The Energon Pub

[Autobot N]

Then again, they are doing a Headmaster Galvatron, which means one of two things:

A: Takara didn't bother with retooling Galvatron so he could have a regular head, which shows that they don't always strictly adhere to G1 accuracy.

B: Having a regular head was too costly to implant, so they had to leave it as it was.

[william-james88]

Then again, they are doing a Headmaster Galvatron, which means one of two things:

A: Takara didn't bother with retooling Galvatron so he could have a regular head, which shows that they don't always strictly adhere to G1 accuracy.

B: Having a regular head was too costly to implant, so they had to leave it as it was.

Why cant it mean both? It's pretty clear what is going on here: having a reglar head doesnt work or is too costly and thus they arent so strict that things must be G1.

[King Kuuga]

A Titan Class Raiden would be neat, but probably not that popular.

Speak for the continental United States. Same can be said for MP Star Saber. well look how "unpopular" he became.

Japan adores Star Saber, and he was produced in Masterpiece quantities. I know Raiden is a Japanese character, I don't know how popular he is over there, and I really question how many fans would buy him at that price point. Maybe I'm overthinking it, I DO own a Grand Liner.

[o.supreme]

Well Raiden did get a PVC figure about a decade ago (I miss those little guys... ). But its hard to gauge "popularity" without speaking to a lot of Japanese fans. I would not have thought Omega Supereme or Sky Lynx were that popular, but they both got encore toys.

Cool toy...but my own biases against Power Rangers cant separate the individual toy, from what its associated with.

[william-james88]

I am baffled that Raiden didnt get an Encore. I feel he should get an encore before an update (like Skylynx did).

[LOST Cybertronian]

I would not have thought Omega Supereme or Sky Lynx were that popular, but they both got encore toys.

Actually the Encore versions were the first of those toys that Takara was able to release.

[o.supreme]

Was that because they had to wait for the rights to expire, or purchase rights form the previous toylines those molds came from?

Man..all this talk is making me miss my original Liokaiser, and Raiden, and Overlord... and well...Road Caesar not so much, because they were the individual bots, and reissues from 1991, not the 1989 originals .

But the random speculation, and reminiscing is fun, until we get some actual news.

[william-james88]

Was that because they had to wait for the rights to expire, or purchase rights form the previous toylines those molds came from?

Its a cool story. Here are blurbs from an upcoming article I am writing:

Sky Lynx from Toybox (designed by Tomy)

This guy is quite interesting since even though he was designed by the toy giant Tomy in theme with their Zoids toyline, he was actually commissioned and owned by Toybox. The really interesting part is that as far as I know, the first release of this design is actually by Hasbro through the transformers brand. So Skylynx was first issued by hasbro, through a license with Toybox, designed by Tomy. So Takara couldnt release him, but Hasbro could. And since Hasbro cant release anything in japan, they enver got him



Omega Supreme from Toybox (designed by Tomy)

Like Skylynx, this toy was also from Toybox but designed by Tomy. However, Tomy had designed him inline with their Plarail toyline which dealth with train sets (which is still going strong today). This more than explains why Omega Supreme dissasembles himself transforms into a track system for a tank to move along it. If you ever wondered why Omega Supreme does not transform like regular Transformers do, this should explain it. Unlike Skylynx, he was released by Toybox as Super Change Robo Mechabot-1. This toy had a very different color scheme than how he looked once Hasbro licensed the toy from Toybox.

[o.supreme]

Nice. I cant wait to read the article in full. I knew about Mechabot-1, (I'm obviously an Omega Supreme fan ) but I didn't know about Sky Lynx toy history (other than the fact that he was obviously from another line). It's kind of odd then, that in the 2002 Japanese PS2 game, that Sky Lynx is a stage boss if you play as the Decepticons. I know portraying a character, and having a toy are different. But you would think a character without a toy, as in the case of Japan until recently, would not be that popular...you learn something new everyday

[Seibertron]

Anyone else have QC issues with Unite Warriors UW-05 Convoy Grand Prime? Mirage's head paint is a mess, Sunstreaker's head also has noticeable flaws but not as bad as Mirage, Optimus Prime's face shield has paint variations, as well as flaws on his abdomen paint app, and the Combiner head has a dimple spot on the left side of his face shield. There might be other issues but that's what's got me irked right now with him. Urgh.

[Hellscream9999]

Anyone else have QC issues with Unite Warriors UW-05 Convoy Grand Prime? Mirage's head paint is a mess, Sunstreaker's head also has noticeable flaws but not as bad as Mirage, Optimus Prime's face shield has paint variations, as well as flaws on his abdomen paint app, and the Combiner head has a dimple spot on the left side of his face shield. There might be other issues but that's what's got me irked right now with him. Urgh.

Dude, that sucks hard

That seems very unlike TT to have sloppy paint apps

[Seibertron]

Anyone else have QC issues with Unite Warriors UW-05 Convoy Grand Prime? Mirage's head paint is a mess, Sunstreaker's head also has noticeable flaws but not as bad as Mirage, Optimus Prime's face shield has paint variations, as well as flaws on his abdomen paint app, and the Combiner head has a dimple spot on the left side of his face shield. There might be other issues but that's what's got me irked right now with him. Urgh.

Dude, that sucks hard

That seems very unlike TT to have sloppy paint apps

Actually it's not. If anything, I have far more problems with takara transformers simply because they use more paint so there are more issues. Masterpiece toys are some of the worst. Just sucks nonetheless. .. curious to see if these issues with the uw05 set are common or if each set has its own issues.

[-Kanrabat-]

Anyone else have QC issues with Unite Warriors UW-05 Convoy Grand Prime? Mirage's head paint is a mess, Sunstreaker's head also has noticeable flaws but not as bad as Mirage, Optimus Prime's face shield has paint variations, as well as flaws on his abdomen paint app, and the Combiner head has a dimple spot on the left side of his face shield. There might be other issues but that's what's got me irked right now with him. Urgh.

Dude, that sucks hard

That seems very unlike TT to have sloppy paint apps

Feast your eyes on this. Henkei Optimus Prime, paid almost 100$ shipped MISB.

[no-one]

Feast your eyes on this. Henkei Optimus Prime, paid almost 100$ shipped MISB.

First pic: ooooo pretty!

Second pic: dude, where did you get that knock off?

Bummer guys.

I guess with the more paint apps the higher the chance is to have fail points. That's some serious food for thought.

[Cyberpath]

Merged the Constructicons again.. the size of the combined mode is still shocking. What an awesome set!

[Evil Eye]

Remember what happened to Blades and Alpha Bravo? Well it just happened to Groove too. The first two times I just assumed it was a problem with that particular mold and could be avoided by not buying the Helicopters, but now that UW Groove is broken as well I'm convinced it's a line-wide issue. There's two non-mutually-exclusive possibilities here- one possibility is that the plastic just sucks. The other possibility is that the bizarre choice to make the 5mm ports hexagonal made them more prone to fractures. Or of course it could be both. Either way I want my money back on these f*ckers.

I'm done buying official combiners. I gave you a chance, HasTak, and you blew it. You burned me one too many times. I guess you really do get what you pay for- it's 3rd party only for me from now on (at least with combiners).

[Autobot N]

Remember what happened to Blades and Alpha Bravo? Well it just happened to Groove too. The first two times I just assumed it was a problem with that particular mold and could be avoided by not buying the Helicopters, but now that UW Groove is broken as well I'm convinced it's a line-wide issue. There's two non-mutually-exclusive possibilities here- one possibility is that the plastic just sucks. The other possibility is that the bizarre choice to make the 5mm ports hexagonal made them more prone to fractures. Or of course it could be both. Either way I want my money back on these f*ckers.

I'm done buying official combiners. I gave you a chance, HasTak, and you blew it. You burned me one too many times. I guess you really do get what you pay for- it's 3rd party only for me from now on (at least with combiners).

Put a glue dot in there or something. It'll probably be fine.

[D-Maximal_Primal]

Is Delta the only one having these issues? Cause I have not

[Evil Eye]

Remember what happened to Blades and Alpha Bravo? Well it just happened to Groove too. The first two times I just assumed it was a problem with that particular mold and could be avoided by not buying the Helicopters, but now that UW Groove is broken as well I'm convinced it's a line-wide issue. There's two non-mutually-exclusive possibilities here- one possibility is that the plastic just sucks. The other possibility is that the bizarre choice to make the 5mm ports hexagonal made them more prone to fractures. Or of course it could be both. Either way I want my money back on these f*ckers.

I'm done buying official combiners. I gave you a chance, HasTak, and you blew it. You burned me one too many times. I guess you really do get what you pay for- it's 3rd party only for me from now on (at least with combiners).

Put a glue dot in there or something. It'll probably be fine.

Already tried that and it didn't work. And even if it did, that's beyond the point. I paid £115 for these things. I don't expect to have to fix them because of the manufacturer's incompetence.

[Autobot N]

didn't work

Huh. I tried that with my Firefly and Bravo, who, while not broken (at least, as far as I know), the hands and feet would fall out if you so much as looked at him funny, and it seemed to work.


Also, I find it rather interesting that this has been happening almost exclusively to you.

[o.supreme]

Just out of curiosity...has a high resolution full front of the Box for UW-06 Grand Galvatron been spotted yet? I know there are a couple of tiny, low-res angular pics floating around, but I didn't know if a bigger pic had been seen by anyone in the community yet.

[Seibertron]

Remember what happened to Blades and Alpha Bravo? Well it just happened to Groove too. The first two times I just assumed it was a problem with that particular mold and could be avoided by not buying the Helicopters, but now that UW Groove is broken as well I'm convinced it's a line-wide issue. There's two non-mutually-exclusive possibilities here- one possibility is that the plastic just sucks. The other possibility is that the bizarre choice to make the 5mm ports hexagonal made them more prone to fractures. Or of course it could be both. Either way I want my money back on these f*ckers.

I'm done buying official combiners. I gave you a chance, HasTak, and you blew it. You burned me one too many times. I guess you really do get what you pay for- it's 3rd party only for me from now on (at least with combiners).

What happened with Blades, Alpha Bravo and Groove? Can you provide a link to where you talked about that?

[Evil Eye]

Remember what happened to Blades and Alpha Bravo? Well it just happened to Groove too. The first two times I just assumed it was a problem with that particular mold and could be avoided by not buying the Helicopters, but now that UW Groove is broken as well I'm convinced it's a line-wide issue. There's two non-mutually-exclusive possibilities here- one possibility is that the plastic just sucks. The other possibility is that the bizarre choice to make the 5mm ports hexagonal made them more prone to fractures. Or of course it could be both. Either way I want my money back on these f*ckers.

I'm done buying official combiners. I gave you a chance, HasTak, and you blew it. You burned me one too many times. I guess you really do get what you pay for- it's 3rd party only for me from now on (at least with combiners).

What happened with Blades, Alpha Bravo and Groove? Can you provide a link to where you talked about that?

You got it boss.

For good measure, here's some pics of my Busted Blades and Gutted Groove. (None of Alpha Bravo but it's much the same.)


Groove got away lightly by comparison with only a hairline crack as opposed to a whole chunk of his port snapping off, but still pretty shoddy nonetheless.

[Seibertron]

Remember what happened to Blades and Alpha Bravo? Well it just happened to Groove too. The first two times I just assumed it was a problem with that particular mold and could be avoided by not buying the Helicopters, but now that UW Groove is broken as well I'm convinced it's a line-wide issue. There's two non-mutually-exclusive possibilities here- one possibility is that the plastic just sucks. The other possibility is that the bizarre choice to make the 5mm ports hexagonal made them more prone to fractures. Or of course it could be both. Either way I want my money back on these f*ckers.

I'm done buying official combiners. I gave you a chance, HasTak, and you blew it. You burned me one too many times. I guess you really do get what you pay for- it's 3rd party only for me from now on (at least with combiners).

What happened with Blades, Alpha Bravo and Groove? Can you provide a link to where you talked about that?

Did the store where you purchased the set from help you out?

[Evil Eye]

Remember what happened to Blades and Alpha Bravo? Well it just happened to Groove too. The first two times I just assumed it was a problem with that particular mold and could be avoided by not buying the Helicopters, but now that UW Groove is broken as well I'm convinced it's a line-wide issue. There's two non-mutually-exclusive possibilities here- one possibility is that the plastic just sucks. The other possibility is that the bizarre choice to make the 5mm ports hexagonal made them more prone to fractures. Or of course it could be both. Either way I want my money back on these f*ckers.

I'm done buying official combiners. I gave you a chance, HasTak, and you blew it. You burned me one too many times. I guess you really do get what you pay for- it's 3rd party only for me from now on (at least with combiners).

What happened with Blades, Alpha Bravo and Groove? Can you provide a link to where you talked about that?

Did the store where you purchased the set from help you out?

I pinged them an email when Blades broke and they said they'd source a replacement leg directly from Takara. Unfortunately it hasn't arrived yet and Groove already broke on me. I've asked them for a refund now, they haven't responded just yet.