Upon its announcement, I really became interested with SND’s “The One,” their take on one of the IDW designs for Optimus Prime. Mostly because of how the figure has heavy reliance on actual plastic parts for color accuracy instead of using paint. I got my copy last April but it didn’t take me until October to take the figure out of its box. And I should’ve taken it out sooner because of this.
I opened EmGo’s Just Transform It (or JTI) video for this figure and I was closely following along converting it from robot to vehicle. As I was following the final transformation steps, I realized that something was missing. It was missing both rubber tires on the left side of the vehicle. I looked inside the box to see if it came loose or something, but there were no rubber tires inside. I was immediately bummed as while some online sellers have great after-sales support for such figures, I’ve yet to ask the same from the local seller I got this from.
But I didn’t really want to get another copy just to have complete rubber tires on all wheels, so I decided to contact the aforementioned local seller and ask the possibility of requesting rubber wheels. They did accommodate my request, but they can’t give me any promises since it was already several months following the release of this guy. Then a couple of days later, SND did open pre-orders for recolors of this figure, which gave me hope that they would have extra parts, including these missing rubber wheels.
A couple of months later, while in Japan, I was informed that the rubber wheels have arrived.
Finally, I have this guy complete, though following the one transformation I did a couple of months ago, I wasn’t exactly looking forward to the conversion process once I put this guy in the photobooth. But if anything, it made me realize to always check your figures immediately after purchase. This is something most collectors do, but I often open some of these boxes much, much later due to various reasons. But not anymore as I don’t want the hassle and uncertainty of waiting for replacement parts.
I’ll probably bring this guy back to the office and attempt to reverse the transformation back to robot mode. I hope not to break anything as that wouldn’t be part of the after-sales support.
