Legends Windblade

I noticed nobody had done a review of this beautiful figure yet, so I thought I'd do a quick one. Obviously this is just a redeco of a popular figure so everything essential about the toy has been discussed ad nauseam, but considering this repaint looks absolutely lovely, I think its worth going over! Plus, I thought it was timely considering the new Fan Poll is going on.

Robot Mode



While Windblade's origins lie in the Fan-Built Bot poll of last year, its IDW where Windblade really became a character of her own. Behind Scott and Stone's hand, Windblade was developed into a new and important character and a unique one at that- being the first (along with Nautica and Chromia) femmebot in the universe not to be burdened by an awful origin story. A lot of people, including myself, were a little disappointed that the Hasbro Windblade did not feature an accurate face or colors to represent her IDW character. Takara, however, fixed that problem! Despite IDW being an American continuity, Takara have done a really dedicated job in creating a Windblade that looks like she flew right off of the comic page. The colors are brilliant and the face paint is absolutely beautiful.



In comparison to the Hasbro version you can really see where the changes take place. Takara Windblade features far more red on her wings, black thighs, a reddish pink sword in comparison to Hasbro's purple and completely new face paint, all of which match her IDW design. Gone is the silver warrior face paint and in its stead is the more subtle and feminine paint that Sarah Stone designed. Hasbro Windblade's warrior paint is epic, but Takara Windblade looks the part of the character. Its amazing how different the vibes the Takara version gives in comparison to the Hasbro. Hasbro's look absolutely fierce while Takara's looks more like the warrior in training that she is.



Naturally, all of the goodies from the Hasbro version are retained including her tessen battle fan that doubles as an ornamental head crest, her sword and her sheath that can be connected to her thigh or held.



Definitely the best thing to me about Windblade is her pose ability. She has just the right joints in just the right places, especially the wings, which makes her be able to display a variety of emotions and actions easily. Unfortunately her feet absolutely suck. The high heels are awful at supporting Windblade when her wings are swung more backwards such as in the comic, result in you often having to seperate the back of her feet in order to give her a wider base to stand on. Luckily, she has a Tamashii port on the bottom of her Jet nosecone, which ends up on her back in robot mode, so if you have a Tamashii stand, a Figma stand or anything similar you can easily support her as well as do some great flying poses.

Vehicle mode



Her VTOL Jet mode likewise has a lot of changes in order to better represent her alt-mode in IDW. I remember thinking that the Hasbro version was so well painted that it felt like a Takara job, but Takara have really gone above and beyond with this version and it looks fantastic.



In comparison to the Hasbro version, Takara's is primarily painted red in comparison to Hasbro's unpainted black, features a blue cockpit, more white around the nose-cone area and yellow details on beneath the cockpit. As stated, all of these changes make her match up almost identically to what was seen in the Windblade comic, the only missing paint being some grey on the tail-fins that was seen in Sarah Stone's design.



Windblade's VTOL fans rotate completely around, allowing her to look more convincing while flying. The Tamashii port, just as with robot mode, makes it easy to display her flying, which is a great addition to the figure.

Conclusion

I got the full set of femmebots from both Takara and Hasbro and Takara Windblade really stands out. Windblade was already an excellent figure in my mind and the Takara one really steps it up even more. The IDW deco is exactly what I was looking for and I definitely recommend her to any and all IDW fans. She's a definite must-have!

Now hopefully around this time next year we'll be reviewing a Fan-Built Femmebot Combiner!

Thanks for reading!

Extra pics

 

Nice, thanks. I can't wait for mine to arrive.

 

Man I hope to get a hold of Legends Windblade. She's the one figure I vastly prefer over the Hasbro one due to her looking more like her Sarah Stone design and her face looking better as a whole.

 

Could we get a close-up on the face? I want to see the detail in full.


I really want to get this. It's the only Takara Fembot that looks better then the Hasbro version.

 

Lovely pics!

 

Hows the build quality compare to hasbro version? my hasbro version is floppy mess,

 

Man, does she looks fantastic! Cannot wait for mine to arrive.

 

Mine's very sturdy, but then so is my Hasbro version. Perhaps your's is a defect?

 

I really don't know if mine is defect but there's enough proof that some of us have floppy mess hasbro windblade that end up hating transforming her. surely you know that right? But some posted there supposed to be windblade with better quality in newer batch but i don't know, i hope someone shed a light on this.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqUP-4cJ8Zw

3:30

 

Nah, I didn't know it. You don't need to be defensive, I really wouldn't be surprised if there was a batch of Windblades with floppy limbs.

 

Ow i thought you know it since your pretty active on this boards. Gotta admit im surprise you didn't know it after all the complaints of this figure.

 

I'm in the middle of writing mine >.>

but luckily, i'm not writing my review solely for this forum..

nice review btw. let me know if you want her bio and a summery of her comic.

 

My fav of all the fembots. Just fantastic.

 

Great photos - mine turned up with Arcee and I'm absolutely thrilled with her! The redeco makes one hell of a difference, it might as well be a different figure altogether. Unlike Arcee, whose hands let the figure down, Windblade is nothing but great stuff. Well played Takara  

 

Looks great. Would you be able to link me to a Tamashii stand like yours off of ebay/whatever site?

And can you take a picture of the boxart/full-sized image shown of Windblade?

 

Beautiful pictures, I can tell you really enjoyed snapping these.  

As for the figure itself, can plainly see why. Takara really did a great job on her, and she really is the stand out of the 3 fembots.

*sigh* I guess I gotta track her down now (that should be fun)....................

 

Mine arrived today, she is just perfect. Well almost, her shin and back leg on her left leg don't clip together firmly which is annoying because there is a .5mm gap however you pose her. But the paint apps on her face makeup for it, just beautiful.

 

So, any idea how long it should take Windblade to get to Oregon from HLJ? Been two weeks since it shipped as of today

 

Her new face is glorious. It alone makes me want it.

Is she worth it?