Toy Crap – TOBOMI

Listicle: Top Five Non-Transforming Toys of Twenty Ninteen

General Tekno — Tue, 14 Jan 2020 05:37:34 +0000

And now we come to the last list of the set – the one that’s for all the stuff that was awesome in 2019 that ISN’T some kind of transforming toy. There’s a lot of neat stuff that came out, and plenty of things that I’m going to highlight here and there. Bandai, GoodSmile, Hasbro… between the three of them (and other companies of course) there’s so much cool stuff that came out.

So one last time, ZE GROUND RULES, and then the list.

Toy must have been purchased and received in the calendar year of 2019. A preorder does not count as a purchase in this case; purchase means it’s available to buy now.

Toy does not have to have been released in 2019 to qualify – it can be something I only just got this year

Five things plus an honorable mention of “something that’s not on the top 5 but deserves to be brought up all the same” are going to apply for each list.

I will say too that the “received in the calendar year of 2019” was a big limiter on this list. As there’s a bunch of tail end of 2019 figures that I didn’t get until 2020 that would have been contenders to make it onto this list.

Honorable Mention: Power Rangers Beast Morphers Steel Robot Ranger

2019 saw a lot of big changes in western toyline licensing, one of which actually having its roots back in 2018 – namely, Bandai of America losing the Power Rangers license to Hasbro. People were shocked that Hasbro had swooped in, and were eager to see just what Hasbro was planning to do with the property – especially given that they clearly had a long term intent to buy the franchise outright. (Which they did do a few months later.) But we didn’t get to see what their offerings would be like until 2019, when the license changeover officially happened.

Now, originally I was going to talk about a Lightning Collection figure here. LC is to Power Rangers what Black Series and Legends are to Star Wars and Marvel – highly articulated 6″ figures at affordable price points – and they’ve had some really good figures, including a quite nice Lord Zedd. But he’s NOT who I’m going to be gushing over because of something they did in their main line.

Namely, proper justice for Beet J Stag.

See, back when Beast Morphers’ Japanese footage source, Go-Busters aired, Beet J Stag was THE BEST. He was a robot, he was a Go-Buster, and he was fantastically self-centered and quirky, always forcing himself into center stage. And given that Go-Busters marked the beginning of the end for Sentai Figuarts releases, the idea of a good 1:12 scale Beet J Stag very much seemed like one of those “when hell freezes over” pipe dreams.

And then in the more gimmicky, simpler articulation line, Hasbro did it and MADE A PROPER BEET J STAG. Sure, he’s called Steel in Beast Morphers, but he’s got a very good amount of articulation for his price point – shoulders, elbows, wrists, knees, and even outward hip articulation. About the only thing that he’s sorely missing, really, is ankle tilts.

But as a Beet J Stag toy, he’s one THAT EXISTS AND THAT I CAN PUT WITH MY OTHER TOYS. And this makes me very very happy.

5: Star Wars Black Series 6″ Emperor Palpatine

This was originally going to be about a different figure as well – specifically, the kickass store exclusive Mandalorian Heavy figure that came out at Best Buy in the US and TRU in Canada (yes, we still have ToysRUs! And people shop there!) But thinking about it, I had to shift gears in favor of ol’ Sheev himself. Palpatine’s always been one of my favorite Star Wars characters (I LOVE me some unequivocally evil powerful bad guys), and this release does him proper justice.

It’s not actually the first time Palpatine’s gotten a release in Black Series – I do in fact have the original release. But this one upgrades on that one in several ways. His robe is more specifically tailored to him, for one, rather than just being a black Jedi robe reuse – this means the hood is somewhat pinned so that the cowl sits far better. The hard plastic skirt has also been replaced with cloth, which allows him to better pull off sitting poses (kind of a necessity given his main accessory). And last but not least, the head… is really good.

The original release didn’t have a great headsculpt. The paint apps on it were really not good at all, in fact. But this one benefits from the newer face scanning and printing technology Hasbro has at their disposal for the line – the face is pretty much perfect. And it’s not the only one, either – he’s also aside from a neutral Palpatine pose has a “gleeful evil” face and an “angrily electrocuting Luke” face.

To top off this whole package, bumping up the price of this release is the fact he comes with his throne. So you can have Sheev sitting back and chilling out as he awaits for his schemes to come to fruition as foreseen.

Hopefully he’s not the last figure they do of him, either. I’d love to see something of his Supreme Chancellor look from ROTS, his Crimson Hooded Space Pope Senate outfit, his Yoda Duel/Maul Asswhooping brown and black getup, and of course the undead ghoul and rejuvenated Sith avatar looks from TROS….

….yeaaaah I’m a Darth Sidious fanboy.

4: Figma Saber Alter Shinjuku Version

There were a lot of good figmas in 2019! And a lot of Fate figmas, too. Yep, I fell down that rabbit hole alright…

So figuring out what figma I was gonna pick as representative of the 2019 releases was hard. Astolfo is great, Mordred is pretty solid… but ultimately, I love it when anime character figures are in moreso casual wear that looks stylish – and Saber Alter’s certainly looks quite stylish indeed.

But really, there’s a big reason she vaults up in my lists, and it’s a dumbass one that again caters very specifically to me personally – she comes with FOOD. As in, a hamburger. With a separate hand containing a sculpted wrapper that you can put the burger in. And on top of that, SHE’S GOT AN ADORABLE DOG, TOO.

It’s not the only Fate figma that got food. The Jeanne Alter casual figure did as well. But I missed the preorders on that given this Saber was a more last minute purchase decision after I went “FOOD.”

The other big weakness I have when it comes to accessories, amusingly, is smartphones. Figma DVa did come with one of those, but quite honestly Saber makes it into the list because I like the look of the toy more and it’s still a freaking hamburger.

I”m kinda really looking forward to the 2020 list, that said, given that the tail end releases of 2019 didn’t get here until after I’d closed off this list – there’s a couple figures in there that I’d highly anticipated.

3: FlameToys Furai Starscream Model Kit

Yes, it’s a Transformer! But it’s a non-transforming one, so he weasels his way onto this list! One of the neat additions to the licensed end of the Transformers merchandise pool, Japanese company FlameToys started putting out their model kits in 2018 – each one consisting of a highly posable depiction of a Transformers character. Some are ripped straight from the comics, like the IDW Megatron based on Alex Milne’s design from MTMTE, while others are original reimaginings by Studio TRIGGER director (and massive Transformers fanboy) Akira Amemiya.

This Starscream is one of the latter, and it’s something that again, I believe was technically out in late 2018, but that I didn’t actually get and build until 2019. (And it’s the only one that I did build in 2019, otherwise I would have put one of the others ones I have into consideration.)

He’s, well, he’s super anime and super stylish. While he doesn’t transform, he has an INSANE amount of posability and you can get him into basically any Super Robotty pose you can think of, looking badass as hell. And if you’re new to building model kits, he’s a fun way to spend several hours clipping pieces off of sprues and assembling – while there’s glue recommended at points in the instructions, none is actually needed, so he’s a good model kit for people unfamiliar with building them.

And if you don’t like building your own model kits, there’s gonna be a release for that, too – FlameToys is putting out some prepainted assembled versions of their model kits with some incredibly gorgeous full paint apps applied. But really, if you’re getting a model kit, where’s the fun if you’re not putting it together yourself?

2: SH Figuarts Kamen Rider Kiva

2019 marked the end of this long-running Rider Figuarts punchline as April saw the release of this figure at long last. Of the many many Riders to have gotten Figuarts releases in the past, Kiva was the one that got skipped over, that never happened, that became the figure that everyone joked about as the one that Bandai was not going to make just to drive everyone nuts.

The joke got even stronger when they did a Figuarts release of Kivala, a derivative character of Kiva who got all of 5-10 minutes of screentime in an entirely different show.

So it was a big deal when this guy went up for preorder. And better still, he’s in the modern Shinkocchou Seihou line, meaning his articulation is just that much better than all the older Kamen Rider Figuarts releases and in some very snazzy looking collector-oriented packaging. He’s not the only Rider who got a much needed modernization in 2019 – the new Kamen Rider OOO release is freaking GORGEOUS – but as a character who had never gotten a toy UNTIL NOW, he kinda takes priority over OOO. (And I say this as someone who hasn’t seen Kiva but has seen OOO.)

1. SH Figuarts Shin Dan Kuroto/Dan Kuroto Shin

It should come as no surprise really that God takes first place on this list. While this release DID come out in 2018, given I missed the initial preorders and got the reissue, I didn’t receive mine until sometime in early 2019. This is one of those oddball figure releases that you would NEVER expect them to do, except that they did it on account of the massive popularity of Dan Kuroto, one of the main antagonists of Kamen Rider Ex-Aid. (Which is already two and a bit shows old…. good god.)

He’s not the best Rider villain ever (unfortunately for him Evolt was a thing in the VERY NEXT SHOW) but he’s definitely up there. What made him special was his actor’s rubber face and fantastic body language – and this pair of figures captures that to great effect, being the SECOND time that Rider did a non-armored figure of a Rider (the only prior one being Rider-1 himself!)

I’m talking about these as a pair because aside from faces and accessories, they’re basically the same toy. To get the complete set of faces, you need both. And to get the CONTINUE pipe, you need to get Dan Kuroto Shin. But really, having two bodies is to your benefit as a collector, because all of his faces are GOLD and it means you can have multiples on your shelf.

Kuroto isn’t going to be the last unarmored Rider Figuarts, either. Coming up in early 2020, we’re getting a full figure of Ankh from Kamen Rider OOO in his human form. Which I would be all over, had it not gotten that much more expensive to import Tamashii Nations webshop exclusives….

(Goddammit Bandai)

All photos mine save for the SHF Kiva pic, because APPARENTLY I never actually took one. That one’s an official promo pic.

Listicle: Top Five Unlicensed Transforming Toys of Twenty Nineteen

General Tekno — Mon, 13 Jan 2020 07:52:22 +0000

Time for another one of these list things! This time, it being all of the various awesome unlicensed transforming toys made by companies that aren’t official by any means, but are (most of the time) of pre-existing characters. This list is honestly always one of the hardest ones to make, because of how many outstanding expensive entries there are in this field every year.

Interestingly, the hard part was once I got OUT of the top three. Those were pretty definitively set in stone as soon as I got those respective figures, which meant that it got HYPER competitive in all the other slots. I left out a lot of really good figures that I loved this year, like the X-Transbots G2 Stunticons and all of NewAge’s 2019 output, to name a few examples.

Like the official list, this one has ground rules too.

Toy must have been purchased and received in the calendar year of 2019
Toy does not have to have been released in 2019 to qualify – it can be something I only just got this year
Five things plus an honorable mention of “something that’s not on the top 5 but deserves to be brought up all the same” are going to apply for each list.

And with those out of the way – onto the list proper.

Honorable Mention: Iron Factory IF-EX31 Dubhe

The pocket-scale figures DEMANDED an entry on this list no matter what. There’s so many fantastic offerings coming from Iron Factory and New Age that to NOT include them in some way, shape, or form would be unconscionable. The pocket scale has become one of the more space-conscious ways to be able to collect a large number of characters with fantastic transformation schemes, posability, and detail at a cheaper price than most 3P offerings.

And so it is that this representation of the leader of the Decepticon Justice Division, Tarn, made the list. Like MMC, Iron Factory decided to make the whole team – and unlike MMC, they were able to not only get them out within a year of each other, but also not have to worry about pesky problems like “how do you convince people to shell out several hundred dollars for a less prominent member of a team who needs to TOWER over his teammates for proper scale?”

In robot mode, he nails the look, much like MMC’s take on the character from a couple years ago did – just at a much smaller size. While MMC had a cleaner, better looking altmode, however, this one does not – not to say it’s not good! It’s just not AS good, because the Iron Factory designers got ambitious… and made the DJD team into an all new, original design combiner.

Now, here’s where this review gets tricky. As of when I’m writing this, I’ve since gotten the entire team and slapped them together into combined mode – but as of when my cutoff was, I was unable to do this because I only had 4/5 of the component robots. So I can’t really justifiably touch on that other than to say that it’s a really really solid “pocket scale” combiner that comes together surprisingly well for a quintet of designs that were NEVER intended to combine in the first place.

The biggest shortcoming that Dubhe had was his shoulder design – the quality control on his shoulders was NOT good. However, if you do indeed want to complete the team, there’s a fix for this – the subsequent 2pack release of their takes on Vos and Kaon includes replacement parts and directions for how to install them.

#5: Mastermind Creations Reformatted R-41 Ultio

It’s no secret Mastermind Creations remains my go-to “3P company that I want to shovel money towards.” And Reformatted had a banner year as usual, with a ton of great repaints and some cool new molds. DJD medic Nickel queuejumped ahead of her far more expensive remaining teammates to come out this year, and we got the second half of their very impressive Magna Inventa combiner – their take on Sky Lynx.

But the one that made the list was in fact a retool – and one that I’d been looking forward to since a past April 1 joke sparked enough interest to actually get consideration for a figure – that being, an extensive retool of their Aero Alpha (Wing) mold to turn it into the pre-war senatorial incarnation of the Decepticon Ratbat. This is in fact the SECOND toy that this particular iteration of the character has gotten – the previous one was an official retool of Generations Scourge released in Japan by TakaraTomy, and a quite effective repaint with a new head at that.

I just love the look of this toy. Senator Ratbat’s one of my favorite unique-to-IDW design concepts, and Ratbat’s up there on my favorites list thanks to his appearances in the Marvel comics as the accountant-with-too-much-power leader of the Decepticons (yes! a cassette! In charge!). Really a lot of credit with how GOOD this looks goes directly to Alex Milne and Josh Perez, without whom this toy would not exist as there’d be no design to inspire it.

#4: Mastermind Creations Ocular Max PS-15 Fraudo

While MMC’s Ocular Max subline of Masterpiece-scaled/styled releases had a number of figures I picked up this past year (and some I didn’t, though I kinda sorta want them still), their Assaultus project has had my eye since they first teased it a couple of years ago. The high concept of Alex Kubalsky’s “all-in-one” combiner design, where every combiner part is integrated into the transformation, is one that immediately piqued my interest, and as 2019 closed two of those team members had been released with another one soon to be on the way.

This was a genuinely tricky one to rank, because BOTH those toys – Impetus and Fraudo, their takes on Vortex and Swindle – are really good. In fact, I’d actually argue that Impetus is the more impressive of the two from an engineering standpoint, considering he has to hide a hand somewhere inside his body while Fraudo just has to turn into a block with an ankle tilt, thanks to the animation model for Bruticus having no separately defined boot feet. Not to mention Impetus has the var cooler (and VERY cleanly engineered) altmode.

But Fraudo wins out narrowly in my books because I love Swindle. It’s a good Swindle toy that has the animation body and altmode (which were not at all the same as that of the toy). And ultimately this is a list of toys that I personally loved, not which ones are objectively better toys.

Presently we’re on track for seeing the rest of the combiner in 2020 – their Onslaught is on the cusp of a pre-CNY release, and their Vortex is pretty close to being done in his test shot phase as far as I can tell. (And Brawl isn’t far behind; we’ve gotten early test shot images.) Once all together, he’s gonna look pretty incredible on a shelf.

#3: UniqueToys R-02 Challenger

Remember my whole speech in the Top 5 Transformers article where I went on about Studio Series serving up really good toys of movie designs I don’t like? This one’s similar to that. Except, mind, that I do genuinely like the design for AOE/TLK Optimus Prime. It’s not a particularly G1 design – there’s way more blue, and the chest did away with the iconic windows. But the proportions really pop, and it cleanly morphs into a robot that only vaguely suggests that it could feasibly turn into a truck.

Except, mind, the madmen at UniqueToys actually PULLED THAT TRICK OFF. It’s a hyperposable TLK Optimus that actually incredibly cleanly transforms into the truck mode with a VERY intuitive transformation in the movie Masterpiece scale. And the further icing on the top is his alternate face that’s got the sinister crimson eyes and facepaint of his corrupted “Nemesis Prime” incarnation where he very much embraces the unrepentant killer aspect of the movieverse Optimus (much to the clear chagrin of Peter Cullen, who was very much phoning in his performance for good reason.)

Both Vangelus and Jobby the Hong have highlighted this figure on their respective YouTube channels, and it’s definitely one to be messed with.

#2: FansHobby MB-06B Purple Power Baser

So you might remember how earlier in 2019, I got the MP-10 Shattered Glass Optimus Prime. Largely because I loved SSSS Gridman, which based a lot of its character designs off of the Shattered Glass cast (including Akane Shinjo, who was a clear SG Optimus homage thanks to the madmen at TRIGGER). It wasn’t the only Shattered Glass figure I picked up in 2019 – Iron Factory did an SG Optimus with an Apex Armor trailer, and the TFcon custom class was making an SG Megatron from Open and Play’s Big Cannon (which if you might recall made my 2018 list of top 3P figures). And as of writing this, I have an unbuilt FlameToys SG Optimus model kit…

And so anyway, I decided to buy this piece from FansHobby, which actually technically came out in December of 2018 as a SGC exclusive, but that I didn’t actually purchase until a few months ago. FansHobby being a company that’s had some really cool releases that up until 2019, I avoided spending money on (the other one being their 2018 Transmetal III Megatron homage). As a 3P they’re known for their toys being of high quality, and this Optimus is no exception.

It really is a gorgeous gorgeous toy when you get it out of the box and have it towing the Powermaster trailer. Then you transform the cab, and get a very clean MP-10 height Optimus Prime. Then you put it back into cab mode and start reconfiguring the trailer in order to give this SG Optimus some gorgeous and imposing Powermaster armor.

I still don’t know where this toy is going to live on my shelves. It’s been living on my kitchen table since I got it, more or less – it’s just so BIG. And it’s going to get even bigger, too – FansHobby’s take on Godbomber just came out, and unsurprisingly this also resulted in Nucleon Quest and Shattered Glass repaints of that to go with those respective releases, too.

I really need to find space for it.

#1: Jiang Xing MetalBeast-01 Winged Dragon

So I kinda teased this in the last article, when I mentioned that MP BW Megatron wasn’t the ONLY one to headline a Top X toys list.

This was the other one. I’ve been following this toy for awhile now – I believe it got announced back in 2017, and development has been VERY slow. There were points where I was wondering if it was still happening, and then they showed an update of the sculpt, or of the paint apps, and it very much all throughout was a “holy cow I can’t believe this is real, my shelves are NOT ready” feeling to it.

Anyway, that feeling is the same about the final toy. It is basically a PERFECT representation of Megatron’s final form in the Beast Wars – an animation accurate Transmetal II dragon with an insane wingspan and incredibly posable robot form. While Perfect Effect’s take on the TMII design was more of a reimagining/modernization, this just IS the CGI of the show copy-pasted into the physical world. Every inch of this toy is covered in paint and SO SHINY.

AND THE HEFT. UNF. The SHEER HEFT OF THIS THING because of all the diecast usage. As if the size wasn’t enough (40cm to the wingtips in robot mode IIRC), the WEIGHT is incredibly satisfying. It’s actually a little bit of a pain to transform him because of his heft, size, and wingspan getting in the way, but it’s not overly difficult or anything. Just cumbersome.

If this Megatron has a negative, it’s that it’s almost got TOO much paint for its own good. The manual even warns that some areas will have rubbing and the red paint can flake off to reveal a silver undercoat – however, on mine, after a couple of transformations, this is largely contained to tiny areas that are mostly not visible in robot mode anyway and not any of the key spots like the helmet or chest – if you’re mindful of how you mess with this, the flaking can be minimized. It won’t happen unless you transform the toy, really, and with a piece like this, you won’t be doing that much.

Also like Power Baser, I have NO IDEA where to display this guy. He is INCREDIBLY Detolf-unfriendly, between his weight and his wingspan. But so gorgeous… yesssss.

Next up on my listicles: My top 5 non-transforming toys! So figmas, Figuarts, Black Series… you name it!

Listicle: Top Five Transformers of Twenty Nineteen

General Tekno — Mon, 13 Jan 2020 06:04:04 +0000

Oh hey! Another post! One of those things I rarely do!

This one being yet another listicle – like I did about a year ago, it’s time for another Top Five (plus one) post of the Transformers that I enjoyed the most from last year. This doesn’t necessarily mean I think they were the Absolute Objective Best of the year – there were a LOT of great toys after all – but these official Transformers releases (Hasbro & TakaraTomy) were all were among my favorites and are of note.

As for the ground rules for this list:

Toy must have been purchased and received in the calendar year of 2019
Toy does not have to have been released in 2019 to qualify – it can be something I only just got this year
Five things plus an honorable mention of “something that’s not on the top 5 but deserves to be brought up all the same” are going to apply for each list.

And with that said, I guess I’ll start with the list, then…

Honorable Mention: Studio Series 35 Jetfire

Jetfire’s a bit of an odd duck of an honorable mention. Honestly, I don’t particularly care for his design as a Jetfire, which is why it’s weird. But he’s very much emblematic of what I’ve found to be the core appeal to me of Studio Series, which is why he made the list.

Specifically, while he’s not a great design, the toy NAILS it. It’s as good an SR-71 as one can get in toy form that transforms into a super screen accurate depiction of Jetfire. It then can break apart and become power armor for the Voyager Optimus Prime mold, which is a very cool bonus. But more importantly, it’s a really good toy of a really iffy design.

And that design ethos is what fascinates me about Studio Series. Tehre’s a bunch of toys I’m excited for where I can’t say I ever really LOVED their design but the accuracy of the toy in replicating the look is the appeal in of itself. Going into 2020, Studio Series is gonna be going strong, too, as by year’s end I’ll finally be able to assemble a fully transformable to all component modes ROTF Devastator – something I REALLY wanted a decade ago and that we’re finally getting now.

#5: Studio Series 38 Optimus Prime

One of the highlights of late 2019 was how, well, GOOD the Bumblebee Movie was. It was a great change of pace from the previous Bay films, and had some solid acting, casting, designs, and cinematography courtesy of having a director who a) was already a big fan b) has extensive experience in stop motion, like Travis Knight. Throwing caution to the wind and ignoring prior continuity, they redesigned a number of characters for a few minutes worth of footage set on Cybertron, making them look like the designs that we all kinda wanted back in 2007 – G1 but modernized so that they don’t look like a mess but are recognizably the characters.

Optimus Prime’s robot mode is straight up that “G1 but more streamlined aesthetic. He’s got fairly humanoid proportions and all the hallmarks of Optimus in a very VERY posable package – and then turns into an accurate 80s freightliner all the same with a really complex transformation that results in most extraneous truck kibble either streamlining or hiding away. This was very much a toy that I thought I had missed out on back in early 2019 due to his lousy availability for retail pricing in Canada, but a chance visit to a Walmart shortly before Christmas allowed me to fill that hole and acquire this marvel of a toy for myself.

#4: Cyberverse Deluxe Bumblebee

Cyberverse was a pleasant surprise of a show – while expectations were not super high of a series that was going to be “Bumblebee-centric with 11 minute episodes”, by the midpoint of Season 1 it became clear that this was, in fact, a really solid series. Season 2 continued to kick it up a notch as well, making me both excited and disappointed.

Specifically, disappointed because the Cyberverse toyline was firmly directed at a younger set of kids. Limited articulation and prioritization of gimmicks littered the line, so even when there was a good depiction of a character to be had, it was missing some key feature we took for granted, like proper head articulation or even knees, and for a price tag making the toys unpalatable for many adult fans.

So when they revealed at NYCC that Cyberverse was, in fact, getting a line of proper Deluxe figures, many, myself included, got hyped. These were actual Deluxe toys, with all of the hallmarks thereof, of characters whose designs were SCREAMING for better toys. And of wave one, Bumblebee was head and shoulders the strongest in the line – a solid transformation, great posability, and accurate robot and vehicle modes.

With wave 2 on the way, I’m really hyped for the Arcee we’ve been promised. And disappointed we still don’t have any Seekers in the deluxe line – but hopefully time fixes that oversight, and hopefully they’re not just clones of Starscream’s body type.

#3: MP-44 Convoy/Optimus Prime 3.0

This one was a no-brainer, really, due to how good it was. Yes, it’s Yet Another Masterpiece Optimus Prime, but, well… it’s a great one. While MP-10 went for a more general “let’s make a good posable G1 Optimus”, this toy instead opted for the modern design aesthetic of “the goal is the 1984 animation model.” And BOY did it deliver with an AMAZING transformation.

Everything comes apart and goes back together in an incredibly intuitive way, much like MP Sunstreaker, and in a more successful manner than MP Bumblebee 2.0 and MP Hound (they’re good toys, but they have their flaws. And Hound’s got some scary QC issues reported.) The question buying it was “is this worth the 500 bucks,” and upon messing with the trailer it became VERY CLEAR that they very much had that price point set for a reason. The trailer’s loaded with configurations and options, including magnetic strips even that support Diaclone driver feet and storage for all the accessories. And as I said… the transformation is just MAGIC. It’s amazing how they shift mass off of the cab into the legs in order to allow for that slimmer, more humanoid animation accurate look with an insane range of motion.

It’s also a mold that’ll get a bajillion repaints looking forward. If you want to experience it, I kinda have to go recommend trying the upcoming Black Convoy instead, if only because the trailer is more expensive bonus than anything, so the fact Black Convoy doesn’t have one means you get a way cheaper toy as a result.

#2: WFC: Siege Jetfire

This one was probably my most anticipated Hasbro release of the year, after his unveiling at Toy Fair back in February. Everyone expected Omega Supreme to be the big reveal that would get us all excited – but then John Warden’s enthusiastic showing off of all the features in this new Commander-class pricepoint launcher stole the show and my anticipation.

He’s basically Skyfire from the G1 cartoon, and super slavishly so. Unlike the 3P MP-scaled Skyfire I already own (the bad one, not the FansToys one), he doesn’t need to partsform. He has your now-standard Jetfire battlemask/addon cannons. A faction-swapping gimmick to replicate scenes from “Fire in the Sky” where he’s on the Decepticon team. And, in one of the coolest features, closing his hand results in a 5mm port ejecting itself automatically from the wrist in order to make plugging in a gun all the easier. And not only does it retract as well, but it does NOT compromise wrist articulation!

Quite frankly, Siege as a toyline was really really REALLY good. So many A+++ releases. I ended up getting just about all of them (as of right now, I’m only short Rung/Singe/Spinister of the ones I wanted.) If I had to direct more honorable mentions that way, I’d definitely flag the new Springer mold, the Optimus Prime that made last year’s list, and of course the titanic Omega Supreme.

#1: MP-43 Beast Wars Megatron

Was this ever in doubt, knowing that they did a Masterpiece grade toy of my absolute favorite Transformers character of all time?

NO.

It’s like Dinobot was in 2018. A pitch-perfect screen accurate representation of Megatron. Except unlike Dinobot, his original toy being fairly accurate meant there was far less of a need for crazy alchemy to pull him off.

He’s a big toy. A crazy large amount of soundbytes, some really good articulation including moving dino pupils, dinosaur armor that removes purely to facilitate a scene in the cartoon where he’s not wearing his T-Rex kibble… he really does a lot. Paint is pretty much perfect, QC is fairly good (there were some reported issues with his waist I never encountered on mine) and posability is *chef’s kiss*.

Also, between Megatron and (the less impressive but still really nice in robot mode) Blackarachnia, that much closer to getting all of S1’s cast in the MP scale, with us now having 5 entries in the show cast. I don’t think we’ll ever see that myself, but then, TakaraTomy DID tease something for Year of the Rat in 2020…. *crosses fingers*. In any case though, Lio Convoy’s coming in a couple months, and he also looks quite nice indeed.

Coming up next: My other “top toys of 2019” lists – the unlicensed transforming toys one, and the non-transforming toys one. And it’s not much of a spoiler to say that this isn’t going to be the first time a Megatron figure will take the #1 slot…

All images for this article save for the header taken from official stock photography.

Quickie Review Photodump: Planet X Triton

General Tekno — Mon, 25 Feb 2019 04:24:15 +0000

Or, well, PADDLES!

To provide a super quickie history course… Paddles is the sixth Dinobot. From a UK short story collection. Who turns into, well, not Champ. Not Nessie. But OGO. POGO. A Plesiosaur.

A ****ING PLESIOSAUR

Anyway Venture Bros reference aside, that Planet X did this is pretty cool. He’s a retool of their take on Sludge, only with flippers instead of legs, as well as a new head. And in altmode HOLY HELL IS HE IMPRESSIVE. Like, he’s freaking huge.

Like LOOK AT HIM next to my keyboard. SO FREAKING LONG

Transformation has a couple tricks to it, but is otherwise pretty straightfoward. A lot of the mass compresses into a nice squat bulky robot with some decent posability to it. He looks nifty indeed!

*slams BW Megatron voiceclip button* SIDE-GUNS!

Weaponwise, he’s got a king’s ransom of armaments. Twin giant cannons and a Transmetal Megatron tailwhip are his main weapons. He also comes with some translucent swords that, as I understand it, are meant to go with their Swoop moreso (but he can still hold/store them). But honestly the BFGs are enough… especially given you can plug them in onto his shoulder flippers so they sit above the shoulders nice and stable-y. His own set of side-guns!

In summary… I won’t lie. Paddles WAS a bit of a novelty buy. With BBTS having him for 30 bucks back in December, he was a no-brainer to throw in a box with a couple other things. But he’s a really REALLY GOOD novelty buy.

Anyway hopefully next review doesn’t take as long for me to actually writeup. Meant to talk about him the week after Akane Shinjo, but then got sidetracked.

Quickie Review Photodump: MP-10 SG Optimus Prime

General Tekno — Mon, 28 Jan 2019 07:50:16 +0000

Or, should I say, Masterpiece Akane Shinjo.

This next Kaiju’s gonna light our darkest hour!

This was one of those figures I had no interest in, really. And then within an episode of Studio TRIGGER’s “SSSS Gridman” premiering, everyone realized that virtually all the characters in the cast were stealth Transformers homages – mostly of the Shattered Glass variety. And the main antagonist, who was awesome in her own right (seriously, what a fantastically realized character) was SG Optimus Prime.

It’s not just Gridman with vehicle partners now!

Then BBTS put this Asian market exclusive on a crazy good sale over the holidays and I caved. (There’s something else I got too worth talking about but that’s for a future post). And getting it in hand – it’s pretty nice.

Truck mode is… well, it comes with the trailer! Which is a cool bonus feature. It doesn’t come with a Roller drone, surprisingly (or a Spike), but the main Combat Deck functionality is still all there. The trailer’s pretty sparse on paint but given it’s in black plastic, it doesn’t really need it.

Rikka, you’re the only one for her.

(Fun fact, for the TFcon 2018 custom class figure, we actually made an SG Optimus from the Perfect Effect PMOP figure. And, given I had a spare lying around, I painted up a copy of the trailer portion of Ginrai to go with it/give it Powermaster armor using this figure as the basis for what the trailer would look like.)

Robot mode, meanwhile…. well, it’s an MP-10. I know MP-44 (Optimus 3.0) is due out really soon, but this is still a mold worth owning due to the fantastic engineering.

ACQUIRING SHIPMATE

Really, the biggest noticeable change from the stock MP-10 is the lack of chrome. Given this was made at more of a budget that’s a little understandable, BUT unfortunately this leads to a design flaw, because the tolerances for the chest locking into place were all built around the extra thickness the chrome layer provides. This is obviously fixable with some properly applied floor polish, but it’s still a flaw nonetheless.

I’m going to love you and hug you and squeeze you and call you George!

Also worth noting too is the plastic. It’s not as uniform as the plastic on the Hasbro Optimus that I have – in fact it’s got some swirls in it here and there. This very much comes across as a release that they wanted to put out for fun and on a budget, given it’s not up to the same standards as a regular Masterpiece release. BUT THAT SAID! It’s still the MP-10 mold. These flaws aside, it’s as poseable as a regular MP-10 is.

I WANT YOU INSIDE ME RIKKA; YOU WERE MADE FOR ME

This is a figure definitely not for everyone. It’s a niche thing, especially given my reasons for wanting this (I can’t help but think of this as Akane Shinjo’s transtector, after all). Wouldn’t pay full price for it, but for a sale it’s worth it. And, more importantly, it’s a way to justify keeping a copy of the MP-10 mold if you want MP-44 or one of the 3P Optimus options coming out this year and don’t want to Optimii in your collection.

KEEP AWAY FROM MY WAIFU, YUTA