I wouldn't as there are clearly severe QC and material issues with this figure. I wouldn't waste 150+ bucks on this turd. At least wait for a reissue (they might or might not fix those crippling flaws)

It's your money tho.

 

A little late to the party (had 40+ pages to catch up in this thread alone!) but got my Hound and everything seems fine with him! No parts broken right out of the box. No cracked hinges. No stress marks. Not even any noticeable paint blemishes! Stamped I2619 on the figure for those keeping track. The transformation went smoothly although, as noted by others, getting the jerry-can and machine gun to properly fold up into the foot took a few tries and even then the foot panels are a little gappy. The scariest part for me was getting the shoulders to clip over that little ridge. Took a lot of force (to the point I was almost certain I was doing something wrong) and I might trim them down a bit as others have done. I was never too fussed about the neck gap, and it didn't bother me in hand either, but a tip many pages ago (I think it was @Soundwave3k?) to push up on the windshield just a bit (and thus slightly change the angle of the armature) closed what little gap there was quite nicely.

The only bummer is that I broke the flip-out swim mask the very first time I folded it out of the helmet....   Am I the first to report this happening? I flipped it out and thought it looked like it needed to go a little out further to clear the face so I gave it a light pull and it snapped off in my fingers. I accept the blame for the breakage, but as someone else described many pages back, it was like breaking off part of a chocolate bar. There was no "snap" and I applied very little pressure. I'd have probably only flipped the mask down once to give it a try then flipped it back into the helmet and never used it again, but it's still a little disappointing... That said, if anyone has a broken Hound that they're parting out, please let me know.

Overall though, I've very satisfied with Hound! The mold looks great in both modes. My dad had a couple of Jeeps from Hound's era when I was a kid so seeing the mostly accurate alt-mode makes me very happy. The flat paint job definitely gives him a more military vehicle vibe. I'd love a little chrome on the winch assembly, the fender-mounted rear-view mirrors, and the machine gun, but aside from that I love the rest of the deco. I'm not a huge fan of the overly toon-ified designs that we're getting these days, but Hound seems like a good middle ground. I was really annoyed by the grey ankle nubs at first since they're supposed to represent the back tires, but they're just generic grey circles (as opposed to looking like actual shrunken tires) so I can accept them as random robot kibble. I think my only aesthetic complaint is the panel lines in the back tires that allow them to fold. I appreciate what that does for the transformation (allowing the tires/wheels to hide in the legs) but in alt-mode it's really distracting to my eyes. Luckily my MP's spend most of their time in bot-mode, so it won't be much of an issue.   I've been a bit disappointed by the overly complex (in my opinion) transformations we've gotten on the last couple of bots (I skip the beast MP's and skipped MP-45 too, but MP-44 and 36 will probably never be transformed again and MP-39 was really pushing it for me) but again, Hound makes a good compromise: complex enough to be interesting, but not overly difficult. I know everyone has different thoughts on this, but I don't need my transformers to be a near-impossible puzzle.

Just one last thought: how hard would it be for TakaraTomy to provide digital instructions in English??? And in other languages for that matter? I don't need them to include a separate instruction sheet in my language, and I do pretty good with the Japanese instructions, but a digital copy that described the steps in English would be immensely helpful.

 

I'm waiting

 

contacted amazon jp customer support and they said mine would ship out today and i will still get it by wednesday but i will believe it when it arrives lol, i ordered it on the 1st.

 

I mean you should, its most likely a glut(don't get to use that word too much anymore ) of returns that were set to go out. I think this may be the 2nd batch they get a couple of days after release, which may be why they decided to wait.

 

Stop motion!

 

I finally transformed mine a week after I received it. I took my time and used the instructions as well as Wotafa’s YouTube videos as usual. I love the size and look of both modes and the transformation is incredible. The Jeep gun is a pain to transform while installed on mine because the attachment point is really loose. Also the feet are a bit gappy with the accessories inside but it looks ok to me. Other than that I think it’s a brilliant design.

Overall I think I got an ok copy all things considered. The paint is almost perfect on mine with only a few tiny blemishes. The faces are great except for a tiny blemish on the mouth of the screaming face. At first I thought the paint wasn’t rubbing off behind the knee joints but I bent the knees quite a bit as a test and it did eventually start to rub off. I don’t see how that could be avoided and it’s in a pretty well hidden spot so it doesn’t bother me.

A few of the transformation joints are extremely tight. The door hinges like most people and the folding tires on mine were very hard to transform. There appears to be some flash on the tires which was preventing them from folding so I trimmed it. Not sure how common that is.

I cannot believe the original version of the instructions omitted the step where you unlock the seat bottoms, doors and the shoulder launcher before folding the front half of the Jeep. At least they added that to the supplemental instructions but they should have fixed the actual instruction sheet. On mine if you tab the seat bottoms all the way it puts quite a bit of stress on the tight door hinges. I partially tab them to avoid the stress and it looks fine like that. I’m wondering if that’s why so many door hinges were cracked from the factory.

I was really hoping to say I managed to transform it without any cracks on the hinges but after a few of you posted that small crack behind the left knee I checked this morning and mine is cracked on the same hinge. Its a very tiny crack and either I didn’t see it while transforming or it happened later on the shelf. It’s still working as of now but I’m planning to shave down the plastic to get rid of the interference and reduce the stress on those hinges. Takara was going for a very flush and clean leg assembly and probably thought the plastic could handle the bending. Apparently it can’t.

My opinion is that Takara have some brilliant ideas for transformations and their sculpts are very good for the most part. Where I think the problems are coming from is that they’re trying to make posing (Prime V3 knee design) and transformation more intuitive by having hinges only bend one way. This can help you to figure out which way to bend a part but if you try and bend a part the wrong way it can in some cases break the figure which is not helpful at all, obviously. I’m wondering if they should just allow the hinges to be bent in either direction to stop accidents from happening. Also I think some gimmicks like the opening doors on Bumblebee V2 and the gun storage on Hound are making the figures worse. Ugly feet in Bee’s case and a fragile feeling leg assembly in Hounds case.

On Hound the plastic feels the same to me as other MPs. I think the matte paint may be making it feel cheaper. So I think it’s the same type of ABS. But there have been a lot of cracked hinges so I agree that there may be something wrong with the plastic. I’m thinking the plastic pellets weren’t properly dried before moulding or something similar. That can really make the material more brittle.

I really like the design of Hound and overall I think it’s a brilliant figure. But it’s really unfortunate that there are so many people with quality issues and it’s really wrecked his release. I recommend for everyone that had issues to write a review with pictures on Amazon Japan. I think you can write a review for a product even if you didn’t buy it there but I’m not sure. I plan to do that myself. I haven’t given up on the MP line yet but I want Takara to know that they really need to stay on top of their build quality.

Paint looks great to me:



I like this larger Hasselhoff....err.....Spike figure and he’s pretty poseable.



Left leg has a hairline crack in the hinge on the rear panel. It’s the only crack I’ve found so far. I plan to try and shave some plastic off the panel to take the stress off the hinge and then I may try to glue it. I don’t plan to try and exchange the figure because everything else seems good and I don’t want to risk getting one with more issues. If this copy gets worse soon I’ll try to exchange it. This hinge is still working so far.



No crack on the right leg but you can see some wear happening because there isn’t enough clearance. I plan to shave the circled part as well as the edge on the opposite side for both legs.

 

Phew, just finished carefully transforming my Hound for the first time without any breakage. Gotta say, while the transformation is mostly intuitive, the plastic quality and the complexity remind me of playing with a Badcube figure. I left out the spare tire transformation since the foot cover couldn't fold completely flush without stressing the plastic. Also, flipping the shoulder took way too much effort to clear the blocking wheelwell piece. Comparing to X- transbot Sea Spray that I just played with, MP-47 is just not as fun to handle due to fear of breakage. I give it a 7/10, for the clever engineering and cartoon faithfulness, but lack of plastic sturdiness. Was it worth upgrading over FT Willis? I'd say no, but it's worth having if this is the first MP hound you are looking for.



Lastly, can the hologram gun be stored anywhere in the alt mode?

 

The hologram gun splits in two and stores in the sides of his shins. They can remain there for transformation too!

 

Really? Splits in two? I haven’t broken him down yet so this is news to me.

 

Yep. And that part actually is in the instructions!

 

“Instructions? We don’t need no stinking instructions.”

 

My retailer is letting me return my copy for a refund/credit towards future purchase. Initially he was just going for the exchange but I'm not feeling it. Don't want to risk a new figure with the more issues, then going through the process again. Kudos to the retailer for working with me on this.

 

breaks toy
HOUND IS TRASH
BOYCOTT HASTAK

 

IMO wait for the reissue...going forward, I’m only going to buy reissues as there might be a possibility that TT may fix any QC issues.

 

It does!

 

Yup! When I first got mine, I noticed the barrel of the gun was a little wiggly and could be pulled off. I thought they just forgot to glue it together until I got to the gun storage part of the instructions. That’s how it’s stored, and there’s even a photo on the box showing him taking the separate parts out of his legs.  

 

That's what I'm doing too, they've applied fixes for rereleases before. Not a fan of them using 1st-adopters as guinea pigs for their qc.

And to those of you who had breakages and qc issues, thanks for bringing them to light. It's the 1st step that we as a community, take to try to identify the issues and what causes them in an effort to somehow resolve them if possible. And if some of the unbroken copies end up breaking later, by that time, hopefully there will be enough fixes posted so that you'd be able to fix your figure.

 

Thanks gents!

 

Has anyone figured out a secret to getting the foot to close tightly with the spare tire inside of it? No matter what I do I get a gap...