Transforrmers Masterpiece MP-51 Arcee New Stock Images

Emgo's comparison shows pretty clearly just how Takara fudged things up with the chest. It looks a million times better with a chest that actually…you know…is a complete chest. Like imagine if they'd just chopped off the top third of Optimus Prime's chest for the sake of improving his butterfly joints, that's exactly what happened here with Arcee. Her chest was never "saggy", it just wasn't complete.

Superquad7

I dunno what TakaraTomy was thinking on that chest. Gracious.

It looks fine to me in hand and that topic has been beaten to death. Having said that, I think it could have looked MUCH better and avoided tons of controversy if they went with a fake chest. But people are already complaining that she’s a “shellformer” and the chest is the only part of the car that is actually used for bot mode. I believe Arcee absolutely must be a shellformer to do her design any justice at all. TT was most likely trying to make some fans happy by actually using the car hood for the chest piece. Or they ran out of space in the alt mode for a fake chest. TT typically puts a lot of effort into making the alt mode look perfect for car bots (see Hot Rod) and they succeeded in that aspect of her design. Most Arcee designs have really terrible alt modes.

NewAge recently did an Arcee that is pretty much the sculpt of the MP but they went with a fake chest. I think their chest looks much better but the alt mode suffers a lot for that awesome bot mode. And I think the alt mode would have looked much worse at MP scale. At Legends scale it’s the size of a Hot Wheels car so it’s more forgivable.

Superquad7

I dunno what TakaraTomy was thinking on that chest. Gracious.

The chest in my picture above isn't the Takara one. It's the improved one with a better angle.

But I agree, the official chest is an eyesore.

4249david

Yeah, those legs need moving back about half a centimetre each. Her centre of gravity is pinpoint accurate. It's like no other figure you've had before

Thanks. I shall give that a go. I already have FT Rouge and MMC Azalea, but I was intrigued to see what the MP was like, as the alt mode is excellent.

I think that Azalea is my favourite, as she by far the most fun to fiddle around with!

artimus prime

Not fair to say she likes to lean forward when you have her backpack sky-high and forward. She's really well balanced. *as long as her lower ab joint is toleranced right* If that gives out, she's an alt mode display.

As I said in the post, I know that the backpack wasn't right in that photo. I had hoped that would avoid a comment like this.

She was leaning with it correctly arranged as well. The reason it's not transformed correctly in the picture is because I had been experimenting with making it look less ugly by removing a pin, like this.

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Looks better from the front, but the gap is ugly. She's leaning forward even there, though, with a much lighter backpack. For the photo I originally posted above, I popped the other half of the backpack in.

mrspingly

Arcee arrived earlier. I think she needs to put on weight, as she's looking a little … lean.

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I know the backpack isn't right. This was after poking and fiddling around. But she does like to lean forwards!

Keep fiddling. She's actually amazing to pose but you need to move in small increments. You can get almost any pose perfectly if you take your time and tweak each bit

CobraKai

Is that bacon in the second pic, against the wall?

Ha ha ha… Looks like it

Well I'm super late to this party but I finally got around to transforming her and I'm afraid that doesn't look any better in hand. I also really dislike that pinched face, I know she looked like that in some cells where the Princess Leia buns angle sharply inwards but come on Takara. Comparatively, FT has perpendicular buns which makes for a very nice face, and MMC is halfway in between – the buns angle inwards but not enough to squish the face like TT's.

For positives, I think she has the best arms of the three – FT's are a little on the spindly side and marred by peg holes. Though the elbow is a little weird, looks like it should bend in two places but it's only one. It's similar to MMC's arm (though that one has two joints), but let's be honest the MMC figure isn't really in the running – the paint, finish and materials just aren't up to MP standards so she looks very plain next to Takara's. Dull pink and grey plastic which I can only assume is unpainted. Scale-wise the TT is much closer to MMC than FT, interestingly. I guess that just comes down to what size you want your Arcee to be. I think FT's size and "heroic proportions" was always going to make it hard to beat with this scale.

The legs are pretty nice too, there's a LOT of curvature in them though – I think it's down to personal taste whether you prefer that to FT's sleeker but still well-defined legs. One thing I do really prefer is her spatulate feet which help with stability. Or they would, if it weren't for her backpack making her rear-heavy. But honestly none of the Arcees stand very well. I think she might take the win for ease of transformation, personally I don't mind FT's scheme but it's certainly more complicated and has some terrifying "is this going to break?" moments (in fact I lost a minor peg on one of the doors early on, luckily it's not essential to the transformation but man she is fragile). I don't remember MMC's very well though, it's been a while. Ultimately you wind up with a less impressive backpack though, FT's "disappearing car body" transformation is still absolute witchcraft. MMC's isn't as magical but it's still less cumbersome than the MP's, which is bulky and kibbley by comparison (but of course there are much worse offenders). I don't really mind backpacks that much though – I could've forgiven that if the rest of the figure had been great.

TLDR: Some up sides but the face and especially chest REALLY let this figure down, I just don't understand how they thought it could go out like this. It looks broken or mistransformed, the chest throws the proportions way off. I suppose faces are subjective but next to the other two it's really noticeably skinny and pointy.

MacrossA

Anyone have pics of the ko in hand?

MP-51 Arcee KO?

junkbot

Well damn. I was tinkering with the chest piece with a heat gun and I ruined it. LOFL! Anyone have that part that perhaps has replaced it with the upgraded kit that doesn't need it anymore? Never hurts to ask even if it is a long shot. Thanks fellas.  

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Makes for a great battle damaged Arcee, though.

Sorry to hear about what happened.