Bot a Day: Daily Drawings

Sunstreaker again already? The Side Swipe Dodge Viper design gets another issue, and this version of Suntreaker -- the Binaltech Asterisk edition -- actually predated the Alternators Sunstreaker by a few months in 2005. The deco is different, with the Japanese exclusive lacking the black racing stripes and having more of a lemony shade of yellow. He is packed with a small PVC figure of Junko, a character from the Car Robots animation. I don't know why she has a giant umbrella. 

Alert is another in the Binaltech Asterisk series of Alternator/Binaltech redecos with bonus PVC human figurine pack-ins. As the name suggests, Alert is an incarnation of the G1 character Red Alert. Rather than his classic "Fire Chief" car alt-mode, Alert is instead a Japanese police car of the Subaru WRX STi variety. Partnered with Alert is a human police woman, Ai Kuruma, based on a human character from the Robots in Disguise/Car Robots cartoon. 

The Alternators line was not long for the world -- the complications of making licensed toys meant that the toy manufacturer wasn't exactly in charge of their own fate and agreements would come with expiration dates. In Japan, the originating line - Binaltech -- briefly transformed into Binaltech Asterisk, a line of redecos of existing molds paired with figurines of female characters from anime or manga fiction. This is comparatively wholesome to what the line would later become.  So of the short-lived Binaltech Asterisk line, first up is Broadblast - a redeco of the Scion xB - intended to be a new incarnation of the classic G1 character Blaster . He was packaged with newscaster Lumina Hoshi.