Yup, I feel exactly the same. I mean when you look at this thing in-hand, the only real difference between this and a Masterpiece would be:

A: Some of the articulation compromises in a few of the individual bots. (which Takara has addressed with new parts)

B: Maybe paint on the vehicles, but I doubt they would have painted all the figures anyway.( i.e. MP Wheeljack)

C. Paint apps (again Takara is giving it the deluxe treatment)

Other than that, the aesthetic is definitely part Toon and Toy as Hasui mentioned in the interview. It also LITERALLY uses ideas that Hasui had developed for a possible MP Devastator. Come on!  

So yeah, I think the Takara version will be a nice compromise between having a very satisfying 18" G1 Devastator and never getting a MP Devy at all.

I'm displaying Hasbro Devy combined and the Takara version as individual bots since they are upgrading the articulation on the ones that needed it.

 

Yes, very succinct way to put it. It's VERY close to a MP Devastator with some concessions here and there.

 

Yeah, at least from the official end, I think this is what we can take away from this. I'd only say that's for the foreseeable future, though. I wouldn't ever rule them out from a Masterpiece end.

Honestly, that's fine with me as well, as there are TONS of characters to focus on in the meantime.  

Exactly. As said above, there is more to focus on. I think you're right on the money with your thoughts here.

Thanks for fping it as well  

Agreed on all counts with ya. As others have said (and what I've speculated for a while) is that he felt this was his chance for quite some time, so he pounced on it. From an official standpoint with TakaraTomy, I think we're probably pretty far off from seeing a gestalt Masterpiece set, but I won't ever rule anything out, especially from seeing what we have gotten in just three years.

My take is that one can go either way. I think if you want an official gestalt that's worthy of the "Masterpiece" moniker, this is your shot for the foreseeable future. I think if one is a "purist" (only getting what's officially sanctioned), that collector is fine as well. I think this instance is a little more than just "repurposing" though. The [former] design lead of the Masterpiece line and its revival has now stated that he's used much of his thinking of how he develops a Masterpiece figure into the essence of design with Devs. He's also stated that he felt this was his chance to make one. For collectors who want a Devastator for their Masterpiece collection now, I think this is the way to go.

For now  

 

I'm getting him! After this interview I just don't see them doing Devastator for another few years. I'll be in my 40's then, and whos to say they will ever get around to doing him at all. LOL! Is the UW version perfect? No. But then again what is? The individual bot modes are close enough at least to me to pass. And The big guy kicks ALOT of ass! I say do it! Plus the price is pretty good at $140.00ish.

 

Thanks for posting the translation. Interesting stuff from a personal designer's perspective. I think the figure is a success, a real achievement.

 

For those all down on no possible MP Devy in the near future, things might be looking up. Not for Devy but for other potential MP Combiners. What I gathered from the Takara staff interviews over the years is that upper management is very conservative, almost skittish when it comes to risks. Hasui's mentioned in the past about everything was an uphill battle: to convince them to do smaller carbots, to stay in scale, to keep the price point lower, etc. They hate to stick there necks out. My point is, with the success of the CW line ,and more so the UW line in Japan, Takara upper bosses will see that the fanbase is ready to receive MPs in this price and format. Everyone loves a proven winner.

 

I also think its relevant that Hasui and Takara are not trying to sell this as an MP set. That is, they are making it clear that this set had compromises in order for it to be a reality. They're not trying to hide those compromises and say "This is MP quality." or "Good enough for MP." They leave that up to the fans. I think that should be acknowledged. That's a good thing.

I agree with what others have said, this is a very good set. I've only seen one picture of it positioned next to MP figures and it looked good. It's hard to escape the fact that its a non-MP figure but overall, it does the job (IMO). Like someone else said, this was a love letter to toon and toy.

Great job Hasui!

 

Thanks, Deruji!

I've been waiting for an interview to pop up since I heard about CW Devastator, and waiting anxiously since it was revealed Hasui was the designer! Thanks, again, for the excellent translation!

I'm glad to get the CW version only Hasui worked on - that's such a cool opportunity in corporate Toy Design! I didn't even mind the black hands, since it's all about a balance, and I feel like that balance is a bit un-balanced in the UW version. Not that it isn't obviously nicer - just, not as balanced.

Love the detailing on the combined form; I don't need no paint apps!

 

Damn - hard to argue with that! Still need to think about it...

This is what gets me. I love transforming them and displaying them in different modes and I just wouldn't want to throw the individual bots on the shelf. Even with TT's improvements, I still see a lot of hollow limbs, no hand/wrist articulation, or ankle tilts, all things I expect in a voyager size MP. On the other hand, Devastator looks GREAT... Maybe someone could convince me with some great Devastator poses with other MPs?

 

Dean if you need just check out some of the awesome shots taken by TCracker of CW Devy with the other MPs. You WILL be convinced.  

 

Well, until they're done making real car autobots, I didn't expect TT to start in on combiners for the MP line... so I was thinking several years into the future anyway.

I hate the line where he said coming in at cost was number 1. I get that cost is important, but the absolute lack of flexibility is so dumb when Hasbro says they want to deliver a "fan" experience. He had a no partsforming design, but had to scrap it because they wouldn't spring for a 8-10 extra pieces to make weapons. and then TT was all, hey go ahead and add some extra parts Yuki, throw in more articulation, add a visor, put some more paint on the hubcaps, because the fans will love it!

also, he confirms he had previously planned out some MP Devastator elements, and people called me crazy when I said I was almost certain he had most of MP Bruticus (one of his favorite characters) already designed  

Given that we get 4-5 MP releases every year which a lot of us buy every one of (and then there's the crazy doubles people), and looking at how the 3P's have sold combiners for $400 or more if you get upgrade kits, it shows the draw to fans for being a combiner. it's no issue to actually SELL a 5-6 team combiner to the fandom for say $80 a unit retail (which is more than TT charges for domestic MP's). And hell, if you own one MP combiner, you just HAVE to get one for the opposite side to display him against, so these things would absolutely sell themselves twice over. You telling me that if you bought MP Menasor and then MP Superion comes along a year later you could convince yourself that you DIDN'T need an MP Autobot Gestalt to go head to head with your Menasor? The market would trip over itself to get in preorders

HOWEVER the obstacle with TT management is that out of the 4-5 MP's they give us a year now, typically we get redecoes or retools which keeps their cost down. Until they're willing to take a slightly smaller profit per unit we won't see an MP combiner. But if they pulled the trigger I doubt they'd actually make less money as an MP combiner would sell like crazy, if they produced more units there's zero chance they wouldn't get soaked up by the market. But management is thinking small potatoes and being tight fisted. Sure they'll spring for extra parts for UW Devastator but let Hasui experiment with his Bruticus design? oh yeah that's so wild and crazy, but at least they're not Hasbro crazy with the 4th MP-11 redeco in as many years.

 

So this is basically as close to MP Devastator as we'll get eh?

That's fine. Between the Takara version and the 3rd party upgrades on the way, i'm satisfied, and I have no doubt it'll look amazing on my MP shelf.

 

I see it as his "rough draft". It's not his absolute, final say of how an MP Devastator would look, but it's his way of showing TakaraTomy the potential of MP combiners. It's like showing how they can be built, then built upon from there. Like he can say "hey guys remember how we've thought of MP combiners? Well think of this.....but better....".

So I don't think we will see an MP Devastator in the near future but I think MP combiners have a higher chance of getting greenlit than not.

 

Devy himself might be an MP as far as intent goes, but the individual constructions sure ain't.

 

I'm in 100% agreement with you here. There's still lots of ground to cover in terms of possibilities for the Masterpiece line and I think what Hasui has done with this Devastator will definitely help the people he reports to take combiner talk a bit more seriously when it invariably comes about. I'm sure if Unite Warriors proves to be popular then that too might inform Takara's decision making to a certain (if limited) extent.

Deruji, thanks for the translation!

 

They still look awesome standing together.

 

I put this in the same category as CW/Legends Megatron. It's an oversized CHUG toy with some MP qualities. But I don't consider it a MP.

 

I don't understand this point. Neither Hasbro nor Takaratomy are in the business of giving away money. Hasbro had 2 requirements: make it 17.7"/45cm tall, make it come in under X budget. What's wrong with that? That's the business end of things, without the business end we'd have a single wave of great toys and then no more toys at all because it wouldn't be profitable to do so.

Every part not only costs more on its own but requires assembly, assembly costs quite a bit of money. And we're not talking about a little Deluxe figure here, we're talking about a massive Titan with significantly more expensive shipping costs that has to be sent nearly halfway around the world to get to Hasbro's hands, of course they're going to be more limited at the budget than Takara who only has to ship it across the East China Sea, 900 miles as opposed to 6500 miles to the port of LA. And even with that, it's not like Takara included all those fold-out parts that are partsformed-on with the Hasbro release, they also recognized that they have a budget to meet, they just have more leeway due to a favorable local audience and less impact from shipping.

 

No one is saying they should throw away money and forgo profits, but weapons are non-hinged and probably no assembly parts beyond popping them off the sprues. How many parts would weapons would taken? 1 per constructicon and maybe a larger gun for Devs himself unless you worked in a clever combining weapon design, so call it 10 tops assuming you had to assemble the weapon for Devvy. He had a transformation nailed down within their limit except for weapons, he nailed it!
"Still, at first due to making 6 (figures) and being at the limit, there was no spare room for making weapon parts."

So for the sake of staying in under their inflexibly set budget/part count, we lost out on what could have been a no partsforming transformation, which is always more impressive and appreciated due to the innovation of the engineering. Maybe the kids that is Hasbro's bread and butter don't care, but us adult fans do. And one day some of those kids, who frequent whatever the future's form of TFW2005 will be, will talk about how clever and awesome that Devvy they had as a kid was and appreciate the difference as well.

So did Hasui go to the Hasbro team and go, hey look I got this clever idea but we need to spend like a dollar more per unit and get shot down? Or maybe from previous experience he knew how obsessed they were with their budget figures and didn't even try. Call me crazy if I assume that businesses should always allow a little extra room in the budget in case things go unexpectedly, either because something goes wrong, or there's an opportunity for significant improvement at a reasonable cost.

Budget is important, it's always important, god knows Hastak doesn't make toys because they love us or think it'd be a great way to spend some time, but for budget to be explicitly called out as priority #1? It's not like Yuki sat there and thought, well shipping is so much cheaper between China vs the US (which it isn't by much on scale) and we think we'll sell more of them in our local market than Hasbro will in a much larger market (which I'd also say isn't something definitely or even strongly supported), so we can afford to blow the extra dollar or two on guns, paint, elbow joints and visors. Got no hard numbers on Hasbro vs TT production numbers, but I'm inclined to think that Hasbro produces in larger numbers than TT, and at some point cost per unit drops due to that scale, might even drop enough that the Hasbro per unit cost was close to or even below the TT per unit cost.

But that's all up in the air as none of us have hard stats. Point is that TT set a projected budget and profit margin for UW Devs and handed that to Yuki as he was put in charge of the Japanese design specs. Doesn't necessarily mean he made the final call on costs as he's a designer, not an accountant. But even if had the final say on costs in Japan, he talked to Hasui and saw how some simple ideas could add value to the toy at what was surely a reasonable cost, even added a couple changes of his own. Then he either approved the increased cost, or pushed the budget people to give him some flexibility by giving up a smidge of profit. If TT had the same budget first and foremost attitude, they'd say "screw your idea, we can make an extra 150 yen per unit". as the translation says "Generally speaking for the foreign version, achieving the internal costs was number one".

remember the question was:
In regards to the domestic version, there were some requested points from you (Hasui), ".

answer says "in the beginning he(Yuki) listened to/asked my opinions." So Hasui laid out what was going on with his Hasbro commissioned design, Yuki thought hrrm, I think we can work in those extra gimmicks, and pushed for the project to be done that way. Budget still a priority, attitude different, better weapons, extra joints, a spiffy visor and we look on in envy. Hell I, or others, would've have paid $5 -10 extra for the stuff in the UW version... Some nuts (including me) are considering importing that thing for a way bigger up price than $5-10, why wouldn't Hasbro say, "that's a great idea Shogo, it'll cost a bit more but maybe we'll retail at $160, give you the extra room to make the better toy, and we'll make an extra couple dollars". Sure, us adult collectors are kinda crazy, but think there's a lot of parents out there thinking "well I'll pay $150 plus tax to get a toy for my kid, but $160? oh now that's just crazy talk". Hasui's design was super doable, he met their part limit with just the cons, all he needed was a bit more just for weapons. No joints, at most snap together assembly, freaking weapons, instead he went back and reworked the transformation to make partsforming weapons.

Two toy companies, producing basically the same product, both looking to make a strong profit, one being more inflexible on budget than the other. Opportunity to make an impressive toy more impressive by a noticeable amount with an all inclusive combination/transformation gone because this was Hasbro's project to start with, so Hasui needed to meet their specs first. TT likely couldn't have produced his original design with UW as it probably would have affected the entire arm transformation scheme from the finished product/molds used for CW. So I'm mourning the lost opportunity here, because like most people commenting, I'll agree that this is the closest we'll get to a TT MP Devastator for a long time, and the design was actually that much better before the budget axe, not scalpel, cut in.

 

What does that mean? which Prowl and Soundwave toys are we talking about?