Dx9 Toys - COCOMONE!

3rd Party Transformers - DX9-D03C Cocomone (Go-Bots Crasher) - Dx9 Toys 2015

I think Crasher is forever doomed to get toy representations that are just re-decoed male characters. But considering that her character is literally developed from a repurposed genderless (but male-presenting) Machine Robo toy, I give her a pass. When I think back to my various childhood traumas, a surprisingly high number of them center around animation. The flying skeleton girls from Return of the King, everything about Rikki Tikki Tavi, and the frighteningly insane cackle of Crasher from Go-Bots. The way she would stomp around was equally scary. Yet you could always find me glued to the TV waiting for a glimpse of her.  As one of the most iconic Go-Bots characters, I'm surprised there hasn't been more merchandise for her. The vintage Go-Bots toy is the only official item (with some variant re-releases), followed by the Transformers Fracture homage, and finally this 3rd Party Cocomone figure. I'm still waiting for a perfect representation (ideally an original sculpt!) But until then this Cocomone is pretty terrific.

War in Pocket - LEAH!

Third Party Transformers - War in Pocket 14: Warrior Leah - Dx9 Toys 2016

I'm truly surprised how much I love this figure. In general, she is significantly cheaper than the average 3rd Party figure. Plus she's a smaller scale and she comes in a 2-Pack with Toufold (Kup). I ordered her years ago on a whim and never had very high expectations. But when I finally opened her last week, I was instantly enamored. She measures about 3.75" tall so I had instant flashbacks of playing with my G.I.Joes. If Takara had been making toys like this in the 80s I would have been all over them and the crossover play potential would have been insane. Leah is also very easy to transform. That's one thing smaller-scale figures like this will always naturally have over the bigger ladies, much simpler engineering. I think Dx9 could have had a lot of fun with this scale and made a ton more characters. Elita's Army would have blown my mind. But I'll take single female Leah if that's all that's meant to be. It will be fun to compare her to the future BFS Robot wave. Let's check out the Dx9 Leah below!