Transformers: 35th Anniversary Convoy & Optimus Prime 2-Pack

Convoy (G1 Optimus Prime)

Convoy, AKA Optimus Prime, is Takara’s release of the Hasbro Walmart Exclusive Vintage G1 Optimus Prime. It is, as far as I can tell and have read online, identical to the Hasbro release. It’s lighter in color than most of the Japanese releases (I believe), so it’s kind of interesting for that reason. I find $50 ($100 for the 2-Pack) a lot more palatable for this toy in a Japanese box. Does that make any sense? Not really, but any toy in a Japanese box is almost automatically more desirable than in a Hasbro box, at least to me. I kind of wish I had bought a second Walmart Prime to keep them in the box together, but I could never find them on clearance, and wasn’t going to spend another $50 for it. I am leaving this one in the box, so the photos are of the Walmart version. You can read my review of that here.

Optimus Prime (Bumblebee)

The second half of this 2-Pack is a more screen accurate repaint of Studio Series Voyager Class Optimus Prime from Transformers: Bumblebee. You can read my review of the original here. In that review, I said it was very faithful to the movie. Well, it wasn’t as faithful as I thought it was. I guess I was giving Hasbro too much credit. This one is far more faithful to the movie deco. This one has lighter colors all around, and much of the gray is replaced with silver, or at least lighter gray. He’s got Autobot logos on his shoulders, and sort of has the silver stripe around the cab. The design of his abdomen make it hard to do that completely, but they did a decent job with what they had to work with.

Overall: Since these are only available as a set, even though they come in separate boxes, it’s hard to say if this is a must have. The G1 Optimus Prime is identical to Walmart, so if you have that, it only matters if you need the box. Personally, I had to have this in box, but I can imagine a lot of people not caring so much . As to the Bumblebee Optimus Prime, it is a superior toy to the Hasbro version, but is it superior enough to justify $100? That’s hard to say. If not for wanting the G1 in box, I might have skipped it. Having no mold changes, I strictly speaking did not need it, but I am very happy to have it since it’s so much better than the Hasbro version. I miss the days when most toys had better paintjobs in Japan. I didn’t usually get them just for the paintjob, but it was nice to have the option.

Thanks for reading!