Originally written May 2020.
Doccat was the second of TFCon DC 2020’s planned exclusive figures, along with Azalea Protoform, offered up online after the convention had to be cancelled due to global events. Anyway, in terms of who he is, Doccat is a homage to two seperate Transformers characters, Glit, and Shattered Glass Ravage.
So, we all know Ravage, right? One of Soundwave’s cassette tape minions, black robot panther that sneaks around, there from day one of the franchise, with an original toy that changes from minicassette into flat cat.
Around the mid-2000s, Takara was in the habit of retroactively creating new G1 characters by taking whatever classic toys they’re reissued, and releasing new alternate-color versions of them (typically as exclusives,) which is how we got Glit, a white recolor of the original Ravage toy, in 2006.
Glit was, of all things, a Decepticon medic, known for treating allies and enemies alike, and has remained something of an obscure cameo character in modern media. Next up, we have Shattered Glass, a Transformers storytelling universe created by Fun Publications for the now-defunct Transformers Collector’s Club. The gimmick was that it was a classic sci-fi reverse-world setting, where the Autobots were evil, the Decepticons were good, and everyone was the opposite. The Shattered Glass version of Ravage was an excitable, enthusiastic social-media user, friendly and demanding of everyone’s attention.
He also re-used Glit’s design, since it was the inverse of Ravage’s colors already. He’d even get his own BotCon exclusive figure, another version of Ravage repainted into the same colors:
So, that brings us to this exclusive, a repaint of Ocular Max’s Jaguar, their take on a Masterpiece-scaled Ravage. They’ve made a few of the cassettes, and they all have a rather neat conceptual gimmick, which I’ll get into next.
Cassette Mode
I’ll be honest: I bought this toy without a ton of research (aside from hearing it was pretty good), and when I pulled it out of the box, I was immediately shocked at how LARGE he was. See, Soundwave’s minions have always changed into microcassettes, emphasis on the “micro,” and both the G1 toys, and their official Masterpiece versions were realistic 1:1 scale replicas of the old-fashioned recording medium. However, Doccat, and all of Ocular Max’s other cassettes decided to re-imagine them as being full-sized cassette tapes, and thus are more than double the size of the originals. Here he is compared to Siege Ravage, and a reissue Zauru, another G1 Microcassette:
The second thing I noticed was his presentation: Once you pull Doccat out of the box, he comes in an actual clear plastic unfolding cassette case, with his instructions fitting where the cover and liner notes of an album would go.
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It’s also got a little soundwave-looking set of circles sculpted onto the front, too. They really went the extra mile here, and I appreciate it.
The third thing I noticed was how heavy and cold to the touch he was. There’s a lot of diecast metal in Doccat. Specifically, almost every bit of blue along the outside of the cassette is metal.
Colors-wise, there’s not a lot to him. He’s got that cold blue outer later (with a bit of blue paint on his tape spools and on a pair of circles on one side), but is otherwise almost entirely solid white. It’s straightforward, but effectively vibrant. It gives me real future-technology-as-filtered-through-Apple vibes, which kind of makes sense if you’re changing into a music device. That being said, there’s a set of paint chips inside of his missile pods visible here, and I’m honestly not sure if he came with them, or if they’re a part of his transformation. At least they’re only visible in this mode.
Now, all of that impressive stuff aside, let’s be realistic here: We’re definitely actually looking at a pile of robo-cat parts compressed and folded up into a rectangle. There’s a pair of tape spools punched through that rectangle, but otherwise, there’s no real attempt to fool anyone into thinking it’s an actual cassette. This is hardly new. Most cassettebots, even the Masterpiece ones, had to make the choice of either having a robot-parts-in-a-rectangle alternate mode, or a robot/animal mode covered in cassette labels, and this guy opted for the former. Also, one side of him is absolutely covered with steel rivets used to hold him together, with the other side, curiously, having sculpted circles in the same places.
In terms of handfeel, there are a lot of tiny tabs holding him together, and a lot of twisty joints thanks to his transformation and animal mode articulation. So, while he holds together, I can actually bend and flex him in my hand due to all of this, like he’s made of rubber.
That being said, I’ve already decided to repurpose this mode as a hoverboard, with the spools being turbines. It’s the right size for most figures to hop on, and you can put it on top of the clear tape case to simulate it being off the ground. Behold:
Transformation
Changing him from tape to cat involves a lot of unfurling, and a big multipart fold down the middle that compresses about half of the flat tape into a cat body. It’s kind of hard to figure out at first, but easy to grasp after the first time. Changing him back into tape mode is the more complicated venture, given how much you need to tab little parts together, but if you have a couple good pictures of the tape mode (like above) for reference to see exactly where everything goes, you’ll get it. Overall, this thankfully isn’t a typical Masterpiece-style “remember to pack a lunch” transformation, and I’d put it more on par with a more complicated Generations Deluxe or Voyager. I kind of wish there was more photography on the package and instructions about how his entire back half is supposed to be laid out in cat mode, though, because it’s a little bit unclear, but I consulted photos of the mold online to arrive at the layout in these photos. On a more positive note, though, it’s impressive that his weapons are incorporated into his tape mode, rather than being removable parts you just set aside, like with all of the classic cassettes.
Cat Mode
What we have here is a robotic cat that’s fairly accurate depiction of Ravage’s classic cartoon animation model, give or take a few allowances for what you can physically engineer in the real world (Doccat’s missile pods are a bit smaller, and the back of his torso’s a bit thinner.) He’s bigger than a Legend, smaller than most Deluxes, but many times larger than his G1 and Masterpiece iterations, and definitely not flat like the former.
Of course, because of his colors, his whole vibe doesn’t feel villainous. He’s still the same fairly straighforward bright white and cold blue, with a small amount of new color added in the form of his yellow eyes and grey teeth/mouth. I’d almost say that these colors work better on the sculpt than Ravage’s, because honestly, he doesn’t look like a villain.
The headsculpt certainly reads as fierce, but it also reads as kind of friendly, to me, perfect for a medic, or an attention-seeking social media fiend. And the missile pods on his hips feel more like rockets for propulsion than offensive weapons.
So, his torso’s build kind of oddly, in a way that is supposed to create more articulation. Basically, it’s two halves split down the spine, and they don’t peg together or anything, but freely float next to each other. The horizontal split going the other way, meanwhile, is connected to a pair of balljoints, as is the head. Basically, the idea is that he can twist, the way a cat’s spine would. I get what they’re doing with it, and it works, but it left a bad impression on me out of the gate once I realized his torso couldn’t lock together. Less explicable are the four thin swivelling panels, one on either side of his torso chunks, which also don’t lock down, and get swivelled out easily when I’m posing him.
Torso stability aside, it does lead to a nice suite of articulation, for what he is. He’s got joints at each natural point on all four of his legs, including balljointed paws, an opening jaw, a moveable tail, and the aformentioned hyper-articulated torso and neck.
It all combines to create that lovely feeling of personality, where a figure feels incredibly expressive and characterful. Basically, he’s a cat who can do a lot of cat things.
He can also tell you secrets.
Speaking of secrets, here’s something weird I realized he can do, thanks to how stable his construction is, and I’ve got no idea if it’s intentional or not: You can stand him up on his hind legs, rotate his forelegs and head down, and create a surprisingly humanized looking cat-person.
His legs are kind of short, his tail has to stick straight down, and he’s got a bent neck, but it’s odd how well this works.
I can’t decide if it looks creepy, cool, or cute, but it’s a testament to the strength of the engineering and articulation that this is even possible. Heck, his head articulation is actually increased in this position.
And, consider this. Ravage later got a humanoid form in Beast Wars…
Which got a Takara-only toy…
Which was repainted into a convention-exclusive Transmetal version of fellow Beast Wars character Tigatron, who was also white and light blue…
Might we be dealing with a multi-level homage to a third character?
Overall
Despite my gripes with his cat mode’s loose, untethered torso, I really like this figure. It’s got piles of personality, a great sculpt, and some really interesting engineering. As a Ravage, it’s easily the best iteration of the character I’ve messed with. In these new colors, and with its humanoid mode, it’s effectively a triple-homage, character-wise. But beyond who it’s supposed to be, I just like the color scheme, and it blends well with some of my other brightly-colored figures.
I’d say this mold’s worth picking up if you want a really good Ravage, though, depending on what you consider important, I’ll note that there isn’t a Soundwave out there that he can fit in, and Ocular Max doesn’t seem to have any plans to make one, so he’s got to stand on his own merits, which, luckily, he can.
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