Hasui Shogo's Masterpiece 2.0 appreciation thread

[doublespy]

Hasui Shogo replaced Kobayashi Hironori as lead signer for the new Masterpiece line from MP10 Convoy 2.0. A lot of fans have been and still are complaining that Hasui's new design style doesn't live up to the "Masterpiece" name.

Obviously changes like scale and budget are beyond a designer's control and is reflective of how the department or Takara Tomy has planned for this series. But there's no arguing that Hasui and Kobayashi both have their distinctive design style, and I understand why some people would prefer Kobayashi to Hasui. Kobayash is very imaginative and ambitious in the overall transforming scheme, whereas Hasui's designs always give you that "hmm nothing really new but there's a few neat bits". What I personally really like about him is the attention to detail and his vision from the get-go for MP 2.0. A couple of examples below:



Neck articulation. All of his MP designs have sculpted necks with a horizontal pin (instead of a ball on top of the neck which breaks up the sculpt when posing).And more importantly the pin connection gives very good up-and-down range, which is crucial for action figures in general to give you that extra personality when posing (think Generations Drift, if he doesn't have that pin neck joint to look up, half of the sword-welding poses would be completely unconvincing.) The only exception so far would be Sideswipe. He only has an okay up-and-down range. I assume it's because the flat bonnet shape limits the length of his neck (for the same reason his head had to split in half).



Integrated thigh swivel instead of a simple thigh cut. These are more elegant and aesthetically pleasing IMHO. And this has been a consistent feature as well since MP10, except Soundwave (for transformation purpose).

Personally, I really like Hasui's style and his attention to detail. I think it fits perfectly with the new Masterpiece direction: show accurate instead of "re-inventing", budget constraint to release more characters, and simpler and quicker transformation.

Care to share some of your thoughts guys?

[Hursticon]

I think it can't be stated enough how incredibly innovative Hasui's engineering is; each MP he's tackled outright has had a fun, engaging & intuitive transformation that yields strong, sturdy and articulate Alt & Bot modes with little compromisation.

His Alt modes look distinctive & accurate to the character's original real-life counterpart (Where applicable ) with very minimal, if any, Bot mode kibble being visibly present whilst conversely; his Bot modes are extremely Alt mode kibble free, unless the character's design silhouette calls or its presence

The things I also like to note though is the perfect proportions he's able to extract in both modes, but also the fact that he all but eliminates any form of "Backpack" in Bot mode!


People will favour 1 designer over the other for varying reasons, but I think the ball that Hasui was handed has well and truly been run past the try-line, hit for six & landed many a home run in his possession since.

[GoktimusPrime]

Ignoring prices for the purposes of this discussion, my thoughts:

Optimus Prime Honestly not as good as MP01 which was just jam packed with so much goodness. It's like a "Lite" MP Optimus Prime. But MP10 is still a very good toy in its own right, and obviously less 'effort' was poured into the cab/robot to accommodate the inclusion of a trailer (which is IMHO better than the trailer that came w/ MP04) and Roller (which MP04 never had), as well as Spike. So as an overall package MP10 is still a very good toy and I think both the MP01 and MP10 versions have their different strengths.

Sideswipe As most of you know, I was really disappointed with this toy. The inability for the shoulders to solidly lock into position really ruins the playability of this figure. Okay sure, there are worse toys out there such as Movie Deluxe Brawl and the notoriously crappy shoulders on Generations Blitzwing, and those toys do suffer (although at least Brawl coincidentally has an easy fix solution) - but that doesn't excuse the poor design of Sideswipe's shoulders. The shoulders stay in position enough for posing and fiddling, but they just fail to stay in position during actual action toy play. For this reason I've skipped all other versions of this mould (Red Alert, Tiger Track, G2 Sideswipe). I'd get an MP Red Alert if Hasbro released it locally, but I don't like this mould nearly enough to import one.

Soundwave A very nice toy - fundamentally quite similar to the G1 toy, which I think goes to show how great the original toy was to begin with. It has a lot of cool features, and I quite like how it's reverse-compatible w/ the G1 cassettes too. The way that the forearms act as perches for Laserbeak and/or Buzzsaw is also a really neat touch. The ability to hold multiple cassettes is best done on this toy - works better than on G1 Soundblaster (as the chest door doesn't need to protrude) and FoC Soundwave/Soundblaster (as the back doesn't need to pop out). It's a simple but effective gimmick that doesn't really compromise design/engineering. My main gripe about this toy is the plastic used for the chest-door which could've been better, as I've noticed a stress mark appearing on the hinge of both my TakaraTOMY version and mknell's Hasbro version -- although it's worse on the Hasbro version.

Cassettes Overall quite well done, especially given the restraints of engineering MP figures into cassettes that are the same size. Some people have criticised Ravage, and sure, I agree that he's the weakest of the Cassettes, but I don't think he's a bad toy either. The condors are quite well done (although others have reported issues w/ the QC on the fins). They look great in both modes and the inclusion of the head camera is a really nice touch. Frenzy and Rumble are also quite good, giving us the most cartoon like representations of their show models (especially Frenzy (or Rumble in the Anglophone cartoon)). It's also cool how the piledrivers can work w/ G1 Rumble/Frenzy too.

Prowl An excellent toy - great sculpt, great articulation and a totally solid figure that's fun to play with. A massive improvement over the Lamborghini mould, and I hope that future MP Autobot cars will be made with such standards (and hopefully get even gooderer ).

[Deonasis]

Ignoring all imaginable and unimaginable factors other than design for the purpose of this thread discussing only design.

I love the achieved simplicity. I love the consistency that a single lead* designer brings. The restraint displayed in design and in selecting gimmicks reduces my worry of somewhat compromised Masterpieces.

* I say lead because i don't mind him getting help from other designers and personalising the result.

[Hursticon]

* I say lead because i don't mind him getting help from other designers and personalising the result.

Agreed, as it's probably unlikely that Hasui is the sole progenitor of these figures.

[doublespy]

I think it can't be stated enough how incredibly innovative Hasui's engineering is; each MP he's tackled outright has had a fun, engaging & intuitive transformation that yields strong, sturdy and articulate Alt & Bot modes with little compromisation.

His Alt modes look distinctive & accurate to the character's original real-life counterpart (Where applicable ) with very minimal, if any, Bot mode kibble being visibly present whilst conversely; his Bot modes are extremely Alt mode kibble free, unless the character's design silhouette calls or its presence

The things I also like to note though is the perfect proportions he's able to extract in both modes, but also the fact that he all but eliminates any form of "Backpack" in Bot mode!


People will favour 1 designer over the other for varying reasons, but I think the ball that Hasui was handed has well and truly been run past the try-line, hit for six & landed many a home run in his possession since.

Completely agree. There're so many factors to consider: cartoon accuracy, alt mode scale and accuracy to the real life model, bot mode scale and proportions, and he manages to strike a perfect balance without obvious compromises. I remember he talked about Sideswipe's "bonnet chest" looking too big in bot mode because of the iconic Countach design and he had to adjust the proportions to make the chest not look out of place.

Optimus Prime I think both the MP01 and MP10 versions have their different strengths.

This^
Personally MP-10 is superior to MP-01 for me, just because of the show accuracy And with all the die-cast and gimmicks, MP-01 felt like a Chogokin figure than a Transformer. It is nevertheless an awesome collector piece.

I love the consistency that a single lead* designer brings.

* I say lead because i don't mind him getting help from other designers and personalising the result.

Agreed, as it's probably unlikely that Hasui is the sole progenitor of these figures.

Yeah from the interviews I gather he gets input from other designers at team meetings. I guess it's where each designer presents what they've done with their respective project on hand and other team members comment and give suggestions.

And the new Masterpiece Star Saber will be designed by Yuki Hisashi. I hope Hasui is working doubly hard on Bumblebee and Wheeljack!

[kurdt_the_goat]

I think the main difference between the Hasui and Kobayashi's designs is that Kobayashi had a tendency to try and connect pieces in kind of a perfect world scenario. I think he took pride in designing things with a minimal amount of friction so it seems more subtle how it all connects together.

Seems like he'd be a real stubborn person who didn't want to potentially compromise the look of a toy with a better gripping joint for instance. Unfortunately with tolerances in manufacturing some of these designs played out better than others. For instance i think if Hasui had a hand in Rodimus, his backpack would be much more secure, or Grimlock, his waist more secure.

Hasui definitely designs them better as toys as a result, but i still have an appreciation for Kobayashi's approach as well, as he truly pushed the limits with Megatron and Rodimus in particular.