Hasui Shogo's Masterpiece 2.0 appreciation thread

[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.