Originally written August 2019
Beast Wars Neo is an anime from 1999, a part of the weird little Japan-only expansion of the Beast Wars part of the Transformers franchise, created while while they waited to dub the later seasons of the American CGI-animated series. It’s never been made available in english in any official context, but a fansub group released a translation of it earlier this year, and put it all up on Youtube (I’ll confess, I haven’t gotten around to watching it yet). Here’s the opening, for some context:
Beast Wars Neo was a space opera, featuring a starship crew of heroic Maximals let by Big Convoy. A transforming mammoth, Big Convoy was known as a one-robot army, preferred working alone, and didn’t really get along with his new crew. They were chasing after a group of dinosaur-themed Predacons led by Magmatron, as they raced to find capsules containing a powerful energy called Angolmois. Back in 1999, I had no way of watching it, but I did have an internet that let me look at images of these strange Beast Wars toys coming out of Japan, who all changed into really unusual animals (Rabbits! Giraffes! Penguins!) and all had odd, unique, fun designs. Over the years, I managed to grab a couple of random vintage Neo figures, but I always coveted Big Convoy, who’s original toy was always out of reach (though he did get a few repaints as new characters over the years). However, at the start of this year, that original ‘99 toy was re-released by Takara as part of the Transformers Encore line, a long-running (since 2007!) series of reissues that started with Generation 1 toys, but has now moved on to…..basically anything, it’s kind of wild. This re-release features altered colors to match his animation appearance better, and has retooled missiles for safety reasons, but is otherwise identical to his 1999 release. I picked this guy up at TFCon for $110 Canadian, so let’s see if an old toy is worth that kind of price tag.
Beast Mode
Big Convoy changes into a woolly mammoth, one that’s extremely detailed, thanks to tons of sculpted fur and other details. The sculpting does suffer from a common Beast-era issue, in that robot-mode parts are visible from the back and bottom, and the sculpt is crisscrossed with seams due to it being a shell that needs to split, but the quality of what’s there makes up for it to me.
Besides, he holds together well, and feels big, heavy and solid in-hand, like a brick. He’s big, but not too big. He feels like he has the mass of a pre-Siege Leader Class figure.
He’s deep brown in color, and he’s got a lot of painted details, like full eyes with pupils, mud on his feet, painted toes, and painted tusks.
He doesn’t really have much in the way of articulation, unfortunately. His ears can move, his tail can move, and that’s about it. What he does have, though, is gimmicks. If you’re wondering why his trunk isn’t poseable, that’s because it’s used for something really neat: Pulling a leaver on the top of his head makes the trunk rise and fall.
But that’s not all he does. Pulling on his ears also makes his tusks rise and fall. 
I can’t tell you ebough how fun these gimmicks are. They’re just neat to look at, and neat to do.
Transformation to Robot Mode
Big Convoy’s a pure shellformer, meaning he’s a robot balled up in a shell that you crack open to transform him. Beast Wars Neo was notorious for many characters being shellformers, with many of its figures being a pain to transform, being a robot that crammed up into a shell that was impossible to re-set when returning to beast mode, and tended to pop off when being fiddled with. Big Convoy’s unique, though, in that he’s one of the few shellformer that works. I don’t know whether it’s luck, or careful planning, but it’s really easy and kind of elegant to pop him open and unfold his robot bits.
Robot Mode
The first time I transformed this guy, I was wowed by how much presence he had. Big Convoy’s shorter than most modern Leader-class figures, but he’s extremely wide and dense, and the bits of animal hanging off of him look like some sort of imposing, ornamental armor. Design-wise, he has a big gun hanging off of his back when at rest that makes him a bit asymmetrical, but it looks good. Design-wise, he’s sort of Optimus-esque, but crossed with a barbarian warrior. He’s got a really nice head sculpt, that’s sort of a Prime-type face, but with horns sticking out. Overall, he looks tough and imposing.
He’s got a lot of colors on him now that his shell is cracked, and it’s hard to tell what’s painted and what’s plastic. I count bits of white, yellow, red, transparent red, light blue, dark blue and grey. They’re all in very bright and cartoony shades, as is the intent of this animation-accurate re-release. Interestingly, his arms have asymmetrical painting, with one being mostly white, and the other mostly grey. One nifty detail of his design is that the the clear red maximal logo on his chest, inside a silver circle, is actually a Spark Crystal, a gimmick from the last few years of Beast Wars, typically appearing as a clear orb with a faction symbol floating in it. Only in this case, it’s reversed, with the clear orb on the inside and the silver backing on the outside. (It’s also not quite straight on mine, I lost the quality control roulette).
Articulation-wise, he’s surprisingly for a 90s toy, pretty much on par with a modern figure. He’s got ratcheted hips, splits on his thighs that let his legs rotate outwards, swivel knees, and even pseudo ankle tilts thanks to the front and back halves of his feet each being on ball joints. He’s also got a waist joint, head joint, and fully-articulated ball-jointed shoulders and elbows. And since this is a brand-new, minty-fresh reissue, his joints are all extremely tight.
When his gun’s attached to his back, he can be a bit back-heavy, so care must be taken when posing him, and you might want to use his beast legs, located on the back of his robot legs, to help balance him. Or you can just take the gun off.
Alright, let’s run through his gimmicks, because he does a LOT. First, and most simply, you can open his chest plate to reveal his Energon Matrix. This was a big deal when it came out, because this was the first proper Transformers toy ever to include a removable Matrix. It’s gold chrome, which worries me (that stuff can chip!), and has a green orb in the middle (with a seam that wasn’t straight, bad QC strikes again!). It’s a bit different from a traditional Matrix in that its handles don’t form a closed rectangle, but that’s so he can take it out and hold it.
Now, for his weapons. That asymmetrical back kibble of his can be popped off, and transforms further into a massive gun. Just, an absolutely gigantic hand canon.
If you’re not careful, it can actually cause him to tip over, but not if you pose him well, and once again, use the animal legs hanging off of his back for stability. He looks very imposing with it, and it’s worth the trickiness to pose him.
It shoots two missiles out of the end, and in a nifty twist, you rotate a dial on top to shoot them one after the other. Also, these are some strong springs that shoot them really far!
He also has two missile launchers on his lower legs, that flip out from beast parts. They shoot anchor-shaped missiles, in a gimmick that recalls Beast Wars Ultra Megatron.
These missiles have been retooled a bit, in that you apparently used to be able to stash them inside his launchers in beast mode, but they don’t fit anymore. Also, he can hold them in his hands for melee weapons.
Speaking of melee weapons, you can also flip down panels on his forearms and flip out tonfas, AKA beatin’ sticks, as if he wasn’t heavily armed enough.
Also, while it isn’t called out anywhere, you can flip up the beast parts on his shoulders to expose racks of sculpted-in missiles.
Talk about your one-robot army. This guy’s just chock-full of weapons.
Transformation to Attack Mode
Basically, you’re turning him back into his mammoth form again, which gives me an excuse to talk about how well-designed this shellformer is. It’s miraculous that changing him back isn’t a chore, like with most figures with this kind of design. Typically, you have to struggle to get all of the panels to pop into place, and if the folded up robot isn’t just right, or anything’s out of alignment, the shell stays cracked. But he’s actually easy to transform back! It’s kind of wild.
Attack Mode
It’s not exactly his mammoth mode, but it’s not too different from it. Basically, it’s his mammoth mode with some of the shell cracked, part of his top rotated around, his big gun pointing out from his face, and his smaller missile launchers pointing out of his sides.
It’s weird, silly, and a little bit distressing, but that’s what Beast Wars Neo was like. On one hand, the position of his big gun means you can’t actually fire his missiles. On the other hand, you can get smaller figures to ride him, so I think it comes out about even.
Overall
No matter how you slice it, this guy’s just fun. He’s solidly-built, great-looking, and absolutely loaded with fun features and gimmicks. I’m almost mad it took me this long to pick him up. There’s also no major systemic quality control issues, unlike some other Encore re-releases (minor aesthetic ones I got hit with aside), and the fact that his joints feel so tight and new attests to that. His poseability, build quality, and transformation are absolutely on par with modern figures, and as for the price, well, he’s got more mass and plastic in him than a modern $80-Canadian-after-tax Leader-class figure, and is jam-packed with fun gimmicks, so he’s absolutely worth that $110 Canadian price tag. It doesn’t even matter that I don’t know who he is, really, he’s just an incredibly fun toy, packed with personality, and all kinds of silly gimmicks. I’d go so far as to say that everyone should own a version of this guy, if you like fun, well-made figures in general.
