Haha thanks man! Definitely on the first two, and also sure why not for the next three  

 

That. Looks. AWESOME!!!

Thanks so much for putting time into those, @chchchch! Your work continues to impress. I do hope TT makes a version like this.

 

Thank you sir!!! I'll keep doing it for as long as people enjoy them!   But yeah, I think a fierce looking little guy like this would be a really cool contrast to the cute regular release!

 

I rather like Bobby Skullface, he's not the most comprehensive or 'proffessional' reviewer but he is unsponsored and will tell you what he thinks rather than what he's told to think or refuse to comment. Of course it helps that we often see eye to eye and have similar preferances when it comes to Transformers figures...and in this case it's no different. He sums it up how I feel really well as "A huge swing and a miss". TT have made a good effort at a more anime MP Bee(which isn't to my taste anyway), it succeeds in a lot of ways...but it fails in just as many elsewhere.Personally I think it's objectively no better than MP-21 and subjectively I find it worse. However like BSF also says, if you like it you win.....the same is also true of his content, no one's forcing you to watch it or agree with his conclusions least of all BSF  

 

Really awesome work as always. You've even included that the forearm panels that become the roof would need to be yellow on one side and black on the other, with that bit of yellow just visible in robot mode. I love that attention to detail.  

 

Good memory? Lol. Or you know just use google.  

Delicious.

 

Megs ver 1.0 was MP05..not MP04. MP04 was somebody else. Lmao. I forget..

 

Maaan, that looks tight! And the crazy thing is, your digi makes the FEET look like a design element.

I wonder when Takara is gonna start doing more + repaints (although, as far as I can tell, this guy isn’t as likely as a chromed out Hound or V3 Prime).

 

I’m shocked you don’t like this.

 

MP-04 was V1 Prime with his trailer .

 

Yeah yeah yeah cool, but please! Could you make Gl...

Oh, alright. Yeah, what that man said.

3 was Magnus right? 2 was the original green Starscream. Unless they’re switched. They were real early though.

 

I win!

 

Ah thanks for the memory jog.  

 

2 is Magnus, 3 is Greenscream

 

Yeah - i think the modes and particularly the size makes the gaps / backpack much more forgivable than i found mp44 / others (even though mp45 is worse for these issues).

Also know what you mean with UT Challenger engineering which employed magic to basically flip inside out - very clever (though v poor qc, but thats a discussion for another forum). TE do a very clean in both modes, backpack free optimus (which, even ignoring price, but including the 2nd head, i much, much preferred to mp44 - maybe not a popular opinion on an official thread) but this engineering did come at the price of some articulation which was not liked by some, and maybe some rounding on the scupt. I also seriously rate the engineering on FT roadking and quietus for their mass shifting antics (again though quietus did suffer in the waist articulation area for this).

So yes, i too would like to see 1 of these have a go....
However.... like you, at this tiny size i think its a pretty big ask for both modes to be clean, and an even bigger ask to do it without seriously sacrificing sculpt or articulation, and i think it might be more than a coincidence that all of the examples i note are bigger than mp10 size. Things move on though, and maybe in a couple of years, who knows. Until then, mp45 makes me smile.

 

You win some, you lose some  

 

For anyone needing a refresher, head to the TT MP site: トランスフォーマー マスターピース｜トランスフォーマーオフィシャルサイト｜タカラトミー

 

Screw it! I'll judge the figure when I get him in hand!

My deposit is down  

 

As some of you may have gleaned from recent images I’ve posted, I’ve had this guy in hand for nearly two weeks now. I’ve had a pretty rough year (no violins, don’t worry) and was looking forward to MP-45 coming in early October as the light at the end of the tunnel, so when it was delayed, I took to the Internet to see if I could find anyone selling one of the pre-production copies knocking around at a decent price. I got lucky, managing to snag one that is boxed and has all of the faces, accessories and instructions. (I hasten to add that Takara is still getting just as much money out of me as I’ve kept all of my preorders - I have more than one ordered - and will now get a final, hopefully more pristine, copy for Christmas.)

Anyway, I thought I’d share my thoughts on this little chap for what they’re worth. I wanted to wait until I’d had him in hand a bit so that I could give more than first impressions. This will be a bit long-winded with lots of pictures, because it’s a figure I’ve been looking forward to.

The TLDR Summary

In a nutshell: if, like me, you like the way this figure looks in pictures and can forgive the backpack, you’ll love it in hand. If you don’t like the way it looks in pictures, I don’t think having it in hand is going to change your mind.

Personally, I love this figure, but I recognise its flaws are very real and that some may not care enough about the character or cartoon design to get beyond them - and that’s fair enough. There is no denying the backpack is a mess. However, he really does capture G1 Bumblebee near-perfectly (from the front   ), and he is a lot of fun to handle and transform.

More detailed thoughts, and pictures, below.


Accessories

Okay, let’s be honest, the accessories are pretty pathetic in terms of what you get, especially when you put the plastic tray against Ironhide’s or Ratchet’s. I love how we get multiple facial expressions these days, but beyond that, Takara really provided the bare minimum here. The lack of energon conductors seems a strange omission especially, but there were so many other accessories that were possible too. What about the jetpack from Dinobot Island? Or the lab coat, or a wrist communicator etc? At the very least, why not provide the season 2 gun (the one MP-21 used) as well as the season 1 gun? (MP-45 can sort of hold MP-21’s gun, but only very limply and loosely.)



For the price they are asking, when you first open the box it does seem a little barren - a desert of clear plastic tray with a tiny oasis of Bumblebee and accessories bang splat in the middle. Ah well.



I wish they’d included the same-sized Spike that is coming with Hound, as I think he is going to scale much better with Bumblebee in robot mode (obviously he won’t fit inside, but that gimmick is implemented a little awkwardly anyway - see below). I suppose they were saving that for Hound’s release, but they could have varied them by having one with the helmet and one without, just like they’ve done with the tiny Spikes for MP-44 and 45. All the same, it is nice to have Bumblebee and Spike together.



Still, the “I heart NY” licence plate is fun (I haven’t noticed this causing scratching like BSF described, but I’ve only tried it once) and it’s nice to have a blast effect for the gun.

Just like with BSF’s copy, though, I cannot get the gun to fit under the vehicle in a way that allows the car to roll. There are two slots in the inner thighs into which you are supposed to insert tabs on the side of the gun handle, so that the gun can be stored under the car. But when you do this, it just pushes the wheels up off the ground like a jack. As I say, I have the instructions, so I’m not missing anything here (and BSF was trying to insert the gun correctly in his review). Hopefully this is just an issue on these early copies, as it would be pretty sloppy for this feature to be completely unusable in the final release.


Alt Mode

I *love* the alt mode. It just oozes character, beautifully capturing Bumblebee’s chibi Beetle mode in the cartoons, as based on his G1 toy. It’s just so damned cute. And tiny. Even though I knew it was going to be tiny from pictures and early reviews, I still wasn’t quite prepared for just how small it is.



My only issue with the alt mode is that it is a little gappy. But then, mine is a pre-production model (or possibly even a factory reject, I don’t know), so it’s possible this is just an issue with mine - BSF’s copy seemed much tighter. Also, although mine rolls, one of the front wheels doesn’t quite touch the floor. No other reviewer seems to have this problem, though, so I think it’s just mine.

It took me a while to fit Spike in the car, until I double-checked the instructions and realised that the fronts of Bumbebee’s thighs are not supposed to sit up like seats as you might expect but instead fold back on themselves. It’s still a little awkward to get Spike in there, as you have to close the feet and roof around him without him falling out in the process (you can’t get him in through the doors but have to pull apart the front of the vehicle and lift up the roof), and he does look a little crushed inside, but it works, I suppose.



Opening the doors is a bit awkward, too, because you have to pull them away from the frame before you can open them, which requires you to pull the hood apart to allow room for pulling out the door.

So, all in all, the gimmicks are a little sub-par - some might even say pointless - but the alt mode is just so fun to look at that I don’t really care. I rarely use the gimmicks anyway, and they do the job if you just want to pose him on the shelf with Spike standing by an open door.


Transformation

The transformation is a lot of fun, but as with many MPs, you need to give it a few run-throughs before it becomes fun. It seems a bit complicated and messy on first try (or at least it did to me), but after two or three goes it becomes hugely enjoyable and satisfying.

The only point of annoyance during the transformation is the arms. It’s easy enough - once you get the hang of it - to get them under the roof (which seems awkward at first), but I find it very difficult to get them to push down low enough, so that it becomes hard to push the roof down and so the arm flaps that form part of the roof always stick out a little. I know I have the arms transformed correctly, too, because it is clear in the instructions. They actually sit better if you rotate the shoulders the *opposite* way to the instructions, but then they rub agains the crotch too much and so you will get paint rubbing (when transformed the right way, there is a little cutout in the shoulders to avoid rubbing the crotch - there’s a lot of crotch rubbing in this paragraph, isn’t there?).

My only other issue with the transformation, at least on my first go, is just how unsatisfying it is to end up with that backpack. One of the joys of MPs is the ingenious and complex transformations that somehow end up with a fairly clean robot mode - sure, many others have backpacks, but they look tidy. Here you fold a lot of stuff up and it just continues to look like a lot of folded-up stuff on his back. That does detract from the fun a little, at least at first. I’m over it now though and can just enjoy the transformation for what it is.

That said, the foot and leg transformation is pure “Masterpiece Moment” (to use @Maz’s coinage, I believe).

Interesting fact: the instructions completely miss that you can move the front bumper down in robot mode, and show it pointing up in the fully-transformed drawing. (So @DeanML, you have to forgive those who miss this step!   )


Robot Mode

Robot mode is just pure G1 Bumblebee (again, from the front   ).



The proportions are spot on (aside from the arms being a little short), the yellow is perfect (no more weird orange), and he looks great next to his other Autobots on the shelf, really bringing the team to life.



Articulation is great, and he can even sit down despite the protruding rear of his feet.



The only area that is a bit limited is his waist - it turns a little (not much), but if you try to turn it any further, the backpack gets in the way and the mushroom peg holding his torso and pelvis together pops out and you get a Bay Jazz/ MPM-09 torn-in-half moment, which is a moment I never want reminding of.



I’m not generally a fan of fake parts (although I don’t mind when it’s subtle, like with MP-10’s grill or the way MP-44 uses the windows but just turns them around), so initially I did find the extent of the fake parts on this figure a little disappointing, even though I knew all along that’s just how it was. It almost feels as though you have a cartoon-accurate robot and car but that they have very little to do with each other except for the feet, whereas part of the joy of Transformers for me has always been the way the alt mode parts show up in robot mode. But you just have to accept that the design goals of this line is full toon accuracy, and I have long-wanted a cartoon-accurate Bumblebee so I soon got over these initial reservations.



I don’t find the rear of the feet an issue, and the backpack is pretty small in-hand - but as I’ve already said, it is undeniably a mess, and probably the messiest part of any MP to date.

Ultimately, however, he’s the personification of G1 Bumblebee and a helluva lot of fun to handle, which for me trumps all of these little niggles.


Face Sculpt

The stoic face sculpt looks wildly different in many photos, sometimes seeming perfectly to capture Bumblebee’s likeness, at other times seeming weirdly off. In-hand, it’s much the same. It looks absolutely perfect in most lights, but not so good in others. I think the main issue is just that the white is quite reflective so in some lights, without enough shadow, the features of the nose get lost. The etched lines aren’t ideal - I’d rather it use planes like the LG Bumblebee - but I do understand why they went with this option, to avoid making the face too flat in profile.

These are nitpicks, though - over all the face sculpt is spot-on and really evokes the character. It’s easily the best G1 Bumblebee face sculpt we have, and MP-21’s face looks like a blobby horror next to it. The stoic face is easily my favourite of the three.







The smiling face is a little odd: the eyes are, for some bizarre reason, significantly larger than on the other faces, and from a lot of angles it looks less like a grin and more like he has his mouth wide open. It also looks a bit like he’s gone crazy, because whose eyes get *wider* when they grin?  





The open-mouthed face is pretty nice, great for reliving the many “Oh crap I’m captured again” moments of the cartoon, although I’ll mainly be using the stoic face.



I did make a couple of minor adjustments to the faces on mine. I added a little paint to the mouth of the stoic face because out of the box it was only half-painted (again: sample/reject). I used a very fine brush and this minor change helped a lot. I also had to shave down the backs of two of the faces, because without that they protruded from the helmet too much, like we’ve seen in many of the toy show shots.




Issues

Like BSF’s copy, mine has rather loose hips - a little like how one of Sunstreaker’s hips was loose on a lot of copies. This doesn’t affect anything, though - he stands and poses perfectly fine. But if you pick him up, the legs move a few millimetres.

Paint chips: although this is a preproduction sample, I can see this being an issue on final copies too. The two problem areas are the top of his chest and the front of his crotch. This is because the top of his chest forms the rear of the car and part of his backpack has to push down enclosing it. When trying to squeeze it all together, the top side edges of the chest can get rubbed and chipped. As for the crotch, the front of the crotch protrudes (ooer missus) and the shoulders press against it - again it’s a problem of pushing the rear of the car together. However, I did get the shoulders in the wrong place the first couple of times I transformed it, which may well have been the problem here. You probably just need to be careful.

At first the quality did feel a bit 3P to me - but then this is a pre-production sample or may even be a factory reject, and it may also be in comparison to Prime, which came just before and was so premium. But the yellow plastic felt a little sub-par, and folding in the wheel arches was a bit scary as there are all these hinges that rely on clear plastic, and the wheel arches don’t have enough clearance from the chest so you have to sort of pull them around (a bit like a BadCube design), and the clear plastic was creaking on one of them. The creaking has stopped with a bit of use and this has become easier, though, so this was really just a first impression and nothing more. I no longer feel the quality is lacking; he feels solid.

Over the course of a few transformations, the hinge attaching the circle piece to the backpack has loosened and so it tends to flop backwards.



Over all, I just wish they had found a better way of doing the backpack. I don’t care that it’s large, I just wish it was less messy. There’s some incredible stuff going on, though, and you see the problem they faced in getting this alt mode to that robot - I mean, just look at how much robot is coming out of such a tiny car in this part-transformed shot:




Jerry Springer’s Final Thoughts

I’m aware that a lot of the above seems quite critical for a figure I actually love! But I think it’s helpful going in knowing about the negative aspects of the figure, because then you’ll take him out of the box, realise these issues aren’t really a big deal at all, and so enjoy him all the more (I hope).  

Along with Jazz, Bumblebee is my favourite G1 Transformer, and a cartoon-accurate Bumblebee has long been my Holy Grail. I loved MP-21, but he always felt off in so many ways. I don’t think MP-45 is quite the final word - maybe one day they will figure out a way of improving that backpack and really nail the face from all angles - but he’s pretty damn close. For me he beats MP-21 in every way - colour, face sculpt, proportions, articulation. Side-by-side, MP-21 now looks blocky and short-legged. MP-45 is so much fun that he has been sitting on my desk for the past two weeks and transformed dozens of times, and I think he’s going to be there for a long time to come.



Over all, then, with the price point, lack of accessories and messy backpack it could be considered a little lacklustre when placed in the context of such a flagship character coming hot on the heels of the huge MP-44. Taken on its own terms, though, it’s a really fun figure with a cute alt mode which, even if it doesn’t hit *all* the right notes, definite hits the right notes of nostalgia. This is G1 Bumblebee.