Starscream actually ended up being cheaper than I was expecting so I’m happy with the price. Are you ordering directly from Japan? That will save you significant money. There is normally a 30% preorder discount which is quite a bit.

 

I did not. That's really solid advice, but I'm a little bit leery of pre-ordering anything given a lot of the recent QC issues. I wanted to hear that the mold was quality before investing ina seeker that pricey. Even with the fees that you pay to the PO when you pick it up, it still ends up saving you a significant amount? I was worried that, unlike a lot of Chinese sites, a large Japenese retailer that's shipping overseas was going to mark the full price as a value and eat up a lot of the savings by increasing the duties owed on it at pickup.

 

Not to America. The Japanese sellers like Amazon Japan is life saver if you’re trying to save cash or double up on a figure. Domestic retail is cool for 3P, but when it comes to Masterpiece, AJ is a great place to start.

As or right now, for example, TFSource has Starscream at $264.99. AJ has him at 22,005¥/$211.65. Tack on a little shipping and you still come out on top.

As far as QC goes, we’re a few releases beyond the Hound fiasco. No release will ever be 100% QC free, so you may as well take advantage of the discounts. Return options are also available.

 

Who cares what this site called it? This site isn’t called Takara Tomy last I checked. And TT nev referred to it as 2.0. By this dumb logic your name is now Spot. Why? Because I said so on this very site...

 

So where do you guys go to order when it’s a mall exclusive? Is it kinda just the same price everywhere and doesn’t matter? Is it not available everywhere?

 

It’s exclusive to TT Mall, but I’ve seen some Japanese etailers have them available later with none of their usual 30% discount.
You can order direct from TT Mall, but you’ll need a forwarding service that sucks in Japan since TT Mall only ships to Japanese addresses. I can’t remember the name of the one I used when I order MP11Skywarp from TT Mall. But they’re easy enough to use although will add additional cost.

Edited to include the question being responded to avoid any confusion. The post above has nothing to do with MP52 version of Thundercracker. We currently do not know how MP TC will be released.

 

Amazon Japan will sometimes slash the price on an existing MP randomly. This thread reminded me to check it out and Amz JP has MP Tigatron for 52% off. Shipped to us for less than $150.

 

Another reason many of us use Amazon Japan is because of their awesome return policy. They pay for shipping and refund the figure 100% within 30 days. In my case I only used it once for Hound. It was two months after release but they let me return it anyway for a 100% refund. They did say that I was only allowed to do that the one time. Normally it’s 30 days max. Other sites can charge shipping for returns which is expensive to Japan.

Speaking of shipping AJ also uses lightning fast DHL and I normally get my figure by Tuesday after the release Saturday. For Arcee a lot of us had it by Monday.

And as @WeVoCoN said, if there are still figures in stock after release day they sometimes increase the discount even more than 30%.

 

...so it means it won't be coming to the likes of AE and AmiAmi etc at discounted prices?

 

What was the point of the MP52 stand being able to connect to others when this guy doesn't even have one

 

Takara:


(Could be worse. I mean the stands they want you to share for you collection come in MP Dinobot and Starscream off all figures).

 

So that you can use the stand of Starscream for Thundercracker...

 

I’m hoping by not including the stand and some other accessories, TC will be cheaper than SS. It’ll be more affordable for my budget, so I’d be happy with the trade off to not have the stand.

Correct.
If it does in fact end up being a TT Mall Exclusive. I don’t think we actually know for 100% certainty at this point.

 

Those rear vertical tail fins need some details like a drawing or something, like some jets have.

 

They should really sell the stand as a separate accessory if they don't want to include it with the figure. People might end up with six seekers based on this mold, it's ridiculous that only one at a time can be displayed in a flight pose in alt mode.

 

If this does end up as a TTM exclusive, could the price be the same as SS? Even with less accessories.

 

Unfortunately, yes. TT Mall exclusives don't get discounts and since they can only be bought in Japan, you'll have to use one of those special shipping companies with a Japanese address, so that your order gets delivered there and they then ship it to you. Or you can buy it from a local dealer perhaps, who had to go through a similar process himself, so then it's just as expensive. Lets just hope it's not a TT Mall exclusive.

 

Were there any MP+ figures that weren't Mall exclusives? I honestly can't remember to save my life, haha.

 

I know   a man can dream can't he lol

 

Guess i'll be hunting for stands after SS comes out