Masterpiece MP -51 Arcee

[drifand]

I actually don?t know what to think of it. I don?t think is mistransformed. Yes chest looks weird or sitting low but is you look at the cartoon, it is actually quite the same.

It?s not toon accurate either so to speak but it is actually quite there.
16,000jpy is quite expensive but I think we should be expecting these type of prices since bumble bee v2

No comment, I don?t think is bad but it also doesn?t feel right in some ways. I believe we just want a sexy robot but is not but it is following the cartoon.

[Ralph Wiggum]

Lmao that backpack is ridiculous!



Credit to Gamerlingual of TFW2005

This picture makes me think it isn?t mistransformed, as the colours line up on the side chest, so if the chest was to be moved up it would cause the colours to be misaligned.

[Raider]

This picture makes me think it isn?t mistransformed, as the colours line up on the side chest, so if the chest was to be moved up it would cause the colours to be misaligned.

I tend to agree, not just because of the oaint but also because there is a bend in the joint where it seems to slip in. If you raised the front part it would not longer be flush.

[Paulbot]

This is good value - you get a sexy female action figure and a car that turns into a backpack. I only partly say that in jest; as far as I can see the only part of the robot that is part of the car mode is the lower part of the chest. Even the top part of the chest isn't visible in car mode.

[ChlorHex]

It looks beautiful.
I'm not bothered about the chest bit... in fact, i quite like it.
Trust some 3rd party opportunist to fix the chest piece for those who don't like it and come up with a headmaster Daniel.

[Ralph Wiggum]

I?m not too fussed on the backpack, at this point it seems to be expected with TT attempts at cartoon accuracy from the front angle. The character was probably designed with little regard to how a toy would work out so I can live with it.

[Jellico]

But we know that they can do better. Generations Arcee managed to work her legs into the sides of the car with a similar sized back pack.

FT Rouge, at the exception of a more squared off car mode and some questionable bending of plastic managed to squeeze a whole car into a pair of pods on her back.

That is the bit that annoys me. A 3rd party company gave them a template of what could be done roughly at MP scale. I expect TT to do it better. A better, more curvy car mode might mean more creativity in folding up the pods, but the principle is proven. At the moment she looks like an enlarged Generations Arcee right down to the tab holes on her thighs. They can do better.

[GoktimusPrime]

Eh, the backpack reminds me of what they did with toys like MP Bumblebee (1.0) and MP Hot Rod. Granted that those toys did the backpacks better, but bear in mind that those toys were easier to render as MPs as the Bumblebee cartoon model was based an existing toy that could transform, and the cartoon model for Hot Rod was also better designed to be more easily "translatable" as a toy. If you look at the original 1986 Hot Rod toy, given the fact that it was an 80s toy and its price point, it actually did a fairly impressive job of being screen accurate. The major glaring inaccuracies are the car kibble on the legs, the window on the back, and the engine on the back of the head. But on the whole it managed to be a reasonably screen-accurate looking toy with a solid robot and car mode.

↑As you can see, Hot Rod's screen design is reasonably doable to "translate" as a toy. The main things that the MP toys did was find ways to conceal the kibble, with ver 2.0 being more complex as it achieves a higher degree of slavish screen accuracy that MP9 didn't do (although that toy was also designed to transform to Rodimus Prime, but I digress).

Arcee's screen model on the other hand just isn't as 'translatable' to being a functional transformable action figure. Especially after Toei further modified Dery's design, making essentially just a generic scifi robot with no real vehicle kibble on her. I distinctly remember first watching TFTM in the cinema and, until the scene with the Junkion fight, I sat there wondering what the hell Arcee transforms into - if her alt mode would be visible at all.


Lost in Translation

And that's the core problem with designs like Arcee. Now sure, TakaraTOMY did also face similar challenges with MP Ratchethide, but at least their chests can still form the front section of their van modes. While MPs like Sunstreaker do employ false chest kibble, bear in mind that they still have other body parts that form the car. Plus Sunstreaker also carries a backpack. But again, his cartoon model was based off a functional toy to begin with, so there's a foundation there to make an MP work better as a toy, even with the big challenge of making it slavishly cartoon accurate. Arcee's show design is just so bad as a Transformer design. It's fine as a science fiction robot design, but it just sucks as a Transformer. She's really designed to be a sexy looking femme-bot rather than as a Transformer. If we compare Arcee with other female Transformers, especially those that were actually based on or inspired by toys, we can see a big difference in design aesthetics. Characters like Minerva and Clipper look like working Transformers. Even though Toei modified Minerva and Clipper to accentuate their feminine features, the core elements of their toys are still there. Airazor would have some mild feminisation added to her model, and Blackarachnia was extremely feminised like Arcee, but without removing any of her alt mode kibble. While her transformation involved some mass shifting here and there, she basically transformed as the toy did (and part of the reason for doing so would've been do further differentiate her from Tarantulas). With each of these characters we can see things like wheels, doors, legs, eyes, wings, claws etc. There is no obvious alt mode kibble on Arcee. I mean, her shoulder pylons morph into the front side sections but on their own they don't look like car parts. Similarly her chest becomes the bonnet, but on its own it doesn't look like a bonnet. Arcee reminds me of Bo and Boo from Mighty Orbots. Two curvaceous looking femme bots who did not translate well as toys at all. And they only needed to become arms!



And on top of that the designers do work under a tight budget. While the budget for MPs may have increased, it does still exist. Fans are demanding ever greater slavish screen accuracy while simultaneously complaining about rising prices. Uh... okay. :/ TakaraTOMY have just recently confirmed that the reason for the increasing price is because of the increasing parts count due to increasing screen accuracy. No faecal excrement, Sherlock! An increasing number of MPs these days are becoming backpack-formers because quite frankly, you have to conceal the alt mode parts somewhere. Even MP44 has a backpack.

[DELTAprime]

My question is if it is a Headmaster... but I think if it was, it would have been noted or shown.

Why release this as a Headmaster when you can release a Headmaster remould a year later for even more profit?

[Paulbot]

There must be Beast Wars MP designers looking at Airrazor and wondering how on Earth they are going to make his design work as an MP toy. With Blackwidow they could hide things in the rear of her spidermode but on Airrazor? Is his falcon mode going to be good from absolutely one angle only due to kibble.