Toy Review - JP MP-40 Masterpiece Targetmaster Hot Rodimus

(Please post comments, photos or even a fully comprehensive review - these are just some brief details to start you off)

Targetmaster Hot Rodimus (Hot Rod) with Firebolt
Series - Masterpiece (Japan)
Sub-line - n/a
Size/class - n/a
New/remould/redeco - minor redeco of JP MP-28 with minor redeco of Hasbro Offshoot Targetmaster gun
Wave - n/a
Released here - Not here (out in Japan FEB 28th 2018)
Approximate Retail Price - 9000 yen
Approximate Size - 16cm
Allegiance - Autobot
Alt-mode - Cybertronian sports car
Main Features/Gimmicks - Targetmaster (note - MP-28 already had the gun port on the engine mount, so this is not a remould)
Main Colours - red, orange
Main Accessories - Gun, Firebolt

(MP-28 Hot Rodimus review can be found here)

http://www.toycollectors.com.au/tran...18/jp18a04.jpg

I voted “only if cheap”, but really I mean “only if *very* cheap”. I mean, it’s a great toy, I have MP Hot Rod and love it, but I wish I knew they were going to release this before I bought him, so I could get the targetmaster.

Just had mine show up today, and while it wasn't the star of the shipment (nothing was going to top Mp-36), it's still quite a nice figure and the colour touches they went with were quite nice.

The shoulder tops aren't a separate colour, but everything else is either as decoed or more decoed than MP-28 Starting at the top, there is a pick highlight above the brow and on either side of the crest which looks like war paint against the crimson base colour. The chest and writs decos are identical, while the pipes on him are still chrome. One bugbear is that the pipes on the arms were clearly plated on the sprue then cut, as there's 2 orange spots on the plastic where the pieces were clearly attached to the sprue. The waist is marone with a white skirt across the botom of the groinplate. The legs are now a dark grey, with a violent strip across the front of the shins and feet.

Vehicle mode has a few changes, with the crimson offset by a clear windows , with grey panelling for details, while the thruster panels are now painted the same orange as the thighs.

As far as Firebolt goes, I'm not so sure it's a mere redeco. While I own MP-09 and not the Hasbro version of the figure, I couldn't say for sure, but I imagine if the exact same figure were included, that it would be alot more massive than it is. So I suspect what we actually have is an undersized and redecoed Offshoot, which is in a cartoon accurate colour scheme and perfectly matched in size with Masterpiece Nightstick.

Honestly, I have both MP-40 and MP-28 and don't regret it, as both will go in different parts of my Masterpiece collection.

Really my only gripe, besides the orange spots on the photon blasters, is that only one of the regular blasters were included. I thought for sure that in Rebirth, Hotrod carried two of them.

Yes you could argue that it's "Malibu Stacey with a new hat", but so was the original Targetmaster Hotrod (So was MP Soundblaster for that matter). The fact that we've gotten Firebolt, combined with the fact that they took the trouble of giving us an interesting deco, makes this one I'd recommend people look at picking up.