10.27.08

CMs 1/48 Dark Legioss

Posted in 1/48, Alpha/Legioss, CMs, MOSPEADA/RT New Gen at 12:04 am by micronian

 

Observations & Critique: The “children of shadow” got a brand new ride

This toy doesn’t come in collector’s grade packaging but it is unique and pretty stylish. You no longer get the sword that was provided with the Legioss/Tread Giftset but you do get everything else. There is the pilot in ride armor figure, the pilot on ride armor figure, and the collapsed ride armor bit as well as extra missles and the Dark Legioss’ unique gun with removeable magazine.

 

All of these CMs toys have a fair chance of being fairly collectible some day. None are being produced in great numbers, all contain some (very little) diecast, and all offer perfect transformation (more perfect than the Toynami/Aoshima efforts). Add to that the ridiculous prices CMs charges and there’s some chance that collectors will have to pass on it now only to circle around later and scoop it up at secondary market prices. That said, Mospeada fans aren’t children any more and this isn’t like the toy that was too expensive for your mom to buy when you were little so now you’d be willing to pay whatever it takes to get that toy you always wanted but could never have.

 

The Achilles heel of all CMs Legioss toys is how horrible they look in all modes. There are some reviewers who say “Okay, it doesn’t look like the anime, but so what?” and I am not one of those reviewers. Now, I’m more than willing to let a few liberties go, especially if those liberties are taken to incorporate additional features or to overcome design issues but CMs just sort of threw their own interpretation at us and it’s not particularly beautiful. At least CMs’ previous Legioss toys had a ton of tampo-printed detail but this Dark Legioss has much less. All of those complaints aside, there are some bright spots when it comes to this toy. First, some of the detail work is very nice like the painted pilot within the cockpit and there’s even a bit of detail within the gun’s detachable magazine.  CMs also did a great job in incorporating all the design changes the Dark Legioss featured to differentiate it from the standard Legioss. Amongst these changes you’ll notice that the VTOL vent has been deleted, the canopy detail altered, the shoulders have been updated, and the chest intakes have been re-shaped (note in the picture below that Toynami went the cheap route and didn’t update the shoulders on the Dark Legioss toys). Speaking of chests, CMs didn’t bother to match the paint used on the chest intakes to the paint used on the toy’s face resulting in something a bit garrish (I tried to capture this in the second picture below but it was hard because of the bright lighting required for picturing dark toys). This is definitely not the kind of effort you’d expect on a $100+ toy.

So the CMs isn’t a particularly great looking toy, it’s still a lot better looking than many of Gakken’s previous efforts and it does well in many other respects. Unfortunately, there was lots of room left for improvement on this toy. Little things that should have been improved: 1) The gun should have been designed with a collapsing magazine, not a magazine that needed to be removed for fighter mode (c’mon, Toynami already showed us how) 2) the gun should have fit over the toy’s hand, not required an additional plug in hand, 3) the shoulder-array is missing on the Dark Legioss so the toy should have incorporated a fix that eliminated the shoulder flap in soldier mode, 4) the gun shouldn’t be aimed directly into the back of the pilot’s head in fighter mode. The design faults I saw with the previous CMs Legioss toys are also still present here, visit my review of the first legioss toy they produced here.

 

The one shining beacon of goodness that the CMs Legioss toys emanate comes from their rugged durability. While the toy may look thin and dangly it’s built extremely well out of high quality materials. The joints click and I was never worried for a moment about potentially snapping anything. This is an expensive toy though so no matter how rugged it feels it would probably be wise not to give it to children.

 

This toy’s articulation is good without being great. There’s really no difference between this toy and my initial review for the CMs Legioss/Tread combo Legioss so click the link provided above to check that review out if you’re unfamiliar.  One thing I did find a bit strange, CMs didn’t make the two fingers independent of each other but that’s obviously a pretty minimal fault.

 

I want to write “it’s nice to see the Dark Legioss get a more faithful representation in toy form” because of all the mold changes CMs did but at the heart of this toy is still the inaccurate Legioss toy released earlier this year. I’m glad CMs went the extra mile now but I really wish they had tried to make this toy better resemble existing line art. The strong suit of the original combo sets was definitely the Tread toy, it’s still a toy I really like, and its absence here really isn’t helping anything. Mospeada completists and fans of the Dark Legioss won’t be let down by this toy and should probably pick one up sooner than later as I’m told the production run was very small. If you’re a more casual Mospeada or Robotech: The New Generation fan then you can probably find other toys that offer more bang for your buck.  Is the CMs Dark Legioss better than Toynami’s MPC for Sue Graham?  I would say “yes” because it’s built so much better and CMs got the shoulders right… but is it twice as good to match it’s being twice as expensive?  That will depend on how much of a premium you put on durability.

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