’s cast in bright purple, grey, black and yellow plastic, with clear blue bits, and blue, silver and red paint, with more purple and black also provided by paint. Takara clearly had an extensive paint budget with this figure, and used it to sell the idea that this was Sideways as well as they could. It looks great, and it makes the figure really pop.

As mentioned before, this was one of the first figures where modern articulation really started to take hold in Transformers, and that includes an early appearance by ball joints. Let’s go joint by joint. Firstly, he’s got funky double knees that can bend backwards, letting him fake a walking pose pretty well. Beyond that, he’s got ball jointed hips, ball jointed shoulders, ball jointed elbows, and swivelling head.

Really, it’s not too far off from a modern figure in this scale. It’s more impressive than you’d think, and it’s kind of funny how it contrasts with his bricky sculpt. If he has one problem, it’s that his lower legs are positioned a bit too far forward, and don’t have much in the way of heel spurs, so he’s not the most stable figure, though it’s not really a big issue.

Okay, so let’s get to his big important gimmick: His light-up weapon. Great news: It still works!I don’t know if I’m lucky, or what. He’s got a battery compartment on his back, and I’m scared to look inside. He was repainted into the Decepticon Axer for the 2001 Robots in Disguise line, and the copy of that I briefly had didn’t work at all, so I was expecting this to be a dud, too.

To trigger the light, there’s two buttons, one on his chest beneath the motorcycle front, and one on his back. The chest one works if you press down on his motorcycle front, and holding it makes a LED inside his arm illuminate his weapon. It’s simple, but cool. It just looks fun, and is fun to do, nothing complicated to it. I vaguely wish there was an actual switch to keep the light on or off without having to hold the button down, but that’s the collector in me. This was meant for a kid to pick up, and tap the button a couple of times with a  “pew pew.” Oh, and while he has the clear plastic in his head for lightpiping, it’s a bit busted thanks to the red paint on his eyes, so instead, circles around them glow, instead.

Transformation

Like the light-up gimmick, this is nice and simple. You just flop him on his back, flip the arms away, flip up the motorcycle parts on his back and chest until they meet, tuck in his knees and back wheel, and you’re done. I use kid gloves repositioning the wheel on his knees, and his knees themselves, though because the joints feel scary tight, but that’s about it when it comes to issues.

Vehicle Mode

This is a really nice motorcycle. It’s a….*checks wiki* black Harley-Davidson Electra Glide?. I wonder how they got the license, because this cycle’s oddly realistic, which looks nice. The sculpting’s oddly ornate, and it’s obvious this mode was the priority. He’s got realistic engine parts, a windscreen, cockpit details, headlight, and more. His arms and head are only sort of hidden, but anything more ornate would have futzed with his pleasant transformation.

That being said, the realistic sculpt certainly contrasts with the vibrant colors amusingly, since he’s still rocking the same purples and yellows. In this mode, your attention is also drawn more to the Decepticon symbol on his front wheel, the D-750 on his back, and the DF (for Doubleface, his name in Japan) just in front of the driver’s seat. I also appreciate the silver painted hubcaps on his tires.

For features, firstly, Sideways has a very handy little plastic kickstand that deploys underneath him and keeps him standing up flawlessly, when he’s not rolling on his wheels. Speaking of rolling, he’s at kind of an odd scale if you’re looking for figures to ride him, but I’ve had a few successes with smaller ones. The key is that they need knees, and feet that will stay out of the way.

Most importantly, one of those two buttons for triggering his lights is located just in front of his seat, and you can press it to make his tailpipe light up red-hot. It’s still just as nifty as the robot form.

Overall

I’m really fond of this figure, and it’s not just nostalgia. He’s oddly charming in the way his blocky sculpt still comes with modern articulation, he’s easy to transform, has a weirdly detailed alternate mode that can stand really well, and just…has a fun gimmick. Sometimes that’s all you want.

The fact that his identity is one of the more interesting Unicron Trilogy characters is sort of tertiary. But the colors that come with that identity are really nice, making this the best-decoed version of the tooling. The red and black of the original is nice, too,  but this is the best version, if you can get it. I don’t think I can sanction the 80-ish dollars most eBay auctions charge for him before shipping, best wait for one to pop up on the secondary market (and to be honest, the original Road Pig is actually a bit cheaper). I will say that if his lights didn’t work, he’d lose about a third of his appeal to me, so you might want to be careful if you’re looking for one for yourself, and be ready to swap some batteries, at the very least.

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