Hasbro is producing an exclusive Transformer that is a collaboration with the Prince of Reggaeton, musician J. Balvin, whose song "Mi Gente" was everywhere during the summer of 2017, and he also did a song for the Paramount+ Spongebob Squarepants movie Sponge on the Run last year. This is the first collaboration between Hasbro and a musician since the Transformers Collaborative began in 2019.

　　What has now been rebranded as J.Balvintron, the reskinned Soundwave has some of J. Balvin's signature art on it--primarily the yellow smiley face with red lightning bolts. Hasbro sent us the J.Balvitron figure to check out, and you can see those images below.

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　　J.Balvintron comes in specialty boxing, and the figure itself comes with two mini cassette figures with designs inspired by his albums "Energia" and "Vibras"--one transforms into a tiger (Stripes) and the other into a condor (Buzzsaw). There is also a blaster which he can hold or mount onto shoulder, with multicolor blast effect. Yes, it's exactly as you remember it, but with a visual facelift to go along with J. Balvin's style, who was a a diehard fan of the animated series as a child. And yes, you can open up the boombox to put the mini-cassette figures in it--which is a must-have for a G1 Soundwave figure.

　　The Transformer stands at seven inches tall, in robot mode. The Transformer will come out October 1 and will retail for $70. There is a small catch to all of this though. It's available only through NTWRK, North America's livestream shopping platform. Luckily, there are still figures available, and you don't need an account in order to purchase it. You can check out the J. Balvin Transformer figure here. It will most likely be available on the secondary market in October--but will probably cost a bit more.

　　Mat Elfring on Google+