Why is Lio convoy popular and what about Big convoy?

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Starsaberdub
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Why is Lio convoy popular and what about Big convoy?

Post by Starsaberdub »

Is Lio more popular than Big and if so why?
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Denyer
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Re: Why is Lio convoy popular and what about Big convoy?

Post by Denyer »

Probably has greater recognition -- more Western toy releases that could be considered him (including mainstream retail releases) and there was the small Robotmaster too that was quite readily available for import.

The Big Convoy figure is liked in the fandom, but that's inherently niche interest. And there was a Nemesis Prime release but that's not the same character and was a store exclusive.

How much people care about the *characters* is highly debatable. Japanese BW stuff doesn't exactly have a lot of distribution and some of it's aimed at younger audiences.
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Re: Why is Lio convoy popular and what about Big convoy?

Post by Starsaberdub »

Denyer wrote: Fri Feb 24, 2023 6:49 pm Probably has greater recognition -- more Western toy releases that could be considered him (including mainstream retail releases) and there was the small Robotmaster too that was quite readily available for import.

The Big Convoy figure is liked in the fandom, but that's inherently niche interest. And there was a Nemesis Prime release but that's not the same character and was a store exclusive.

How much people care about the *characters* is highly debatable. Japanese BW stuff doesn't exactly have a lot of distribution and some of it's aimed at younger audiences.
Why is Lio popular in Japan and what about Big?
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Denyer
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Re: Why is Lio convoy popular and what about Big convoy?

Post by Denyer »

Cats have a lot of positive connotations in Japanese culture, including as luck mascots and protectors.

Mammoths not so much, although there have been some fossil examples found and they get a look in occasionally in kaiju media.
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Skyquake87
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Re: Why is Lio convoy popular and what about Big convoy?

Post by Skyquake87 »

What Denyer said. Also seems to have some cache in Japan, given the Robot Master and Masterpiece toys, which made him an "obvious" pick for Generations/Legacy; 'People paid money for the MP, so lets do one for the main line'. Worked on me, as I like the look of the MP Beast Wars stuff, but it's insanely expensive and too fiddly.

I like Lio Convoy. Never seen the BWII, so no idea what the character's like. Guessing slightly Optimus-y all noble and that. I just like it's Optimus turning into a lion, which is pretty awesome.

Ditto Big Convoy; never seen Neo and owned the Nemesis Prime toy first, which I love. Bought BIg Blue Convoy (dunno) at TFNation in 2019 and again, just like a having a powerful looking beast doing a robot with an Optimus face. And having the same toy in different colours, which seems to be a running theme to my collection.
AdmiralPotassium
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Re: Why is Lio convoy popular and what about Big convoy?

Post by AdmiralPotassium »

I think also it just may be a matter of franchise momentum, with each successive series being less popular than the previous one in the BW franchise. By the time Beast Wars Neo came out, Japanese viewers may have been ready to move on to something new in the Transformers space.
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Re: Why is Lio convoy popular and what about Big convoy?

Post by Warcry »

I somehow missed this entirely back when it was posted! I think Denyer is right that it's all down to name recognition, but what's really interesting to me is how we got there. I think that was more down to circumstance than popularity, or any conscious choice on Hasbro or Takara's part.

Lio got into Robot Masters and Big Convoy did not, but the Lio Convoy design was fairly easy to downsize to a Basic-sized toy, something that would be a lot tougher to do with the massive shellformer that is Big Convoy. An RM Big Convoy, frankly, would have sucked. But it got one of the characters back into circulation and kept them alive in the fandom's collective consciousness, while the other was left behind. And then the repaints were a thing too. There's been a few lion toys over the years (Leobreaker, Thundertron, TR Alpha Trion) that Hasbro or Takara gave the Lio Convoy treatment, and which kept the guy active in the fandom's consciousness. And there really haven't been any other elephants, so no opportunity to recycle existing toys as Big Convoy.

After a couple decades of that, even fans who know nothing about Japanese Beast Wars are probably at least passingly familiar with Lio Convoy/Leo Prime as "that time Optimus was a lion". A lot of those same fans have probably never come across Big Convoy. So when it comes time to do an MP or start introducing Japanese BW characters to the retail line, Lio will understandably feel like a much safer bet. I doubt there was much difference in popularity between the two back in 2000, and I doubt there was any intention to treat the two of them differently going forward or make Lio out to be a bigger, more important character. It just sort of happened as time went along.
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