top 5 – TOBOMI

Listicle: Top 5 Non-Transforming Toys of Twenty Eighteen

General Tekno — Wed, 02 Jan 2019 06:27:53 +0000

And now for the third of my toy retrospective lists of 2018 – namely, that of the NON-transforming toys. Action figures, roleplay items, high and low end… all of that stuff is included here. And to refresh on the rules:

Toy must have been purchased and received in the calendar year of 2018 (this excludes stuff like MP Sunstreaker, who I was messing with Dec 31 of 2017)
Toy does not have to have been released in 2018 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.

Lots of cool stuff came out, but only so many got to make my list – a list which admittedly is very subjective:

Honorable Mention: Robot Spirits Gipsy Avenger

Pacific Rim Uprising was a fun film. Not as great as the first one, granted, but I personally enjoyed how it moved away from the “real robots” feel of the original and into a more Super Robots anime feel. But what put it above the previous one was the toyline – for the first Pacific Rim, the toys suffered somewhat due to licensor complications – NECA had the license, and early waves had pared down articulation so they could try and get them on Walmart shelves (a strategy which failed, I should note). Also, they were NECA toys…. don’t get me wrong, NECA stuff looks nice, but the quality isn’t always the best.

Bandai getting the license for Uprising was a huge coup – here we had THE pre-eminent masters of action figure articulation taking the lead, and it was clear the designers had something to prove, as they put out figures that rivaled the high end Figuarts in articulation but for a more budget price. They didn’t have the high gloss finish and heavy paint applications a lot of SHFs tend to have, but the posability/alternate hand options were all there, for half the price of a Figuarts and around the same price as what NECA’s offerings had been.

Really, the main reason I used Gipsy Avenger is that he’s basically the main character/showcase figure of the line. Obsidian Fury is also a gorgeous toy, but I never bought him, and while I have and love Saber Athena, Gipsy Avenger is just the better looking figure.

This is kinda a toyline that’d be easy to forget. I have a couple of them on the shelf in the other room. But they deserve the mention because BUDGET SHFs THAT ARE STILL NICE TOYS AND HYPER POSEABLE TOO.

#5 : SH Figuarts Kamen Rider Genm Level 0

Rider Figuarts are always fun. The Ex-Aid mold is a great mold. But the BETTER version of any Ex-Aid molds are the versions that are Dan Kuroto.

Dan Kuroto is a fantastic character. One of my favorite Rider villains period. He’s a fun villain elevated by both his main and suit actor into a force of nature that has managed to get the distinction of being the second actor likeness Figuarts toy. (Hell, if my copy of that figure had arrived this year, he’d be on the list instead of Level 0 for that reason – it’s a HUGE deal that a Toku VILLAIN has gotten that distinction.)

So Kuroto being on this list is more a case of “I want a representation of him on here,” and while I really like the Level Billion that I have, Level 0 is just a great redeco of the already good Ex-Aid mold as a character that I love.

*eagerly awaits getting both Shin Dan Kuroto and Dan Kuroto Shin sometime in late Jan/early Feb.*

#4 : Star Wars Black Series General Veers

There were some REALLY good Black Series releases in 2018. With the implementation of their new face painting processes into the Star Wars toyline, Hasbro’s stuff has jumped up in quality and is now very much on similar footing to SH Figuarts as far as character/actor likenesses go. 2018 saw some great Imperial officer releases, like Grand Moff Tarkin, and Admiral Piett.

And then there’s Veers. I believe he suffered a bit in availability in the US due to ToysRUs’ closure there, but up here, he was an easy to find TRU exclusive, and is quite simply the best of the Imperial officers released (yes, better than Tarkin! I know!)

The fact he has a great rendition of Julian Glover’s face is one thing that makes him a good toy, but what makes him a GREAT toy is the accessory count. As in the films, Veers is seen in both his officer’s uniform addressing Darth Vader, AND in his combat armor on his AT-AT. And this toy release gives us BOTH options, with removable armor AND an officer’s cap!

I love me some Imperial officers, and while Tarkin is still my favorite characterwise, Veers is by far the best of their toys.

#3 : SH Figuarts Thanos

I’m a big Thanos fan. Admittedly I’m rather recent relatively speaking to said fandom – after seeing Avengers’ post-credit tease in 2012, I got intrigued and decided to read Infinity Gauntlet.

Within a year, I owed a ton of Jim Starlin Thanos collections. And I continued to buy Jim Starlin Thanos stories here and there (and am very much enjoying his current Infinity trilogy while hating the way he and Marvel parted ways again recently – goddamn editorial). So yeah, this was something I was going to buy as soon as it got announced (in addition to the pretty solid Marvel Legends BAF of this design). He’s a compelling hypercompetent villain who is often written as a protagonist, with a complex series of inner thoughts and motivations and often his own greatest enemy and the source of his own defeats.

It’s a good movie Thanos toy. Solid likeness, and great articulation, though admittedly it lacks some of the finer details that weren’t present in any of the earlier renders provided to licensors, like the fancier gold detailing on his shirt (the only release with this is the BAF rerelease in the 3pack.) Plenty of alternate hands, including a fingersnap on his ungloved one, and I really like the way his shoulders are designed with moving parts (it’s rather similar to what Bandai did with Kamen Rider Genm Level Billion, who came close but didn’t make this list.)

#2 : MAFEX Gwenpool

“WTF is with this Gwenpool character” was a thought I had when I heard she was getting her own backup stories in the comics. The idea of what was a cover gimmick Gwen Stacy Month mashup with Deadpool being an actual character was dumb. Then I read her story in Marvel’s Holiday Special issue that year, authored by the great Chris Hastings and drawn by the awesome artists of Gurihiru… needless to say, I was very VERY quickly sold on the character. Hastings took what could have been a gimmick character and made her a Proper Character I was willing to read more about, and over the course of her ongoing’s run, I did. (Hell, half the reason I’m presently reading West Coast Avengers is because it’s a book she’s currently in.)

Hasbro did a Marvel Legends toy of her earlier this year, and I was prepared to buy that as the first proper Gwenpool action figure merch. While I wasn’t a huge fan of the realistic styled face as opposed to her more anime/manga look in the comics, it fit with the toyline’s aesthetics so whatever.

Then MAFEX revealed THIS gem. And she became one of the more highly anticipated action figures of 2018 for me. Based straight-up off of Gurihiru’s rendition of her with a bunch of accessories (INCLUDING A SMARTPHONE!) and an awesome unmasked head (she’s a character who I prefer unmasked in that art style, I gotta be honest), she was exactly the toy I wanted. And getting her in hand, I have been very very pleased.

Presently super hyped for the redeco she’s getting in 2019 of the end-of-series alternate timeline future evil Gwenpool design.

#1 : Marvel Legends Infinity Gauntlet

When Hasbro announced that they were making prop replicas in the Marvel Legends line, starting with the Iron Man helmet, I was intrigued. When they put out a fan poll requesting people to vote on what they wanted to see, I made sure to vote for the Infinity Gauntlet on that thing. For obvious reasons.

Then we got the Gauntlet. Which uses that classic technique of “pull the rod in order to close the fingers” that’s present in many a toy oversized hand… but for EACH. FINGER. SEPARATELY.

It remains the only Marvel Legends or Star Wars Black Series prop replica I’ve paid full price for. And appeals to me personally as a Thanos fan – objectively it might not be the best thing I got this year, but subjectively it totally was. (Hell, I got a deal on a loose Thanos BAF partly on account of wearing it at Calgary Comic Expo and letting a dealer give it a try.)

About the only thing it can’t do is finger snap. An unfortunate limitation, sure, but it’s a pretty kickass toy prop replica indeed.

Listicle: Top 5 Not-Transformers Transforming Toys of Twenty-Eighteen

General Tekno — Wed, 02 Jan 2019 05:25:48 +0000

With 2018 now in the rearview mirror, it’s now the time to curate my lists of the best toys of the year – and having done so with the official Hasbro/TakaraTomy releases, it’s now time to do so with the UNofficial stuff. The unlicensed things. The knockoffs. What the layman calls “third party” even though the actual definition for third party items is not these. And like the HasTak list, I will abide by certain ground rules:

Toy must have been purchased and received in the calendar year of 2018 (this excludes stuff like MP Sunstreaker, who I was messing with Dec 31 of 2017)
Toy does not have to have been released in 2018 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.

This was honestly an INCREDIBLY hard list to curate – there’s a lot of quite frankly amazing things that didn’t make the cut even though I loved them. But I wanted to make sure I represented a bunch of high points of the past year, and so with that in mind, here we go:

Honorable Mention : Black Mamba Ares Nitrogen

2018 has seen a lot of knockoffs of official Hasbro/Takara product. Some are just essentially carbon copies of the original (albeit high quality) like all of the MP-36 KOs we got, and others are actually full-on upscales and upgrades of the original molds.

The Nitro Zeus figure from 2017’s TLK toyline was one of my favorites. Not just because he had a fun character and gold chain in the film, but also because it was a kickass design and just a really good overall transformation. And not something I expected to see, well, improved.

Black Mamba is one of the third party groups specializing in upscales/upgrades of movie toys. Often adding various engineering tweaks, paint apps, and diecast, their figures are pretty top-notch quality. And finding out that they were doing a Nitro Zeus upscale, I had to get my hands on it… and it is quite frankly amazing.

The paint budget is incredible. The feel of the toy is incredible thanks to the added weight. He’s got added ankle tilts. The entire plane body is even painted, and he comes with an alternate head that is an upscale of the DOTM Shockwave mold’s (which, in fact, is a far closer match to the movie design’s head than what came with him at retail). One of the surprises of the year for me, and something that I felt HAD to be highlighted SOMEWHERE on this list.

#5 : Mastermind Creations Stray Asterisk

Over the course of 2018, Mastermind Creations released a number of reworks of their Alpha/Beta mold based on Wing and Drift from the Drift miniseries. (I count both of these in the same breath because, even though he’s a very extensive remold, Beta shares the same core skeleton/transformation scheme as Alpha. In sum total, 2018 gave us 5 versions of this in total, and I am not ashamed to say I own all of them.

To flash back to an anecdote from 2017, when I was in Toronto in the days leading up to TFcon, I came across a really neat knockoff of RTS Jazz in Chinatown – done up in blue and gold with a new head, it was a representation of a G1 styled Drift based on his deco in AOE. Horrendous plastic quality, but too gorgeous NOT to own – and so I paid the relatively cheap cost and got my hands on him, as I mused just how WELL the movie colors worked.

Flash forward to TFcon 2018, and to everyone’s complete surprise, MMC unveiled a version of THEIR Drift done up with the same general inspiration – Drift in AOE colors. And as they did on the knockoff, they POPPED here. To further enhance the toy, the cloak that the original release of this mold came with was redone in a deep dark purple that was a fantastic complement to the already awesome blues and golds.

The mold is fantastic, and the TFcon Chicago redeco of the Wing version was also quite incredible. But the Toronto version is just pure perfection.

#4 : MakeToys Skycrow

As everyone who’s messed with it knows, the MP-11 Seeker mold… has not aged very well. A rework of the MP-03 Seeker design (that was basically removing all the deviations Kawamori did when they hired him to add a designer’s toucuh to said figure), MP-11’s aesthetics are really getting worse by the year in comparison to everything else on the shelf.

And so MakeToys stepped into the void in 2017 by doing an entirely new Seeker mold in the Masterpiece scale that went for cartoon accuracy. While I don’t own it yet, the original Starscream version simply looks fantastic and blows away the HasTak MP-11 release aesthetically.

2018 saw the release of the mold in the mandatory redecoes – Skywarp and Thundercracker. And, on the heels of a successful unloading of my extra FansProject Dinoking shells at a toyshow, I went straight over to Ages Three And Up’s booth and dropped that cash on the Skycrow – the purple and black redeco of the mold.

He is gorgeous. The transformation is great. Aesthetically he blows away the Hasbro release of Skywarp, and NAILS the shade of purple on his forearms/stripes – something that is definitely one of the hardest things to do with that color. With his acquisition, Skywarp has gone from being buried in the background of my MP Decepticon shelf to front and center.

#3 : Open and Play Big Cannon

Not all third party toys need to be fancy to be great. Sometimes affordability and playability can be big assets. And Big Cannon is a fantastic example of that – an upscaled rework of Hasbro’s Titans Return Galvatron mold, he adds a bunch of new parts to increase his articulation and G1 accuracy.

He’s no FansToys Sovereign. The paintwork is barebones, and it relies on the plastic colors to do all the work. Unlike a lot of Masterpiece-scaled releases, he definitely looks and feels like a toy. But his simplicity is his strength, because he also happens to be very affordable and FUN.

He’s a great toy to mess with. QC is pretty solid on him, and the biggest weakness is actually born of a strength – you can unpeg the cannon from its base and directly into the body in altmode to increase the G1 accuracy, BUT the unfortunate drawback is that it pegs in via a half-attached CLEAR PLASTIC peg. This part broke on me, and I have to thank the stellar customer service at Ages Three and Up for getting a replacement cannon to me ASAP.

(Incidentally no, A3U isn’t a sponsor of this or anything. I just buy a lot of 3P stuff from them, they show up to a lot of toy shows I attend, and overall I’ve had a great experience as a customer of theirs.)

#2 : Perfect Effect Mega Doragon

Okay, this toy was obviously going to be SOMEWHERE on this list. I’m a huge Beast Wars fan. A massive Beast Wars Megatron fan. And this is a companion piece to 2017’s Beast Gorira, their take on Optimal Optimus – the (clearly iconic) Transmetal 2 dragon form of Megatron, only revamped and stylized up the wazoo.

It’s not going for accuracy – in fact, it sheds the techno-organic look of the original toy for something closer to Beast Machines Megatron’s ideal of technological perfection – a very mechanized dragon that still evokes the original CGI model closer than the actual toy did (the chest on the original toy not being accurate at all, for instance.) He’s got a few bonus features, like a swappable faceplate, fold out blade, and an entire forearm hidden inside his dragon neck that can be flipped out to give him symmetry… allowing him to wield the twin swords stored in his wings.

And OH YE GODS, the wings. That wingspan alone is a reason to buy this toy – fully deployed, it is a thing of beauty. The headsculpt is sublime, and the colors bang on – in fact, the entire finish of this toy is a superb metallic gold, with some fantastic translucent orange wings and gold detailing everywhere, and a proper burnt-out purple look to the face.

It’s honestly weird that this is becoming very quickly the go-to design for 3P companies as the number of unofficial Beast Wars homages proliferates – it’s actually the SECOND dragon Megatron homage to market (granted, the first homages his TCC toy more) and there are 2-3 MORE dragon Megatrons soon to come that I will find myself tempted to buy, yessssss. I mean, the Transmetal gold dinosaur, to me, is still THE iconic Beast Wars Megatron body. But all the same, Mega Doragon is freaking GLORIOUS!

#1 : NewAge H1 Flipper

One is a small number, and so it’s fitting that the Number One on this list is also the smallest figure I purchased this year. Coming from NOWHERE from a brand new 3P company, this Bumblebee homage took TFcon Toronto by storm, being easily the toy of the show.

I’m not really using hyperbole – a number of people I know got him, and upon Vangelus getting a hold of one during his “Why Do We Like The Toy” panel and marvelling at it, the figure almost immediately proceeded to sell out. I ended up getting my own copy months later, buoyed by all this word of mouth – and oh man, it lives up to the hype.

The pocket sized 3P items have gotten really big, so to speak, in the last year or two – Iron Factory keeps putting out hit after hit, their releases eventually becoming hard to find months later, and DX9 and Magic Square are also throwing out a ton of great figures. And NewAge’s simple entry into the increasingly crowded but affordable market is, well, the perfect little tiny Bumblebee. Only a few inches tall, he easily has the complexity of a mainline deluxe, with an impressive partscount and even an alternate transformation to allow for the Goldbug redeco to maintain a Throttlebot backpack. (Which is also a nice redeco that I ended up buying.)

This Bumblebee is one of my regular fiddle toys – the QC is fantastic and the transformation involved but very easy, intuitive, and satisfying. Even if you haven’t fallen down the pocket sized rabbit hole, you owe it to yourself to try this toy.

Listicle: Top 5 Transformers of Twenty-Eighteen

General Tekno — Wed, 02 Jan 2019 04:18:10 +0000

Wait, what’s this? A new post to this site? YES!

Basically I decide that I wanted to maybe actually use this thing that I pay money to maintain to post my top toy lists for 2018 as I also try and get myself back to working on my own personal projects in the coming year.

So with that said, we’re going to start with Transformers – specifically, the official Hasbro/Takara Tomy varieties. To lay down some ground rules for how this list works:

Toy must have been purchased and received in the calendar year of 2018 (this excludes stuff like MP Sunstreaker, who I was messing with Dec 31 of 2017)
Toy does not have to have been released in 2018 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.

So let’s get down to brass tacks:

Honorable Mention : SDCC Throne of the Primes w/ Optimus Primal

I’m a big Beast Wars fan. So the fact we got a new Optimal Optimus mold in 2018 was frankly an amazing thing. It really is a nice mold, and the retail one is pretty great even though it makes some color compromises (which I need to fix still with the unopened Reprolabels I’ve got off to the side.)

But the SDCC release is the perfect package – it gives Primal a really really cool cardboard throne with a faux-ratcheted mechanism for storing all 12 Prime Masters in it. A sceptre that can store the other 4 Prime Masters released. And of course a crown. It really adds a bit of an Infinity War vibe to the character which is pretty great.

And even more importantly, it does something that I’ve never really considered re: this toy – it actually IMPROVES on the color work. Look, I love Beast Wars. I love the original Optimal Optimus. But I have to be perfectly honest – when I take off my nostalgia filter, it’s hard to argue that the SDCC version isn’t superior. They did what I’d never even CONSIDERED and mapped his Season 1 colorscheme to the toy, and in doing so enhanced the entire experience. It maps incredibly naturally and is a “why did nobody think of this before” thing. (I mean hell, the Matrix chamber in his chest even allows them to evoke Primal’s S1 chest detailing!)

#5 : Power of the Primes Counterpunch

When this toy first got announced, we were all wondering what the hell it meant. Were they retooling Jazz into Counterpunch somehow? Were there steps we didn’t know about on that toy? How would a combiner peg be incorporated? Little did everyone suspect that what Hasbro ACTUALLY had planned was an ENTIRELY NEW MOLD – one that eschewed the linewide combiner compatibility in favor of just remaking the original Punch/Counterpunch toy with articulation.

He’s got the same head reveal gimmick. Two sets of hands in order to switch the thumb placement in the two robot modes. And even some hideable faction symbols for either mode. And when comparing him to the last two releases that the TCC did, well, he blows both away – the original Sunstreaker retool has aged horribly (even though it was an inspired concept in its time) and the TCC Counterpunch, while also a nice toy, lacks the dual robot modes.

Ultimately, this guy had to be acknowledged on this list. Such a nice toy indeed.

#4 : Studio Series Blackout

When news of Studio Series first leaked, it was a weird thing to think about. The idea that the Transformers films had been around for a decade now is still kinda nuts, and it’s even more nuts to think about how in that time a generation of fans that grew up with the original films are now adults with disposable income to spend on better versions of the toys they got back in the day. And with Studio Series, Hasbro’s designers were determined to get a (mostly) scale-accurate feel into the toyline. After years of scale not really being a consideration, its return to toylines has honestly been pretty fantastic to behold (and I look forward to 2019’s ambitious ROTF Devastator combiner as a showcase of this.)

Leader Blackout was one of those pipe dreams the fans kept pining for that entire decade. Blackout’s original Voyager toy suffered from the old model of packaging everything in vehicle mode – as a result, they had to fit a giant helicopter in that box, resulting in a very short Voyager that didn’t scale well with anything in the line. And while this new toy still compresses a lot (like the CG model), it being packaged in robot mode means it goes from a large intimidating robot to a MASSIVE helicopter. (And in fact, the Black Mamba upscaled knockoff of said toy looks to be even more impressive and massive)

Blackout’s got the size we always wanted and clamored for. And an even more accurate robot mode, complete with the horribly designed legs of the movie CGI model. Which highlights one of the weird odditites of Studio Series in a nutshell – the toys are accurate to the point of replicating some of the WORST design decisions of the CGI designs faithfully, and not only do I not deride this but I celebrate it. (See: Brawl’s AWFUL shoulder design for instance, lovingly and accurately remade in toy form in 2018).

Studio Series is the toyline I never thought I’d love, and going into 2019 I’m eagerly awaiting to mess with the new takes on Jetfire and the aforementioned Devastator combiner.

#3 : Power of the Primes Battletrap

Technically these are a set of two separately carded releases – Battleclash and Roadtrap. But you can’t discuss them in isolation given how integral the combining gimmick is to these two figures.

Battletrap is a great example of taking a G1 toy and improving on it – unlike the original G1 Duocons, which had 2 altmodes that combine into one robot mode, his two parts are two entirely separate Transformers that then combine into an incredibly posable G1 Battletrap robot mode. He’s fun and fantastic, and there’s really not a lot to elaborate on with him- once you have him in hand, you understand very quickly why he won Hasbro’s fan poll for the best Transformers toy of 2018.

#2 : Siege Optimus Prime

While these are technically 2019’s new product, as per usual, wave 1 started to show up in late 2018 – and thanks to some odd Hasbro Toy Shop shenanigans, I was able to get the first wave of Siege for some pretty good prices up here in Canadaland.

2018 and 19 have actually been very kind to Optimus Prime – coming off the heels of 2017’s MPM release, we got the Studio Series mold (which while I don’t have it, I’ve heard great things), the really cool POTP Leader, and later in 2019 the movie 1 Studio Series retool plus the Bumblebee movie release (and of course MP Prime 3.0 at his insane price). And going into Siege, I will admit that my initial thought on this mold was “oh great a new Optimus Prime; I guess we do need to keep the character current for new buyers after all.”

And instead what we got is the first true successor to 2006’s Classics Optimus Prime mold. Sure it’s an odd “Cybertronian truck” that’s the 80s cab with some tweaked greebles, but the robot mode is phenomenal. Incredibly posable, with ankle tilts, wrists, and a fantastic headsculpt, and an incredibly intuitive/satisfying transformatino to boot. Plus, with Siege, scale is once again at the forefront of the toyline, meaning that he’s a proper size to go with all the bigger and smaller robots in the line.

I never thought I would get excited for a mainline Optimus Prime toy like I have gotten excited for Siege Optimus. Never mind declared an OPTIMUS PRIME toy the best toy so far in the line. And here I am.

#1 : Masterpiece Dinobot

Okay. This one was an obvious no-brainer to anyone who knows me. It’s the toy I was MOST hyped for in 2018 – a toy that I never could have possibly IMAGINED would exist. Beast Wars Dinobot is very much a CGI design of its time that cheats so thoroughly that I never thought he would get any sort of show accurate representation – never mind in Masterpiece, where I figured after Primal and Cheetor we were probably done.

And THIS TOY. THIS TOY. It pulls it off. It goes from the laughable bad 90s CGI velociraptor to the “there is no way this actually transforms” robot mode in an incredibly intuitive and satisfying way. It’s incredibly posable. Has multiple face options WITH MOVING MOUTHS. Light up eyes. A spinning rotate blade gimmick. And, because it’s being done to scale with Optimus Primal, is on the larger end of Masterpiece releases, standing around the same height as Masterpiece Optimus Prime (2.0).

Dinobot is truly one of the grails of my collection. An amazing toy of one of my favorite Transformers characters. I love Beast Wars Megatron and I love that he is also getting a Masterpiece toy (which will dwarf Dinobot because again, scale.) But Megatron was never the challenge to pull off that Dinobot was always going to be. And yet they tried. And succeeded.

And so Dinobot is the Robbie Rotten chorus and Majel Barrett of my list: he IS Number One.

Coming up next for my lists: Third Party Transformers. Aka the big money sink for the dedicated transforming toy collector.