Bingo, this guy gets it. Buy what you like, and be happy with your purchase. If it doesn't meet your standards, or fill your needs, don't buy it and be happy with that decision. I've passed on innumerable figures because I didn't like them, sometimes for pretty picayune reasons, and I haven't regretted it. Likewise I've bought figures that met the standards of what I wanted from them, and when/if a newer version came out later that I liked even more, I didn't blame Takara for "forcing" me to waste my money the first time. I made my own decision.

At this point, anyone who thinks Takara is never going to release alternate-decoed versions, or 2.0s or 3.0s of the same characters, is living in denial. There will absolutely be a Hound+ in the future with dark green paint and chrome and who knows what other little changes, and if that's what you really want, then don't buy this one.

 

I see that it went like this. Designers design MP1 Prime with a trailer. Marketing/Sales come back and say the product is just too expensive and so no one will buy it, drop the trailer. Product gets released without trailer. Internet goes nuts complaining there is no trailer. Designers say I told you so, and that we've proven there is a market, can we release the trailer now? Marketing/Sales can see the dollar (yen) signs and release it.
(I doubt it was that simple, but it's roughly what it boils down to).

As far as designing MP+ Shockwave, I'm sure redesigning that head (very similar to the existing one) and picking a new colour took all of an afternoon, maybe.

 

The "wheels" on MP Hound are not even wheels, they can be considered an aesthetic detail unrelated to the wheels themselves (which are hidden).

 

I can't fault Takara's attention to detail. It's just not the details I'd like them to focus on. ;-)

Regardless, I'm 100% sure that complaints about toon accuracy in this line are now boring to both those making them and those reading them so I'll step away like I did on the new MP Prime thread. Well, mostly step away. 80% step away. In my defence I started collecting MP TFs at MP-01. I dreamed of a smaller Prime to match Starscream, Rodimus and Grimlock in size WAY before MP-10 was announced (iGear's scaled down MP-01 anyone?) and of MP carbots before MP Lambor was announced (with Alternity stand-ins). I've wanted a Hound since then. He was my favourite character as a kid as I actually had the G1 toy. There was a lot riding on this release for me and while I acknowledge I'm teetering on the edge of fan entitlement I really was hoping for a slightly different outcome.

I think those who get annoyed at nitpicking and fan entitlement need to see where the nitpickers are sometimes coming from.

And that's where I am... After bashing over-entitled Star Wars fans for their anger over The Last Jedi not being the Star Wars film THEY wanted I'm now one of the daft fanboys annoyed at a toy line not pandering to my own personal whims. Again.

Carry on.

 

This is a very reasonable post. I started with MP-03 (skipped MP-01/02 because #notrailer) and I was certainly mildly annoyed when the scale was reset at MP-10. I also nitpicked the hell out of that figure and I still don't consider it a good representation of MP OP (worse than MP-04, IMO), but I had to have a Prime to scale with all the carbots. So, I get where you are coming from. But I have since decided that Takara's decisions shouldn't affect my collecting; if I like the figure, I buy it, if not, there are now numerous 3P options (which I haven't bought yet, since none of them appealed to me except maybe Jazz and I fully expect MP Jazz to be released in 1-3 years).

It helps that I don't collect just MPs, so there are always numerous CHUGs to keep me entertained.

 

Hound looks fantastic. I am not too fussed about it being cartoon accurate or whatever - it just looks like a great toy. I am intrigued to see the Jeep mode and also the shoulder cannon/hologram projector looks like it folds away to store in vehicle mode which should be fun.

The third party options are both nice enough but I personally thinks this looks better and can't wait to get my hands on it.

 

Funnily enough, I agree with you both.   On the one hand, those grey cylinders on his feet are clearly supposed to be the cartoon wheels, so when looked at in that way, they look pretty stupid. On the other hand, I find myself not disliking them as much as I do most fake parts simply they don't actually look like fake wheels at all, so can be considered just random robot-mode detail. In that sense, actually I prefer them to Red Alert's fake shoulder wheels and Magnus's swapping foot wheels.

Over all, I really like the look of him, despite my reservations over full 'toon-accuracy (I loved MP-39 in the end, but will love him more when he has Cordon's head and shins). The only thing I'm not 100% sold on is the face. It's like they got the details right but somehow failed to capture his personality. I think it's the down-turned eyes that make him look a little like Marvin the Paranoid Android. Better pictures may show it to be much better than it looks here, though, and it's certainly not a bad sculpt anyway.

P.S. Digression: "Entitled" seems to be an over-used word that people throw at others when they don't like them criticising something they like. There's nothing entitled about saying you don't like the way a figure that you've been hoping for has turned out - just as there is nothing entitled in itself about someone saying that they thought TLJ was a wreck of a movie - which I do.   "Entitled", I think, is when you believe you have a *right* to have everything turn out the way you want, which is a different thing from expressing disappointment when it doesn't. It's always a little gutting when you have a particular favourite character who doesn't come out the way you hoped - I'm looking at you, MP Bumblebee's face!

 

I get it. I'd probably be upset too but it's not like this is the only option. If there's something I don't like I walk away and look at something else I do and we have an embarrassment of riches for most characters.

 

Just logged into the home page after a long fucked week to see this... suprised the internet didn't break.

TFW, are you ok?

Sign me up for 2... I thought I was done with masterpiece until just now.  

 

This may have just pulled me back into the game.

Ark crew member, ahoy!

 

Depends on what you collect, but "+" style releases are not uncommon from other companies in Japan. Bandai does it all the time, Gundam collectors have had to deal with it for decades.

And the first Shockwave and Wheeljack were released years ago, not "a few months". MP-10 and the new Optimus have even more years than that between them, plenty of time has past for a new version. And you don't have to return them, you can just keep the old versions and the new. They're toys, you can have more than one Optimus if you want.

You can also learn to not buy the first MP of a character you see from Takara or anyone else if you don't like what they did and don't think the company gave it some eye-rolling "100% effort"..

Also very ironic calling Takara shameless and shady while praising any 3P, cause now you're just being silly.

 

but for those collectors wanting the toy look Gundog does it better.

 

Isn't willis a hasui design?

 

Not a bad looking Hound. But I\'m not a fan of the toon-accurate focus they\'ve been leaning towards over thepast couple of years, and that\'s defintely what they did here. I\'ll stick with MT Gundog, thank you. 

 

No. Certain 3rd party fans would be surprised if they knew who designed him, but it definitely wasn't Hasui!

 

Source? I know there are a few TT designers vaguely affiliated with some 3P companies (e.g. MakeToys) but I didn't know Hasui was one of them?

 

Hm, that's cryptic/intriguing. How does one find out such information? (I always hear that various 3P companies are connected behind the scenes, but I don't know how people actually find out those things.)

 

Do we know if his vehicle mode is going to be the Mitsubishi that the toy was based on, or be retconned as the US Jeep Willys the cartoon drew him as?

 

Personally, it just happens that I've been in the hobby a long time and, through various other members on here, particularly in the old days when I used to do a lot of Radicons, designers occasionally chat and exchange ideas/information. But I'm not what you'd call an insider or anything.

 

Designers are more often than not fans. It 100% wasn't Hasui, that's hilarious.