AllNewSuperRobot wrote:I have talked about this elsewhere but I've always felt certain characters should be released simultaneously EG Metroplex & Trypticon, Megatron & Optimus, Blaster & Soundwave, Rodimus & Galvatron etc
When dealing with a high end line like MP they can't always do things this way. First off in Japan hero characters are always more popular than villains so that's where the money is. It actually isn't common for Japanese toy lines to make figures of the bad guys, especially robot series. Transformers are a very unusual franchise in Japan for giving nearly equal shelf space to both sides. It's really no surprise that Takara Tomy puts so many Autobots into the line. Rivals make sense, but money makes more sense. Problem with Blaster is you're not just designing one figure, but a small army of them. And besides, it's hard to argue that Soundwave is far more popular than Blaster.
Noted rival sets. Blaster should have been MP-14 or 15, immediately following Soundwave. Considering they have no problem throwing out all the Seeker and Car Bot palette swaps or the 15th edition of Optimus, a mere retool of Soundwave shouldn't have taken this long. I imagine a retool can't be much harder to produce than a repaint.
WOW! You couldn't be more wrong about this. First off the only thing Soundwave and Blaster have in common is that they both can hold tapes in their chests. That's like saying Bumblebee can be remolded into Jazz because they're both cars. There is a world of difference between a remold and redeco. One just needs different colored plastic in an existing mold while the other requires an entirely new mold (or destroying an old one). The second problem is it's more than just molding when it comes to Japan, there's an entire engineering process to make sure everything goes together and moves the way its supposed to. It isn't nearly as simple a process as you seem to think it is.
I did make mention of licensing issues before. In my view, they should skip those characters and return to them at some future date. Most of them only lived in canon until The Movie anyway.
Which is why the pre-movie lineup is still incomplete. If they could make Jazz, Mirage, or Hound they would have long ago.
Perhaps it's just my ignorance but I never realised Runabout & Runamuck were based on real cars
They were always so weird looking I just assumed it was a generic "car" design.
Yes, even post-movie we were still getting characters based on real cars like those two, Punch/Counterpunch (another Pontiac like Runamuck), the Duocons, all of the Throttlebots and many more. Really there are examples all the way through to 1990.
As for popularity. One of the first things the Takara Series did was correct the mistake Sunbow made and kill off Optimus almost immediately. Replacing him (briefly) with Rodimus Prime once more. Which would lead you to believe Rodimus was more popular than Optimus in Japan.
Now Galvatron, Scorponok and even Sixshot were the three main Decepticons throughout the first series. So I'd assume they were popular characters. Where are they in this line? Outside of Beast Wars and The Unicron Trilogy, G1 Scorponok has been completely absent from the Toy line since 1988???
First you need to remember that Masterpiece is working its way through the years with only a few exceptions being made. Then you need to remember that the line isn't over yet. They need to save those guys for when they start diving into the late 80s characters full force. Except Scorponok, they'll never make MP city bots.
He was the direct counterpart to Fortress in the Takara Series, so he must have been popular?? Unless I'm completely wrong and in fact, as opposed to my view of the TF lines being inundated with too many Autobots, that there simply are little to no Decepticon fans in Japan?
Somehow you've started talking about the Generations/Legends line which is entirely unrelated to MP. This line is headed by Hasbro with Takara Tomy following their lead. We could have had Scorponok last year when Hasbro put it up to a vote, but we got Trypticon instead. That's on us, not Hasbro or TT.
I seriously got into TF through the Movie, so what I dislike is the boring Earth Based altmodes. The animals, the future vehicles, I love all that. Cyclonus, Scourge and the Sweeps were far better designs than any Season 1 & 2 Seeker.
You just need a little patience, they'll get there eventually.
I don't dislike Star Saber. Although I haven't seen all that much of the Takara Series, I like his design at least. Hopefully one day Victory Leo will be made part of this line too and we'll get our first/last (unintentional) MP combiner. The Head/Targetmasters were all main characters in the Takara Series, so surely Highbrow, Apeface etc should be part of one of these popularity polls too?
The point I was making with him is (by vote or not) why a character from Victory was made a selection to be part of this line before anyone Post-Movie, other than Hot Rod/imus...
There's only been one popularity poll and it was specifically for which Autobot/Cybertron leader to make a figure of next. It wasn't random either, every leader from Fort Max up through Cybertron Optimus Prime (Galaxy Force Galaxy Convoy) was in the pole and Star Saber won by a decisive 31.2% of the votes (nearly a third). On the other end, Fort Max came in dead last with only 0.3%.
Considering how much of G1 (cartoons and comics) revolved around him, surely Galvatron is popular enough to have been made part of this line by now??? To a lesser extent, Cyclonus, Scourge, Kup, Blurr etc
Again, the line just hasn't gotten there yet.
A friend of mine wants to recreate The Movie in Masterpiece form. With the seemingly random character selection at play here, even excluding Devastator, I don't think he's ever going to get there.
It really isn't that random at all when you know what they're doing. And if you want an MP Devastator then get the Takara Tomy Constructicons, they're far better than Hasbro's two in every way (including articulation and weapons) and painted up cartoon accurately. Bot modes fit well with MPs and Devastator towers over everyone at 18" tall.
Emerje
Wonder Festival is like the New York Comic Con of Japanese toy events. Takara Tomy didn't even start attending until a few years ago since WF is more of a collectors show and TT didn't fully embrace collectors until recently. I can't remember if Bandai has started attending WF or not, they usually hold their own Tamashii Nations event later. 
