Well.

On occasion I will bore my wife about my various toy-purchasing misadventures. She will make a concerted effort to pay attention and listen, at least until her eyes begin to glaze over, at which point I'll usually politely change the subject. She doesn't share my passion for toy collecting, and I don't expect her to.

So, a while ago we got to talking about how Hasbro had sold the Takara versions of Seacons on Hasbro Pulse, but how I had refused to pay $35 for Delxue-class toys out of principle (naturally assuming that Hasbro would put out their own versions eventually). Then, of course, the Seacons were reissued, except, strangely, for Overbite. He was the only one of the six who was never offered a second time... and I know this for a fact, because I searched for his name on Hasbro Pulse almost every day for over a year. (Hasbro has only just barely gotten around to pulling his listing from the Pulse web site altogether, so now his page doesn't even pop up when you search for him.)

I had explained to my wife how the secondary-market pricing for the Seacons, and for Overbite in particular, continues to skyrocket. Nowadays, if I see him for sale on eBay for $175 I consider that a good deal. That's honestly below the current going price (which is closer to $200 or more). I mean, from a supply-and-demand perspective, it makes sense. He's the one Seacon who wasn't offered up a second time, so he's the one that people are willing to pay the most for. I figured I'd play the long game, and one day I'd find a listing for one with a damaged box, or bad paint, or some kind of cosmetic flaw that would allow me to get it at a reduced price.

And then my wife logged into eBay and just bought the thing for me. It arrived in enough time that it could have been a Christmas gift, but she knew I tended to get depressed after the holidays, so she purposefully saved Overbite for a day when I was feeling down, as a way to mitigate the post-holiday blues. Which was honestly a great thing to do.

Apologies for the long preamble, but Overbite has ascended to the ranks of being a Very Special Toy, so constructing this narrative was necessary in order for you to fully appreciate what it actually means for me to own this thing at long last.

While this toy was available through Hasbro Pulse, I actually got the TakaraTomy release, which came in a different shipper box but is otherwise an identical product.

Taken by himself, if Overbite had been a mass-released toy at retail, he would remain fairly unremarkable. All the Seacons were an exercise in cost-cutting, and Overbite is very nearly a Rippersnapper redeco, sharing some, but not all, of his basic design. Aside from the weapons, and robot head, only the shark-mode head and dorsal fin and rear legs are new; everything else is recycled. He even retains the vestigial twin weapon mounts on either side of his back, despite the fact that he doesn't come with twin guns to plug into them.

I just want to take a moment to appreciate his color scheme. Overbite is gorgeous. He's always been my favorite Seacon, visually speaking, and his color scheme is the perfect blend of purple and teal and magenta. These are the best-looking colors of any G1 character in history, as far as I'm concerned. I know very little about Overbite as a character (I can't even recall his tech specs motto off the top of my head) but he is absolutely my favorite Transformer in terms of visual appeal. The color mapping has changed ever so slightly for this release (his front claws have some purple on them now, and the tail fin is magenta instead of purple. But, he's clearly recognizable as the original character.

The disadvantage of recycling Power of the Primes Terrorcon toys for use as the Seacons is that the shapes of the characters don't always match. In creature mode, G1 Overbite was fish-shaped, with graceful lines that flowed, whereas the new Overbite is a little squared-off and chunky. His legs are partially recycled from the Rippersnapper design, but with a twist. They only reused parts from the knees up, and gave him all-new feet, with longer toes meant to support the toy when his body is parallel to the ground. Where the original Overbite from 1988 had clearly-defined knees and ankles, like he was crouching and ready to spring into action, the new edition has Overbite feet that connect directly to the Rippersnapper knee joints, resulting in legs that are oddly short and stumpy. He still kind of needs his front claws to help support him.

He comes with a Piranacon fist, the final piece of the Piranacon sword (a section of the blade, made of teal plastic but painted metallic silvery-pink), and a rifle (also teal; the original G1 toy came with a purple gun). All three parts can be plugged into him in shark mode if you so desire, but it's more for economy of storage than anything else.

Transformation to robot mode is essentially the same as Rippersnapper, with the tail section forming the robot legs (and the caudal fin tucking away inside the robot feet), the front creature claws serving double-duty as the robot arms, and the shark head folding back and ending up on the robot's back. He's got the same vanity panel with a Decepticon symbol on his chest to hide the undercarriage peg-hole. Overbite's creature head is larger and more bulky than Rippersnapper's, so it folds up on his back a little more awkwardly and in a manner that's a bit less streamlined. Also, since Overbite has floppy clown shoes as a creature, they don't tuck away on the sides of the robot legs quite as cleanly.

Once you get him into robot mode, the color mapping is still good, and authentic to the character (he's got purple forearms now instead of teal, but this is a minor quibble). He has a little silver paint on his toes, probably meant to evoke the consumer-applied stickers on the G1 toy, and rather inexplicably he's got some gold paint on his shoulders that doesn't really correspond to anything from G1. The head sculpt is a good one, though I think Takara took the same approach they did with the Technobots; i.e., going out of their way to make the helmet look less square-shaped (even though every small Seacon had a square-shaped head because they all followed the same basic Scramble City design where the robot heads doubled as connector pegs).

Overbite can, of course, transform into an arm or leg for Piranacon, but the official placement for him, most of the time, was as Piranacon's handheld weapon. (When Piranacon was sold as a gift set, Nautilator was booted off the team, and Overbite took over as Piranacon's leg.) His weapon mode is essentially the fish mode with his legs and claws tucked away, using the Combiner Wars tumbler peg in his chest to connect to the Piranacon fist, which serves as a weapon stand.

The fully-assembled Piranacon sword, made up of parts that came with each of the Seacons, is insanely large. It's ten inches in length, which is massive considering that Piranacon is only about twelve inches tall. The fully-built sword has some artifacts of being made from different colors of plastic (there are visible blue and black and teal and pink pegs, the only parts that aren't painted that silvery-pink color), and it clips to the inside of Piranacon's palm rather than holding the handle in a more traditional manner.

Likewise, Piranacon doesn't actually hold Overbite in gun mode. For G1, the Piranacon fists could grasp Scramble City sized square connector pegs, so you just stuck the robot head into the fist when it was doubling as a weapon grip. This time, you remove a panel on the outside of Piranacon's hand and plug the fist into the outside of his hand, making Overbite more like a Japanese-styled Targetmaster gun who plugs into a Transtector. I don't love it, but it's not awful.

Due to the weight of being a six-member combiner, Piranacon does have balance issues when he's equipped with Overbite as a gun. The sword is already fairly heavy as it is, and there's virtually no way an unmodified toy can actually point Overbite as a weapon without falling over (though I did get it to work by staggering Piranacon's stance, bending one knee, and tilting his body back a bit). Overbite almost serves best as the leg of a tripod stand, helping to support him while toting around that big, heavy sword. Of course, all my Combiner Wars combiners have had loose limbs, so this is nothing new. Because the sixth member plugs into the outside of the hand, it is actually possible to equip Piranacon with all three of his weapons at the same time, with his rifle and sword in his fists.

Well, it's been quite a journey to collect all of these neo-G1 Seacons, and an expensive one at that. I'm not entirely sure what my wife paid, and I'm not sure I want to know. But, I consider this a lesson learned. It's far better to pick up toys during their initial release than to have to pay aftermarket pricing at some point down the road. I should know this already.. But, they say life keeps presenting you the same lessons until they stick.

Zob (should probably be doing productive things, but it's much more fun to be lazy and sedentary)

Zobovor <zmfts@aol.com> wrote:
> Well.
>
> On occasion I will bore my wife about my various toy-purchasing
> misadventures. She will make a concerted effort to pay attention and
> listen, at least until her eyes begin to glaze over, at which point I'll
> usually politely change the subject. She doesn't share my passion for
> toy collecting, and I don't expect her to.
>
> So, a while ago we got to talking about how Hasbro had sold the Takara
> versions of Seacons on Hasbro Pulse, but how I had refused to pay $35 for
> Delxue-class toys out of principle (naturally assuming that Hasbro would
> put out their own versions eventually). Then, of course, the Seacons
> were reissued, except, strangely, for Overbite. He was the only one of
> the six who was never offered a second time... and I know this for a
> fact, because I searched for his name on Hasbro Pulse almost every day
> for over a year. (Hasbro has only just barely gotten around to pulling
> his listing from the Pulse web site altogether, so now his page doesn't
> even pop up when you search for him.)
>
> I had explained to my wife how the secondary-market pricing for the
> Seacons, and for Overbite in particular, continues to skyrocket.
> Nowadays, if I see him for sale on eBay for $175 I consider that a good
> deal. That's honestly below the current going price (which is closer to
> $200 or more). I mean, from a supply-and-demand perspective, it makes
> sense. He's the one Seacon who wasn't offered up a second time, so he's
> the one that people are willing to pay the most for. I figured I'd play
> the long game, and one day I'd find a listing for one with a damaged box,
> or bad paint, or some kind of cosmetic flaw that would allow me to get it
> at a reduced price.
>
> And then my wife logged into eBay and just bought the thing for me. It
> arrived in enough time that it could have been a Christmas gift, but she
> knew I tended to get depressed after the holidays, so she purposefully
> saved Overbite for a day when I was feeling down, as a way to mitigate
> the post-holiday blues. Which was honestly a great thing to do.
>
> Apologies for the long preamble, but Overbite has ascended to the ranks
> of being a Very Special Toy, so constructing this narrative was necessary
> in order for you to fully appreciate what it actually means for me to own
> this thing at long last.
>
> While this toy was available through Hasbro Pulse, I actually got the
> TakaraTomy release, which came in a different shipper box but is
> otherwise an identical product.
>
> Taken by himself, if Overbite had been a mass-released toy at retail, he
> would remain fairly unremarkable. All the Seacons were an exercise in
> cost-cutting, and Overbite is very nearly a Rippersnapper redeco, sharing
> some, but not all, of his basic design. Aside from the weapons, and
> robot head, only the shark-mode head and dorsal fin and rear legs are
> new; everything else is recycled. He even retains the vestigial twin
> weapon mounts on either side of his back, despite the fact that he
> doesn't come with twin guns to plug into them.
>
> I just want to take a moment to appreciate his color scheme. Overbite is
> gorgeous. He's always been my favorite Seacon, visually speaking, and
> his color scheme is the perfect blend of purple and teal and magenta.
> These are the best-looking colors of any G1 character in history, as far
> as I'm concerned. I know very little about Overbite as a character (I
> can't even recall his tech specs motto off the top of my head) but he is
> absolutely my favorite Transformer in terms of visual appeal. The color
> mapping has changed ever so slightly for this release (his front claws
> have some purple on them now, and the tail fin is magenta instead of
> purple. But, he's clearly recognizable as the original character.
>
> The disadvantage of recycling Power of the Primes Terrorcon toys for use
> as the Seacons is that the shapes of the characters don't always match.
> In creature mode, G1 Overbite was fish-shaped, with graceful lines that
> flowed, whereas the new Overbite is a little squared-off and chunky. His
> legs are partially recycled from the Rippersnapper design, but with a
> twist. They only reused parts from the knees up, and gave him all-new
> feet, with longer toes meant to support the toy when his body is parallel
> to the ground. Where the original Overbite from 1988 had clearly-defined
> knees and ankles, like he was crouching and ready to spring into action,
> the new edition has Overbite feet that connect directly to the
> Rippersnapper knee joints, resulting in legs that are oddly short and
> stumpy. He still kind of needs his front claws to help support him.
>
> He comes with a Piranacon fist, the final piece of the Piranacon sword (a
> section of the blade, made of teal plastic but painted metallic
> silvery-pink), and a rifle (also teal; the original G1 toy came with a
> purple gun). All three parts can be plugged into him in shark mode if
> you so desire, but it's more for economy of storage than anything else.
>
> Transformation to robot mode is essentially the same as Rippersnapper,
> with the tail section forming the robot legs (and the caudal fin tucking
> away inside the robot feet), the front creature claws serving double-duty
> as the robot arms, and the shark head folding back and ending up on the
> robot's back. He's got the same vanity panel with a Decepticon symbol on
> his chest to hide the undercarriage peg-hole. Overbite's creature head
> is larger and more bulky than Rippersnapper's, so it folds up on his back
> a little more awkwardly and in a manner that's a bit less streamlined.
> Also, since Overbite has floppy clown shoes as a creature, they don't
> tuck away on the sides of the robot legs quite as cleanly.
>
> Once you get him into robot mode, the color mapping is still good, and
> authentic to the character (he's got purple forearms now instead of teal,
> but this is a minor quibble). He has a little silver paint on his toes,
> probably meant to evoke the consumer-applied stickers on the G1 toy, and
> rather inexplicably he's got some gold paint on his shoulders that
> doesn't really correspond to anything from G1. The head sculpt is a good
> one, though I think Takara took the same approach they did with the
> Technobots; i.e., going out of their way to make the helmet look less
> square-shaped (even though every small Seacon had a square-shaped head
> because they all followed the same basic Scramble City design where the
> robot heads doubled as connector pegs).
>
> Overbite can, of course, transform into an arm or leg for Piranacon, but
> the official placement for him, most of the time, was as Piranacon's
> handheld weapon. (When Piranacon was sold as a gift set, Nautilator was
> booted off the team, and Overbite took over as Piranacon's leg.) His
> weapon mode is essentially the fish mode with his legs and claws tucked
> away, using the Combiner Wars tumbler peg in his chest to connect to the
> Piranacon fist, which serves as a weapon stand.
>
> The fully-assembled Piranacon sword, made up of parts that came with each
> of the Seacons, is insanely large. It's ten inches in length, which is
> massive considering that Piranacon is only about twelve inches tall. The
> fully-built sword has some artifacts of being made from different colors
> of plastic (there are visible blue and black and teal and pink pegs, the
> only parts that aren't painted that silvery-pink color), and it clips to
> the inside of Piranacon's palm rather than holding the handle in a more traditional manner.
>
> Likewise, Piranacon doesn't actually hold Overbite in gun mode. For G1,
> the Piranacon fists could grasp Scramble City sized square connector
> pegs, so you just stuck the robot head into the fist when it was doubling
> as a weapon grip. This time, you remove a panel on the outside of
> Piranacon's hand and plug the fist into the outside of his hand, making
> Overbite more like a Japanese-styled Targetmaster gun who plugs into a
> Transtector. I don't love it, but it's not awful.
>
> Due to the weight of being a six-member combiner, Piranacon does have
> balance issues when he's equipped with Overbite as a gun. The sword is
> already fairly heavy as it is, and there's virtually no way an unmodified
> toy can actually point Overbite as a weapon without falling over (though
> I did get it to work by staggering Piranacon's stance, bending one knee,
> and tilting his body back a bit). Overbite almost serves best as the leg
> of a tripod stand, helping to support him while toting around that big,
> heavy sword. Of course, all my Combiner Wars combiners have had loose
> limbs, so this is nothing new. Because the sixth member plugs into the
> outside of the hand, it is actually possible to equip Piranacon with all
> three of his weapons at the same time, with his rifle and sword in his fists.
>
> Well, it's been quite a journey to collect all of these neo-G1 Seacons,
> and an expensive one at that. I'm not entirely sure what my wife paid,
> and I'm not sure I want to know. But, I consider this a lesson learned.
> It's far better to pick up toys during their initial release than to have
> to pay aftermarket pricing at some point down the road. I should know
> this already. But, they say life keeps presenting you the same lessons until they stick.
>
>
> Zob (should probably be doing productive things, but it's much more fun
> to be lazy and sedentary)
>

On Sunday, January 2, 2022 at 12:17:42 PM UTC-7, Anonymous wrote:
> Congrats on completing the set. I’m shocked your wife is so nice to you
> after that relationship you had with the female robot. (What ever happened
> to her?).

Rayne's still around. We're strictly platonic.
> I too have a heck of a hard time getting them all. I resorted to buying 3
> of them on eBay for a premium immediately after missing out on them, only
> to have them reappear shortly after on pulse. (I find that toy prices
> generally only go up, so I usually pull the trigger immediately if I miss
> out on someone I really want).

Yeah, I think the cost of Overbite effectively doubled the overall cost of this Piranacon set. That stings. Still, live and learn. This is an expensive game, and I choose to play it. (I like to think my overall wins outnumber my losses when it comes to this sort of thing. I just got an amazing eBay deal I'm going to have to tell you guys all about when it arrives, probably next week.)

> I love this set so much, I have them on
> display in my incredibly limited display shelf. I have almost no toys on
> display, so this speaks volumes as to how much I love my Piranacons.

I don't have any modern-era toys on display except for Masterpiece. I just don't have the room for it. We're probably going to replace the downstairs carpet with hardwood flooring or something this year, which will involve taking down all the collectibles I've got on bookshelves and such and packing it up temporarily. Since I'll be touching it all anyway, this might be the year I change things up and do something different with what goes on display. But, I guess we'll see.

Zob (still needs another bookshelf because the vintage G1 toys are overflowing, but there's no place to put another one)