Toy Review - MP-45 Bumble ver.2.0

[Tha_Phantom]

Bumblebee
Series - Masterpiece
Released here - no (JP release late November 2019)
Approximate Retail Price - 13,000JPY (175AUD)
Approximate Size - 12cm
Allegiance - Autobot
Alt-mode - Volkswagen Type 1 (Beetle)
Main Features/Gimmicks - show accuracy, opening doors and room for a driver in vehicle mode
Main Colours - yellow, black
Main Accessories - Spike, "I Autobot NY" numberplate*, 2 alternate faces, handgun and blast effect, sticker sheet

First of all I must disclose I am a huge fan of Bumblebee and would have purchased this figure no matter what, but I will try my best to be as balanced as possible in this review.


First impressions were actually not very good. At first I felt this guy was a bit flimsy and made me scared to mess with it, but after a few transformations I feel comfortable with it now. I had a similar initial reaction to MP-43. Transformation itself is tricky at first but easy enough to memorise.


There is a good range of articulation and you can get him in some sweet poses. One thing to note is that there are two joints on the upper arms due to the transformation. When posing the arms, the joint you want to use is very stiff so you have to push down on the other joint to get the one you want to move. There is a similar thing with the double joints in the knees, where the joint you want to move tends not to but the other joint does.


Comparing him to a non-transforming statue, you can see that they've gone to an incredible effort to make him as cartoon accurate as they can. Of course the rest of that mass has to go somewhere, so the FeEt and BaCkPaCk were unavoidable, but they really don't get in the way in person unless you are viewing him directly from behind.


The alt mode is super cute and is simultaneously G1 toy and G1 cartoon accurate. I love that it has opening doors and you can even fit the included Spike inside.
Unfortunately, not everything lines up as it should in vehicle mode. One side of the rear bumper and the panel on top of the front don't sit flush. These don't take away from the overall aesthetic, but they are worth noting.


*The sticker sheet comes with hearts you can place over the Autobot symbol so the numberplate says "I heart/love NY". I assume it was done this way to get around some copyright issue like with Masterpiece Ratchet's red cross symbols.


Now for that pesky backpack. I said earlier it doesn't get in the way unless you are viewing it from behind, which is true, but there are two things which annoy me about it. One is that it doesn't really lock in place, there are some panels that easily swing up and down which in my opinion is pretty lazy for a Masterpiece.
The other thing that bugs me is the exact opposite in that they tried too hard. They added a faux spare tyre that swings up over the back kibble to attempt to make it more cartoon accurate. Personally, I feel that this does absolutely nothing and they could have gotten away without it. It also means that when it's in car mode the driver can only sit on one side, as the faux spare tyre hides on the other side of the interior.


For me, the good outweighs the bad, but the bad may be unforgivable depending on what you want out of a Masterpiece. If you don't care for cartoon accuracy, then you probably won't forgive the back kibble.
I think it looks way better than MP-21 and after transforming it a few times I can say he is a fun figure overall.