The Transformers Thread (licensed) Next

[Radioguy]

Well, the BB reissue of Jetwing Prime was also a PO, and ended up in many Target stores afterward. Motormaster wasn't as in stores, but ended up in some stores too. So, I think there's definitely a chance of getting Jazz in-store if you miss a Target PO.

I just knew another Guardian repaint was coming.

As for Towline, I'm starting to get sick of the repaints being so close together. He's one of like three or four variants of the same mold out at one time. At least with Skids, his variants were spread out more; even the MP versions.

[mikeszekely]

2 hours ago, Radioguy said:

Skids, his variants were spread out more; even the MP versions.

Man, you can walk into my local Walmart right now and buy both Skids and Burn Out, since Walmart never moved beyond the first wave of Legacy.  Evolution had Crankcase in the first wave and Crosscut in the next.  That's four variants in a year to fifteen months (plus there's a rumored Medix version that's maybe coming to Walgreens this year).  That's not exactly my idea of spread out.

2 hours ago, Radioguy said:

Well, the BB reissue of Jetwing Prime was also a PO, and ended up in many Target stores afterward. Motormaster wasn't as in stores, but ended up in some stores too. So, I think there's definitely a chance of getting Jazz in-store if you miss a Target PO.

Target's distribution can be screwy.  My local store had shelf space cleared and tags made for Motormaster and those Street Fighter collabs, but never got any inventory.  Eventually they just started shoving DC stuff in those spots.  But yeah, Origin Bumblebee was hard to get for a month of two... then suddenly they were everywhere, and my store eventually had to put them on clearance.

Well, as glad as I am to get Origin Jazz, what I really want is some kind of update on that G1 Hound.

[sh9000]

Ordered Origin Jazz from Hasbro Pulse.

[Axelay]

I'm so annoyed that I can't seem to get Legacy Dead End anywhere - even online - without having to pay more than twice retail. That's the last one I need to finish Menasor.

[sh9000]

Dead End was on Amazon for retail price a while back so you can try to keep an eye out for it there.

[mikeszekely]

I'm having kind of a rough week, but I did want to finish up Transformers Go.  So, we looked at the Shinobi Swordbot team, individually and combined.  We looked at Optimus Exprime, and his combined modes, which necessitated that we also looked at Kenzan, the leader of the Samurai Swordbot team.  So what we need to do is finish off the Samurai Swordbots, and we're picking up with G02 Jinbu.

I gotta be honest, I'm not really seeing anything samurai about Jinbu.  I've heard it suggested that his head is supposed to look like he's wearing a samurai helmet, but I don't see it.  He looks like a wannabe Conehead to me.  Like Kenzan, he's give me a lot of that "weird Chinese transforming toy I found at Big Lots" vibe.  Also like Kenzan, he's suffering from a distinct lack of torso.

From the back his wings are kind of hiding it, but there's nothing really behind the cockpit on his front.  There's the combiner hips, partly visible from the front, and they're pegged together onto the landing gear.  I guess that makes him a bit more solid than some of the others, but as we'll see it creates it's own problems.  Oh, and he's doing that thing where they use the combiner hands for heels again.

Notice, in my pictures, the molded detail on the front and back of his thighs.  I didn't realize this until much later, but apparently Jinbu is misassembled at the factory.  What you're seeing as the front in my picture is actually the back, and vice versa.  It's not too hard to fix, though, if you happen to buy a copy yourself.  Remove the two screws from the lower leg and separate the halves, being careful of the spring and the ratchet in the knee.  Be careful to set them aside so you keep track of which one was the right and which is the left.  Now, remove the screws from the thighs then split and remove them- you can't just rotate them, because one side is hollowed for the ratchet.  What you have to do is take what was his right thigh, then put it on his LEFT hip so the screw is still facing outward.  Then you can put his left leg back on.  Then put the thigh that was on the left, put it on the right hip, then put the right leg back on.  Why does this matter, you ask?  As misassembled, his knees bend less than 90 degrees.  You're going to need them to bend more than that for combined mode.

Moving right along... Jinbu comes with his kabuto and a very long fishing pole.  I mean sword.  It's a nodachi, but the guard has a bunch of extra junk on it that looks to me like a fishing pole.

Jinbu's head is on a swivel, no tilt.  His shoulders are ball joints for a swivel and about 60 degrees of lateral motion.  A transformation hinge also gives him about 45 degrees of forward butterfly.  His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend 180 degrees.  No wrist articulation.  No waist articulation.  Now, his hips are where things get awkward.  Because the combiner hips are locked into his landing gear he can't use them to fake any lateral movement.  So, looked at one way, his hips can ratchet forward and backward about 90 degrees, but there's no lateral movement.  But, there's a swivel above his hip.  So, you could turn it 90 degrees, and then he'd have 90 degrees of ratcheted lateral movement, but no forward/backward movement.  Regardless. there's a thigh swivel below the hip, and (when properly assembled) his knees bend a little over 90 degrees.  His feet, or rather the yellow flaps on the front of his legs, can tilt up and down, but he has no ankle pivot.

As you'd expect, he can hold his sword in either hand, and a 5mm peg allows him to hold his kabuto like a gun.  It even has one of the more convincing barrels we've seen.

For bot mode storage, you can either use one of two angled tabs on Jinbu's back to attach the sword at an angle across his back.  If you want to store his kabuto too then you plug the kabuto onto his back using a pair of tabs on the kabuto and the little black slots on Jinbu's back, then use the same slot on his sword into one of the tabs near the 5mm peg on the gun barrel.

Jinbu's transformation reminds me a little of Armada Starscream's, in that you're not folding the nose up 180 degrees, you're folding it up 90 degrees then folding his wings up 90 degrees on his back.  (Combine that with his shoulders staying exactly where they are and the ability to bend the combiner hips backward while bending is robot hips forward and you've got an excellent Gerwalk mode!) His arms swivel backward on the butterfly joints and tab together to fill in the gap between his wings.  From there it's as simple as bending his legs backward at the combiner hips 90 degrees, then using slots under his knee pads to tab onto his wings and unfolding his various flaps.  Note that I have his yellow feet folding in, as I think it looks better and I kind of remember that's how it looked in the cartoon.  Officially, though, they're supposed to be flipped out.

Something tells me this isn't going to be one of @M'Kyuun's favorite jetformers!  He comes across as longer and sleeker in the cartoon, but even in the cartoon he has all that leggy undercarriage.  He's too gappy, with nothing between his legs.  Actually, nothing really holds him together except the friction in his joints that the tabs that go into his kneepads.  His arms are just kind of there between his wings.  Speaking of his kneepads, it's almost a shame that they just slope up from mid-fuselage.  If they were actually a bit longer and stuck up more I'd almost buy them as FAST packs.

There is some landing gear that folds out from the nose, but that's about it for jet mode.  Well, you can store his sword by clipping it into the gray clips on the back of his robot head.  He can carry his kabuto, too, by folding his feet in (if you haven't already) then tabbing it into the slots underneath.  Of course, if you thought he wasn't looking too aerodynamic before...

I'm not sure which of the Swordbots is the worst... I think, on robot mode alone, Sensuimaru is probably worse than Jinbu, but he makes up for it by having a cool as heck shark mode.  Jinbu is sort of a letdown in both modes.  As has been the case, I don't actually recommend picking him up.  I think he even lacks the obscure Japan-only charm of the others.

[mikeszekely]

The final Samurai Swordbot (and at this point, the final Swordbot period) is G03 Ganoh.

With the Shinobi Swordbot team it was their leader, Gekisoumaru, who was slightly taller than the others.  I was a bit surprised, then, that Ganoh turned about to be the tallest of the Samurai Swordbots.  And... well, he actually doesn't look too bad.  Sure, his head's a little small, his arms and torso are a little short, but he actually looks like he has a torso!  That's an upgrade!  And while I complained that Jinbu didn't really look much like a samurai, and that's technically true for Ganoh as well, there are some aesthetic choices, especially in his head, that make him look like a sōhei, a Japanese warrior-monk.

He does, sadly, have hands for heels, huge feet, and massive shin pads.  Sacrifices are still made to the gimmicks.  But on the whole, Ganoh might be the best individual figure out of all seven.  Sure, that's not necessarily the highest hurdle to clear, but when the alternative was another Jinbu or Sensuimaru I'm pretty pleased.

Ganoh comes with a fairly rubbery spear with drill-like points on both ends, and of course, his kabuto.

Ganoh's head is on a swivel, no tilt.  His shoulders are ball joints that swivel and move laterally 90 degrees, plus the ball joint is on a hinge that'll get you and additional 60-ish degrees before the hinge causes his side to un-tab.  His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend 180 degrees.  No waist swivel.  He has to use his ratcheted combined mode joints for lateral hip movement, but two things are working in his favor.  One, they're not as high up his back as they are on the other Swordbots, so it doesn't look too unnatural.  Two, because of the wheels on his sides he's limited to about 45 degrees.  That's kind of enough, I think, and it prevents him from moving the joints so far that they break up the illusion of his robot torso.  For forward/backward hip movement he's got ratchets that'll go 90 degrees.  His thighs swivel just above his ratcheted knees, which bend 90 degrees.  No ankle pivots, the red parts of his feet can tilt up and down.

Ganoh's kabuto can plug into his fist to be a gun-ish thing, same as the others.  His spear is weird, though.  See, it doesn't open, and even if it did the fist holes don't go the whole way through, so he can't hold it the way you'd expect him to hold a spear.  Instead there's a 5mm peg in the middle, set at a right angle to the shaft.  It looks weird to have him hold it, but what are you going to do?

Well, you could store it on his back, for one.  You can bend the shaft at the joint in the middle to make a V-shape, then use a pair of angled slots to tab the spear directly to his back.  I think that actually looks pretty cool!  If you want to store his kabuto you tab it into slots higher up on his back, then you use tabs near the joint on the spear to hang it totally folded up from a notch on the back of the kabuto.

It shouldn't surprise anyone when I say that Ganoh's transformation is pretty simple.  His head tucks in, his arms curl up and then use flaps on the sides of his body to swing back behind his torso.  His legs turn 180 degrees at the thigh swivel, tab together, and then swing back 90 degrees.  The last thing you gotta do is lift his bumper, tuck in his crotch flap, then put his bumper back down.

Surprisingly, it's not just Ganoh's robot mode that's pretty good.  His truck mode is decent, too.  The cab is convincing, and I can pretend that the exposed thigh is like a fuel tank or something.  The shin kibble isn't ideal, but again it almost passes for purposeful.  My biggest complaint is the big hands/heels on the back of the truck, and the gap between the lights on top.

The gap actually serves a purpose, though.  Ganoh's weapon becomes an integral part of his fire truck mode.  Specifically, he's an airport crash tender.  See, with it folded in half you can use tabs near the drills to plug it into his shin pads at the back of the truck.  The 5mm peg he used to hold the spear in robot mode sticks out over the front of the cab, and it's meant to be a foam sprayer.  Works for me!  Although, you may wish to have Ganoh carrying his kabuto in truck mode.  To do that, you have to shift the spear backward, using tabs closer to the joint to plug into his shin pads.  Then the kabuto uses a pair of tabs to plug into slots near his head.  And, while no longer a convincing crash tender, I still don't hate this mode.  With the drill bits hanging off the back like a tail and the kabuto sitting on the front like a head, he looks sort of like someone built a Triceratops Zord out of a fire truck, and I honestly dig it.

At this point, I should still point out that Ganoh is a decade-old toy with engineering that was pretty dated even then.  Objectively, he's got a great toy.  That said, if you were going to get one just one Swordbot this is the one to get, as he's got a solid robot mode, a solid alt mode, and even with his kabuto pulls off a better look than Optimus Exprime's "dragon" mode.

Oh, one more thing.  Now that we've looked at all three Samurai Swordbots, I had a thought.  They'd have to completely eliminate the combination gimmick, but I think Hasbro could make convincing Legacy Samurai Swordbots with a few retools of existing figures.  What do you guys think?

[M'Kyuun]

5 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

The final Samurai Swordbot (and at this point, the final Swordbot period) is G03 Ganoh.

With the Shinobi Swordbot team it was their leader, Gekisoumaru, who was slightly taller than the others.  I was a bit surprised, then, that Ganoh turned about to be the tallest of the Samurai Swordbots.  And... well, he actually doesn't look too bad.  Sure, his head's a little small, his arms and torso are a little short, but he actually looks like he has a torso!  That's an upgrade!  And while I complained that Jinbu didn't really look much like a samurai, and that's technically true for Ganoh as well, there are some aesthetic choices, especially in his head, that make him look like a sōhei, a Japanese warrior-monk.

He does, sadly, have hands for heels, huge feet, and massive shin pads.  Sacrifices are still made to the gimmicks.  But on the whole, Ganoh might be the best individual figure out of all seven.  Sure, that's not necessarily the highest hurdle to clear, but when the alternative was another Jinbu or Sensuimaru I'm pretty pleased.

Ganoh comes with a fairly rubbery spear with drill-like points on both ends, and of course, his kabuto.

Ganoh's head is on a swivel, no tilt.  His shoulders are ball joints that swivel and move laterally 90 degrees, plus the ball joint is on a hinge that'll get you and additional 60-ish degrees before the hinge causes his side to un-tab.  His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend 180 degrees.  No waist swivel.  He has to use his ratcheted combined mode joints for lateral hip movement, but two things are working in his favor.  One, they're not as high up his back as they are on the other Swordbots, so it doesn't look too unnatural.  Two, because of the wheels on his sides he's limited to about 45 degrees.  That's kind of enough, I think, and it prevents him from moving the joints so far that they break up the illusion of his robot torso.  For forward/backward hip movement he's got ratchets that'll go 90 degrees.  His thighs swivel just above his ratcheted knees, which bend 90 degrees.  No ankle pivots, the red parts of his feet can tilt up and down.

Ganoh's kabuto can plug into his fist to be a gun-ish thing, same as the others.  His spear is weird, though.  See, it doesn't open, and even if it did the fist holes don't go the whole way through, so he can't hold it the way you'd expect him to hold a spear.  Instead there's a 5mm peg in the middle, set at a right angle to the shaft.  It looks weird to have him hold it, but what are you going to do?

Well, you could store it on his back, for one.  You can bend the shaft at the joint in the middle to make a V-shape, then use a pair of angled slots to tab the spear directly to his back.  I think that actually looks pretty cool!  If you want to store his kabuto you tab it into slots higher up on his back, then you use tabs near the joint on the spear to hang it totally folded up from a notch on the back of the kabuto.

It shouldn't surprise anyone when I say that Ganoh's transformation is pretty simple.  His head tucks in, his arms curl up and then use flaps on the sides of his body to swing back behind his torso.  His legs turn 180 degrees at the thigh swivel, tab together, and then swing back 90 degrees.  The last thing you gotta do is lift his bumper, tuck in his crotch flap, then put his bumper back down.

Surprisingly, it's not just Ganoh's robot mode that's pretty good.  His truck mode is decent, too.  The cab is convincing, and I can pretend that the exposed thigh is like a fuel tank or something.  The shin kibble isn't ideal, but again it almost passes for purposeful.  My biggest complaint is the big hands/heels on the back of the truck, and the gap between the lights on top.

The gap actually serves a purpose, though.  Ganoh's weapon becomes an integral part of his fire truck mode.  Specifically, he's an airport crash tender.  See, with it folded in half you can use tabs near the drills to plug it into his shin pads at the back of the truck.  The 5mm peg he used to hold the spear in robot mode sticks out over the front of the cab, and it's meant to be a foam sprayer.  Works for me!  Although, you may wish to have Ganoh carrying his kabuto in truck mode.  To do that, you have to shift the spear backward, using tabs closer to the joint to plug into his shin pads.  Then the kabuto uses a pair of tabs to plug into slots near his head.  And, while no longer a convincing crash tender, I still don't hate this mode.  With the drill bits hanging off the back like a tail and the kabuto sitting on the front like a head, he looks sort of like someone built a Triceratops Zord out of a fire truck, and I honestly dig it.

At this point, I should still point out that Ganoh is a decade-old toy with engineering that was pretty dated even then.  Objectively, he's got a great toy.  That said, if you were going to get one just one Swordbot this is the one to get, as he's got a solid robot mode, a solid alt mode, and even with his kabuto pulls off a better look than Optimus Exprime's "dragon" mode.

Oh, one more thing.  Now that we've looked at all three Samurai Swordbots, I had a thought.  They'd have to completely eliminate the combination gimmick, but I think Hasbro could make convincing Legacy Samurai Swordbots with a few retools of existing figures.  What do you guys think?

Ignorant to the majority of Japanese TF lore, shows, and in this case, toys, I appreciate your reviewing these guys. I'll concede they seem a bit dated by current standards, but as older toys go, they at least seem to have decent articulation.  I even kinda like Jinbu's design, although it is a bit cluttered towards the tail in jet mode. If Hasbro in the spirit of Legacy all-inclusionism were to homage these toys, I think your suggested figs would be pretty close to the mark, eschewing, of course, the combination feature. I have to say though, as obscure as these toys are on Western shores, I'd be three shades of pissed if they got toys before the Omnibots who've been primed, no pun intended, for updates for nigh 40 years.

[tekering]

56 minutes ago, M'Kyuun said:

I'll concede they seem a bit dated by current standards, but as older toys go, they at least seem to have decent articulation.

Does your conception of "older toys" include figures like Thrilling 30 Springer, perhaps?

Or MP-13 Soundwave?

As someone who was actively collecting Transformers in 2013, I was appalled by Transformers Go!, especially the toy line.  Mike's detailed retrospective has only reinforced my disdain.

I don't think "current standards" have changed much over the past decade.

[mikeszekely]

I don't think that MP-13 is a fair comparison, given it's a figure for adult collectors and Transformers Go is aggressively targeted at elementary-age (Japanese) boys. Thrilling 30 is more fair, but even then I'm seeing with stuff like Legacy vs Earthspark or Studio Series vs the non-Studio Rise of the Beasts toys they invest more in even mainline toys when they expect more nostalgic adults than kids will buy them.

The best toys to compare to these Go figures is Transformers Prime. In fact anything we got in the West under the "Beast Hunters" sub-brand was released in Japan as part of Go, and the Predacons were the antagonists of the cartoon. And even by those standards, the Swordbots are probably the worst figures in the Transformers Go line. 

[tekering]

4 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

I don't think that MP-13 is a fair comparison, given it's a figure for adult collectors and Transformers Go is aggressively targeted at elementary-age (Japanese) boys.

Oh, absolutely; different budgets, different target audience.  The only fair comparison is contemporary Prime figures, and even then, "Beast Hunters" had an international market supported by a series broadcast around the world, whereas Transformers Go! was limited to Japanese retail.  With a much smaller market, I imagine their design budget was even more limited as a result; but then again, the same can be said of Kiss Players, a far superior toy line from several years earlier (with nothing more than a tenuous G1 connection to support it, much less an anime series).

I just can't find any excuse for Transformers Go!... least of which its release date, barely a decade ago. 🙄

[M'Kyuun]

9 hours ago, tekering said:

Does your conception of "older toys" include figures like Thrilling 30 Springer, perhaps?

Or MP-13 Soundwave?

As someone who was actively collecting Transformers in 2013, I was appalled by Transformers Go!, especially the toy line.  Mike's detailed retrospective has only reinforced my disdain.

I don't think "current standards" have changed much over the past decade.

Guilty. I should have given more consideration to the whole of Transformers contemporary to Go! before making my statement. Too, in retrospect, standards are still across a range, as the mainline stuff definitely seems to receive more budget and consideration than those toy lines that are targeted at younger audiences. I shouldn't have generalized. 

[tekering]

It was equally unfair of me to judge Transformers Go Away! based on the standards set by Thrilling 30 or War For Cybertron (much less Masterpiece), without considering the target audience.  I've basically ignored BotShots, Rescue Bots, and even Cyberverse entirely, and should simply have dismissed Transformers Go to Hell! in the same manner.

Honestly, I'd completely forgotten the line had even existed, until Mike shone his spotlight on it. 😅

[mikeszekely]

Regardless of whether they're good or not (they're objectively not, but so niche I find them appealing anyway), we still have to combine them to finish up this series.

Ok, up first we have Kenzan on top in the same configuration we had for DaiKenzan, Jinbu in his jet mode but with this legs turned around and bent at the knee, and Ganoh in truck mode from the waist up, except his arms are turned 90 degrees, and robot mode from the waist down, with the addition of his shin pads turned down into massive feet.  Once Jinbu is plugged into Ganoh, his nose and wings fold down, then Kenzan attaches to Jinbu at multiple points.

Kenzan's kabuto fits over his lighbar, then the helmet folds down over his had and the sides fold out to become shoulder pads.  And this is GoKenzan.  GoKenzan works fairly well.  His arms and torso are a little too long, and his torso is pretty thin when viewed from the front, but Ganoh makes for a very stable base.  He does have a very large backpack, though... honestly, I don't think that these triple combiners work as well as using just two, like Energon did.  Best case, the middle guy is pretty flat and you've got a ton of backpack.  Worst case, the proportions are way off because you've got too much going on in the middle.  But I digress.

As was the case with the Shinobi Swordbot team, the leftover kabuto fit together, and all of the Samurai Swordbots' weapons combine.  This time, Ganoh's weapon is in its folded position, and Kenzan's swords connect to tabs near the joint.  A thin peg on the pommel of Jinbu's sword plugs into the hole in the 5mm peg/foam sprayer on Ganoh's weapon, and the whole thing is a big spear.  Ganoh and Jinbu's combined kabuto are a less convincing weapon, but the spear is a noticeable improvement over whatever the Shinobi Swordbot Team's weapons combined into.

GoKenzan has no head or waist articulation, we'll get that out of the way.  His shoulders swivel, and with the shoulder pads able to hinge up and out of the way they can ratchet over 90 degrees laterally.  His biceps swivel, and his elbows ratchet a little over 90 degrees.  His wrists swivel, and due to how they transform, they can bend upward.  His fingers and thumb are also hinged at the base and fold into his palm.  His hips ratchet forward and backward a little under 90 degrees, but only about 45 degrees laterally due to the wheels on his hips.  His thighs swivel, and his knees bend 90 degrees.  His feet tilt up, due to transformation, but as they're just friction joints his feet are going to be the weak link when trying to get GoKenzan into dynamic poses.

As for his accessories, you can plug the combined kabuto thing into one hand.  For the combined weapon, you slide the combination of Kenzan and Ganoh's weapons into the port on his hand, then feed Jinbu's up through the bottom until it plugs in.

Rotating up just like the Shinobi team, Jinbu goes on top, Ganoh in the middle, and Kenzan moves to the bottom in his DaiGekisou configuration.  Ganoh curls up and actually makes the bulk of the torso.  Jinbu is thinly draped over the top, with a good bit spilling onto the front.  Then we add the kabuto to make GoJinbu.

GoJinbu almost looks cool from the middle up.  The proportions are pretty decent, as long as you again ignore the massive backpack.  And while Kenzan's kabuto made for kind of a minimal change, Jinbu's blends very well with his wings and nose to give the appearance of a jinbaori, a kind of surcoat that a high-ranking samurai would wear over his armor.  What does GoJinbu in is the legs; Kenzan's thighs are simply too thin, and they simply look inadequate to the task of holding up all that mass.

GoJinbu uses the same spear as GoKenzan, but at least Kenzan and Ganoh's kabuto look to have a more deliberate combination.

GoJinbu gets a full 90 degrees of lateral range on his hips, and he trades wrist articulation for ankle swivels, but otherwise articulation is pretty much the same.  Practically, you'll have a harder time keeping him balanced in dynamic poses than GoKenzan, too.  But I ran into some other problems with GoJinbu.  Namely, I had a hard time getting his accessories into his hands.  I think, due to a bump out around his thumb, the peg holes that are his fists are simply too tight.  Ultimately GoJinbu is ok, but for practical reasons I prefer GoKenzan.

Shuffle everyone one more time, so that Jinbu is on the bottom, Kenzan the middle, and Ganoh the top.  Attach Ganoh's kabuto to form GoGanoh.

GoGanoh definitely has the coolest looking top.  Ganoh's kabuto looks awesome as armor, and I'd argue that Jinbu looks better as pants than Kenzan.  Like the others, he's pretty top heavy, but his mass is more distributed through is upper body than condensed into a backpack.  Unfortunately, some of that distributed mass is Kenzan's hips sticking off GoGanoh's lats, so he can't bring his arms all the way to his sides.

GoGanoh has the same combined spear, and a decent-ish combined kabuto gun.

GoGanoh's articulation is the same as the other two, minus wrist and/or ankle swivels, although you have to move the kibble from Jinbu's arms and nose or they'll impede his hips.  Posing him is challenging again due to be top heavy, but he's got a few extra issues.  First, Jinbu's got a bit of play between ratchet clicks, and the loosest friction swivels of the bunch.  His legs had a tendency to turn inward when I didn't really want them to, like he's pigeon-toed.  Second, and far worse, the connection between Gahon and Kenzan is terrible.  Without his kabuto to help pinch them together, the slightest manipulation can cause Ganoh to disconnect from Kenzan.

Oh well, at least he holds his spear pretty well.  That said, he can't hold his gun at all.  His fists are too low to his forearms.  It's ok, though.  There are 5mm ports on GoGanoh's forearms, and the kabuto weapon can plug into one of them as a shield or an arm cannon.  Use your imagination.

If you read my review of the Shinobi Swordbot team's combined modes, this is a lot of the same; the best configuration winds up being the one where the leader is on top.  GoJinbu's skinny legs throw me off and he has trouble holding his weapons, while GoGanoh looks impressive but has the most trouble standing and wants to fall apart due to a weak connection between Kenzan and Ganoh.

Maybe that's for the best, though?  The Go combiners represent the triple combination gimmick of the show better than DaiKenzan or DaiGekisou, who don't even appear until the final episodes.  And GoKenzan and GoGekisou are kind of the "default" combinded modes, with the other four being more like gimmicks.

Should you invest in these guys?  Probably not.  As I've noted many times, they're not particularly good toys.  Even, as @tekering helpfully pointed out, when compared with contemporary Transformers of the time period.  They're simpler figures with a very specific target demographic- Japanese elementary-age boys.  However, that can be seen as a feature.  Takara wasn't trying to make toys that could appeal to both kids and adult collectors.  They weren't beholden to Hasbro's rigid pricing structure.  And with no need to appeal to international audiences they absolutely revel in their Japanese nature.  They're so extremely niche within the larger Transformers brand that I can't help but adore them.  Are they serious collectibles?  No.  Will they make a great diorama?  Nope.  Do they kind of look like dollar store junk next to your War for Cybertron and Legacy figures?  Absolutely.  But GoKenzan, GoGekisou, and Optimus Exprime on a shelf alone have a certain charm, representing one of the most unique but brief moments in Transformers history, an obscure but kind of cool footnote to the much more popular Transformers Prime line.

[Chronocidal]

I had to double check which way the yellow guy was facing, because I seriously can't unsee this face.  

[JB0]

11 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

That said, he can't hold his gun at all.  His fists are too low to his forearms.  It's ok, though.  There are 5mm ports on GoGanoh's forearms, and the kabuto weapon can plug into one of them as a shield or an arm cannon.  Use your imagination.

Heck yeah! Who needs functional hands when you have arm-guns?

[M'Kyuun]

5 hours ago, JB0 said:

Heck yeah! Who needs functional hands when you have arm-guns?

Man, I was all-in until you mentioned arm guns; I'm a fan of bots with hands to hold a weapon, not have the arm be the weapon.

JK, about the all-in part, not the arm weapon part. The latter's true. This set doesn't really appeal to me at all. However, I'm rue to be down on a toy simply b/c it doesn't meet my personal preferences, which are likely a little more sophisticated than your average 8-12 year old's. There are likely adults out there who have fond memories of these toys, just as many G1ers have fond memories of the G1 toys, despite their limitations. I try to keep the 'toy' aspect in mind when judging these things and hope that somewhere, there's a kid, or a big kid in many of our instances, who adores these things warts and all.

So, Chefatron already has Legacy Armada Prime in hand. Legacy Evolution Commander Class Armada Optimus Prime In-Hand Images & Video - COMPARED! (tformers.com)

I'm not a fan of the entire UT, so my interest is very low. However, I know this is a highly anticipated toy for many, and judging by Chefatron's comparison shots to earlier toys, this one looks to be the best version yet, as it should be at the commander class budget, and by virtue of being a new release. Granted it doesn't auto-transform like one of the previous versions, a pretty neat feature even if it rendered the combined mode's legs immobile, but it does offer a fairly clean combined mode with a sizeable backpack, but otherwise no kibble to interfere in posing, which IMHO, is the best you can ask with this sort of fig. I hope Legacy Armada Prime fulfils the longing of many a fan, and just turns out to be a really good toy.

[Wolf-1]

6 hours ago, M'Kyuun said:

Man, I was all-in until you mentioned arm guns; I'm a fan of bots with hands to hold a weapon, not have the arm be the weapon.

JK, about the all-in part, not the arm weapon part. The latter's true. This set doesn't really appeal to me at all. However, I'm rue to be down on a toy simply b/c it doesn't meet my personal preferences, which are likely a little more sophisticated than your average 8-12 year old's. There are likely adults out there who have fond memories of these toys, just as many G1ers have fond memories of the G1 toys, despite their limitations. I try to keep the 'toy' aspect in mind when judging these things and hope that somewhere, there's a kid, or a big kid in many of our instances, who adores these things warts and all.

So, Chefatron already has Legacy Armada Prime in hand. Legacy Evolution Commander Class Armada Optimus Prime In-Hand Images & Video - COMPARED! (tformers.com)

I'm not a fan of the entire UT, so my interest is very low. However, I know this is a highly anticipated toy for many, and judging by Chefatron's comparison shots to earlier toys, this one looks to be the best version yet, as it should be at the commander class budget, and by virtue of being a new release. Granted it doesn't auto-transform like one of the previous versions, a pretty neat feature even if it rendered the combined mode's legs immobile, but it does offer a fairly clean combined mode with a sizeable backpack, but otherwise no kibble to interfere in posing, which IMHO, is the best you can ask with this sort of fig. I hope Legacy Armada Prime fulfils the longing of many a fan, and just turns out to be a really good toy.

I watched that earlier today as well.  While I can recall being excited about the news of the release, mainly due to it being somewhat like PowerMaster Prime/God Ginrai, in that the trailer and regular figure combine to make a larger Bot.  I'm still excited, just for the Power Master and the upcoming S.S. Ultra Magnus now. I'm actually impressed with how well the combined mode turned out since the leaked photos had the mode mistransformed, nothing new.  I do feel like the truck is a little too long in the back half of the chassis, but necessary for the combined mode.  Should this see a Nemsis/Scourge repaint I'm down, but I'm not feeling the typical Prime colored version.  I am a bit worried now that the S.S. Ultra Magnus will end up measuring the same rough 10 inches, which only puts him a few inches shorter than Jetfire/Skyfire or Menasor and any other previous Combiners. 

[M'Kyuun]

1 hour ago, Wolf-1 said:

I watched that earlier today as well.  While I can recall being excited about the news of the release, mainly due to it being somewhat like PowerMaster Prime/God Ginrai, in that the trailer and regular figure combine to make a larger Bot.  I'm still excited, just for the Power Master and the upcoming S.S. Ultra Magnus now. I'm actually impressed with how well the combined mode turned out since the leaked photos had the mode mistransformed, nothing new.  I do feel like the truck is a little too long in the back half of the chassis, but necessary for the combined mode.  Should this see a Nemsis/Scourge repaint I'm down, but I'm not feeling the typical Prime colored version.  I am a bit worried now that the S.S. Ultra Magnus will end up measuring the same rough 10 inches, which only puts him a few inches shorter than Jetfire/Skyfire or Menasor and any other previous Combiners. 

Scalewise across the board, I think Has/Tak have been doing a pretty fair job. The Seekers, if we're considering their alt modes, should probably be leader scale, as the F-15 is a large jet, certainly much larger than the average car. But of course, that would make their bot modes out of scale, so choices. The extraordinary amount of mass shifting and variable scaling in the old toon left a lasting and not-so-practical influence on the toys over the years and I think they're doing their best to try to find a good balance. It's not an enviable position to be in, especially with so fickle, opinionated, and vocal a fandom and the ubiquitousness of social media upon which unruly fans oft unleash their umbrage. There's just no way to please everybody, or meet every individual's personal leanings on this or that aspect while adhering to their own standards of safety, design, budget, etc. Trust me, there are plenty of things I'd like to see or see changed too, but I have a greater appreciation for the obstacles the designers face thanks to their sharing a lot of behind-the-scenes info on Instagram.  I tend to reign in my criticism a bit more now, and honestly, I try to be positive anyway, as I'm just glad that Transformers are still popular and we're finally getting the G1 toy updates in the main line that I've been dreaming about for decades.

[mikeszekely]

Studio Series Gamer Edition.

War For Cybertron Optimus Prime  (Amazon   Pulse)

Bumblebee (Amazon   Pulse)

Barricade (Amazon    Pulse)

[M'Kyuun]

9 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

Studio Series Gamer Edition.

War For Cybertron Optimus Prime  (Amazon   Pulse)

Bumblebee (Amazon   Pulse)

Barricade (Amazon    Pulse)

Can't say I'm really feeling any of these. I never cared for the WfC version of Prime (Love the FoC version though), and I have the Generations WfC Bumblebee fig, which I like better than this new version. I think the torso and leg designs and proportions look better. The new fig has more screen accurate arms, but that's about the only improvement I see over the original toy. Still, It's a nice surprise that they're going back and redoing these figs, esp for folks who missed out on the original toys. Personally, I hope they do FoC, and make a proper voyager scaled Prime. I do have to say, though, although I'm not fond of the WfC Prime design, that new fig looks amazing.

 

[mikeszekely]

I have both the old Deluxe Bumblebee and the old Deluxe WFC Prime (I have the FoC Prime, too, but my daughter played with him and I think he's missing a part or two now).  I'll be doing some comparisons, because I'm in for all three.  I wish they'd have done Megatron, too.  I'm assuming the main draw of these new figures is going to be scale; I remember the old WFC Bumblebee being kind of huge.

[M'Kyuun]

1 hour ago, mikeszekely said:

I have both the old Deluxe Bumblebee and the old Deluxe WFC Prime (I have the FoC Prime, too, but my daughter played with him and I think he's missing a part or two now).  I'll be doing some comparisons, because I'm in for all three.  I wish they'd have done Megatron, too.  I'm assuming the main draw of these new figures is going to be scale; I remember the old WFC Bumblebee being kind of huge.

Yeah, he is, and poor FoC Prime, cool toy that he is, is tiny by comparison. Too, Bee was a bit fidgety to transform, as I recall; he's on my shelves somewhere but I haven't messed with him in quite some time. Anyway, I think I'm gonna pass on these three and hope for some FoC love, at least a new voyager scaled Prime.

Looking at vids of the 2010 WfC Prime, in some ways it hewed closer to the game, and had a rather intricate transformation. Looking at the new fig, a lot of the complexity of the upper torso and arms is simplified with what looks like the majority of the truck's front end sitting upside down on his back to beef up the overall silhouette of his chest from the front and likely forming an awkward looking backpack. I think the new toy's robot mode has some nicer overall proportions, at least from the front. I wish his back tires were larger to fill the wells better, and a bit rounder looking on the outside edges. The '10 toy does both and makes the truck look better for it. For reasons that aren't apparent, they buried his shin vents in boxy looking enclosures that aren't accurate to the game art or the '10 toy, which did it better.  The toy's a mixed bag, improving some things over the '10 toy, but taking a step backwards in others. IMHO, if you have the original, you likely already have the superior toy between them, but if not and the WfC design appeals, this will be a good fig to fill that void.

[sh9000]

I thought they were the original Optimus and Bumblee releases at first.  I still have WFC Optimus and Megatron and I still like them.

Edited March 9, 2023 by sh9000

[Black Valkyrie]

 

When is the exact date release for TF - ROTB Prime ? 

 

[JB0]

So I swung by the toys while in Target the other day, and was somewhat surprised. Between the empty pegs and the pegs full of last year's robots and the Cyberverse/Earth Spark/whatever stuff(which is always fully-stocked).... there was a single Metalhawk.

 

It's a surprisingly good toy. No surprise, so was Cyclonus. But right off the bat... torso is not gold, golden, metallic, or anything appropriate. It's yellow, and a particularly cheesy shade thereof. Like, I'd be embarrassed to see a Bumblebee this particular shade. This is most of what you see in-box, so he makes a particularly poor first impression. I kinda want to see if I can remove the torso pieces and paint 'em a decent yellow.

 

Metalhawk is a reworking of Cyclonus, but... they've touched almost every part, including pieces that they really didn't have to(like the rear thrusters covering his feet in vehicle mode). The only places that I see which are obviously from Cyclonus are the thighs, main wing, and upper arm*. It is more like reused engineering than a remold.  Based on the few parts that ARE reused, that may have been required. I can see evidence of heavy mold wear. They got their money's worth out of Cyclonus's tooling. This might explain some of the part changes that seem to be, frankly, a bad allocation of tooling costs.

The wings are hilarious, since they are still in two parts but the new subwing component is shaped to come around the edges to add wingtip missiles. The subwing is ALSO shaped to block the transformation hinge so no one tries to fold it in so his wings are smaller in robot mode. I'm trying to figure out how this makes sense, and just coming up blank(it doesn't seem to be mold degradation).

...

*Right, right, I said something about the upper arm... That includes the shoulders. They are VERY obviously Cyclonus's shoulders, and Cyclonus has very distinctive shoulders(if not outright iconic). I'm very disappointed in this. They reworked so many pieces to make sure he doesn't look even remotely like Cyclonus, then got to the distinctively-Cyclonus shoulders and went "Yeah, these are fine". They don't even look like they belong here, but more like some bizarre assembly accident resulted in Cyclonus' shoulders being bolted to Metalhawk somehow. We got new foot-thrusters, but not new SHOULDERS? The second-worst part is that most of the visible mold degradation is in... you guessed it, the shoulder parts.

[RED WOLF]

Going through pieces of collection and reviewed MP44 Optimus Prime. Check it out!

 

[mikeszekely]

7 hours ago, JB0 said:

So I swung by the toys while in Target the other day, and was somewhat surprised. Between the empty pegs and the pegs full of last year's robots and the Cyberverse/Earth Spark/whatever stuff(which is always fully-stocked).... there was a single Metalhawk.

Better than my Target.  Tons of Bumbleswoop, some Studio Series Bumblebee Arcees, a lone Wheelie, a Leo Prime.  That's it.

I also swung by Walmart today.  I don't know if they're better or worse... they have more inventory, but it's about 70% Legacy Arcees, 20% Legacy Jhiaxus, and 10% random crud like those YuMe plushies.

[sh9000]

Happy Pi Day.

[mikeszekely]

Walmart's smoking something...

So, yeah, you guys might know that they're doing some kind of thing for collectors on Thursday.  Leaked today are the Transformers they're going to be carrying (I guess that toy Hot Rod and any other Velocitron releases were canceled?).  The theme is G2, but...

Well, first up we have Toxitron.  Toxitron isn't actually G2, though.  He was a planned repaint of G2 Optimus for the Universe line before being canceled.  Despite the original toy being canceled, this is actually the third toy that did get released, the first two being a Botcon set that redecoed Animated Optimus, and the second being a TFCC figure that was a redeco of Combiner Wars Optimus.

Next up, we have Cloudcover.  Cloudcover isn't only not a G2 character, he's not a character period.  Or rather, he's a brand new character, based on a hand-painted Ramjet that was maybe going to be a planned G2 release.  Or not.  He's kind of pretty, and I'll probably pick this one up, but I do kind of wonder why Ramjet's mold has been used like four times now but there were never any repaints of Thrust or Dirge.

Also up we have G2 Jazz... whom I remember looking a lot different than that.

Despite (the original) G2 Jazz looking awfully similar to G1 Jazz, I probably would have bought a repaint in that deco.  Or a Stepper/Ricochet repaint.  But this all-orange Jazz, who is apparently based on concept art for a planned G2 repaint, is an eyesore.

Finally, we have G2 Grimlock.  Or, at least the box for him.

Yeah, that's probably not the G2 you were thinking of, that basically swaps all the gray plastic for blue.  Like Jazz, this is apparently based on concept art for another potential repaint that was never made.  My first reaction is, like Jazz, to be mad that we're not getting the actual G2 Grimlock.  But a yellow dino mode with teal tiger stripes?  I mean, the more I think about it, the more awesome that sounds...

[anime52k8]

I'm all for crazy 90's neon colors, but it's still criminal how little love there is for blue Grimlock.

[pengbuzz]

They should have left poor Grimlock grey to begin with. Grimlock no like funky colors.

[mikeszekely]

So, Jazz, Cloudcover, and Toxitron went up for preorder (with Toxitron selling out at Pulse already).  No sign of Grimlock, though.  Weird.  I was thinking I'd preorder Grimlock and Cloudcover, but without Grimlock I kind of don't feel like preordering Cloudcover, either.  Jazz is too ugly, and while Toxitron is kind of cool I'm not a fan of bad guys that look like Optimus that aren't a mix of black, gray, and teal.

[sh9000]

I wonder how many there will be in this line.

[mikeszekely]

51 minutes ago, sh9000 said:

I wonder how many there will be in this line.

While I totally get wanting new Legacy or MP toys to look super cartoon accurate, I don't see the appeal of repainting the G1 toys in cartoon colors. I'd really rather they stuck with straight reissues, especially since I don't have a G1 Thundercracker or Hound.