So the second items that I obtained from Singapore is a bit more expected in that it's where I'd normally get these from anyway. I am speaking, of course, about Transformers figures. Specifically, in this case I'm speaking of the MP-48 Lio Convoy, truly a figure that appeared out of nowhere seeing how they've barely scratched the surface of the first Beast Wars line.
Unlike the West which got Beast Machines after the Beast Wars series ended, Japan went off and did their own thing, creating new characters/toys for two animated series, Beast Wars 2 and Beast Wars Neo. These Japanese exclusive toys would partially be released in the Hasbro market over the years, typically as Club or Store exclusives.
Lio Convoy is the leader of Maximals in the Beast Wars 2 series. Never watched it so I'm not aware of any personality traits, but if I had to take a stab at it, I'd say "Youth Fulfilling Ultimate Potential". If the character looks familiar to Legacy collectors, that's because there is a release of a character named Leo Prime which is clearly this guy, albeit with a significant reduction in production budget. If I ever see it on clearance, I'd probably get it to see how it compares to the MP version, as I'm operating under the presumption that Mainline figures borrow from their MP counterparts.
Retailing for approximately 20,000 Yen, this would make Lio Convoy priced at the upper end of normal, price a bit higher than Trailbreaker and the Fuso brothers. He's certainly got the size, though I think its fair to say most of the budget went into the figure itself, though judging from the manual they probably gave him every weapon he had anyway:
- 1 x Main Figure
- 1 x Cybertron Buster
- 1 x "Holder"
- 2 x Lio Cannon
- 4 x Lio Missile
The holder is a weird one.. I'm not sure that piece is story canon, and it's effectively a caddy for the loose parts of this set. Well.. 4 out of 6 of them anyway.
One of the limits of the older Beast figures is the compromises that were made in order to obtain an acceptable looking beast mode. Generally, this resulted in effectively a shellformer figure with a statue for alt mode. The Masterpiece figure clearly has a larger production budget (and about 20 years of engineering advancements) so the resulting Lion mode is... better. Still can't do what a Lion can in terms of pouncing and other animal type poses, but you can do more than you could before.
Most of the issue comes from the way the Lion limbs are jointed. The front limbs lack proper shoulder articulation to replicate any useful poses. The rear limbs have decent range of motion, and are generally hampered by the fact the the robot mode waist is locked in this mode. Speaking of awkward, I'm not sure why the figure was designed with the Lion upper jaw moving and not the lower one.. As for the obvious gaps in the panels and exposed robot kibble, well, that's a reality of pretty much all of the Beast series figures, unless they revert back to being shells.
The Lion face is definitely more anime inspired than the OG toy, and reminds me of an older Japanese IP, Kimba the White Lion.. which probably wasn't a coincidence. It should be noted that there is a second Lion head that is only meant to be used in robot mode, which features simplified, more robotic features.
Being an anime character, Lio Convoy has access to a variety of absurd weapons, several of which are also usable in Lion mode. You have extra claws because the normal claws aren't cutting it, and several weapons are embedded in the Lion mane. Unlike the OG toy, gone are the spring mounted missile launchers, but you still get missiles as accessories. Interesting thing for me at least, is that it appears Lio Convoy has two blasters that are meant for the mounts on the top of the head, though you can also swap them out for missiles.
I guess he likes to be more subtle some times.
Other weapons/gimmicks not pictured here are the Lio Viewt, which apparently is the tail turning into a whip while in robot mode, Lion Typhoon, where the Lion mane spins, thrusters in his calves for flying, and of course the obvious Cybertron Buster, his shotgun.
Transformation into robot mode isn't hard per se, but it is frustrating - I'm still not sure if I got the shoulder pads in the right place. Part of the problem is that it seems Takara Tomy has decided to cut costs by making manuals with diagrams so small, I can't make out any of the details in them. I notice this was also the case with Jetfire. The other thing that is frustrating is that I believe by design that some of the parts are meant to have very little gap when shifting, and because of the realities of QC, you end up with parts that will effectively rub and grind up against each other. Fortunately, I didn't notice any damage, but in the past things haven't gone so well.. like with Megatron.
Being a Convoy (or Prime) Lio Convoy shares some aesthetics from everyone's favourite G1 character, namely the head shape and mask.
Another feature of ever convoy is of course the Matrix of Leadership, though I think canonically there's more than one.
Overall, this has generally held true throughout the years, with the only major exception I can think being Galaxy Force where the leader of each of the planets was a Convoy, but perhaps that was more of an honorary title. Probably why Hasbro changed up the naming in that series.
Now, visually, this new figure certainly looks a lot better than its predecessor. It's also visually striking even among the MP figures, as most of them are that feature very blocky features, which you really only get with the Beast related figures. Colour scheme is also quite striking. Articulation, on the other hand, isn't terrible, but is limited from its full potential. The legs aren't too bad, featuring two thigh twists as well as double jointed knees. The only real weakness would be the lack of true ankle rotation. There is a waist joint, though it sits a bit higher up than you'd expect. and thanks to the transformation you do also have a slight ab crunch to work with, which does help with the balance, particularly for any crouching poses.
The rest of body has some barriers to full range of motion - unsurprisingly, of course. Head is actually in good shape, featuring expected rotation and a good amount of tilt. Shoulders are standard shoulders, with additional flaps used for transformation that can serve as a Butterfly joint substitute, However, the giant shoulder pads get in the way of rotation, both due to their size as well as the frames used to anchor them to the body. Even when you can get the shoulder pads to move out of the way, then you have to consider that raise the arm generally past shoulder height results in some very unnatural looking poses.
The giant Yu-Gi-Oh elbow pads don't help much either and while you can rearrange the parts for easier posing, the fact is that they're still there. On the plus side, you do have double jointed elbows and bicep rotation. Hands are the standard MP figure hands, with poseable fixed pose fingers.
There's also an extra bit of wrist tilt due transformation needs.
Paint Applications are generally clean. I've taken a close look and the only real paint flaw I can find is the unfortunate fact that black paint chipped off the nose of the Beast mode Lion head. Everything else is quite solid , with perhaps the next rough looking paint application being the that on the Matrix. Paint work on the accessories are not as numerous, but are equally well done.
Build Quality wise, I there's the odd seamline here and there, but overall the figure is a beautiful looking piece. There weren't any issues with poor fitting parts or joints that didn't do their job properly. My biggest issues are, as highlighted earlier, the crappy manual and unintentional damage from transformation due to unideal QC results.
Overall, it's an interesting figure that shows where things are likely going from this point. If shoulder pads were better executed, then this would have been one of the upper tier figures, and I'm curious what third party companies have done to address this, such as on the Perfect Effect Leonidas.
I'm also curious as to how well this figure has sold, as MP-48 was on fire sale prices from a well known distributor in Singapore, and people I've spoken with generally don't drop MP money on characters they know nothing about - which would describe most of this side of the world. It did sell well enough, I suppose, to warrant a Shadow version both in the Masterpiece line up, as well as, strangely, the Legacy line up as well.
As always, time will tell where things go from here.
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