Transformers: Titans Return Seaspray is Something That Exists

Its a given that in an ensemble action/toy franchise, one big enough to have it's cast in the dozens, they will be a dude whose job it is to have the seaborne adventures. It makes sense, there's entire genres of fiction exploring such things. The thing is that this often a gimmick, and an isolating one. If you have a dude whose whole thing is that he's tishman or summat, logically he's not gonna be great on land, and if people join him in the sea, you run the risk making somebody else look naff. TV Tropes calls this phenomenon "This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman", and it's Seaspray's fate. Appearing in season 2 of the Sunbow show, Seaspray was one of the "suddenly there" characters, one with a distinctive manner of speech, and a couple of highlight episodes, but not much else. But I had that toy as a kid, and do so today actually, so here we are. I do occasionally have my irrational favourites.

This isn't the first time I've written about Seaspray, actually. I did so a worryingly long time ago as part of my "Radical Regenerations" format. That toy was made during a period when Hasbro was much more willing to totally rework a character, something much less common these days, barring the recent Wheeljack hoo-hah. That toy made Seaspray a much bigger chap, not unreasonably as hovercraft are actually pretty massive, but still kept his fundamental dorkiness by giving him flippers & scuba gear. Today's subject is somewhat closer to the source material, but isn't anywhere near as slavish as the modern crop of deluxe minibots, which Seaspray will no doubt join eventually. Titans Return brought plenty of G1 characters back, but modernised, remixed, and made to fit the line-wide gimmicks. This Seaspray is therefore a logical progression, drawing from both animation and toy sources, while doing stuff he explicitly didn’t do before in the name of play value. 

 

This is most evident in his vehicle mode, which is obviously more detailed than the original toy, but also more angular. Even allowing for the rarity of hovercraft, it's obvious who it is, but they've added a touch of white up front, and tampographs like the old toy stickers. The use of yellow meanwhile is slightly more prominent, with black merely being paint, rather than a shadowy hollow. What seems to have been a passenger area on the original has been reimagined as a missile launcher, and is is the first of several removable oddities. The launcher is secured by three small tabs and like TR Brawn, the larger one, needs to be removed for transformation but also has detail underneath so it's no biggy if it goes missing. The blue propellers and rear underside are also removable for no obvious reason. While the above are basically harmless curiosities, what is less forgivable is the exposed head. While I suppose you could argue that this is a nod to the original toy, the actual reason is that is Seaspray dedicates a lot of internal space to a Titan master compartment, and I am 1000% sure that they could have had the head fold away without that. The hands are also hanging out in the back there, and there's no castor wheels, which are downers but not actually deal breakers by the standards of the time. Overall its quite a charming little vehicle mode, especially if you pair him with a solo titanmaster. This is an area where the TakaraTomy version possibly has the edge, as ole TT didn't do solo Titanmasters, and remixed their parts into other releases. Thus the Japan release of Seaspray comes with some deco differences and a little headmaster-type dude called Lione, whom invites a lengthy tangent I've cut from this article.(Short version: TakaraTomy got weird and broke the play pattern, thus undermining a love letter to their past work.) If you can get that version, it's probably quite nice, but it's not the clear winner that some Japanese versions are.

In robot mode, positive trends continue, although relatively few new visual elements are revealed. The main difference is the reveal of his yellow legs, as the transformation has similar-if-remixed beats to the original toy. Overall appearance and proportions suggest a dorky awkwardness, with each foot almost being as big as his torso, which, TBH, was the brief. The missile rack gives you some options here, leave it on for Sunbow chubbiness, or take it off the for 80's toy look. This leads us to, in possibly the least likely sentence I will ever write, Sea Spray's interesting forearms. The missile rack doesn't use a 5mm peg, instead it uses one of the tabs to connect near the elbow. 5mm fist-holes remain for compatibility, but it's an honestly clever idea. Both forearms also feature a coded reference to Alana, his one time love interest. It seems he got her name tattooed on him, as befits a sailor, although spelt wrong. Possibly he was drunk, again befitting a Sailor, and many tattoos start that way. So, it's a toy with character, then, where's the downside? Well, articulation is adequate rather than great. Those feet don't really have much in the ankle. 

 

 

My point? Only that Titans Return Seaspray is something that exists. He's probably not the best in his line, but is he fun.