Picked up Masterpiece Megatron MP-36 today at Image Anime in Manhattan.

First impression is that I am blown away with the build quality of this figure. Very solid ratcheted joints, great balance and in hand feel. Not super heavy, but has some heft due to the die-cast parts.

Shoulders are nicely ratched in the outward and the rotational direction. He has a forward butterfly joint at the shoulder. Head is on a ball joint.

He is very poseable, and has a remarkable visual similarity to the G1 Box art. He can hold his cannon up with ease. The ratchets are just amazing.

First Transformation took me about an hour, and with only one hitch (see pics below). The instructions are MUCH too small for my old 44 year old eyes. I only referred to the instructions for transformation. Make sure you follow all arrows in each panel and you should be fine. Everything fits and tabs in nicely, albeit there are some steps where the clearance seems impossible, and you have to think for a bit to figure it out. All finished it is a VERY satisfying transformation.

Up close the alt mode is a bit "panelly", but looks great for a distance. It has a delightful weight and is just godly with the attachments added.

The trigger is spring loaded and diecast. It feels just great. Nicely done Takara. I wish there was a small detent ratchet to feel a click when pulling the trigger. The hammer can be pulled back and there is a "safety" adjustment arm on the left side. No P38 markings.

He takes two LR44 batteries which are not supplied. They are installed via a nice hinged battery cover with retained screw. The red translucent piece on his scope has three settings. When the dial piece on top of the scope is pressed you hear one of three sets of sounds:

Forward setting: Laser fire. No variation with additional presses.
Middle setting: Megatron in Japanese. Pressing the button cycles through 5 sayings, "Destrons Transform!!", Laughter, etc.
Back setting: G1 Ascending and Descending Transform sounds.



Overall I give him a solid A. Probably my favorite Masterpiece figure.

Compared to G1 boxart:



The first thing I noticed in hand is that he actually has a amazing metallic speckled paint finish.

Up close view of the Speckled metallic paint:



Megatron in Natural lighting:






As packaged. Takara left room in the packaging for orange plugs in both barrel tips. My copy had no orange plug.



As packaged, Close up.



Megatron can look up with his chin roughly 30 degree angle from his chest. Yes the area at the top of chest is rather busy. its an acquired look, and is a bit jarring when compared to other 3rd party masterpiece styled Megatrons.



Megatron can look down pretty far due to a hinge in his transformation.



Here I am demonstrating the quality and strength of the knee ratchets.







Dynamic posing is easy and quick. Very very fun! Here you can see the deep knee bend, and the full range of the elbow movement. I feel Megatron is one of the most poseable Masterpiece figures, and makes MP-10's 90 degree elbows seem dated.



Here you can see the incredible range of the ankle tilt (toe downward motion is ratcheted, btw), and the very nice balance he has. Even with gun outstretched you can easily find simple balance points.




Other views of Megatron.



Some comparison Pics. MP-36 vs. DX-9's Mightron:



MP-36 vs. Despotron:



The year of Megatron:



Mid Transformation. About 20 minutes in. Wouldn't be so bad if the Instruction manual had better pictures.


First Snag. The Pelvis swing arms are screwed in much to tight !! A few twists shown here (back of the pelvis) fixed the issue.



Now the pelvis swing arms can move with ease.




Finished! Just under an hour for the first time. Not bad!


With full gun attachments in place, all I can say is WOW. Feels fantastic !!!!



Hope you enjoyed the review. Sorry I wasn't more verbose, I have to prepare for business travel tonight.

If there were some items you want to see, let me know.

Update: I missed a step, the front on the scope extends. Also the safety lever rotates to the front.

 

Great pics so far! The figure looks absolutely stunning. Can't wait to get my hands on one  

 

I saw Megs in a local shop yesterday. He looks damned good, but the price is just way too much for me.

 

Thanks. If there are any pics people want to see, I can see what I can do.

 

He looks like the best transformer ever!

 

alfes2010 gallereis.
gun: ひげひげな、おもちゃの日常　「わしは貴様らを、常に見守って（狙い定めて）いるぞ」（トランスフォーマー マスターピース MP-36 メガトロン ガンモード）
robot: ひげひげな、おもちゃの日常　「わしの名は、破壊大帝メガトロンだ！」（トランスフォーマー マスターピース MP-36 メガトロン ロボットモード）
accessories and play: ひげひげな、おもちゃの日常　「余は破壊大帝メガトロン！デストロン軍団のリーダーだ！！」（トランスフォーマー マスターピース MP-36 メガトロン 武装＆比較で遊ぼう）

 

I haven't been able to get the flight stand peg into his butt. It doesn't wanna go in, and I'm not willing to use the kind of force that would be necessary.

When Megatron makes it clear that he doesn't want something jammed up his butt....I respect his wishes.

 

Did you have trouble pulling his legs out during transformations, there were a couple of people on Amazon jp that said theirs were pretty tight.

 

Yeah, separating the leg halves and collapsing them was the hardest part of the process. Only done it twice now...we'll see how it is next time.

 

Guess i'll see how bad it is when he gets here , some guy had a fix loosening up one of the screws and said that helped a lot. I noticed that in the first transformation video, it was the same thing with MP-5

 

I've not watched any transformation videos yet, I wanna be surprised. Hopefully in a good way. I've heard it's complicated. Can anyone vouch for his transformation? Is it a good type of complicated? I've seen Despotrons and Mightron's, and they look super fun.

 

I just finished my first transformation and it took an hour and a half . It's very fun, with some scary bits.

I had to loosen the screws that tightens the pelvis halves. They simply wouldn't budge.

I am updating the main review with pictures and comments.

 

Sparkly paint, yay! I was afraid he'd be too gray. I think I'll be loosening those pelvis screws. Watching the videos that looks like the scariest part. Thanks for the review!

 

How many screws need loosening?

 

Just the one. I have a picture of it in the review. It controls the tightness in the pivot arms.

 

Oh I forgot, you say yours came without an orange plug, are you in the US? It'd be nice to have confirmation that customs will let him through.

 

Thanks

 

I think its a dice roll.

 

Visited NYC for the very first time last week and made sure to check out Image Anime (as well as Toy Tokyo)...

The proportions of this figure don't sit well with me at all. Absolutely terrific review nonetheless.

 

When i got mp inferno from image anime one of the guys there told me that none of their stock of mp megatron will have the orange plug.