Prelude: He is the Seacon with the scariest grin, the Seacon with the most arms, and the Seacon with the slimmest hips: Tentakil. He is also the final Seacon to be reviewed on Transformers Universe, so once we get him (her?) done, we can take on King Poseidon. So here is Tentakil, the robo-squid, the lipstick monster. Let’s say go! Robot Mode: Unlike the rest of the Seacons, Tentakil is not a remold of a Power of the Primes Terrorcon, but rather a new mold… mostly. He actually reuses some engineering from Power of the Primes Moonracer, such as the crotch, the back half of the torso and the combiner connector piece. Not sure that qualifies as a retool, they are at best 30% the same figure, no more. It does serve to make Tentakil the slimmest of the Seacons, giving him an almost feminine appearance (fitting, seeing as his upcoming BW2 repaint Scylla was a female character in the cartoon). Tentakil is a lean, very nicely articulated robot in salmon-red, blue, and light pink (mostly the kibble). He’s got a golden face and it’s pretty hard to tell what he transforms into. There is quite a bit of kibble, but it doesn’t really hinder him any. He can move very nicely and pull off all sorts of poses without problems. He strongly resembles his predecessor G1 Tentakil, so no complaints here. Weapon-wise he carries two blue blasters and a strangely-shaped sword (once again a part of King Poseidon’s larger trident-sword). The blasters look good, though the sword doesn’t really work that well by itself. So bottom line for the robot mode: pretty good, though not outstanding in any particular way. Alternate Mode: Tentakil transforms into a ten-armed robotic squid. Of those ten arms, six are basically just ornamental, two are the robot mode arms, and the final two are short stubby legs. The proportions of the beast mode are actually more or less realistic, but the face of the squid basically blows all attempts at realism to smithereens. It’s a nightmare face, its toothy grin surrounded by the lipstick of doom, and it will do irreparable damage to your soul to gaze at it for too long a time. Apart from that, you can’t really do that much with the squid. The laser guns can be mounted on the sides of its huge head, the combiner fist can go on the back, and that’s pretty much it. Do your best to forget about this mode, lest it haunts your dreams. Naturally Tentakil has a weapon mode as well, once again it’s basically the leg mode with the combined blasters plugged in instead of the combiner foot. Not a great weapon mode, but it works. Combiner Mode: Like all the Deluxe-class Seacons, Tentakil can become an arm, a leg, or a weapon for King Poseidon (or any other Combiner Wars style combiner, of course). We will take a closer look at King Poseidon soon, now that I’ve finished all the individual Seacon reviews. Remarks: Copy and paste once again: all Seacons except Turtler were mindless drones, appeared in large swarms, only to be destroyed over and over again by the good guys. Tentakil was actually the first of the Seacons to appear on screen, as a pair of Tentakils attacking a Japanese city was the plot of Masterforce’s pilot episode. The most interesting thing about Tentakil, though, is that his Beast Wars 2 counterpart Scylla ended up being a female. The only reason that Tentakil isn’t my least-favorite Seacon is the existence of Turtler. That isn’t to say that Tentakil is a bad figure. The robot mode is good, if not spectacular. And the beast mode... well, it’s unusual, at the very least. Not a big fan of it, though. So bottom line for me: Tentakil completes the Seacon team, but if you are among those who are fully satisfied with just getting five of them to complete the combiner (never mind that you’ll be missing part of the big sword), Tentakil would be the one to leave aside. Rating: C+ Soure: Transformers-Universe.com
Nope. Scylla is getting her own mold. New head, new torso, along with different thighs and other bits. That made me chuckle. Nice review.
Mine should be arriving this week. It is saying something that Tentakil is the most bizarre of the Seacons, given that the team includes a giant pink fish with arms and legs that transforms into a robot with a massive fish head on its back.
Honestly? This guy is my favorite of the Seacons. At least for me everything just seems to click for me in all the right ways. The cherry on top? Because the remold for Scylla was intended to come out of this figure, and the fact that they used the Novastar/Moondancer mold, he's pretty slender and femmy compared to his fellow seacons. That's...pretty awesome. My headcannon is that he's the sassy "drag queen" queer guy on the team, and as a queer guy myself...I dunno, does that sound weird? This figure just clicks with me on a personal level! This big gay energy!
Not even a little bit. Sometimes the "character" of the figure tells a story all it's own and TBH I had thought sassy gay when I saw the first look at the figure.
Finally got my hands on him and he is so much more fabulous in person! He's out, loud, and proud, the little gay boy I was would have loved this guy! "Oh, those lips" said my husband lol.
Bump. I'd resigned myself to never having a copy of this guy, despite my personal feeling that having a squid face leg is crucial for a proper Piranacon, due to the insane aftermarket prices. Lo and behold, however, when an ebay listing for all of $64 BIN showed up. It had been up for a couple of days when I found it, and it had multiple watchers, but nobody had pulled the trigger. I assume because of the seller's low amount of feedback. I took a chance and: He was MISB too. I don't have much to say that hasn't been said already; his ball joints were all fairly loose so he needed a going over with Future. The one thing I haven't seen anyone comment on, not even the video reviewers I've watched, is that the mouth plate has a set of tabs and slots to peg into the face that you can't tab in with the default transformation depicted in the instructions. Out of the box he comes like this, robot legs straight up, and it's how I've seen everyone transform him: The robot chest bumps into the mouth plate and it doesn't seat in all the way. Shifting the entire robot leg/squid head assembly forward on the ball joint hips and face hinge gives enough room to tab the mouth in fully. Unfortunately this doesn't work in any other mode, as you do have to have the robot legs straightened for those modes to fit together.
