what shoulder mod?

 

I think he's talking about his earlier post below (SPLIT LIP, sorry if I'm mistaken):

 

Freaking incredible figure and easily my favorite since Lambor.

That said, am I the only one who finds the the transformation joints to be terrifyingly tight? I'm not only afraid of breaking something, I'm afraid of marring the beautiful satin "fur" finish.

 

As for feedback-

For whatever reason, while fiddling with Primal, I pulled out three other figures. 1996 Ultra Class Primal, MP Hotrod and G1 Hotrod. My girlfriend, who has absolutely no interest in my TF habit looked at the two Hot Rod figures sitting on the table and immediately said that the smaller one (G1 Roddy) was much better looking. How did that MP figure botch it so badly? Don't get me wrong, I enjoy MP Hotrod but it looks like a fan's drawing of the cartoon character. The stark contrast to the two wonderful Primal toys, and the thorough success of the update was interesting.

Ok. So the recent MP releases have each been pretty wonderful in my opinion but there's something off about them that may be a similar experience to seeing Homer Simpson portrayed in 3D. Making the 2D representations of 1980s toys back into 3D shapes creates some super weird aesthetics. This has been discussed-to-death on this forum, of course...but Hotrod is probably the most painful example of this in my opinion. The original toy, despite being brick-ish, is gorgeous and the original cartoon model is a really pleasing design that captured all the toy well and provided the right character cues. The MP Hot Rod figure which is intended to represent that design, is a distorted, abstract mess.

Primal on the other hand, is a best-case scenario revamp of an already spectacular toy. the Ultra Class figure is one of my favorite TFs of all time. It's beautiful, elegantly simple, and fun. I own three versions of it and they're all permanent members of my collection.... but in every way that MP Primal is different, it closely matches the smoothed-out CG model and is wonderful in a whole new way...perhaps having the benefit of a 3D CG model explains all of the difference between this and the other cartoon accurate figures but Primal feels like a vastly more successful design by a mile.

MP Primal feels like the definitive version of this character in a way that MP Roddy does not. I just couldn't stop looking at it all day.

Transformation is neat and mostly intuitive...as mentioned above, so many of the required movements made me sweat as I tried to apply exactly the right amount of pressure and tried desperately not to touch the satin fur finish, especially with fingernails, etc. Some pieces don't provide quite enough clearance for your fingers, like the gorilla upper chest panel which was a pain. Unpegging the top of the gorilla's back for transformation was way too tight and terrifying and I still have yet to get the gorilla mode hips to rotate for "all fours" mode. I applied a lot of pressure and it just wouldn't give.

It was lame of Takara to not include the LR44s for the light up gimmick but it's worth the trouble, IMO. It's an unobtrusive, subtle and beautiful feature.

So aside from a couple of tolerance complaints and worries about breaking the toy, I'm thrilled... it's a solid "A" from me. I put it slightly ahead of MP-10 and the Datsun molds, slightly behind the Lamborghini molds.

 

Sorry for the delayed response.
No import fees...go figure.  

 

No worries, thanks for the info! I appreciate it.

 

Hope this isn't a dumb question but before you order anything from amazon Japan do you have to have to let your bank know or is that only if your are physically outside the US?

 

While we're on the topic of Amazon Japan, is it better to get in the long run instead of using HLJ, for example? They have Prime for a lot of the things I have preordered on HLJ, and are roughly the same price or cheaper. I would only have to get Prime for Amazon Japan, then I'd be good.

 

If you plan on getting Prime on Amazon JP solely for free shipping, don't. Amazon JP Prime's free shipping only applies to shipping to addresses within Japan.

If you are based outside Japan, you will still have to pay shipping, even if you are a member of their Prime service.

 

Type-R is right (from what I've heard/observed) but Primal cost $103 shipped from Japan. It came through DHL and arrived in four days.

Free shipping or not, this is still significantly cheaper than many "domestic" sources for us in the US. For example, BBTS is asking $120+Shipping...so figure that ordering Primal from Amazon Japan is about $27 cheaper give or take depending on when you order and where you live.

 

Yeah I mentioned it after getting mine. There's a little thin button that elevates it just enough to get a fingernail under the panel without scraping the paint.

 

Funny, I just discovered that tonight as well! Brilliant!

 

Still waiting to receive mine. Does it look like a Third Party joint could be added to make it bend completely down, but give enough clearance to the red paint to avoid scratching?

 

Its just annoying to some of us that Takara keeps making these brilliant designs that they cut corners on to reduce part counts (Ironhide/Ratchet's hip kibble, Primal's shoulders and beast mode back feet, Cheetor's back legs in beast mode, Hot Rod's shoulders). Takara has just been doing a great job for 99% and its just frustrating that they phone in the last 1%, leaving us at the mercy of 3rd party companies proving additional parts to create perfect renditions of the characters.

 

So, I've found the One real legitimate complaint about this figure.

Primal is usually in alt mode. I keep looking at him and thinking "Harambe".

 

I am not even a big fan of Beast Wars, but this figure makes me believe again in what the MP line is capable of. Still not buying Inferno and Megatron, but other Beast Wars figures done this well are super welcome.

 

There should be a "dislike" post option.