Animorphs Rachel

[Skyquake87]

Name : Rachel
Allegiance : Animoprhs

Bio: We call ourselves Animorphs. We can't tell you who we are. It's too risky. The Yeerks are among us. We have the power to change into any animal we touch. Five kids against an empire of alien slugs – but we may Earth's only chance of survival...

I don't know much about Rachel and what she got up to in the TV show (or indeed, the books – if she was in them), and picked her up as she seemed to be one of the few Deluxe Animoprhs figures that looked pretty decent. She's notable for morphng into a male animal, how's that for gender fluidity before it was cool? Stick that in your social media!

Human mode: Looking like an '80s metal fan, Rachel is all big hair and denim pants. Like all the Deluxe Animorph figures, she retains some animal characteristics, most notably her arms, legs and feet. And, due to an unfortunate spring loaded face reveal gimmick, a lion face. She looks pretty decent and I like having her in a sort-of mid-morph state with her lion claws on. The human parts are nicely sculpted and the animal parts don't look too bad or add too much bulk to her. The sculpting and detail is excellent. I like the human face too, which is nicely done. Just a shame that the lion face is on such a tight spring and keeps pinging down to cover it.

Beast Mode: The lion mode is pretty good. The overall bulk of the figure to necessitate morphing between modes mean that Rachel fares a lot better than Cheetor did in the Beast Wars line. The sculpted detail and paint applications are excellent. She looks like a powerful lion, and that's as it should be. She's got a decent level of articulation, but the head is fixed and does peer at the ground somewhat, so could have used a neck. There are some mild proportional problems caused by the human characteristics – our arms aren't the same length as our legs – so she does have a bit of forward rake, but it's not enough to detract from what is a very nice looking beast mode.

Beast Mode: Rachel also comes packed with a Yeerk , the slug-like alien creatures that are the villains of the piece. It doesn't do anything, but it's a fun pack in and I can imagine any fight between the two would be disgusting. Like the time our littlest cat Daisy thought she'd try eating a slug.

Marks out of ten for the following:

Transformation design: As you might expect, there isn't much more to Rachel than standing her up and twirling the limbs about. It's fine and I don't know how extravagant you'd want to get. As ever with the Animorphs line, the parts forming does feel like a bit of a cheat, but it's not the end of the world. 7/10

Durability: Aside from worrying about losing the clip on lion claws and the Yeerk, there's nothing that feels breakable here. Rachel herself is a solid piece of work and even the spring loaded gimmick feels like its going to be good for a lifetime. 8/10

Fun: Rachel is great fun! There's a sentence that feels weird. She is though, I've had great fun having her prowl about looking fierce and pouncing on things. I like her werelion mode too. 9/10

Aesthetics: The beast mode is spot on, the human mode isn't bad and is one of the better ones in the line. She just looks a little hefty because of all that hair. There's something electrolysis would have a field day with. 7/10

Value/ Price : If you can find her loose and complete, she's cheap enough. Otherwise you can get stuck paying a premium as the aftermarket seems to be vastly inflating prices on sealed versions based on the Transformers branding, which without, I very much doubt these figures would command. 5/10

Overall: Definitely a highlight of the deluxe scaled Animoprhs, Rachel is a good, fun toy and has some nice play features and is a great example of how much toy engineering in the Transformers line had come on since Beast Wars debuted. 7/10

[Skyquake87]

Pictures!