REVIEW: TakaraTomy Masterpiece MP-51 Arcee (part 1)

Let’s face it, every time there’s a new Masterpiece toy on the horizon, it divides the internet. Even a lot of people who don’t collect the line have plenty to say on any new release, right from the moment they’re first unveiled, with opinions both favourable and otherwise being slung around every which way. So it goes.

And why not? After all, these aren’t cheap toys, and often represent a big commitment even for collectors who are pretty knee-deep into the hobby to begin with. They deserve to be held to a certain about of scrutiny by their very nature as so-called high-end collectables.

That said, the reality of these releases is that once they arrive in hand, they’re often far less controversial that whatever it was that stoked people up to comment on them in the first place. We’ve seen the cycle many times before (with Masterpiece Tracks, Hot Rod and Ironhide all being among some of the more memorable examples), and whilst they don’t always win people over in the long run (*cough* MP-45 *cough*), they do often land with a far warmer reception than the internet first grants them.

Such is the nature of that kind of intense initial inspection, I suppose. After all, when you’re pouring over promo shots looking for every identifiable little flaw, these things can be magnified out of context a bit. Do I love the buttflap on MP Ultra Magnus? No, not particularly. Does it entirely ruin the toy for me? Also no, because it’s still a hugely enjoyable figure on the whole, despite that one minor quirk.

Far be it for me to entirely dismiss such concerns, mind – quite the opposite. I’ll merrily spend my time discussing these sorts of quibbles and more come review time myself, but I do think it’s interesting how opinion on a figure can suddenly shift once it makes it into collectors’ palms, and once the actual joy of handling it puts all those divisive elements into contrast.

All of which is a fairly lengthy preamble to set the scene for Masterpiece Arcee, I suppose, which is a release that picks up the fine Masterpiece tradition to arrive on a wave of split opinions. The internet has judged those promo shots and convention pics harshly, and perhaps not without cause, so this was a release that I was personally very much looking forward to getting to grips with myself.

One thing I don’t think I was ever in much doubt about was this car mode, though, and lo and behold it proves to be a bit of a stunner right out of the box. We’ve seen plenty of attempts at Masterpiece-styled Arcees over the last couple of years or so, but to varying degrees it’s only fair to say that they never quite get the car mode spot on, always accepting a fair amount of compromise in this area to favour the robot mode, perhaps.

No-one could accuse MP-51 here of following that trend, as TakaraTomy have delivered what I can only say will likely be the defining representation of this form for some time to come. It seriously slaps, as the kids say these days.

Let’s start with the obvious stuff – the colour scheme is just gorgeous, and mixes an intense, vibrant pink with a stark brilliant white to great effect. Throw in some warm grey and electric blue accents and you’re onto a real winner already.

Next, the painted finish looks pretty good too. It’s a relatively thin layer of paint but it makes all the difference in terms of how this thing both looks and feels once you get it in hand, contrasting nicely with the unpainted equivalents from the third party world. The paint on mine isn’t 100% flawless round the tiny edges if you look at it under a microscope, but certainly it’s pretty good by way of cursory examination at least.

It’s also a remarkably tidy design, recreating the futuristic pink Cadillac-esque look of the character model to remarkable accuracy. There’s the tiniest whiff of kibble poking out from underneath but honestly, you’d be hard-pushed to judge that too harshly considering everything else this form has going for it.

In fact you can spin it around to any angle and see that TakaraTomy have covered all the bases. The angles, proportions and finer details are all amazingly on-point.

There are even touches like a real-world interior going on, which again looks strong enough to entirely blow the unofficial competition out of the water. The steering wheel and dashboard are positively minuscule, but still manage to add something special.

The cherry on top is then being able to fit some of the Masterpiece human mini-figures in there, of course! Well… kind of, anyway!

The behind-the-scenes footage of this was brutal. pic.twitter.com/U9ISSeO90k

— Sixo (@SixoTF) February 10, 2021

I’m sure there’s a joke about not driving whilst legless in there somewhere.

Aaaaanyway, my point is that there really is a lot to love about this car mode on the whole, and as I’ve already mentioned it immediately comes across as a highly definitive take on the character’s vehicular form from the cartoon. It’s not quite as ‘stretched’ as her animation model itself (a direct comparison with which you can find in my recent unboxing video), but it certainly does recall to life how she looked and felt in the movie and third season of the cartoon itself.

More than that, there are some clever bits that I would have never even thought to consider before, such as the grey panels on the sides really looking like doors for perhaps the first time on any G1-faithful Arcee toy, or the way in which the front of the car bonnet is actually made from the robot mode chest (again, an unusual twist, considering how a lot of attempts at this design resort to trickery). True, it makes for a bit of a now infamous compromise in the robot mode design… but we’ll get to that soon enough!

Really though, what else do you need me to say about the car mode? It looks great, feels quality, is loaded with neat little touches, and presents accurately to the source! So far, so good, eh?

You can then load her up with a few of her weapons and other accessories for a bit of added play value, and whilst I do think the holster weapon looks a bit random, the long rifle she features comes off as pretty swish. You can also store a couple of her guns underneath the car mode, should you wish.

But wait, you may think that because this is an official Masterpiece toy, they’ve featured some nifty little nod to the cartoon source – and you’d be right! With a simple peg-on solution, you can have her sporting the pop-out weapon she uses on the planet of Junk in the 1986 animated film, which looks very faithful indeed.

Otherwise, a lot of the fun comes from seeing Arcee next to all manner of other Masterpiece-styled toys, not least of which is the big dog himself, MP-44 Convoy. She’s the perfect size for a bit of trailer action, for starters.

I’m also a big fan of how her colours really pop next to stuff like MP-44, adding a welcome dash of hot pink to the Masterpiece shelf!

You’ll note that she’s a fairly sizeable prospect next to a lot of other Masterpiece-styled cars, particularly the likes of smaller stuff such as FansToys Hunk.

Even larger lads like X-Transbots Aegis may appear somewhat undersized, but for my taste I think it works well enough.

In fact it’s a pleasure to not see Arcee herself being diminished in terms of vehicular stature at all, particularly as some of those unofficial stabs at the character seemed to want to make her very tiny indeed in this form!

If anything, I’d say MP-51 looks pretty perfect next to stuff like MP-28 Hot Rod, lining up nicely to bring you another piece of the burgeoning Masterpiece movie line-up.

I’d even go one further to add that she’s on track to join stuff like Hot Rod and MP-22 Ultra Magnus as some of my personal favourites from the official line so far – the car mode is really that good!

I mean, I know they’ve been done by third party companies, but how great would it be to see TakaraTomy bring out their own Kup and Blurr to go with these examples, eh? We can still hope!

For today, I’m pleased to say that at least Arcee’s vehicle form is more than enough to win me over out of the box. Time will tell if the robot mode is equally favourable, or if it actually does deserve that harsh internet scrutiny that dominated this toy’s journey to release.

That’s a story for next time though, when we’ll be getting her transformed up and see for ourselves what that robot mode is all about!

TTFN