C-301 Goshooter - Shūta Gō!

If there is one thing I have learned over the years it is this: "When Botcon comes around, good deals abound" as our good friend Wheelie might say. I believe this applies whether you attend the convention or not, because while everyone is distracted by all the Botcon exclusives, news, etc. there are a bunch of great deals to be had on eBay and elsewhere. This year a particular TFW seller put up a massive amount of Japanese, European and Diaclone stuff about three days before Botcon! Thankfully Heroic Decepticon alerted me to the thread in time before everything sold out. I wasn't quick enough for some items, but I snagged Landcross, Twincast and GoShooter here. GoShooter is the real gem because he is dead mint with all paperwork, no flap crease and no yellowing. And even though he is only a repaint and not a Japanese exclusive mold he can be hard to come by today.

GoShooter's American counterpart is Siren, an almost exact copy except for the gray color in place of the white and the fire related decorations versus the police on GoShooter. The thing that can be really maddening about these two figures are those small guns that turn into antenna on their heads tend to be very expensive which is why I'm so glad GoShooter was complete.

Unfortunately my Siren is pretty badly yellowed.

But I would much rather have a yellowed Siren than GoShooter

Of course, I can't mention GoShooter without mentioning his two partners, Cab and Minerva. Minerva tends to be the white whale of many collections since she was the first female transformer ever officially released. On the other hand Cab is relatively common because he is aesthetically no different from his American (and more common) doppelganger Hosehead. Together these three made up the Junior Headmasters in the Transformers: Super-God Masterforce television show, one of my personal favorites among Transformer cartoons. GoShooter originally portrayed the stereotypical "human friend" of the transformers before he technically became one himself. It was like they took the concept of the exo-suit to the next level and this way kids could actually envision themselves becoming transformers. I know I probably would have loved that as a kid (and kinda as an adult too!)

See also:
The Go Shooter Project - by Flywheels