The Energon Pub

It wasn't just Hasbro that was busy revealing stuff last week-end, Takara had their own plethora of reveals. Albeit, not all at shows. While Animation-Comic-Game Hong Kong did get the reveal of an exclusive Transformers One "leader sized" Optimus Prime, the others have been found through preliminary listings online. Here's all the new stuff from Takara from the last few days:

TF One leader Optimus Prime: a Takara initiative to have the leader character get a leader sized figure. We saw it with ROTB as well with Primal, though that figure was also simplified. We do not know if that will be the case with this figure too. It will be available in the US as well through an import (as the ROTB Primal was on Pulse), and the listing for the import is below.

TRA GEN TT IMPORT TF ONE LDR OP
Product Number: G1849

Missing Link Sentinel Prime: an orange redeco of Missing Link Optimus Prime

ROTB Nemesis Prime: a nemesis prime redeco of buzzworthy BB SS ROTB voyager Optimus Prime

Armada Super Starscream: a blue redeco of Legacy Armada Starscream

Grey throne: a grey throne accessory

Anime Leo Prime: a retool and redeco of Legacy Leo Prime where the lion head looks like the head in the anime rather than a a fusion of Alexander and Nina from FMA

Let us know which of these you plan on tracking. Extra effort and money will be required as these will be imports (so you either pay extra for a place like Pulse to do the importing, or you import it yourself from Japan).

NGL, while I kinda dig the anime Leo Prime, especially after having seen BWII just recently, it isn't enough nor is it totally what I'd want to match the rest. I know it's anime accurate. I know that. I get that. But I'd want a cool, realistic lion head. Not a derpy one.

Of course, if I already had this it wouldn't be enough to double dip anyway. And I already have the Nemesis version, sooooo...

Sentinel Prime is kinda... pointless. Regarding the other stuff, nothing to be really excited for (maybe just Armada Thundercracker), although I dig the anime lion face more than the original one. If I were collecting BW2 characters, I'd surely get this Lio Convoy.

Gauntlet101010 wrote:... But I'd want a cool, realistic lion head. Not a derpy one.

If not everyone appreciates the Anime Accuracy I get that. But I dont think you could get any more dead-eyed and "derpy" than what the initial release was. TBH, I resigned to the fact that it was, what it was, and just to keep Lio Convoy in Robot form, because TT wasn't making "better versions" like they were during the Prime wars Trilogy.... Boy was I wrong. This looks amazing. I don't know if ill have the funds to track it down, but definitely an improvement.

o.supreme wrote:

Gauntlet101010 wrote:... But I'd want a cool, realistic lion head. Not a derpy one.

If not everyone appreciates the Anime Accuracy I get that. But I dont think you could get any more dead-eyed and "derpy" than what the initial release was. TBH, I resigned to the fact that it was, what it was, and just to keep Lio Convoy in Robot form, because TT wasn't making "better versions" like they were during the Prime wars Trilogy.... Boy was I wrong. This looks amazing. I don't know if ill have the funds to track it down, but definitely an improvement.

Yeah, that's fair. The original is really bad.

I guess I dislike it more than I dislike the anime one. But, for me, it's a battle of which I dislike least as opposed to which I like more. And I think there's still a Lio Prime at Walmart near me if I wanted him (I don't).

The Legacy Lio Convoy mold is pretty subpar, so I'm good with passing on that one.

That Leader Prime though, Imma need that one. He also has the face swapping gimmick, so kudos for having that in there as well.

Who are the 2 yellowish bots on the shelf underneath Rhinox?

Rodimus Prime wrote:Who are the 2 yellowish bots on the shelf underneath Rhinox?

MP Trainbots Ginoh and Yamabuki, Dr. Yellow-inspired redecos of Shouki and Yukikaze respectively.

Yeah, while just about any repaint of the good ol' Battle Convoy mold has merit in that someone, somewhere will buy it, I don't think I can ever see that as Sentinel Prime. My brain will automatically repurpose it into either Huffermus Prime, or what if Alpha Trion had repaired Dion first and given him the matrix instead of Orion.

Incidentally, am I the only one who always assumed Dion was rebuilt into Huffer, because their color schemes sort of match like Orion Pax and Ariel's match Op and Elita's? Granted, Huffer looks more like an outdated labor bot than a new type of warrior, but it would sort of jive with Prime calling Huffer "old friend" when he took his trailer in 'Heavy Metal War', which this new toy also evokes, if you rewatch that scene and see which model they used for the cab.

As for Lioconvoy, if his MP included Artemis as planned, I'd already have it, and not need an anime-face lion mode. But that didn't happen, so I'm on the fence about this one. Looks cool enough, but not sure it'd be worth the price or effort. I still have most of the original BWII toys, and the shiny Robot-Master, so I'm not sure how many variations on his latest mold I really need.

Not a fan of the anime-accurate lion face on Lio Convoy. That puffy kitty face does not evoke a powerful warrior.

The gold painted mane and detailing is nice, but already spending enough money on SS86 Prime, Kitt, Hot Shot... don't need to add to it.

I'll keep my Legacy Lio Prime.

One other thing to note is that while the description says the yellow coloring was based on the truck scanned by Teletraan I in the first episode, the truck only appears yellow in the Japanese DVDs, which used video masters from the LaserDisc release that had washed out colors.



(Sidenote: These washed out masters are why several Takara Galvatron toys have colored him in light pastel purple instead of dark purple.)

In the US DVD releases, the truck appears properly more orange.