LION-O 4"

Take a look at the new Lion-O from the cartoon series ThunderCats (TC). This series dates back to the '80s & they're making a comeback. When I first saw images of the toy line online, it made me all excited hoping for the toys to enter the market. One thing confusing about the toy line is that the assortments come in a few different sizes. There is the Classic 8", normal 6" and smaller 4" assortment. The Lion-O you're looking at is from the 4" assortment. The reason I'm collecting the 4" assortments is because I want my entourage to compliment the Thundertank.

In the meantime while waiting for the toys to be on the shelves, I started watching the first season of TC to reminisce my childhood years. The storyline this time was slightly different from the '80s and the graphics have improved a lot. Having finished watching the first season, the toy line has yet to appear on the market. Thus I started hunting for them on eBay.

There were a couple of folks selling the toys but they didn't come cheap. I was fortunate enough to get hold of a few other characters from a flee market seller, of which I will be reviewing in future posts.

Finally a Lion-O that's not in a wrestling outfit. This Lion-O is actually from the Wave 2 assortment. The Lion-O from Wave 1 comes with an ordinary claw shield whereas this Lion-O comes equipped with a Thunderclaw. Besides that, it also comes with an interchangeable ordinary left arm, and the full length Sword of Omens.

Both the swords are made of low quality plastic. When the long sword is left to pose in a slanting position over a period of time, it would probably start to bend.

Here, you can see Lion-O with the Thunderclaw that makes his arm look like Captain Commando. This time around, his claw is gold in color as compared to the crimson colored claw from the vintage series.

After being equipped with the huge claw, this figure is still quite articulate. Heavily armed, even the enemies would think twice before launching an attack at the Cats.

As reference, here's Lion-O next to his arch nemesis, Mumm-Ra.

BLURR WITH INCINERATOR MINI-CON

Among all the Transformers series I'll say that this is the line that I started off with, the Armada series. Back my in my heydays when I was still studying in Australia, you'll have trouble looking for Gundam toys. It was then, that I slowly diverted my collection to Transformers.

There are many reasons about why I'm fond of this series. One main reason in particular is because the bots come with a miniature assistant, known as Mini-Cons. These Mini-Cons usually come in smaller sized vehicles & they can also transform. In addition, some of them can combine to form weapons for the larger bots. I'll tell you more about this in another post.

Here's a look at Blurr from another angle. Besides the usual place that each specific Mini-Con attaches onto, the Armada robots come with pegs located on numerous spots on their body frame. These pegs are for you to attach other individual Mini-Cons onto. From the image above, you'll be able to see that Blurr has two pegs situated at the rear spoiler.

The original slot for Incinerator is for it to be attached to the rear section of Blurr. Once you insert it Blurr transforms into what looks like a hover car, revealing both his rocket launchers. Both the launchers each have an additional peg for you to attach even more Mini-Cons onto it. Later you'll see that the weapons may be removed to be held on Blurr's arms.

The transformation for my bot was a little difficult as it has been on display, untouched for a couple of years. Certain joints were very tight & I had trouble pulling out the legs for transformation.

The Mini-Con transforms with easy & can be seen here standing next to Blurr for height comparison.

If you don't like the idea of having the Mini-Con sit on either one of the weapons, you could just transform it back to vehicle mode and stick it back to the designated slot behind Blurr & it functions as a rear stand to help balance the heavy rear portion of Blurr in bot mode. Lastly, you would need to attach the Mini-Con onto the launcher to activate the firing mechanism. Otherwise, the launcher will not release the two long orange missiles. For this matter, any Mini-Con would do the work.

AUTOBOT JAZZ

This was the first Kre-O Transformers product that i purchased. The toy blocks are very identical to Lego & Mega Bloks. This set comes with two mini figurines or what they would call Kreons. Building it was a breeze because it came with an instruction manual as thick as a small booklet.

Here's a better look at both the Kreons.

In vehicle mode Jazz actually looks like a 4WD jeep, rather than the usual sports car. The toy comes with a sticker sheet & you'll have to be careful in applying them on the rear wheel section.

The one of the Kreons in a race driver & he fits easily in the driver seat. Both doors are able to open & are purely there for aesthetics. You would have to lif the hood flap up to remove the driver.

From vehicle mode, it takes some time to 'transform' Jazz into robot mode. You'll have to dismantle the blocks & build them up from scratch again. Although they are supposed to be Transformers, they don't really transform. Once complete, Jazz stands as tall as your average Deluxe figure. One sad thing about this Kre-O is that is only has 9 points of articulation. 

Lastly, there are excess blocks & Pieces after each transformation. There will always be different blocks left once you've transformed Jazz to either form. The same goes for the other Kre-Os that i have.

GI JOE

Among my other collection are the all American heroes, GI Joe! The current collection dates back from 2003.

I decided to take them out for a group portrait just before their new movie launches, GI Joe Retaliation (2012). But what happened to the movie & why has it been postponed to next year? Well in the meantime, I'll just have to make do with what I have on hand isn't it?

As you can see, most of the vehicles are shown here with labels. This is because they were prepared earlier when I displayed my collection at a local anime convention. Back then the organizers requested that my toys be labeled for display.

For this collection, I can't help but collect more Cobras than Joes as their designs are a lot more attractive. Most of the Joe vehicles look very ordinary & there is no point for me to collect them. It took me a long time, before the almighty PIT surfaced in the market in conjunction with the first Joe movie (2009). If I had the extra budget, I would have purchased another PIT Headquarters for kit-bash purposes.

Honestly I hope there will be more worthy Joe vehicles for me to to add to my collection in future to balance out the battle scene for my diorama. Otherwise they're just going to have to take all the heavy down fire from Cobra.

SOUNDWAVE (BLASTER BLACK Vr.)

A couple of years ago Takara manufactured a new Soundwave mold that actually works as an MP3 player. This new series of toy was classified under Music Label. As sneak peaks of the mold were slowly surfacing on the internet, we soon realized that Soundwave requires a miniSD card to work. On top of that, you could only use a maximum 1GB sized card for it to work.

Here's how Soundwave looks like in the player mode. He is made of matte plastic and you have to be careful when handling so as not to scratch it.

The button on his shoulder opens up the chest panel for you to slide in the miniSD card. 

Like previous predecessors this guy has identical transformation steps. However, do be careful when flipping his legs out. You want to make sure that you don't rub off the paint. The joints on my Soundwave is quite tight and i find it difficult at times when trying to flip the back legs out.

Once fully transformed, you can attach his shoulder rocket launcher and blaster on. His knee joints are rather weak and you have to tweak his legs apart just a little for him to stand upright.

On a lighter note, I'm sure you notice by now that some of our female counterparts love to attach an ear plug peg on their mobile phones as a fashion accessory. Well, why not do it with Soundwave's rocket launcher instead!

MUDFLAP

This is one of the twins in the Transformers Movie saga. Although I have no interest in both of them, I picked it off the shelf because it was going at clearance price.

Out of the package Mudflap looks rather simple & sleek in the Chevrolet Spark mode.

Here, you can see that there are two holes on the roof where you can attach his MechTech weapon. The weapon itself has a gimmick. When you pull the top switch on the blaster back, a battle axe will flip out from the side.

Transformation is a real pain as a number of joints are super tight such as the leg, rear spoiler and toes while the arm joints and front hood are very flimsy. They tend to detach during transformation.

Once in robot mode, Mudflap looks just plain weird, like the previous molds in ROTF & TFTM. He has an oversized left arm, while his twin brother Skids an oversized right.

The weapon however does not fit snugly in either of the hands. However for display purposes, they look just fine as you can see. 

Lastly the pain of transformation comes again when you try to convert it back to its vehicle mode. If you don't tuck the legs in nicely, it'll be difficult to clip on the rear spoilers. If the arms are not tucked in properly, the lower skirting of the car, and the windows will be jutting out.

STEALTH FORCE BUMBLEBEE

I got hold of this as a present a couple of months ago. Although this Bumblebee falls under the Transformers Dark of The Moon (DOTM) series, it comes under a different line known as Speed Stars. It's about the same size as your DOTM Leader class Bumblebee.

One thing cool about the packaging is that the two sides can be used to form a display stand as can be seen.

From the outside, there are basically two buttons at the back. One of it is to activate the transformation, while the other is the sound button. Here's what it looks like when the transformation button is pressed.

During transformation Bumblebee will utter various quotes such as "Don't make me use this thing", "Bumblebee", "I will protect you", "Reach for the sky" and a few others. Once the transformation is done, you'll see that the toy comes with a blue missile that can be launched from the cannon on its roof.

Here's another short clip to see some of the light effects when the sound button is pressed.

Overall, this is a very cool display piece and it can be quite addictive watching the way Bumblebee transforms into attack mode in slow motion.

HOTLINK GAMES & ANIME FESTIVAL 2009

A couple of years ago, I was invited to display part of my toy collection at this anime festival at one of the malls downtown. For those that remembered, it was held at Berjaya Times Square.

The organizers were looking for a couple of collectors to display an array of toys from different genres. During the meeting, so happened I was able to provide most of the toys for display. The only other collector they needed to look for was a Star Wars dude of which I admit, I'm not a major fan.

When I look back at the event, the only trace of images I have are these two below.

• Transformers Diorama

 

• GI Joe Diorama

Besides the two images I also found a link for the festival on YouTube that shows the entire venue of the event. 

It's a little difficult to see, but scattered around the venue are other glass display towers. These towers were filled with my collection of toys from other genres such as Final Fantasy, Spawn & some Gundam as well. If I recalled correctly, the event lasted for about three to four days stretching over to the weekend.

SHADOW ARMS MICRON

I finally got hold of these! I was told they were available as part of Japan's Toys 'R Us campaign.

The 4 shadow microns are:

• Shadow Ciel (AM-03 Cliffjumper's micron)
• Shadow Arue (AM-04 Ratchet's micron)
• Shadow Gola (AM-05 Megatron's micron)
• Shadow Varo (Am-06 Skywarp's micron)

Here's how they look like after assembly.

At first glance, they look like some of the Japanese Armada series Mini-Cons with black plastic mold. Upon further inspection, these molds actually come in semi-translucent smoke color. Assembling them didn't take too long as they only had 1 sticker to apply each, which is the Autobot/Decepticon emblem under the crystals. Apparently the normal series of Arms Micron are equipped with Energon crystals, while the Shadow Microns are equipped with Dark Energon crystals instead.

Let's have a closer look at them individually:

1) Shadow Ciel

Currently my favorite micron due to its simplicity. Transformation for this blade is very straight forward and there are very minimal points of articulation. It has 2 pegs & a hole to combine with other microns.

2) Shadow Arue

Somehow, this dude just reminds me of TF Generations Warpath. Although a little more articulated, transformation is a piece of cake actually.

3) Shadow Gola

As you can see, there are a few forms that this micron can change into; From a blade, to blaster to a gorilla. This micron has the most pieces required for assembly. However, one thing bad about the blaster mode is that the blades/wings can't be fully kept and tucked in to give it a sleeker appearance. This micron also has quite a number of pegs & holes for combination purpose.

4) Shadow Varo

The last of the shadows microns is also a triple changer. It changes from a drill bit to a shuriken and into a form of beetled bug. The drill bit which forms the leg of this micron is very articulate and provides for a variety of poses.

Overall, these microns provide for an array of combination that you can form into various weapons for the Bots/Cons. I've prepared a few samples for your imagination to run wild below.