Instantly reminded me of the bit from the Black Widow movie…“That thing you do while you're fighting? This thing you do, you whip your hair when you're fighting with the arm and the hair. You flip your hair and do like a fighting pose. It's a fighting pose. You are such a poser!”

 

With all of us getting an MP-52, DS-01 or both. Does anyone have an old Hasbro MP-11 junker laying around?

 

It can. Check the thread in the other 3P forum.

I never noticed Starscream's face was always a darker color compared to Thundercracker and Skywarp until this figure. Weird.

 

Yeah, that’s how it was in the G1 cartoon. I guess to make Starscream stand out a little more from the other two.

 

what third party stands are people using that are still obtainable ? want something that will hold mp52 thundercracker higher in robot mode than mp11 tc here but not wanting something with a huge base, a little wide like mp11s is ok

 

Don't worry. It was already done in that thread.

 

Yayyyy exactly what I was going for  

 

Posting this here as it’s the biggest thread where MP-52 is discussed. This isn’t an MP-52 appreciation thread. However, this thread isn’t a thread for Takara fans to start flaming 3p/KO fans. Nor are the threads in the 3p forum venues for 3p/KO fans to flame Takara fans. Comparisons between products are fine.

Here’s the thread for Deformation Space DS-001:
DEFORMATION SPACE DS-001 Crimson Wings(G1 MP Starscream)

Thread for the MP-52 KO:
MP-52 Starscream KO

These days we have options. DS-001 seems well received and the KO shows promise. Their appeal isn’t just due to lower price but also the lower amount of issues reported(with regards to DS-001, KO MP-52 isn’t out yet). You can say reports of MP-52 copies with issues on TFW and on the internet in general are small compared to the total production run but unless you work for Takara, you don’t have those numbers as they’re confidential. Takara likely will never publish the amount of MP-52s they either repaired/exchanged/replaced for Japanese residents either.

As stated before, these days we have options. Ultimately fans will flock to the better product and being official has become less and less of a deciding factor in recent years. Maybe the KO MP-52 won’t have as many issues as some of the MP-52 copies reported here and elsewhere. At that point, does it really matter to you, as a buyer, that it’s a KO? Maybe not. Maybe you feel the need to support Takara and want that money to go to them. I can understand that but I also understand the feeling of dismay after seeing my MP-52 having cracks out of the box.

Takara has challenges, I get that but it’s really on them to make better products and ensure nothing damages them in assembly. Costs are up, it’s an uphill battle but what are the 3p and KO companies doing differently to ensure less botched releases? Point is, demand for 3p alternatives and KO MP-52s went up primarily due to how MP-52 turned out. One could think Takara will eventually make good on it with a rerelease but where does that leave people like me who bought MP-52 a few months ago(especially folks who don’t live in Japan and thus aren’t able to get a repair from Takara…and by the time it and when a rerelease happens, it’ll be beyond the normal exchange period any etailer would’ve had if you bought MP-52 months back). Plus, how sure can we be when they’ve yet to rerelease MP-47 Hound?

I like MP-52 a lot and am a Starscream fan in general so I don’t mind seeing unofficial alternatives. MP-52 is all it’s cracked up to be, but more and more will wait for a version with less or no cracks especially if it’s almost $100 less. The plastic on MP-52 seems sturdier to me compared to MP-03/11 so I was surprised with how my MP-52 managed to have cracks, especially since Arcee and Lio Convoy didn’t have as many reported issues as Hound.

Spend your money how you want. Don’t need to flame each other or turn it into an “us vs them” thing though. There’s enough of that on social media.

 

P R E A C H

 

The staff has been trying to prevent flamewars over official vs 3p/KO stuff for a while now both here in the news & rumors forum and in the 3p forum. You guys see some posts that stick out but not all of it, a lot of stuff gets removed and if you want to talk about wear…. if it wears on you, you literally haven’t seen the half of it or anything close. You only see remnants(sometimes) of what gets cleaned up. Things shouldn’t be as tribalistic as they’ve become. Threads are not to be a launchpad for flaming. It shouldn’t come down to insults when discussing toys. The designers have thicker skin. Whenever I’ve communicated with Transformers designers I’ve never heard of them really making a big deal out of the complaints. They’re usually more concerned about you leaking something more than anything else.

With MP-52 specifically, it’s a mass produced toy for collectors, it’s not a living being. Maybe your copy had cracks and the thought of a cheaper KO entices you as a means to source parts from for your own repairs since you’re now well out of the refund/exchange period with the retailer you bought it from. Or maybe you want it because of the issues you’ve read heard about with the official release. I can’t really blame you either way, this stuff isn’t cheap(and I say that as someone who paid $190+ before shipping which is considerably lower than what stores were charging after release).

If I were Takara, I’d wait to see how the KO MP-52 turns out. If it turns out better, I’d compare what the KO factory did with what Takara’s own factory did. Then, plot twist, hire that factory, because they obviously did something right that the original factory didn’t. This probably sounds a lot easier on paper than it would be in reality, I get that. However this isn’t the 1980’s where internet sales weren’t really a thing. Takara shouldn’t act like this stuff doesn’t exist. When the KO turns out better for cheaper, it’s on Takara to make moves to assure their fans that what they buy is better than a knock off. Uphill battle and costs money but let’s face it, prices have gone up for MP’s in recent years. Would it cost more money to stop the KO factory or would it be less to hire them? Former might only stop them for a limited amount of time, latter may be the same. However if the KO has better quality than the official, then the KO factory workers don’t need additional training, so that wouldn’t be an obstacle. Neither is probably a favorable solution for Takara but with KOs being inevitable, if I were them I’d literally buy out my competition to ensure future runs of MP-52 eliminate the desire for a KO.

 

I thought I’d read/heard somewhere that in some cases it’s the same factory. So, what happens then?

 

That would be weird if that’s proven true for the MP-52 KO and if so, I’m surprised Takara hasn’t had them shut down. If it’s the same factory then that implies that they sabotaged the official run of MP-52. If that’s the case, you can definitely see why Takara probably wouldn’t want to publicly disclose that.

Now even if it turned out to be true and if Takara switches factories:

1. It would probably take a while
2. That still leaves some of us with cracked and/or broken MP-52s. Does Takara make good on exchanging those for inspected and carefully/properly assembled copies afterwards for fans outside of Japan well beyond the refund/exchange period of whichever retailer they bought it from? It would be a big act of goodwill on their part but I don’t expect them to go that far.

I hope in future uses of the mold that Takara gives us something that the KOs won’t but that remains to be seen. Don’t get me wrong, I like MP-52, it was the 1st G1 MP I bought after a few years and I took the plunge thinking the memories of MP Hound issues were a ghost of the past. And if I didn’t like MP-52, I wouldn’t have even bothered trying to figure out what cracked my copy and ways to address it.

 

Exactly. There are only so many factories that are set up to produce toys like this, and most toy factories also produce other plastic goods. It’s not like there’s a ton of options, so I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s something shady going on beyond simply making counterfeit copies of Takara’s product.

 

I also imagine Takara isn' t simply contracting time for MPs on most occasions, they're simply part of whatever they are producing at the time 10,000 of this, 20,000 of that, 15,000 of those, think it's not as simple as finding a good factory versus a good factory that can handle a full order. Just going off of TonTons leaks multiple projects were going on at that factory and maybe more besides the MP and Generations stuff.

It's also why I asked about the Diaclone stuff as it's pretty expensive and in comparison to MP stuff really expensive for its size but I dont think to my knowledge we see leaks like with the Transformers stuff. If security sucks, it sucks all over,and as tight lipped as they are, that no one never really knows what they're working on till its announced kind of hard to believe they're like " Oh, well" during production. I think some of this isnt just security sucks it's more a risk/ reward thing. The way that workers change over, its probably worth the risk, as there are people willing to pay more than enough money to get their hands early on Transformer stuff.

 

I felt like the world needed another MP3 to MP52 comparison.

 

Wouldn’t mind a repaint of MP-52 based on MP-3 BUT with a more accurate Strike Eagle grey rather than the turquoise green-grey Kawamori came up with(which I found odd given that he was the one that wanted the grey to be like the dark grey on the Strike Eagle).

 

They were making the real thing and the KO at the same time, but the workers confused the two and put the KO on Takara's packaging and vice versa  

 

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Yes, we done come a long way, like them slim ass cigarettes from Virginia
This ain’t gonna stop, so we just gonna continue

-Outkast, “Elevators”