Originally written June 2019. Forgive some of the images, I was in the middle of moving house at the time.
TFCon 2019 is almost upon us (2021 note: Missing that these days). While we wait, let’s go through a bit of history and look at one of last year’s hottest con-exclusive items.
One of the true classic Transformers characters, Jazz, the smooth-talking, music-loving right-hand man to Optimus Prime, has been a part of the franchise since day one. Despite this, he’s yet to receive a figure in Takara’s Masterpiece series, the high-end collector’s line of big, detailed Transformers that have, as of now, touched on pretty much every other important year-one classic character, like Bumblebee. A common bit of speculation is that this is due to Porsche, the company that makes the car he traditionally changes into, not wanting to give Takara the license to make a replica of one of their cars that changes into a “war toy.” (Read more about that here).
Naturally, the world of unlicensed, or “Third-Party” transforming robots stepped in, with a few companies offering their take on a Masterpiece Jazz to fill that collector’s gap, and the strongest one thus far is Downbeat, by Maketoys, a part of their Remastered line, a whole series of imitation Masterpiece figures designed to fill the gaps Takara hasn’t (and likely won’t) be filling:
That’s not the version I have here, though.
After dying out in North America at the end of the 80’s, Transformers underwent a revival in 1993 as Transformers: Generation 2, boasting a new toyline supported by a new comic, and reruns of the old cartoon. And let me tell you, it was exceedingly 90s. As a part of the Generation 2 toyline, many older classic Transformers figures, including Jazz were re-released in new, loud, garish, 90s color schemes, with giant missile launchers added. I have a soft spot for it, since it’s where I first entered Transformers, and many reviews here already attest to that.
Naturally, the original Jazz toy was re-released in 1993, covered in 90s-mall pastel colors (pictured above), and that’s what Maketoys Maestro is: Downbeat re-released in colors that homage this version of Jazz. He was only available at TFCon 2018, the Ontario Transformers convention. While that’s the one I’m reviewing here, since it’s just the much-more-available Downbeat in different colors, anything non-deco-related goes for Downbeat, too. Got all that? Now, onto the actual figure.
I’ll lead with this: As far as those bright G2 color schemes go, Jazz’s was on the tamer side, and is more pastel than anything else. I love it, but it’s not for everyone. Regardless of what you think of the colors, though, the core figure here is exceptional, truly worth standing beside the official Masterpiece line. At the convention, he cost $140 Canadian, putting him on-par with the Takara Masterpiece cars, like Sunstreaker, giving him a mission to stack up to them in terms of quality. Really, here’s the most important part of it: He feels like an official Takara Masterpiece figure, from before they went hyper-complicated for the sake of even more extreme toon accuracy.
Vehicle Mode
Checking the Transformers Wiki, Jazz changes into a Martini Racing Porsche 935/76. I don’t know cars, so instead, I’ll just call it a REALLY nice car, a racing vehicle with a big spoiler on the back. It’s a clean sculpt, and keeps the breaks and seams needed for his transformation to a minimum, though when putting him back into his car mode, you might find yourself squeezing his spoiler and hood to try and make those cracks a bit smaller. He’s roughly the same size as most of the official Masterpiece cars, and feels like one, too. Whatever plastic he’s made from, they found the exact same kind as the Takara product, and he’s got the right feeling and weight to him to pass as an official Masterpiece car.
The only issues are with the bottom half of the car, which breaks up the clean lines with a lot of robot parts hanging rather low, but not so low that he can’t roll. Also, you can see his robot feet on his back end of the car, a disappointing break in the sculpt, but a minor one in an overall excellent altmode.
Color-wise, he’s bright white, with smokey grey windows. He’s got very shiny rims, silver with gold centers, along with plastic tires. There’s a TON of painted and tampographed details to pick out his uniquely G2 colors. I don’t own a vintage G2 Jazz, but a look at some image galleries online confirm every sticker detail on the original was matched almost exactly by the tampos. At TFcon 2018, they even had a vintage G2 Jazz out on display to show off just how closely the colors match. They include pastel blue music notes with rainbow dropshades surrounding on his hood, roof and doors, something that wouldn’t look out of place in a shopping mall in the 90s. He’s also got blue ribbons with white text loudly proclaiming “Jazz” on his windshield, around his back wheels, and on his spoiler. There’s a bit of extra paint not on the original figure, too, on the rear headlights headlights. Of course, he’s missing any Autobot faction insignias that were on him.
If there’s one complaint I have about the car mode, it’s simply that it doesn’t do anything, when most MPs nowadays feature opening doors, or liftable hoods, or some sort of feature. Unlike the G2 toy he’s imitating, he can’t mount his weapons on his roof, either, though that would have required retooling that was probably not feasible on a limited-run exclusive.
Transformation
Amusingly, he still comes with Downbeat’s instructions, which, since it’s the same figure, work just fine for him. These instructions even include a QR code to a Youtube transformation video.
This is a really fluid, straightforward transformation, unlike some third-party Masterpieces, and even a lot of the official ones (I say, glaring at Sunstreaker). The only tricky bit is a point where you have to wiggle the arms down a pair of tiny metal pins, which the instructions even loudly tell you to “CHECK!” carefully. Extending the legs can also be harrowing, as they contain an automatically rotating part the instructions don’t convey very well. I even broke a panel off trying to figure it out. Luckily, it was easily reattachable. There’s also an interesting trick with the car hood/robot chest: Most of it actually folds away into his backpack, so what’s left can compress into a smaller chest. There’s a replica of the music-note deco underneath the part that folded away, making it look like the same chest somehow shrunk. Finally, as far as I can tell, his backpack doesn’t lock in, and just hangs there, but it’s hardly in danger of falling off, since the joints it’s on are so tight.
Robot Mode
This is a really solid, slick robot mode, sculpted to resemble his animation model from the original Transformers cartoon as accurately as possible. It’s a great, clean sculpt, a good realization of a standard Autobot Car design. He’s got a particularly nice headsculpt, a stone-cold poker face hidden behind his sunglass-like visor, wonderfully in-character for Jazz. There’s a couple of unsightly gaps right across the musical note his chest, though, thanks to that trick I mentioned during transformation, and you can clearly see the outline of where an Autobot symbol was supposed to go on the original Downbeat deco. That’s the only real issue with the sculpt, though. In this mode, you get to feel a bit of diecast metal, too, as his thighs and stomach are made from it. Of course, he still has that intangible look and feeling that makes him feel like an official product.
He’s nice and stable, and everything on him pegs together securely. His big, stompy feet keep him upright. Poseability-wise, he’s got fully articulated arms, opening hands, really tight, ratchetty hips,and even an ab crunch. Despite being able to lean over, his articulated head can’t look up without coming undone from its resting place. At first, I thought he didn’t have ankle tilts, but you can extend his feet very slightly to unlock them, too.
While his robot mode doors are supposed to fold away to give him a clean silhouette like his cartoon model, publicity photos show him with his doors deployed out like wings, like the G2 toy, a look I prefer, as it adds more visual interest to him, and shows his deco off even more. Speaking of the deco, his colors still show an extremely detailed amount of attention to G2 sticker detail on his grey and black robot parts, save, oddly, for his stomach, which is a different label. The rest is spot-on, though. Finally, he’s got a tiny bit of blue chrome on him, picking out the visor on his face.
An unfortunate aspect of Maestro is that he has far fewer accessories than Downbeat, highlighted by the fact that the instructions still show them. The more-complete Downbeat also includes a pair of shoulder-mountable speaker weapons, an additional harpoon gun, and a few extra, swappable faces. On the other hand, we know they were left out specifically because the G2 toy didn’t come with them. What he does come with is a handheld gun, and a shoulder rocket. His handheld gun is cast in slightly flexible grey plastic, and clips securely into his hand using the same sideways-peg system as the official Masterpiece cars, only this one’s tight enough to stay in his hand. His (non-firing) shoulder launcher, meanwhile, shows another bit of lovely 90’s gaudiness, being painted bright blue, with a bright green rocket, like the G2 toy’s oversized launcher. The launcher can clip onto his shoulder, and raise up or down, though its grip is a bit tenuous, and can come off if you move it too much. If I may make an extreme nitpick here: Despite the G2 paint job, the launcher is sculpted to look like his original toy’s, instead of the new one that came with the G2 figure. Also, that version didn’t even clip on his shoulder, but could be handheld, something this one can’t do, being shoulder-only. Still, this is the most tiny of criticisms, especially considering they probably couldn’t budget a new tooling for a limited-run show exclusive.
Overall
I don’t think I’ve stressed enough yet how much this feels like an official Takara Masterpiece. The build quality, sculpt, transformation and poseability all match the official Masterpieces dead-on. In fact, if for some reason Takara did make an official Masterpiece Jazz, I don’t see what they could do that Downbeat/Maestro hasn’t already. And that’s before getting into his G2 colors, a lavishly-done, super-accurate tribute to a cheesy era of excess that I love, and one that fits right alongside the G2 Bumblebee and Sideswipe Masterpieces. If you have the same set of specific interests as me, you owe it to yourself to track this guy down. And if you don’t dig the G2 deco, or you just can’t track down a convention exclusive, Downbeat offers the same excellent figure with a more reasonable colorscheme.
(Extra 2021 note: Since writing this, a new long-term issue reared its head: The panels that make up his front bumper/chest have become extremely loose, and are prone to falling out during transformation. It turns out that they were simply pegged in, rather than being bolted or glued, and those pegs loosened over time. I’m looking into gorilla-gluing them on more securely myself. It doesn’t sink the figure, but it’s a frustrating thing to deal with on a figure that otherwise felt MP-10-era-Masterpiece Solid.)
