Toy Review: Transformers The Last Knight Blackout (Tiny Turbo Changer)

Review:  #423
Name:  Blackout
Brand:  Transformers
Allegiance:  Decepticon
Line:  The Last Knight
Year of Release:  2017
Size Class:  Tiny Turbo Changer (Wave 1)
Mold Status:  new

HELICOPTER MODE:

Blackout, like the rest of the Tiny Turbo Changers, comes in a blind bag although there are letters at the back of the packaging (as well as a small window) to allow you to determine who is in which bag.

Blackout transforms into a super deformed military helicopter, based upon the first movie.

He is cast from one plastic color and thus the rotors are painted black (they also do not rotate).  The sculpting is okay for something this size.

These are cheap figures and so they're small and rubbery.  Above is a comparison against RiD (2015) Legion Drift.

Considering the low cost and target market, Blackout's alternate mode has its own charms.

TRANSFORMATION:

Transformation is extremely simple, the sides are the arms that you just pull slightly out.  You end up pulling out the rear of the helicopter and flipping it around to form the legs.  Stand him up and that's it.

ROBOT MODE:

One of the good things about the Tiny Turbo Changers against the previous Tiny Titans is that they actually transform, no matter how simple they are.

While it is basically just the helicopter stood up, it is good enough since you have all the intricate sculpting.

In robot mode, Blackout gains a little bit of extra color.  His face is painted silver and his eyes red.

Again, he is really tiny here but that's part of the appeal of this size class.  Seeing how small he is, you will also probably forgive the simplicity.

Forget about articulation, only his arms swing and that's it.

Provided what the designer had to work with, this is not a bad robot mode.

OVERALL:

Going into this size class, you have to understand that these are low cost figures.  Taking that into consideration, Blackout is a cool little figure that also transforms to boot.

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Holes (2003)

Holes is based on the book of the same name and as a standalone, if you haven't read the books, then the film manages to still a coherent and enjoyable story.  Stanley Yelnats' family is cursed, and in the latest in his bad luck he is framed for stealing a famous pair of shoes and sent to Camp Green Hill where he has to dig holes to "build his character".  The camp is an odd place, what is the point of digging so many holes?  What does the Camp's adults want?  It builds a nice mystery that you are eager to find out.  Unfortunately, the other juveniles detained there and Stanley's group, are not likeable characters.  They bully Stanley so when the ending comes and they're all happy happy, it feels forced and not in line with what the viewers saw.  The plot has a nice finale, completing a full circle so to speak, that began with Stanley's ancestors.  It's neat that Stanley, the descendant, completes the promise that his ancestor broke.  The subplot Camp Green Lake's past and how it wrapped into the present clever.  Overall, Holes is a solid movie that's worth watching.

Book Review: The World God Only Knows Vol. 9

Review:  #708
Title:  The World God Only Knows Vol. 9
Series:  The World God Only Knows - 9th volume
Author:  Tamiki Wakaki
Read Before:  no
Comments:  After finishing the shogi sub-arc in which of course, Keima captures another spirit, a longer arc starts.  The shogi arc, while still funny and amusing, is just another episodic female target and wasn’t anything too out of the ordinary for this series.  However, the next person with a runaway spirit, Yui, has a much more interesting story.  This is because she is from a really wealthy family, but as typical of one such family, she is chained by the burden of her family’s ideals and reputation.  What makes it unique is the fact that Keima and Yui end up swapping bodies, so the reactions of all the other characters when Keima suddenly acts polite is hilarious.  While it does seem to keep going on and on, there are enough events happening that it keeps things moving forward, especially Keima himself starts to feel like he is changing, it’s definitely something that you are interested in seeing how it will pan out.

Rating:  6.5/10

Arpeggio of Blue Steel -Ars Nova- (2013)

Arpeggio of Blue Steel -Ars Nova- is a 12 episode anime based on the manga series of the same name.  The anime focuses around battleships which is fairly unique and different to a lot of other works.  Blue Steel is set in the future, where global warming and rising sea levels caused Earth to be heavily dependent on the sea for trade and communications.  Come 2039 where sentient warships known as The Fleet of Fog appeared and destroyed the world's naval forces, while also rendering all communications obsolete, crippling the entire world.

It is explained that The Fleet of Fog was only interested in disabling the naval abilities and did not invade or touch the landmass.  Unfortunately, we do not learn much about the origins or purpose of The Fleet of Fog in this anime adaptation.  Fast forward to 2056, where by now, each warship in The Fleet of Fog has created a "Mental Model", basically a female human avatar to assist in creating tactics rather than brute force and advanced technology as they had been relying so far.  They are in possession of far superior technology with force fields that are impenetrable by conventional human weapons.

The anime follows Chihaya Gunzo, who is the captain of a small group called the Blue Steel.  They have control of one of the submarines called I-401 from The Fleet of Fog.  It was captured by the navy while it had lay dormant and was only reactivated by Chihaya.  The Mental Model, known as Iona, states that she exists only to help Chihaya, deepening the mystery behind it.  It seems to be a bit of a fan service tactic to have all the Mental Models be attractive females, although an explanation in one of the later episodes justifies this.  However, it isn't helped that there are often suggestive dialogue and actions, and no doubt that a few of the Mental Models will be attracted to Chihaya.

Most of the season revolves around Chihaya working with the Japanese navy for the good of humankind, such as delivering prototypes that may actually damage the Fog's ships.  Therefore, we're often treated with action sequences involving the I-401 submarine against the battleships of the Fog.  The Mental Models take on a very human appearance and attitude, even though they are supposedly lacking in emotions and tactics.  It is enjoyable and while the tactics used isn't so clever that it'll blow your mind, it is interesting enough that there are a few surprises.

Nevertheless, The Fleet of Fog has some outrageous abilities, such as docking, supergravity cannons (that split apart the whole ship to reveal), and even at one point, the ability to split the sea and raise a sunken ship.  The Mental Models themselves are a far cry from weak, as they are not tethered to their ship and able to hold their own in combat.  It makes them feel overpowered since they're still able to construct shields, gravitational holes, regenerate and comes complete with high manueverability.

The focus is definitely on the Mental Models, as each one that comes into contact with Chihaya will start to gain an understanding of what it is to be human and changing their personality and thought processes.  The power of love is used as an excuse for alliances which is weak and lame.  There are scenes where the viewer will feel the same pain that Iona must feel when fighting against others of Fog, once being part of the same team and in a way, as sisters.  The result of this is Chihaya's human crew ends up being under-developed.  It feels like they are background characters with little focus even though they are always with Chihaya.

The season ends with the major battle against the big bad, but is slightly disappointing and highly exaggerated, to the point where it loses the battleship theme.  The way it was won is also by a very typical anime trope, which is using the power of friendship in order to force the villain to understand.  Overall, Arpeggio of Blue Steel -Ars Nova- is fun to watch.  If you can overlook the light fan service (but it does get heavier in the later episodes), then the series has good pacing and keeps your interesting.

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Professor Layton and the Spectre's Call (DS)

Professor Layton and the Spectre's Call is the fourth game in the series (also known as Professor Layton and the Last Specter outside of Europe), exclusively for the Nintendo DS.  It is set as a prequel where Layton first meets Luke and is the first in the prequel trilogy.  In this game, Professor Layton travels to the town of Misthallery, where a giant shadow spectre is turning up in the night to wreck havoc to the houses.  Destroying buildings and bridges alike, it is truly a supernatural mystery.  In this town, Layton meets Luke, who can somehow predict when the spectre will next appear.  The team is rounded out by Layton's new assistant, Emmy, who is able to beat the most beefy of men in physical combat as well as being intellectually gifted.

The team travels around the town, as well as sections of London to solve the mystery, where they will encounter various characters, both new and old (mostly new), including some who are evil.  The characters each have their own quirks, whether these are visual or their personality.  The population has a thing for puzzles and will randomly give you puzzles for no reason (however, sometimes they're integrated and relevant to the scenario which is a bonus when this happens).  The story is told via text dialogue from NPCs and the occasional animated cutscene.  The animation is better than ever before and the game generally has higher quality artwork.  Be warned though that the story is slow going until you hit the last third of the game in which it ramps up the pacing and is really nice.  While the revelation of the spectre can seem a bit underwhelming, the ending was fantastic and emotional.

The voice acting is superb and coupled with the new music that plays in the finale, it really nails the atmosphere.  This is one of the best stories within the series with a neat twist in the finale to simulate a final boss battle.  The series has always mixed story with puzzles and point and click adventure mechanics.  When exploring the world, you will be using the touchscreen to travel around the town, investigating sections by tapping on objects.  There are collectables hidden within the environment and they are hard to find unless you tap on everything.  Travelling between screens can be tedious, especially when you need to travel to a faraway place.  To help alleviate some of this, there is a limited quick travel system by the way of a boat where you can get on and off at certain stops.  This is actually crucial since the map is really big now and certainly unwieldy at times.

There are 170+ puzzles within the game, with 155 that you can access via the story.  The rest are unlocked when you finish the game and are some of the hardest puzzles it has to offer.  There are a variety of puzzles and a lot of them require you to think outside the box.  You'll get word puzzles, logic puzzles, arranging items into a pattern and shifting blocks around.  Some can feel cheap because it's all down to the wording but if you are stuck, you can use a Hint Coin (which is found in the environment) to unlock up to four hints in each puzzle.  However, there are limited Hint Coins available in the game so you need to use them sparingly.  In additional, there are three minigames:  Toy Train, Fish and Puppet Show.  The train minigame allows you to set the path of the train to go via all the stations but have obstacles and limited fuel.  The Fish minigame allows you to set bubbles for the fish to bounce off in order to collect all coins.  The Puppet Show minigame just makes you choose specific actions to match the scene.

Furthermore, if you have the US version ("The Last Specter"), then there is a RPG Professor Layon's London Life.  Unfortunately, the European version dummies this out and is not accessible at all.  If you follow a walkthrough and don't care to solve the puzzles yourself, being only interested in the story, then you can breeze through within 7 hours (same as previous games).  However, play is properly and you will take anywhere from 10-25 hours depending on your skill and how much exploration/backtracking you do.  Overall, Professor Layton and the Spectre's Call presents more of the same great mix of puzzle gameplay ad story.  The plot is intriguing at first and culminates into a grand finale.  This game is definitely worthwhile for fans of the series and is actually also a decent place to start being the beginning of a new trilogy.

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Toy Review: Transformers Legends LG-EX Black Convoy (Tokyo Toy Show 2017)

Review:  #422
Name:  Black Convoy
Brand:  Transformers
Allegiance:  Decepticon
Line:  Legends
Year of Release:  2017
Size Class:  Voyager
Mold Status:  repaint of Generations Titans Return Optimus Prime

PACKAGING AND INSTRUCTIONS:

Black Convoy is an exclusive from the Tokyo Toy Show 2017, and like a lot of TakaraTomy's exclusives, he comes in a grayscaled box.

Interestingly enough, this is the second Scourge homage that has been done for the Tokyo Toy Show after the one from 2015.

The instructions sheet is coloured though with a nice piece of artwork.

There's also a small four-page comic like the rest of the Legends line.

HEADMASTER:

As a repaint of the Titans Return line, Black Convoy comes with an unnamed Headmaster.

It is itself a repaint of Optimus Prime's Diac.  The light grey used for the torso is actually quite nice and has a slight metallic sparkle to it.

The articulation remains limited balljointed shoulders and neck.

TRUCK MODE:

Like the original Black Convoy from the Robots in Disguise (2001) line was a repaint of G2 Optimus, this version here is also a repaint of the homage toy of G2 Optimus.  As a result, it's a perfect update to the character.

The tanker truck is pretty good, and the tank itself is painted in silver (far cry from the chrome of the original but less tacky).

He features ten wheels which roll.  This is a fairly good truck mode except for the following flaws:  it is one solid piece so there is no hitch and the cab can't turn separately from the tank, and there is a gappy middle.

A comparison against the original use of the mold, the black and silver suits it very well, although the neon pink windows isn't so hot.  A darker shade would have been nicer.

Above is a comparison against Titans Return Astrotrain.  Black Convoy comes off a being just a tad bit thinner than you'd like.

The Headmaster can't sit in the cab but as the next best thing, there is a space behind the cab to put him in.  Slightly annoying is that the only painted part of the smokestacks silver and it sticks out like a sore thumb (it is a hinge used for transformation but no reason why it could be painted either).

The weapons can attach to each side but ruins the realism.

A good truck mode, while there are some flaws, the black and silver looks so great together on the vehicle that you'd forgive it.

TRANSFORMATION (TO JET MODE):

Black Convoy is a triple changer (in line with the original mold) and going from truck to jet mode is quite easy.  Most of it just involves opening up the middle to unfold the jet parts and then pegging them back together again.  The cockpit unfolded from the back, the wings from the middle and the tail from inside the cab.

JET MODE:

One look at jet mode and you can tell it is the weakest mode out of the three.

To be fair, there are some clever tricks such as using the tank as the fuselage and air intakes, and utilizing the ten truck wheels in jet mode to still allow it to roll.

A quick comparison against Optimus Prime as the truck cabs tucked underneath each wing is still the biggest flaw and the biggest eyesore.  It doesn't help that the neon pink windows really sticks out here.

Jet mode is too chunky to feel good, if the wings were longer then it would have helped with the look.  It also doesn't help that the wings are unpainted plastic which contrasts greatly against the silver fuselage and deep black.

The jet mode uses the same space for the Headmaster to sit down.

As well as the weapons using the same spots as truck mode too.  One good thing is that the figure doesn't have any stickers, phew.

A weak jet mode although the duller colour helps hide some of the chunkier elements such as the cabs.

BASE MODE:

While this is not official, this mode does show up in the included comic, and is supposed to be a base mode to somewhat homage the original toy's base that was formed from the tank trailer.

To be honest, it's actually not too bad (since the Leader class's bases were to this dodgy degree anyway), you've got ramps, two gun emplacements and a solid look overall.

TRANSFORMATION (TO ROBOT MODE):

Going from the jet mode to robot mode is also fairly simple.  The robot arms form from the cab's halves, the legs from the fuselage and of course, you just pop the head on.

ROBOT MODE:

And now, of course, the main reason to get this figure and that is the robot mode.  He looks absolutely stunning here.

He carries a fair bit of a backpack which thankfully is compressed, they are the jet mode's wings and rear thruster.  He wears the tanker pieces on the back of his legs.

The headsculpt is pure Optimus but in traditional fashion, in black with metallic teal highlights.

You can either have the pylons on either side of the head up or down, although without them, the head does look a tad bit proportionally too small compared to the body.

In a comparison against the original mold, you can tell most of the paint applications is in this mode.  The way the chest windows and the shoulders are painted to mimic the original is stunning in pictures and moreso in person.

Size-wise, Black Convoy is decent and feels hefty in your hands.  There are no obvious hollow limbs which is great.

Poseability is excellent, although his shoulder cannons gets in the way when trying to rotate his shoulders.  You can't quite get up to 90 degrees which is a disappointment.

On the other hand, his large feet and the fact that all his joints are swivels and hinges, means you get stability and less potential looseness from wear and tear.

He features an upside-down G2 Autobot insignia, this was the original cartoon's way to depicting the Decepticons.

Black Convoy has two weapons, his laser sword and a double-barreled gun.

Both weapons can be held in either hand.  The clear pink sword is actually accurate to his original toy.

Unfortunately, he doesn't have any sort of wrist articulation, nor does he possess enough finesse to hold it with two hands.

You might have noticed all the metallic teal highlights, they look really nice in person and serves to highlight the figure and sculpting.

The forearms are slightly awkwardly shaped due to being formed from the front of the cab, so the wheels underneath each hand.

If you have any other Headmasters or Titan Masters, you have able to pop their head modes onto this body as well.

While the legs may seem bulky, they do not hinder articulation at all.

A fantastic robot mode that serves as an amazing update to the original toy.  While if you compare side by side the animation and this toy, the proportions are slightly off, you will still appreciate the amount of effort that has gone into replicating some of the elements.

OVERALL:

It really is too bad that Black Convoy had to be an exclusive, it would have been much better for a general release.  Even if you have no attachment to the character, this is a really nice repaint and carries a premium feel to it.  He certainly goes well with UW-EX Baldigus.  If you have the means, then he is definitely a good buy.

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