Dave's BW Neo Rant:

    Line Comments

    Heinrad (S-3)

    Thanks to various fun mailing tricks, both boxes of BW Neo that I traded for arrived today, leaving me drowning in a sea of plastic and cardboard (and bubblewrap, whee!). It's too rainy and windy to bring the larger toys to the office tonight, so I stuffed my backpack with the smaller stuff to review tonight. The rest will be covered as the weekend progresses and I find space on my desk to put the things.

CAPSULE:

    Heinrad: Okay beast mode, good "third mode" and very good robot mode, an all-around good toy. Recommended. Prices start at $30.

RANTS:

Line Comments -

    Takara decided to go for a different packaging style with this line, introducing a number of new features and removing others, while still sticking to the boxed toy idea (no carded bubbles).

    What was kept: Computer graphic pictures of the characters in robot mode on the box and techspec card. Inner plastic trays. The basic layout (tray inside cardboard backgound piece inside windowed box, with bag of instructions and stuff stuck between the background and the box).

    What was dropped: Nifty individual backgrounds (now everyone has some variant on confetti-like stuff with "spark" images).

    What was changed: Cybertron and Destron are now spelled Cybertoron and Destoron. This isn't really much more grammatically correct, so it was probably a change for the sake of change. The boxes now have a sort of woodgrain (brown or grey) pattern on them instead of being solid colors. The shape of the box is also different. One of the front corners is flattened, so that there's an extra edge to put "Cybertoron" or "Destoron" on, possibly to increase visibility as viewed on the shelf. The left side is flattened for Cybertrons (hey, I prefer the old spelling), the right side for Destrons, and both sides for the VS packs. This also makes is trivial to tell by shape what sort of set it is and which side faces the aisle. Finally, the techspecs no longer use the radial thing, instead using a column of glowing dots for each stat. The techspec stats are in the same order as on the U.S. toys (and yes, I confirmed this by comparing the Japanese characters to my BWII key).

    What was added: A hole is cut into the box flap on the side with the flattening, and the inside flap that shows through has a picture of the toy's third mode (except for Big Convoy and Magmatron, which show the beast modes in action).

    All in all, the packaging is very nice and quite sturdy, an order of magnitude better than what Hasbro uses here. Of course, with just about everything being boxed rather than carded, it makes sense to put a little more effort into your boxes.

CYBERTRON: Heinrad (or Heinlad) STR ? INT ? SPD ? END ? RNK 7 COUR ? FRP ? SKL ? Avg ?

    Yes, question marks. From what I've heard about the character, he has time control powers but also is a victim of his own abilities, shifting back and forth in time. So sometimes he's a vital but inexperienced warrior, sometimes he's a frail but wise old 'bot.

    Because of the r/l uncertainty in Japanese (they have one consonant which fills both roles, basically), the name could be Heinlad or Heinrad. I prefer the sound of Heinrad, but Heinlad would fit with a Heinlein reference better.

    Heinrad is a Tanuki, a Japanese dog that resembles a raccoon (recent studies have shown that there are no native members of the raccoon family outside the Americas, so tanukis and red pandas have been reclassified). In Japanese myth and legend, tanukis (tanukii?) are the bartenders of the world. Hence the wine jug and wineseller's record book that come with the toy.

    Statue Mode: I'll do this one first, since he's packaged in it. Tanuki statues can be found all over the country, and are notable for a certain exaggerated part of their anatomy, namely the gonads. The toy is true to that stylistic quirk, having parts that become hip-packs and seem to be there primarily to provide Heinrad with the proper equipment in statue mode. The rather stocky statue mode is 6" (15cm) tall and nearly as large in the other directions. The lower legs are your basic single-piece beast kibble, but the upper legs are his robot arms, and are very poseable. Even the hands have good articulation, with ball joint wrists and opposable thumbs like TMII Cheetor has. Both accessories are on strings, so can be easily held in these hands. While there's probably a place that you're supposed to store the missiles (I've only looked at the part of the instructions concerning installing the batteries), they store nicely in his backpack of robot legs. The head is mounted on two ball joints (since it splits apart), but still has pretty good poseability. The clock in his stomach cannot be set in this mode, nor can the alarm be turned on.

    Transformation to Beast Mode: Rotate the limbs around, move the head up and flip the tail down. Not so much a transformation as the tanuki moving from a sitting up position to an all-fours one.

    Beast Mode: 8" (20cm) from snout to tail tip, 4" (10cm) high and wide. VERY blocky, thanks to all the robot stuff folded up, and his robot hips are a lot more visible in this mode. Looks like Heinrad is trying to, ah, pass a robot. Clock is not even visible in this mode, and the difference in length between front and rear legs is pronounced. I'd advise not keeping it in this mode.

    Transformation to Robot Mode: Fairly simple, and moving the head halves out of the way is somewhat arbitrary, but there's a couple subtle steps you have to observe, including rotating his hips 180 degrees so that his beast tail doesn't make him even more well-endowed, and flipping some panels on his legs back into place to keep him from falling over backwards. Moving his lower beast legs out of the way without popping off his hip rockets/packs can be tricky, too. Finally, of course, ya gotta assemble his gun.

    Robot Mode: Stands a mighty 8" (20cm) tall, in the league of the Ultras and Gestalt teams. His joints are, for the most part, very stiff, using the same ratcheting action that was first introduced on the Combat Heroes and Laser Optimus. This stiffness can get in the way, unfortunately. One joint that's fairly loose is his heel. You have to fold a fur panel back down over it or Heinrad will fall over backwards. In general, he's very poseable, and worth the price of an Ultra even without the clock. His goggles even move up and down, although they look best half-down like he's always shown in the ads. I've been told that moving the goggles a lot can scrape some of the toy's paint off, so be careful. One fly in the ointment, however: because of the way his robot shoulders are set up, they don't rotate, so Heinrad can't raise his arms above his head.

    There's not a whole lot of beast kibble in this mode, and most of it folds onto his back (head halves, hind legs, tail). He's a bit topheavy, but otherwise one of the most humanly-proportioned robot modes I've seen in a while. He almost looks like he's already been "Romita-ized" for a cartoon. His "spark crystal" is on one of the hip units, and is a deep red. It should be noted that the spark crystals seem to be just insignia in BW Neo, and not any manifestation of the character's lifeforce. His face is largely robotic and very well done, but like all the Cybertrons, his face has elements of his beast mode to it.

    The weapon made from his record book and wine jug shoots pretty anemicly, only a few inches because the missile only goes in a millimetre or two. Still, it looks nice, even if it can only be held in his right hand with the screw holes pointing outward. The missiles peg very firmly to his legs, and presumably stay there once transformed back to beast mode.

    The Clock: His key gimmick, however, is the clock in his body. It's like a large wristwatch in size, and takes one AAA battery. The hour, minute and second hands work fine, but the smaller dials behind them are fake. To turn on the alarm, you raise his robot head, and if you're careful transforming it, the head will remain up in beast mode so that slapping down the beast head will turn off the alarm. The alarm itself is a fairly loud "bee-bee-beep" repeater typical of travel clocks...but significantly louder than the travel clock I keep below my monitor. The effect is slightly "rock 'em-sock'em" with his head up like that. And Galvatron can turn off the alarm by smashing down on Heinrad's head with the same motion he smashes Megastorm's head in the cartoon. }-> The one problem is that it's a little hard to set the time, since you have to keep a small dial pulled out as you turn it, a feat that requires small fingers or long nails. I'm told by people who have had theirs a while that it keeps good time, however, so shouldn't require frequent resetting.

    Overall: This toy is 2980 Yen, or about $25-30 in stores, the same as other Ultra-level toys there. I'd say he's worth it. Easily as good as any Ultra released here, and the clock actually works! While I haven't played with the other Neo toys yet, I think I can comfortably say that if you have an opportunity to get only one BW Neo toy, this wouldn't be a bad choice.

    Dave Van Domelen, will scan catalogs, cards and so forth later as he gets the time....