They screamed holy h@ll about Inferno too.

Then again to this day there are still people who dont understand why newer mps are more expensive than the older ones.

 

Inferno and Grapple strike me as being able to do both. To me MP-36 Megs was the first to truly go 'Full Toon'. My plan for Inferno and Grapple is to keep the more detailed chests on since S2 is better represented in the old MP-9/MP-10 style. I almost prefer Skids to be a return to that aesthetic as well.

I plan on getting Raiden, whatever direction they decide to go in. Either combiners or Headmasters to follow would be cool. Though if they do Headmasters, I hope they provide options for both Headmasters and Rebirth heads.

 

I’m definitely expecting people to be very defensive of whichever scale isn’t adopted by Takara.

 

I'm personally hoping Raiden hits that Zeta scale at around 50-55cm.

Aside from that, seeing the allusions to CW Devy make me hope that Takara doesn't cheap out by going the Zeta Superion route by making the individual bots on the lines of parts of a single figure. I personally want each trainbot to feel like something I could get individually, not as something solely as a collective.

 

Armada Prime doesn't agree.

 

Come again? Literally every G1 Masterpiece they've ever made with the exception of Hot Rod, Shockwave, Star Saber and Arcee are rooted in Diaclone or Microchange. The provenance of the characters they choose to make is of central importance. It's why the Masterpiece line exists, to do ultimate versions of the toys that started the brand.

Armada Prime was a concept piece they showed off with no fanfare purely to gauge interest. Totally different from the public announcement complete with details about licensing partners that was the Raiden reveal.

 

But provenance is not central importance, not now and really never was. My point is that the connection to say Diaclone is secondary and more coincidence than being a driving force for what MPs they choose to do and why. Because, yes, Raiden original toy is rooted in Diaclone, but so is literally everyone else pre-86, so that's probably not why they choose to make him first. The decision on what MP Takara does next and why seems to always be based on other factors, in this case it was likely because of the nature of this project, with Raiden being done really only because he's made up of a bunch of different trains to go along with that said project, and not really because of who or how important he is or where his toy came from.

 

So you're saying Takara wanted to make a MP train combiner, and they chose Raiden because he's a train combiner.

 

Most likely, yes, that's all there really is to it.

 

I would say a physical model displayed at a toy show is several steps further than a shadow outline drawing.

Also, let's not mistake ''no current price point to release it at'' with ''made it just to gauge interest.''

 

It would be funny if the Raiden Project has never been about an actual figure......

 

Speaking only for myself, I'd accept that if only we finally learned what it WAS about.

 

If they had made Armada Prime with the intent to release it, they would have made sure it fit into an existing price point from the get-go. What we saw was a concept piece that was never intended to be released. It was put out there for the reactions. Strong positive reaction and it would get up-engineered to either Commander class or Masterpiece. Middling reaction and it would get down-engineered to Voyager or whatever. Indifference and it would just disappear. Since I'm sure we agree it was not met with indifference, we can assume it's getting retooled for an eventual release somewhere, but almost certainly not as the exact sculpt we saw.

 

Yep, Ironhide was certainly the start of what was to come. I think, however, some folks were a little less concerned because they were happy he had a proper head and didn't look like this:


But, yeah, certainly the start of the flat panels era.

 

I think the easiest answer to "what happened to Raiden" is COVID happened.

He's still going to come out someday, but plans likely changed. Hence why we've got two guys in Starscream and Skids who have *heavy* repaint potential.

 

Bandai had a hiccup too when Covid first happened. Everyone did, but then they returned to business pretty quick.

I don't think anyone's expecting Raiden to be released last year, but they couldn't even release a render? It's that serious eh, this disease ....

 

Well they haven't stopped business all together or anything, but in regards to Raiden, Takara seems to have a specific audience and a time table in mind for him. The plan from Takara seems to be to reveal info about this project around all of the big toy and train shows in Japan, but a lot of those shows were postponed or out right cancelled this past year which is why I think we haven't heard any news about the project since the reveal.

 

Proof that Takara only cares about the Japan market!!

 

Surely. Actually, Bandai too doesn't care about non-Japanese world, besides shipping useless half-assed megazord designs for Hasbro to make them even worse.....

 

Tracks was the first.

Sunstreaker was just the first of the cars to get the "MP 2.0" design treatment, following MP-36 Megatron, with the hyper-articulated design platform and higher budget ceiling.

Ironhide/Ratchet, Hot Rod, and Inferno/Grapple were sort of weird in-betweeners, somewhat bridging that gap, but not quite being in either school of design. No perfect vehicle and perfect robot mode, with full-on insane engineering to accommodate both, and no ridiculous articulation (but steadily getting better).