Dave's Digivolving Rant:

     Digivolving Birdramon/Garudamon

     Okay, I know I said I considered this too kibblicious to buy, but after
closer examination in the store, I realized that it had been mistransformed
slightly in the package, mashed flat to fit the bubble, and this made the
kibble situation look worse than it really was.  So I bought it.

CAPSULE

     Birdramon mode is pretty weak, not helped by the fact that Birdramon is
a pretty ugly character anyway.  Transformation is pretty good, and the
Garudamon mode is quite nice and very poseable.  Recommended.  $7.99 at Toys
R Us.

RANT

ID #65: Garudamon (Garuda is the Hindu god of birds)
Damage Points: 350
Group: Bird Digimon
Technique: Wing Blade
Size: 25.0 G

     Birdramon mode: As mentioned in the capsule, Birdramon is pretty ugly,
and not in a good way (Kabuterimon is ugly in a good way, for instance).
Scrawny lizard-bird thing, it is.  So I don't really blame Bandai's designers
for not making this mode look that good, or for loading it with the kibble of
the other mode.  Birdramon is mostly orangish red and stands 5" (13cm) high
(plus or minus depending on the pose) with a wingspan of up to 11" (28cm)
fully extended.  Like Transmetal II Prowl, Birdramon has limbs from its other
mode vainly trying to hide under its tailfeathers.  But this is worse than
Prowl's arms, as Garudamon's legs and large feet just sort of sit there as if
Birdramon was giving birth to Garudamon.  It's especially jarring since these
legs are a dark red, contrasting with the coloring of Birdramon.  Garudamon's
long hair also just sort of lays on Birdramon's back, and the back of the
wings are in Garudamon's darker red.  In general, Birdramon looks a lot worse
from behind/above than from the front, and it's no prize from the front.
     To give it SOME credit, Birdramon is pretty poseable.  Two hinges in the
neck plus an opening jaw, well-articulated legs, wings which flap on ball
joints and fold down hinges in the middle.  It's pegged together pretty
securely, although the Garudamon kibble can get in the way a lot.

     Transformation: The head swap is very good, with neither head being at
all visible in the wrong mode, and the swap is very easy to perform.  It's a
little tricky transforming the Birdramon legs into Garudamon's arms,
especially since the pictures on the instructions are even tinier than usual
for Bandai stuff, but there's an orientation that locks the forearm shields
snugly in place.  There's one place where you have a choice between stability
and poseability: if you tab the tailfeather piece onto Garudamon's long hair,
the figure gains stability but loses the waist joint.  Finally, the wings and
hair piece can be tricky to move into position, it's easy to pop them off
their joints when moving them around.

     Garudamon mode: 5.5" (14cm) tall at its head, you can add another inch
for the wings as the jointing makes the best pose one with them raised
somewhat.  Because the ball joint is somewhat restricted in this position,
the wingspan can only reach 8.5" (21cm).  Garudamon is ablaze in red,
orange-red, orange and yellow, with beige chestfeathers and decorations,
white claws and blue facepaint.  Even with the transformation joints, it
looks very nice.
     Wings have the same joints, of course, but they're a little less
poseable in this mode because of how the range of motion is limited.  Head is
unposeable, and waist is supposed to be unposeable but you can fix that
easily.  Legs have ball joint hips and ankles, hinge knees, and very large
bird feet.  The stiffness of these joints combined with the size of the feet
and the inherent stability of the reverse knee in birds makes this figure
amazingly stable despite the large wings.  Wrists can rotate, elbows are
hinged, there's a swivel in the upper arm, and the shoulders are an
interesting case.  The shoulders are pinned in place rather than being
poppable ball joints, and there's some motion possible in the "moving arms
away from the sides" direction...but it's got a restoring force, either due
to a spring or just the shape of the plastic inside the joint.  This gives
the toy an undocumented action feature: if you pull an arm out to the side,
it springs back to center.  In other words, Garudamon can smack opponents
upside the head.  Backhanding action doesn't work, though.  Change the
rotation of the wrist and it's a claw-raking action.

     Overall: They made a big mistake in packaging this bad girl in Birdramon
mode.  The Garudamon is almost worth the money just as a 5" scale action
figure with terrific articulation, strong show-likeness and good colors.  The
fact that it can transform into a somewhat disappointing bird is just an
added bonus.

     Dave Van Domelen, still not interested in Greymon/Metal Greymon,
although if they ever came out with a toy that went from Metal Greymon to the
next stage up, would be interested in THAT....  [no, not Skull Greymon, the
humanoid one.]