MMC Azalea - The Third Party Arcee We've Been Waiting For, Or Another Wrong Turn? TFSource Blog

The first thing I noticed was how light and small the figure was out of the package. Delicate Warrior seems a much more fitting name for MMC’s offering. I’ll come back to the posability and various elements of the robot mode later, but my first experience of Azalea was not the toy you see in this feature, instead it was a friend’s show exclusive Stealth Azalea shown off at a UK pub meet-up. Any Transformers collector will have a tendency to transform the figure placed in their hands shortly after the initial inspection/amazement has subsided, and when I started manipulating Stealth Azalea, I found myself quite disappointed with the fiddly, delicate and somewhat messy nature of the operation. I got nowhere, and handed back a twisted mess to the owner which I’m sure he didn’t thank me for. Our joint conclusion was “this is not a Transformer, this is a highly posable figure”.

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I don’t want to beat about the bush, though. Getting Azalea into vehicle mode was a complete chore and neither intuitive nor enjoyable those first few occasions. I found myself bending things in order to tab them correctly, and when one thing tabbed, another would un-clip, mis-align, come off or just plain resist. There was genuine frustration and it really is true to say that had I not needed to review the toy for this article, it may have been dismissed completely and permanently from my collection based on those early interactions. Some collectors – maybe rightfully – feel entitled to instant gratification, and do not feel justified in persevering with a figure to enjoy and appreciate it once they’ve worked out all the foibles and quirks.

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I grabbed Azalea out of the packaging again last night and said to myself “if you can transform her to vehicle mode with no difficulty, with nothing popping off and no confusion or frustration, then she’s a keeper”. Sure enough I managed it, and I enjoyed it. I even clipped/tabbed 100% of the instructed parts together and it took me less time than my movie Human Alliance figures. I learned, I adapted, I gave it more of a chance than maybe it deserved, but I was rewarded. The result being I have since ordered Zinnia from TFSource.