Friday, August 4, 2017

Toyworld Crank - Kup

Toyworld Crank - Kup

I wasn't entirely onboard with Toyworld's rescale, but the aesthetic design and durability of their figures kept me coming back for more. Toyworld Crank is probably my least favorite of their offerings so far because he doesn't offer me either of those qualities.

Vehicle mode is rather uninspired, but that is probably more to do with Kup's design than the figure. It does look like the old G1 toy and the cartoon vehicle so I have no real complaints there. The canopy is not hinged, but it can be removed to apply an Autobot sticker. I'm not too fond about the color scheme, but there is transparent yellow plastic for the head and tail lights. I have one rear wheel that doesn't roll and another that always wants to collapse back into the wheel cavity. 

Transformation back and forth between modes is pretty straightforward. It was pretty easy to line up what few tabs were required.

Overall, I like the shape of the figure. I just wished he was colored more like the box art. It's as if they had mistakenly reversed his paint scheme and mixed the wrong shade of teal. Dark grey plastic covers his face, arms, thighs, and feet. His crotch is teal instead of grey. I don't like either of his face sculpts. His light-piping does work very well at least.

His head is on a ball joint that has quite a wide range of motion. His shoulders are on swivels and hinges that let him raise his arms almost to near vertical. The hinges feel dangerously tight, but the swivels are ridiculously loose. His shoulder covers also sit very loosely. He has butterfly joints, but the floppiness isn't offset by the small range of motion they provide. He swivels at the biceps, wrists, waist, and thighs. His double-jointed elbows can almost perform full curls. His thumbs are on ball joints and his fingers are single-pinned, articulating in pairs. He has a bit of an ab crunch. His hips are on universal joints that allow him to achieve full front and side splits. His double-jointed knees can only curl to about 90 degrees. He suffers from the double-whammy of knees that bend in the reverse direction as well as joints at the top of his thighs that let him lift his legs without engaging his hips. It's very similar to what Primorion has. I really hate these two design choices. His ankles are on hinges and swivels that end at ball joints to his feet so there shouldn't be any issue putting his feet flat on the ground no matter the stance. He also has hinged heel spurs.

His accessories include his rifle, an alternate face, two cigars, a pair of screw covers, and a display base. His rifle has some decent line work and some gun metal paint applications. It simply slots into his fist and stays in place very well. In vehicle mode, whether designed to or not, the rifle can peg onto the back. One of the faces has a peg hole for the cigars, which are tiny things that will probably disappear at some point. The extremely dark paint on the included faces make him look like a zombie. The screw covers go on his back. Does making us apply the screw covers save that much time at the factory? The display base is similar to the ones that have come before.

Crank will go onto my Toyworld shelf, but somewhat begrudgingly. I usually enjoy Toyworld offerings, less for their accuracy to the character, but more for their durability and playability. I'm not really getting that from this figure, all due to those floppy shoulder joints. If Crank had been first in this line, I would have been hesitant to get more. I still have Spanner and Coolsville to look at so I hope Crank is just the exception in an enjoyable line so far.





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