Transformers Alternity - Mitsuoka Orochi - Skywarp

This is "Transformers Alternity - A04 Mitsuoka Orochi / Skywarp", a transformable "Mitsuoka Orochi" fashion super car into Skywarp of Decepticons, produced by Takara Tomy of Japan. Transformers: Alternity is a subline of the Transformers series by Takara Tomy.

The "Alternity" series consists of toys of well known Transformers characters as licensed scale 1:32 vehicles. The Alternity series is the successor to the "Binaltech" line, which was sold in the USA as "Alternators". The Alternity toys are only released in Japan by Takara Tomy. Hasbro have indicated they have no plans to release the line in their markets (US and rest of the world excluding Japan).

So far, they only have 4 car models (though there are several variations for each models) from this "Alternity" series namely as below;

A-01: Nissan GT-R
Convoy (Vibrant Red)
Convoy (Ultimate Silver)
Convoy (Super Black)
Ultra Magnus (Brilliant Pearl White)

A-02: Nissan 370Z
Megatron (Blade Silver)
Megatron (Le Mans Blue)
Megatron (Diamond Black)

A-03: Suzuki Swift Sport
Bumblebee (Champion Yellow)
Cliffjumper (Pearl Red)
Goldbug (Gold)

A-04: Mitsuoka Orochi
Starscream (Pearl White)
Skywarp (Purple Pearl)
Thundercracker (Blue)


Nonetheless, for now, let's have a look at the Mitsuoka Orochi-Skywarp;

The box/packaging;







And now, out of the packaging, we will look at the Mitsuoka Orochi or Skywarp in car mode;

Externally, I think the car is nicely made (considering that this is a transformable car) and the painting finishing is quite good.

Basically the car have respectable external detailing design elements of the real Mitsuoka Orochi;

We get openable door as well which is nice;





And with that, we can see the interior detailing which is not great at all on this car bearing in mind that this is a transformable car.... at least we can see the seat;





Don't hope to see a decent dashboard there... nothing at all;

On the driver side (this is Japanese spec, so it's left hand steering), we can see the steering wheel and yet again, no dashboard what so ever - again, we have to remember that this is a transformable car - it's difficult for everything to be perfect right?

The manual for transformation guidance.... unfortunately, I hardly can understand it, maybe I'm stupid or maybe I'm just not a "Transformers" hardcore fan so I find it difficult to understand anything at all. Eventually, if I rely on this manual, I cannot do the transformation at all.

Luckily though, in this modern era of internet and Google and YouTube... I can at least search for some video in YouTube that could give me some guidance for the transformation process of this model. I found this video from a French guy (I believe so but maybe I'm wrong). I don't understand a single word he said but at least I can follow his tutorial.

And get ready to laugh your ass out loud.... my first attempt with the help of this video, it took me over 1 hour to do the transformation process from car to robot mode and then another 1 hour to transform it back to the car mode..... certainly a pain in the ass for me.... I guess I'm too old for this stuff....

So this is now the Skywarp in robot mode;












A little bit of close up look on Skywarp;

The head sculpt... I personally feel that it's quite nicely done, remind me of a cobra;

In terms of playability, this item is very poor. Certain parts of the body, especially that "wing" at the back and that side armors (which basically the doors of the car on both side of his waist) make this figure quite difficult to hold when you want to arrange for an action pose. The head can turn freely left to right or front to back as you pleased. The shoulder and arms have quite a limited range but still quite decent though honestly not great either. So doing action pose for this Skywarp can be quite challenging.

I need another 1 hour to transform the robot mode into the car mode.... sigh;

Overall, this is a decently detailed transformable Mitsuoka Orochi. The Skywarp robot mode looks nice but too bad apart from simple standing pose, not much else you can do with him in that robot mode. My first attempt to do the transformation process took me 1 hour each (car mode to robot mode and robot mode to car mode) but thankfully after doing it repeatedly, I can now do the transformation within 10 minutes. I love the purple color scheme which matching my tiny 1/63 scale die cast car of the same model (Mitsuoka Orochi) from Tomica series (also produced by Takara Tomy) and certainly that is one of the reason why I wanted to get this model.

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