Manero (aka Jazz) was announced as ready to ship on April 4th – an appropriate date for their fourth mold released!
The Box
Manero is packaged is a Diaclone inspired window box just like Harry. Unfortunately, the box for the Diaclone Porsche 935 Turbo was not as nice as the box for Police Car Fairlady Z (that became Prowl and later inspired Harry). To add a little more G1 flair, New Age has replaced the static toy photo from the Diaclone box with a drawing of Manero posed just like the art on the G1 Jazz packaging.
Unlike Harry, Manero is not labeled as an “Ark Warrior” but does retain the “Alliance” categorization on the bottom of the box.
Inside the box you get a rifle, two speakers and instructions.
The instructions feature line art with the moving parts drawn in red instead of photos with highlighting like on the previous releases.
The Robot
The robot is unquestionably a tightly designed piece of engineering. When Harry came out it was often described as a “mini-masterpiece” and it’s hard to argue that Manero is in the same class
Almost no kibble here at all.
The head, as expected, is very sharp and very Jazz.
The hips are nicely detailed and painted.
The articulation is on a par with Harry with no interfering parts like on Max.
Toy-purists beware: as you can see above, there is no way to give Manero shoulder wings since the vehicle doors wrap around the figure’s lower legs.
Apparently they tweaked Manero’s design after releasing Harry to address customer concerns:
After receiving the feedback of the H3, we improved the new version of the H2. Remaining the waist joint, we also make the shoulders and feet joint to make it better. You can’t see any empty space when looking from the back.
New Age Toys Facebook post March 16 at 11:53 PM
Certainly no “empty space” on this bot!
The new feet are top notch as you can see in the following “boxer” pose!
The ankle on this figure is double hinged with a main joint on the inside of the foot that can fold out to 90 degrees and a secondary joint at the back of the foot which can fold out 45 degrees. Here are some close-ups of the feet:
As you can see above, the grey cover is not attached to the calf so if you’re not careful it can separate during posing. It does fold down flat in this pose but I left the flawed photo here as a public advisory.
The Porsche
The transformation for Manero is much more complex than Harry. When transforming the knees they need to very firmly snap into place so that the attached roof panels sit flush with the rest of the roof.
There is one small flaw in the vehicle mode, the two sides of the spoiler do not quite match with the left side being much thicker than the right.
The tiny details on this are extremely nice. From the fully painted rolling tires…
to the textured front grill…
to the doors with molded handles that are almost too small to see…
New Age really pulled out all of the stops on this mold.
The Original Tease
H2 was originally teased in July 2018 with the following image:
With the Shockwave head on a Jazz chest the silhouette covers both Manero and Cyclops. The black latex gloves, hopefully, were simply a reference to Shockwave as an experimental scientist.
The Name
The first result for “Manero” is a movie from 2008. It’s also Spanish for trained. However, with Gremlin and Harry being used for other releases in this line it seems like the movie is the more likely inspiration.
360 Degree Turnaround
The Conclusion
I love New Age’s confidence when they posted on Facebook about Manero:
The pictures can not describe its perfection. There’s no need to hesitate, just buy it.
New Age Toys Facebook post March 16 at 11:53 PM (emphasis added)
For me, their confidence was more than justified. This is one impressive figure!
