Dave's Bootleg TF Rant: Star Saber

CAPSULE

     Pretty accurate reproduction, with only minor cosmetic changes to
evade trademark laws.  Has all the parts of the real toy, but is made of
extremely cheap plastic.  No instructions.  But hey, it's Star Saber, man!
Recommended.  Available various sources, I got mine from Tony Preto, who
has been having an intermediary post his ads.

RANT

What Star Saber Is:

     Star Saber is the Cybertron (Autobot) leader in Transformers Victory,
the last full season of cartoons in Japan.  He's a Brainmaster, one of the
gimmicks that never made it to the US.  In vehicle form he's a big jet which
can split into a smaller jet that turns into a robot (Saber) and a large
transport airship (V-Star) that transforms into the main body for Star
Sabre, kinda like Ultra Magnus's trailer turns into most of his body.  The
Saber robot curls up and tucks into the chest of the body formed from the
V-Star.  The nose of the Saber jet becomes a weapon pod for Star Saber,
and is also the hilt of the Saber Blade (the blade being stored in a sheath
on the back of Star Saber).  The Star Saber helmet covers Saber's head in
full robot mode, and has an funky swiveling faceplate which automatically
swings into position when you push the helmet down.
     The Brainmaster gimmick is kinda fun, although I'd get more fun out
of it if the thing hadn't broken right away (see below).  What you have
is a small Nebulan-sized figure that is a miniature of the full toy, in
this case Star Saber.  It's unpainted and unstickered, so it doesn't look
too muck like Star Saber, but I may fix that later.  If you push up the
legs of this Brainmaster, the robot's face slides up from inside the figure's
chest.  There's a spring inside the figure to keep it normally in robot
mode, and a mechanism inside Saber's chest cavity forces the face up into
place in Saber's helmet.  Because the legs have to go up inside the chest,
the Brainmaster figure has skinny legs and a wide chest, something like the
McDonalds Rhino Beast toy.  The arms are just on pegs, not secured at all,
so be careful not to lose them.  The figure can also ride in the Saber
jet's cockpit when the canopy is open, but its legs are designed not to
move much at the hips, so it can't sit down and close the canopy.
     Saber as a robot is so-so.  Reminds me a bit of $3 knockoff no-brand
toys I've seen, loose at the shoulders and no other real poseability.  The
Saber jet is reasonably cool, and in one of those odd twists of fate
actually looks a little better in reality than in the cartoon.
     V-Star's transformation is pretty simplistic, but has just enough
challenge to it that someone unfamiliar with TF Victory might take a few
minutes figuring it all out.
     The full Star Saber jet is about 14 inches long and has a wingspan of
just under a foot.  It doesn't resemble any real jet, but looks cool.
     The full Star Saber robot is just under a foot tall and seven inches
across at the shoulders.  The sword is four inches of hilt and five more
inches of blade.  There's a peg on the back for the hilt and a sheath for
the sword, leaving only the rifle orphaned if you want his hands free.
The Star Saber robot moves at the shoulders and elbows, and has some side-
to-side hip motion.  The fists also rotate.

Problems:

     Okay, since it's the biggest problem, I'll start with the materials
used.  The plastic is very cheap, with a few delicate parts breaking as
soon as I looked at them funny (nothing terribly vital, fortunately) and
screws stripping half the time.  If you're going to take this apart for
any reason, get it right the first time, since you won't have a second shot.
     The two biggest problems caused by the cheap material are the latch
which keeps Saber and the V-Star together and the spring inside the
Brainmaster figure.  The latch wouldn't disengage and I ended up having to
remove it completely.  While this is okay in robot form, since the pieces
fit quite snugly, the combined jet mode won't stay together without the
latch.  So don't remove the latch unless you can't get the pieces apart any
other way.  The Brainmaster has a spring in it held by two tabs, and one of
the tabs broke as soon as I removed the Brainmaster from Saber's chest.
I tried various ways of compensating for this, but I had to give up while
there was still a place for the screws to hold it together.  Fortunately,
the internal mechanism of the chest holds the Brainmaster in place well
enough.

     In addition to the materials, the packaging is something of a problem.
A huge card (about 2 feet by 3 feet!) covered with Gundam artwork, it has
no instructions whatsoever on it, nor pictures of what the toy is supposed
to look like in other modes.  Fortunately I've watched enough Victory
lately to guess at most of the modes, but I still can't figure out how to
have Saber ride the V-Star properly.

Weird Bootleg Alterations:

     This toy has a few minor color variations, the most obvious of which
are the chrome colors on the Star Saber helmet face.  Also worth noting are
the mutant Decepticon symbols on the wings of the V-Star.  The symbols are
black, have no eyes, have a line across the "horns" at a slight angle and
the bottom point of the "forehead" symbol has been snipped.
     The stickers were all applied in the factory, and some are askew.
Oddly, they included the "Star Saber" sticker, which you'd think they'd
leave off if trying to avoid trademark infringement, but hey.

     Dave Van Domelen, "Transform!  Brain Set!"