DSC_7577
The recently released MP-56 is Trailbreaker, the character that I honestly barely remember being on the show. I remember his G1 toy though.. everyone always kept losing the fists.
Trailbreaker is an officially licensed Toyota Hilux, a vehicle that I've never actually seen in real life. Mind ou, Toyotas were really scarce here in Canada back in the 80s, and it's not like this particular model has a cult following like the Celica did. There are options to make the vehicle mode more toon accurate, which would involve swapping the front bumper piece and adding some stickers, but since my sticker game is terrible I opted to pass on this little endeavor. There's also a little radar dish you can attach to the roof of the vehicle mode.
One immediate thing that fascinated me was that this figure was "Made in China", which means it's not made in the same factory as those horrible Unified Product lines. Also fascinating is the fact that "Made is China" is printed on a sticker and stuck on the box.
Transformation into robot mode is relatively straight forward, though the backpack gave me a bit of trouble due to my inability to read Japanese - eventually figured it out that you needed to deform the rear end of the car a bit to make things connect.
Much like the classic 80's toy, this figure is pretty much all leg. It's actually pretty impressive how tall Trailbreaker is compared to his work friends. I can't remember if the scale is accurate, but I'll presume that Takara did their homework.
Bot mode looks goofy, but in a good way. Lets be honest here - the 80s on screen models weren't exactly works of art, and I feel Takara did a great job at capturing that on this toy. The head is... something else. I know some people were complaining about the size of the chin and other things, but at the end of the day it's nowhere as bad as what we got for MP Ironhide and Ratchet. I'm pretty sure the on screen model didn't have the backpack, but that's basically life of transforming figures without parts forming.
Accessory wise it's decent, but not exactly blowing my mind. You get two additional faces, an additional chromed weapon swap out on the arm, and of course his other hand. There's also a blast effect which is an Acid Spray IIRC.
Articulation is actually pretty good, though the bulk of the torso does interfere with things. Lower body features great range of motion, and there's even an ab crunch type of deal. The shoulders and neck need some more love though. They're functional, yes, but not what I'd expect from a MP level transformer.
Overall, Trailbreaker offers a play experience towards the higher end of MP figures, which makes sense given the MSRP of almost 22,000 Yen, though you'd be insane to actually spend that amount on this figure. It's definitely a more impressive toy than the budget priced Skids, but I have to say that at this price point it's not as good as earlier releases like Sunstreaker and Inferno.
DSC_7577
The recently released MP-56 is Trailbreaker, the character that I honestly barely remember being on the show. I remember his G1 toy though.. everyone always kept losing the fists.
Trailbreaker is an officially licensed Toyota Hilux, a vehicle that I've never actually seen in real life. Mind ou, Toyotas were really scarce here in Canada back in the 80s, and it's not like this particular model has a cult following like the Celica did. There are options to make the vehicle mode more toon accurate, which would involve swapping the front bumper piece and adding some stickers, but since my sticker game is terrible I opted to pass on this little endeavor. There's also a little radar dish you can attach to the roof of the vehicle mode.
One immediate thing that fascinated me was that this figure was "Made in China", which means it's not made in the same factory as those horrible Unified Product lines. Also fascinating is the fact that "Made is China" is printed on a sticker and stuck on the box.
Transformation into robot mode is relatively straight forward, though the backpack gave me a bit of trouble due to my inability to read Japanese - eventually figured it out that you needed to deform the rear end of the car a bit to make things connect.
Much like the classic 80's toy, this figure is pretty much all leg. It's actually pretty impressive how tall Trailbreaker is compared to his work friends. I can't remember if the scale is accurate, but I'll presume that Takara did their homework.
Bot mode looks goofy, but in a good way. Lets be honest here - the 80s on screen models weren't exactly works of art, and I feel Takara did a great job at capturing that on this toy. The head is... something else. I know some people were complaining about the size of the chin and other things, but at the end of the day it's nowhere as bad as what we got for MP Ironhide and Ratchet. I'm pretty sure the on screen model didn't have the backpack, but that's basically life of transforming figures without parts forming.
Accessory wise it's decent, but not exactly blowing my mind. You get two additional faces, an additional chromed weapon swap out on the arm, and of course his other hand. There's also a blast effect which is an Acid Spray IIRC.
Articulation is actually pretty good, though the bulk of the torso does interfere with things. Lower body features great range of motion, and there's even an ab crunch type of deal. The shoulders and neck need some more love though. They're functional, yes, but not what I'd expect from a MP level transformer.
Overall, Trailbreaker offers a play experience towards the higher end of MP figures, which makes sense given the MSRP of almost 22,000 Yen, though you'd be insane to actually spend that amount on this figure. It's definitely a more impressive toy than the budget priced Skids, but I have to say that at this price point it's not as good as earlier releases like Sunstreaker and Inferno.