Wednesday, March 22, 2017

Toyworld Primorion - Optimus Prime

Toyworld Primorion and their Coneheads introduce yet another scale to contend with. The figure itself is pretty good and definitely worth getting. It just means I now have to start yet another collection.

Truck mode looks decent. Chrome and some metallic paint give it a higher end look. Headlights and taillights are done in colored, transparent plastic. Despite some misaligned pieces, he rolled just fine on rubber tires. I couldn't find anywhere to store his rifle. There doesn't seem to be a hitch for MP-10's trailer, which is probably too small anyways.

While the Transformation is no where near as difficult as GCreation Ultra Maxmas, it is definitely harder than MP-10. As is usual with these things, going to robot mode is fairly simple. In both directions, there are some panels in the abdomen that are hard to manipulate because of the lack of room. Going to vehicle mode is where it gets tricky. Some tabs and ports have to be blindly lined up and pressed together. In the end, I must still have had something wrong with the arms and legs because I couldn't quite get everything to line up correctly for truck mode. I'll likely not bother transforming him again. MP-10 had already solved this transformation with far less fuss. The whole time going to and remaining in truck mode, I worried about the antennae snapping off. They have to be shoved into the cavity with his head. With all the squeezing and twisting, I kept thinking something would break. They ended up surviving the roundtrip transformation.

I like his head sculpt just a little bit more than MP-10 because it's a little less round. He has light-piping works reasonably well. There are extendable microphones on either side of his head. Die-cast can be found in his abs and feet. Transparent plastic and far too little metallic paint serve as highlights. I really wish that more of the figure were covered in metallic paint, but MP-10 didn't have that either. The panels on his biceps are reversible if the silver badge is not agreeable. Much like Masterpiece Ironhide, Primorion has butt tires. I would have preferred that his butt flap covered them instead. My one minor gripe is that his antennae, chest windows, and ab grill are far too easy to knock out of position.

His head is on a hinge and swivel. Unlike MP-10, the panel his neck sits on seems to be locked in place. He can still look up and down a fair amount. His longer ear antennae are on swivels. His shoulders are on double hinges and ratcheted swivels. Although he can raise his arms out and to the sides to 90 degrees, the hinges aren't strong enough to support the weight of his battle axe. Pulling his shoulder joint out too much does break the sculpt. His elbows and knees are double-jointed and ratcheted. His thumbs are on ball joints and the rest of his fingers are single pinned and articulate individually. Except for his thumbs, each of his fingers have three knuckles. Both can almost achieve full curls. He swivels at his biceps, wrists, waist, and thighs. His wrists also hinge so he can actually put his palms against things in front of him Although he has the barest minimum of an ab crunch, it doesn't stay in place. The weight of his upper body causes it to fall back into a normal position. His hips are universals with ratchets along the transverse axis. Unfortunately, he has a weird hinge at his upper thigh that makes using the ratchets sort of awkward. Although he can achieve a full Van Damme for both side and front splits, the non-ratcheted part of his universal joint can not support the weight of his legs. That awkward hinge at the top of his thighs is rather loose too. He has ankle swivels and rockers and separate toe and heel tilts.

His accessories include his rifle, battle axe, the Matrix of Leadership, and a few bits and bobs for self-assembly. Unfortunately, his rifle is blue rather than black. There is some silver paint and a hint of red. It features an LED that is activated by the rifle trigger. I don't like leaving batteries in my figures and accessories so I'll be removing them. The handle has a slot for a corresponding tab in his palms. Like Masterpiece-styled tabs, this system does not work very well. His rifle is prone to falling out of his grip. Even with his fingers closed around the handle, the rifle wiggles a lot. His battle axe is yellow transparent plastic with some line work. Surprisingly, it is very hard plastic. It simply envelopes his fists and stays firmly in place. The Matrix of Leadership is Die-cast with a plastic jewel in the center. It is rather large and fits securely in his chest.

His front windshields come in a baggie. There is a choice between clear or blue. Both sets went on easily enough and can pop out with a little push. There are also clear and blue plastic to cover the mold work on his biceps. I actually wanted to use the blue set, but I had trouble fitting it into place because of flashing. When I mashed the clear plastic one in, I could not pull it back out. There are also red triangular pieces to fill in the gaps on his biceps. They don't seem as if they would fall out, but a touch of superglue should keep them permanently in place. There is what I think is a replacement jewel for the matrix. It looks to be the same color. There is also a pair of blue bits, but I can't figure out what they are for.

Mine also came with a display base. It's a pair of panels that connect together, much like an orange and oversized version of the Mechanical Chain Base sets. I probably won't be using them much.


I'll be displaying Primorion on a new shelf just for Toyworld figures. I had wanted to use him with DX9 Mightron and Tyrant, but he is noticeably taller than them. It's a pity the Toyworld Dinobots are CHUG scaled. I suppose the GigaPower Dinobots will be tall enough to look down on Primorion. I look forward to the rest of the line.










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