I guess we'll see with Tigatron, unlike G1 they front loaded BW with their heavy hitters right off the bat, it's hard to say if it's a good or bad thing yet. They may end up jumping all over, the survey questions made it seem they were already looking at other branches of BW. Just surprised, after the previous BW releases dried up pretty quick. Primal is like $200 now.,

 

Blackarachnia is still arguable 'top tear' but I'd agree that they have 'front loaded' the Beast Wars MP 'line' (although I'd argue they did the same with G1) and she is marginally less popular than the previous four (try telling that to the folks over at the Beast Wars Masterpiece Speculation thread!). Tigatron will test this theory for sure, which is why (and again this is a controversial point) I think they went with a Tigatron (who although a totally NEW mould) likely shares some R&D, CAD design work, MAYBE some transformation elements and MAYBE some slightly re-sculpted/designed 'upscaled parts' etc etc (PLEASE DON'T @ ME) with Cheetor, and therefore not be as much of a risk for them if he doesn't sell well.

My personal opinion is although it's entirely possible TT may eventually 'finish' season one of Beast Wars they are more likely to jump about a bit doing the big hitters across the entire franchise and maybe even go back to do new versions of older BW MPs from time to time. I know G1 and BW are difficult to compare due G1's extensive roster of show characters in comparison to BW's much more limited one but it's currently the only model we have. That started with heavy hitters and their repaints and it was a fair while before the dipped their toe into anything you might consider b-list, and before hitting the less popular characters considered 'essential' to 'finish' season 1/2 they've returned to redo previous releases a number of times.

 

*keystrokes*

But seriously, at the very least Tigatron requires entirely new moulds because of his size. Whatever paltry legwork was saved in CAD from the few identical robot parts he and Cheetor share, it’d all be eaten up by the slew of new pieces and size.

You don’t buffer against poor sales by making an entirely new figure, you do a Road Rage or a Targetmaster Hot Rodimus, something small and simple. If Tigatron was some attempt to minimize risk then he failed by virtue of the figure still being 100% unique tooling. It’s like saying Ultra Magnus’ R&D was cut down because he shares MP-10’s cab design.

No expense was spared on big cat, which is great of course. The issue with Blackarachnia is that- and I fucking love this figure -to anyone who’s not familiar with the show model and it’s impossible task of marrying her two modes into one figure, the spider mode compromises are too much. Compare to a G1 MP which usually have flawless alt modes at the expense of kibble-y robot modes. A robot still looks like a robot even with a backpack, but that spider ain’t a spider to the non-BW-savvy. We understand the bot mode was given priority given the impossibility of the transformation and importance of the character, but would the average Japanese TF fan realize that?

 

I’m definitely not BW savvy (never watched the show in fact, though I may rectify that soon), but for what it’s worth I still find Blackarachnia to be a pretty great figure. The spider mode isn’t great by any means but for it’s size I think it looks pretty good, though I may just have low standards. Just looking at it from a general TF fan perspective it’s still a really neat figure, but I’m not Japanese so maybe there’s some difference there.

 

I don't think they are buffering against poor sales just yet! I don't really buy that BA was a huge flop or anything, just maybe not as big a hit as previous releases. I think they are dipping their toe into more 'obscure' characters with Tigatron and agree with me or not (we've had this discussion and I have no appetite to have it again) I still believe and feel there's some grounds to believe it was less work/cheaper to create Tigatron than it would have been to do say Terrorsaur or Scoponok. Whatever new mould they decided to design they'd need new pieces, at least this one shares some elements with a previous one that can be transferred/repurposed. I don't disagree that a repaint would be cheaper but IMO Tigatron is towards the top end of the scale of expenditure between a straight repaint and a totally brand new and entirely different mould. More expensive than the former for sure but slightly cheaper than the latter. Again you don't have to agree with me, its not mandatory  

I'm also not suggesting that they cheaped out on Tigatron, I'm delighted that they went as far as they did in totally re-designing him (even it I'm not 100% on board with all those deign choices) and giving him the new mould he deserved to be considered a proper Masterpiece. You are right no expense was spared, but my personal believe is some money was saved by virtue of already having Cheetor under their belt.

 

What's making people think BA wasn't a success? She's sold out at Amazon Japan at least.

 

2ndary market prices?

 

Largely conjecture based on availability and price. You can still get her fairly easily at a reasonable prices, therefore she possibly wasn't a massive hit. It's hardly conclusive.

 

Fair enough. She does appear to be sold out in most Japanese online stores. But yeah, she can still be had for decent prices on the secondary market here in Japan.

 

I don't think she sold poorly, I just don't think she ended up as selling as impressively as previous BWMPs,based on her secondary prices. It may be a thing outside of the big 3 and probably Rhinox,Raptrao and Waspinator the rest of the cast need some help, they announce a Silverbolt or Tarantulus and her secondary price and demand shoots up.

 

She's far from a failure. I wouldn't be surprised if she suddenly dries up and her prices jack up like they have with Primal. She uses the same body for 3 seasons, is a fantastic companion piece to 2 other popular characters in the show, and she is one of the first breakout characters from the show. She's also popular enough to have gotten a KO on the market now too so I'm sure that has affected the price people may be willing to pay for an original.

 

Holy crap I didn’t realize primal’s price shot up that high.

 

Yup the theory is the recent announcement about a possible Beast Wars movie has reignited interest in the casual collector. They've come looking for Beast Wars figures found Primal and his price has rocketed due to demand... That's the theory anyway.

 

Show-accurate or not, the spider mode is real enough to creep me the fuck out...lol. If I ever get her, she’ll only be in spider mode ONCE.

 

I'm sure it's a factor, but it's more likely that his price went way up cuz it's the cartoon accurate release and he's not readily available anymore. How many people do you think passed on his retail release cuz they thought it was a on-off, that are now coming back around cuz it's clear the BWMP line isn't going anywhere? Casual fans sure aren't paying his current market price, besides I haven't seen MP-38 go up in price and if it was just casual collectors you'd likely be seeing his price go up too since it looks like the toy that a lot of those fans might have had growing up.

 

She arrived last night! But I have the early shift, so I won’t get to unbox her until later today. Pics on the way!

 

Got her into robot mode & that’s where she will stay forevermore. Not a fan of spiders!

Transformation was surprisingly straightforward. Some clever pieces in there. I think this is the first MP where I thought this was totally doable back in the 90s. We could’ve had an awesome season 1 Blackarachnia all these years!

Anyway, I just snapped a quick pic. No good lighting or anything.


Yep. That’s BA in the tv too. I didn’t even bother with the instructions. I just found a video on youtube showing how to transform her. The guy couldn’t stop giggling about her boobs though. This toy really brought out the kid in him again. The 14-year-old kid lol.



Robot mode is a 10/10.
Beast Mode is a “I’m glad it doesn’t look more real”/10.

 

Forgot to mention- love the card art.

 

I did it...I got her. AJ still had a few on discount and I figured now or never...lol. The DHL guy dropped her off a little bit ago. First things first...get her out of that fuggin’ spider mode (which actually isn’t as creepy in-hand as it looks in pictures...somehow). Still...she’s remaining in bot mode the rest of her life. And what a cute bot she makes! No issues with mine other than those ankle pivots being scary tight (the fore/aft rotational joints used to flip the feet into position during transformation). I actually trimmed a wee bit ‘o plastic from the rears of the black plastic ankle pieces to get them to rotate all the way into position. Now to stick her on the shelf and see if the wife notices...lol...

 

I hope I can get an OS version of her one day to be one of my center pieces