Originally written March 2020.
Beast Wars, the 90s iteration of the Transformers franchise, has always been celebrated for its excellence. There is a pair of anime spinoffs over in Japan, inspired by that same excellence (and also the need for more content while they translated the western show into Japanese). The first of those, Beast Wars II (pronounced Beast Wars Second), featured a team of Maximals commanded by Lio Convoy (sometimes anglicized as Leo Prime), a white lion with a golden mane who transformed into a very Optimus-like robot. While the whole Beast Wars II franchise is still somewhat obscure (it was only fansubbed for the first time last year!), something about Lio Convoy really struck a chord with fans, and so he’s actually gotten a fair amount of merchandise over the years, mainly consisting of repaints of any toy that happens to change into a lion. And in 2020, despite being from a semi-obscure anime spinoff, he got a Masterpiece figure.
However, I’ve got to be honest here. I’ve mostly gotten out of the Masterpiece game thanks to most modern releases in the line, including, from what I read, Lio Convoy, suffering from the same set of issues: An ever-increasing price tag compared to earlier entries in the line, an incredibly complex transformation, at least one mode that’s heavily compromised, and actual design and breakage issues that can leave you with a busted expensive figure. So instead, I’m going to have a look at the last time Lio Convoy got an original mold to himself: Robot Masters.
Robot Masters was exclusive to Japan from 2004-2005, and was an unusual toyline. The premise was a time-traveling crossover between Transformers from various eras, seeing Beast-era heroes team up with G1 originals. The other thing about the line was that it was specifically designed as a set of smaller toys to sell at a lower price. About half of the line were repaints of older, small-scale Generation 2, Beast Wars, and Machine Wars figures, whereas the new molds were all smaller, sub-deluxe figures of favorites like Optimus Prime and Starscream, Beast Wars Megatron and Optimus Primal (reviewed here), Star Saber and Victory Leo from Transformers: Victory, and this guy, Lio Convoy, essentially a scaled-down version of his original 90s toy. Let’s see how he holds up.
Robot Mode
It’s easy to see why the character is popular, even when 90 percent of the audience (myself included) isn’t really familiar with what he’s from, because it’s a striking design. He’s very Optimus-like, but also unique. It’s a bit of a kibbly design, with those lion parts on his shoulders, as well as more parts hanging off of his arms, but at the same time, it’s all designed to enhance his look, and give him a sort of regal warrior vibe.
I particularly like his headsculpt, a traditional Prime face with a pair of horns on the side. Another nice little feature is an opening panel on his chest, exposing an “Energon Matrix,” a powerful artifact from the series. For colors, he’s got some of the traditional Optimus red and blue, and it contrasts nicely with the white, gold and bits of brown on him. He’s got a ton of paint on him, too, to make it work, with lots of little silver, gold and blue bits. Some of that paint’s rather shiny, especially on the head.
In terms of his size, Lio’s sort of halfway between the old “scout” size class, and a modern Deluxe. He’s the same height as Siege Sideswipe, who’s a bit of a shortie, but Lio has less mass than him. That being said, he’s really intricately designed for his size.
Lio’s surprisingly poseable for both the time he came out in and the size he is, having all the joints you’d expect out of a modern Siege Deluxe, as well as raising and lowering wrist joints, thigh swivels, and even ankle tilts, thanks to the ball joints on his feet. This is an old figure, one that I bought already opened, but all of these joints are still tight and stable (especially those ball-jointed ankles), and he’s got no problem standing. There’s a bit of blocked poseability thanks to the lion parts on his shoulders and arms, but it’s surprisingly less of a problem than you’d expect.
For features, aside from the Matrix in his chest, he’s got an odd psudo-gimmick, in that you can unfurl the lion mane on his shoulder into four panels, and spin it freely like a whirling blade. Apparently the original figure had a spring-loaded button that whirled this around, but all you can do on this one is spin it with your fingers. It’s odd, and kind of impractical (how is he supposed to hit anyone?) but it doesn’t seem to cause any problems.
In addition, you can flip out and deploy spring-loaded and fairly nasty-looking Wolverine-esque claws from his lion mode feet, for some impressive-looking melee action.
His accessories are a whopping five different guns, all cast in gold (by the way, this figure does not suffer from Gold Plastic Syndrome, at all. Wrong kind of plastic). They fit into his hands a bit tightly, with oddly-long pegs, but otherwise work fine. He’s got a unique-looking pistol (shown earlier), two longer guns, and two slightly shorter weapons (one of each are shown above). According to the instructions, you can combine all five of them into one big, powerful railgun-looking weapon (shown below), which actually looks suitably impressive.
Transformation
It’s not too difficult, and everything snaps in just fine, with no issues. His only tricky bit is the complicated series of rotations his robot arms go through, but it’s less “troublesome” and more “I am never going to remember how to do this without checking,” instead.
Lion Mode
Not gonna lie, this form’s a little bit messy. That being said, it’s acceptably messy for the size and complexity, and for Beast Wars-era engineering.
When viewed from the side, he’s kind of an oddly long lion, with his double-jointed robot legs trying to pass as cat legs, to no avail. Plus, you can see bits of his red robot parts from his side, and from the bottom. That being said, it looks a fair bit better than the Masterpiece release, which clearly prioritized the robot mode:
The Robot Master one’s lion mode is also helped by some good sculpting. He’s got a pretty nice lion mode face, with formerly-white eyes that now have irises in them, and a moveable jaw with a painted tongue.
Speaking of that, for poseability, you can sort of move his paws and back legs around, though it’s a bit limited, plus his tail raises and lowers.
For features, Lio has a cool-looking attack mode (shown above) that involves clipping four of his guns onto his lion mane. It’s silly, but effective. A shame he’s got no storage for the fifth gun. Oh, also, you can still deploy his big, giant claws.
Honestly, it’s not perfect, but it works for the size and level of complexity.
Overall
This is a really good figure for the size. He’s solidly-engineered, very poseable, has a fun transformation, and only suffers from a slightly-dodgy lion mode. We all value different things in Transformers, but I’m pretty confident in saying that I get more enjoyment out of this guy than I would the larger Masterpiece figure.
That being said, he’s a bit difficult to obtain, because he’s one of the more sought-after Robot Masters releases. I honestly don’t remember what I paid for him, but it wasn’t what Ebay is currently asking, which is a bit much for what you get. Even if he comes in a bit overpriced, he’s solid enough that it’s good value for what’s in the package. Just don’t pay triple digits, that’s ridiculous. I can also say that, as someone who’s messed with most of the Robot Masters toyline, he’s one of the better ones in the bunch, in a line that’s super hit-and-miss. In general, Robot Masters is an interesting little thing, which I’ve got several strange figures from. I might talk about more of them in the future.
For over 100 Bot, Non-Bot, and Retro Bot Reviews, click here to view my archive.
Trackbacks/Pingbacks