Masterpiece(s) MP-20 & MP-21: Wheeljack & ‘Bee in the house!

I remember the days when I subconsciously said to myself repeatedly that I’d never venture into the Masterpiece line. It’s partly because I won’t be able to mix and match these MPs with the rest of my Generations/Universe/Henkei  (GUH) bots due to the scale/size difference. However, as of late TomyTakara seemed to have been correcting the issue by introducing smaller bots to correspond with the smaller GUH bots. Here’s when I come in and made my first ever Masterpiece purchase(s). I picked up Wheeljack (MP-20) and subsequently BumbleBee (MP-21).

Wheeljack on its own (or assumingly with the rest of his MP buddies) looks in scale and one will certainly harken back to the days when the G1 cartoon used to occupy our TV airtime in the 80s. His design and colour stays true to how he looked like in that 80s cartoon series. I guess the scale issue bothered me as much as how Marvel Select figures don’t go well with Marvel Legends. It’s true that you’d have to ‘shorten’ him a little bit (you can do this by shortening his hips) so that he’ll look in place with the rest of his Autobot buddies.

If not, he’ll look astonishingly close to the height of my iGear Optimus Prime (sorry no comparison pics with the MP-10. I do not own one....yet).

I heard horror stories that some collectors complained that the 'Italia' word did not appear on their Wheeljack's left foot. Factory error maybe? Whatever it is I'm glad mine wasn't part of that statistics.

Aesthetically Wheeljack looks great. I love having him on my shelf. He is by far my most favourite Autobot from the 80s G1 cartoon series so buying him makes sense to me even though I’m haunted by the scale issue. He has effectively taken over the place of my Henkei Wheeljack on my Autobot shelf. He comes with the commemorative coin which I find useless but I really love the toolbox accessory.

Nice touch by TomyTakara there. Would’ve been much sweeter if we’re able to flip it open to reveal some non-removable tools inside? (I know...too much to ask already).

Let's move on to the 'Bee...

Bumblebee here was actually my 1^st planned MP purchase. I reserved him through a friend of mine who has a standing order (I think) on every MP release from a specialty toy store which supposedly offered the best prices in town (and they did!). This one’s actually smaller than the Universe/Henkei Bumblebee.

Understandably, the idea here was to give the impression that Bumblebee is much much smaller than Prime and the rest of the Ark crew. If you’re that meticulous, you’ll realise that the ‘Bee only reaches the height of Optimus’ knees in the cartoon series. I think the ‘Bee here will measure up nicely against the MP-10 Optimus but I think he looks pretty sweet too standing beside my iGear Optimus. Not that small and puny but at just the nice height and size against the Autobot commander.

I love it that we also get three sets of face plates (although I'd only be using the ones without the battle-face armor). TomyTak didn't have to do this but they did anyway. Brownie points to them!

Bumblebee here is exactly how we remember him from the G1 cartoon series. This is by far the best G1 Bumblebee in the market thus far, beating the likes of previous attempts e.g. Art Feather’s version. I love it that we also got Daniel in his exo-suit. It made me wanna re-watch the Transformers animated movie the moment I got my hands on the figure.

Sure, it has its flaws and all. Heck, there are no distinctive facial features i.e. no eyes, no mouth etc. A bit creepy to my liking.Why can't we have a Spike figure instead eh?

Anyway, I'm glad I got these two. I'm not planning to get the MP-22 (Ultra Magnus) but I'll sure cave in when TomyTakara decides to do Ironhide/Ratchet or Mirage next!