Voltron Classics Blue Lion with Allura and Sven

Taking a look at The Blue Lion and it's two pilots, Allura and the subscription exclusive Sven. 4 down, one to go, but how well does this cat go with it's bretheren? Lets take a look and see for ourselves. Really excited about how close we are to getting that 23" Voltron, just cant wait.
Music
Breathtaking Vision Remixed by Kanjika
part of the Project Chaos remix album
s3k.ocremix.org
ocremix.org

Voltron Classics Pidge and Green Lion

A Video Review for the Voltron Classics Pidge and Green Lion from Mattel. Voltron being a favorite of mine I'm very happy to be getting these figures.
Music
Breathtaking Vision remixed by Kanjika
Part of the "Project Chaos" remix album
http://s3k.ocremix.org/
ocremix.org

Voltron Classics: Hunk and Yellow Lion

Back again to do a new Voltron review. This time covering last months release from Mattycollector.com which is none other than...

Hunk and the Yellow Lion. The 2nd set in the Voltron Classics subscription has finally arrived and has given us an even more massive lion this time as well as a new figure for our Classics Voltron Force team. But how good is this set? Let's take a look and find out.

Hunk comes in a similar package to Febuary's Lance figure, but this time instead of a red box we get a yellow one, to further signify Hunk as the Yellow Lion's pilot. There is an open window that lets you see Hunk and his key stand as well as his alternate head. The Yellow Lion comes in a plastic box that shows the lion in a running pose outside of it's den. Much like the Red Lions box, the background artwork is done beautifully. The back of the box show's off the special features of the Yellow Lion and it's place as the left leg of Voltron. The reverse side of Hunk's box, which sadly I forgot to take a picture of shows a nice image of the figure as well as which collect and connect piece you get for the Powered Blazing Sword.

The Hunk figure is very well sculpted. He has a big bulky body which is perfect for his character. The face is a perfect resemblance of the old TV show and I love the interchangeable heads. On mine, the helmet dosnt seem to be on right on the helmeted head, but it still looks very good. Hunk has 10 points of articulation at the head, shoulders, elbows, waist, hips and limited knees. I'm saying limited knees because they only move the proper way about 20 degrees. This wont hurt how he sits in the lion but it is a downside. The last nice touch is the Lion Key stand. this nice little item serves a dual purpose as the display stand for Hunk and the means to open up the lion.

The last piece in Hunk's box is the CnC Blazing Sword wrist guard. It's a very simple piece but in my view a very important one. From the vintage Voltron toys all the way to Toynami's Masterpiece Voltron, the Blazing Sword has never had that show accurate wrist guard. Before Mattel made Blazing Sword Voltron, the swords were good, but never show accurate. This fact alone makes me very happy to see the wrist guard piece. Now once you put that piece on the sword's hilt, it's not coming off so only put it on when you are absolutely sure to want to assemble the sword. One last thing to note is there is a hinge on the wrist guard to make putting the sword in Voltrons claws a lot easier.

Putting Hunk and Lance together you can see how well in scale they are with each other. Hunk is a little taller and has a bigger body than Lance. Scale has never been a big problem for Voltron toys so I'm not surprised on how well they go together. Putting him next to his past figures really shows how improved this version of Hunk really is over the Panosh Place version. It's also interesting to see how well the Classics figures seem to relate to the V3D figures, I can actually see Classics Hunk growing into becoming the V3D figure at least as far as characters go. The classics figure is still better articulated.

On to Yellow Lion, its sculpt is beautiful and massive. It's hard not to be awestruck by how big this cat is. It's even bigger than the Red Lion. Really, it's about the size of a real live kitten. The paint job is simplistic but very well done. Articulation wise, it has 15 points at the head, mouth, shoulders, elbows, front paws, hips, knees, rear paws, and a double jointed tail. Most of the joints are ratcheted but not quite as heavily as Red Lion was. The joints are still strong enough to hold the lion up, but still can be moved freely. The springs in the legs for transformation will hinder the lion's movement though you can still get some nice poses. The one accessory included is it's Lion Sword. Yellow Lion has a good grip on the weapon with his mouth and he looks good holding it.

As far as features go, Yellow Lion only has a couple, but they are wonderful. The first one to note is that with the key stand from any pilot figure you can open up the Yellow Lion to get a view of the cockpit and even pl ave your pilot figure inside.  Hunk doesn't go in perfectly, but he goes in enough to look good. The other feature is obvious, Yellow Lion becomes the overly massive left leg to Voltron. To return to lion mode one can simply push the button on the lion's belly and he will spring back to normal.

Looking at Yellow Lion with his past forms really shows how the design has grown considerably over the years. Yellow's evolution looks very solid. He also looks wonderful with the Red Lion. What really stands out is when you have Yellow Lion in leg mode next to larger figures. Having a leg stand up to either MP Voltron's or Unicron's chest is quite amazing and really helps me salivate more for new versions of the Lions and Voltron himself.

Being a huge Voltron fan it's hard to not like these new classics toys. Are they perfect, no, but they still are some of the best iterations of the lions and pilots ever made. They are fun, they are posable and will display very nicely on any Voltron shelf. If you collect Volton figures you are going to love these.

Voltron Classics: Red Lion and Lance

Hey guys, back again with a new review. Last week I started a review on the Transformers Prime First Edition figures. Part 2 of that review is still coming, but between then and now, something came in the mail. Something I had to review first, and that something is...

Voltron Classics: Lance and the Red Lion

I am a huge Voltron fan. It was my favorite show growing up, followed by Transformers, TMNT, Thundercats and others like them. So when Mattel announced last year that they were doing a Classics series for Voltron, I was jumping for joy. Ok so enough gushing, lets get to the toys, starting with Lance.

Lance come in a rather large size box with a window that clearly shows him, his alternate head and Lion Key stand, which may leave some people wondering why he is in such a big box and not a simple cardback. Turning the box around reveals that also included is a piece for a very big "collect and connect" Charged Blazing Sword. Three guesses who gets that sword when its completed. The back also shows some of the figures features and a little on his connection to the Red Lion, but we will get more into that later. It's easy to get Lance out of the box and just as easy to put him back inside for storage.

Out of the box, Lance looks really good. His paintjob is spot on with the old cartoon, very bright and vibrant. While I know the little white circles on his shoulders have been the center of a lot of controversy, I'm personally cool with them. Lance has a fair amount of articulation, having all the standard points, but his elbows and knees are a little lacking in thier range of motion. To add variety to his posing options, Lance has two alternate heads, one with and one without his helmet. Using an alternate head for the helmet is a great idea since it would be impossible to make a seperate helmet that looked good on the figure. Now lance dosnt have any weapons included with him, but he can easily use any extra GI Joe or Star Wars weapons you may have handy and given the Star Wars basic figures tend to come with a slew of extra accesories, getting Lance a gun should be rather easy.

Having Lance side to side with the vintage Panosh Place version really shows how far toys have come over the past 30 years. It also helps to illustrate how bad seperate helmets look of 3 3/4" figures. Putting him next to the Trendmasters 3rd Dimension Lance brings out a night and day difference until you get a good look as the face sculpts where there enough similarities to believe these are the same character. Again, seeing them together helps to show that evolution in figure design. Lastly, putting him with 3 3/4" figures from other lines shows how well Lance can fit in "combined world" toy displays. His scale actually goes best with the Star Wars figures, which is great cause I could see him stopping at the Mos Eisely Cantina after a tough mission.

As I mentioned earlier, Lance's box was a bit too big for him alone. Also included was the hilt for the "collect and connect" Charged Blazing Sword meant to be used but the 23" tall Voltron that we will be able to see at the end of the year. Oddly enough, the hilt is actually bigger than lance himself, infact I can hold the thing in my hand like the hilt of a small dagger. This only gets me more excited to see Voltron in all 23" of his glory. But to get to Voltron, we need to start with the Lions.

The Red Lion comes in a nice window box that clearly shows everything this figure has to offer. The back shows a couple of the features the Red Lion has aswell as how the lion works with to the Lance figure. The inner portion of the box comes out and can act as a display background and stand for the Red Lion. Im not sure if Mattel did this on purpose but either way its a nice way to display the lion until we can form Voltron.

Out of the box, the Red Lion look stunningly good. His colors are bright, vivid and mostly show accurate. Sculpt-wise, it looks like a supersized version of the original Matchbox toy from the 80's. Now when i say supersized, I mean SUPERSIZED. The Red Lion is as big as MOTUC's Battle Cat, He-Man can even ride the lion if you want him to. Seeing ths lion in hand will really give you an idea on how big Voltron will really be. Sadly the articulation is a bit lacking. Poor Red here is suffering from both Gestalt and Action Feature Syndrome, meaning his articulation has been hampered by quick transform action features and the fact that he was built to combine into Voltron. He has some posablility but you'll only be able to really hold standing poses and arm mode poses due to the springs in his legs. His only accessory is his Lion Sword, which easily fits into and stays in his mouth.

One of the coolest features of the Red Lion is that Lance can fit inside and man the cockpit. The cockpit is revealed by using the Lion Key included with Lance to open up the Red Lion's back. Lance can then be placed inside the lion and the back can be closed pretty easily. Other 3 3/4" figures can be placed in the cockpit but not all, for example certain other evil fighters wont be able to drive these robots.

When looking at the past forms of the Red Lion, its easy to see that Mattel took a hard look at both the original Matchbox version (mine here being the Trendmasters '97 reissue) and the Toynami Masterpiece edition when they were creating this gigantic new lion. The only thing it has in common with the Panosh Place lion is that they can both hold thier pilots.

Getting the Red Lion into arm mode is a simple task, just fold up the legs and tail, fold out the connection peg and you are all set. The arm mode is emormous, its actually as tall as G1 Predaking, and is barely shorter than the Masterpiece Voltron. It even looks big next to Unicron. Im going to take a wild guess and say that Voltron will be about as tall as G1 Fortress Maximus. Getting Red back into lion mode is easy aswell, there are two buttons on the lion, one on the lions rear and the other just below the neck. Simply pressing these buttons will spring the legs out and you can pose them so he can stand. The tail can be released by opening the hatch it is hidden in. This action feature is nice but I would have preffered better posablitiy to it.

All in all, The Red Lion is an outstanding figure, and so is Lance. Fans of Voltron will be very pleased to have both in thier collections and have a lot to look forward to this year. Lance and the Red Lion are sold out at Mattycollector.com, so you'll have to check eBay or Big Bad Toy Store if you want to get a hold of them now. Anyway, hope you enjoyed this review and ill see you later.