Originally written April 2020.
So, how about that Masterpiece Arcee, eh? I’ve said everything I need to say about that back in my Earthrise Arcee review, so I don’t really need to get too far into it aside from saying “it’s not great.” Luckily, there are alternatives. Because Arcee’s an important character, and it took Takara a very long time to give her a Masterpiece to begin with, the unlicensed “third-party” market’s already created a few unofficial Masterpiece Arcees, with Zeta Toys, Fanstoys and Ocular Max all producing their own takes. And in light of the official one coming out the way it did, those third-party takes are now looking like the more appealing alternatives. Ocular Max’s version was called Azalea, and it’s already gotten a reputation as being the best of the bunch, and now, may be better than the official one.
Certainly, it’s popular enough that it’s been sold out basically everywhere, and I haven’t been able to find a copy for myself. However, there have been several alternate-color variants of it released as TFCon exclusives, which brings me to Azalea Protoform. It was supposed to be exclusive to TFCon DC, until global events forced the convention to be cancelled, and the planned stock sold online, which I was able to grab.
So, let me explain its colors. Despite her importance as the first major recurring female Transformer, Arcee famously didn’t get a figure in the original Transformers line. However, there were actually plans to release a figure, and an image of the prototype was once shown in a Japanese guidebook:
Aside from the wonky proportions, one thing you might notice is the odd, non-Arcee-like colors of the thing. Well, Azalea Protoform is a homage to this early prototype. As far as weird, niche repaints go, it absolutely tickles me. So, let’s see how it held up in person, and also, let’s evaluate this tooling as a potential Good Masterpiece Arcee
Robot Mode
So, Azalea’s about the height of a modern Siege Voyager, putting her mostly in-scale with mainline Takara MPs (and Fanstoys Hoodlum), though she’s a lot slimmer.
Heck, she almost fits in with mainline Generations figures, if you imagine she’s just really tall.
Sculptwise, everything except the head (which I’ll get into in a moment) is very, very slavishly cartoon-model accurate, to almost dead-on proportions.
Her shoulders are a bit sticky-outy and rounded, and her hips jut out a bit due to joints, but those are minor things compared to how close they got it. What strikes me most is how they managed to almost downplay her “it’s just a straight up female body” design, especially compared to Takara’s anime-fanservice-figure take. Sure, the curves and proportions are there, but only as much as needed to convey “girl,” which is exactly what the original cartoon model also did.
The other thing that strikes me is how impressively tiny her backpack is, compared to…Well, every other plastic take on the design. They got it down to just a couple of pylons, with a few panels over them, and that’s it. It’s small, compact, and stays out of her way (quick note: Out of the box, the pylons on her back need to be raised up on their struts). There’s sort of a flaw-that-isn’t-a-flaw with her backpack, in that it’s a little bit unclear how those pylons and panels are supposed to rest, with there being no obvious “click it all in” configuration. But on the other hand, no matter how you rest them, they stay out of the way.
Something I didn’t notice until I had my copy in-hand is that Protoform also has a retooled headsculpt, styled after her early, non-final animation model, seen here:
Basically, it’s similar to the Arcee helmet we all know and love, except it’s a bit softer and rounder, without the hard lines. It’s a little touch, but I like it. Also, she comes with, like, a ton of alternate faces, which I’ll get into later.
Alright, so, let’s talk about these colors, because man, they’re really something. We’ve got two different shades of fiery orange-yellow, a kind of muted, pastel pink, some red highlights, and a bit of dark grey and white. It’s a really unique set of colors, and something about them really clicks with me. Myself and others have compared this layout to: A sunset, the fires in a forge, summer in general, the 80’s, the vaporwave aesthetic, Generation 2 before it existed. Whatever they are, they really pop, and I also get a kick out of how closely Ocular Max replicated the layout on that prototype.
In terms of construction, she feels really solid in robot mode, and everything holds together. For materials, everything below the knees is diecast metal, which seems to actually help with stability. Despite her small backpack, she’s like a 7 out of 10 when it comes to standing up and staying standing, and I wish they’d given her small feet heel spurs. Still, she’s better at it than Siege Chromia, and all other “girl figure with a big kibble backpack” releases I’ve handled.
She’s got appropriately Masterpiece levels of articulation, too, on par with a high-end Japanese action figure. Rather than break it down (that stuff always bores me), I’ll pick out the interesting bits: Her waist is jointed in two places, at her actual waist and below her chest armor, giving her an ab crunch, though she can’t freely spin her waist.
Each of her hips can be independently pulled downwards until they click to unlock additional leg articulation. Her neck, of all things, can raise or lower thanks to transformation, effectively letting you decide what length looks good, and when it becomes weird. Basically, it’s not hard to make her look cool.
So, she comes with a pile of accessories, and I’d like to give the designers a shout-out specifically for making them all really easy to swap in and out, with no tools needed. Firstly, she’s got eight pairs of hands, which can be easily popped in and out of ball joints, and are all a bit rubbery. They are: Closed fists, two different sets of open palms with the fingers more or less straight, and gun-holding hands. Speaking of that, she comes with two cartoon-based pistols to hold, which have way more paint than I’d expect, with dark grey, shiny silver, and yellow bits. Thanks to the rubbery hands, her fingers can even fit in the sculpted trigger.
Finally, she comes with two whole heads, with multiple faces between them. The instructions tell you to use a screwdriver, for some reason, despite you not needing it to easily pop the front of the head off. The first face is on there really tight, though, but I managed to get it out.
So, she comes with: A neutral expression, which she’s boxed with, a smug half-smile, an extremely enthusiastic open-mouthed happy face, and my personal favorite: A serious face with her scanning-for-Hot-Rod TFTM sunglasses down, which just really, really vibes with her whole colorscheme and look. The sculptwork and paint on all these faces are incredibe, and really communicate a sense of character.
Her second head is a more traditional G1 Arcee helmet that can be swapped by popping her head off the balljoint, and it’s cast in pure white. Unfortunately, the faces meant for this head and the other head aren’t interchangeable, thanks to slightly different proportions, which is unfortunate, because….these faces are odd. Instead of animation-accuracy, these two pink faces have gigantic anime eyes. One has a neutral expression, and the other has a really enthusiastic face, and between that and the giant eyes it just…looks frightening.
Like, it has a serial-killer Joker vibe to it. I’m pretty sure that the idea behind these faces is that they’re meant to go with the standard version of Azalea as extra faces. Since they don’t take away from the core figure here, I’m not really going to dock points for it. Still, though. Yeesh.
Transformation
Okay, so, this is complex and tricky, but not as complex and tricky as a lot of Masterpiece and third-party stuff. Let me put it this way: The instructions were really unhelpful, but I was still able to figure it out without resorting to videos or online help. And the second time I put it in car mode, I didn’t even need the instructions, just this convenient photo of the car mode bottom here:
I almost had a heart attack that first time, because the pylons on her backpack popped right off. But it turns out they’re designed to do that, and it’s really forward-thinking of them to avoid an obvious breakage point. In fact, you might want to leave them off to keep stuff out of the way during transformation. Speaking of that, she needs her fist-hands on to transform, or no hands at all, the open ones are too big. Finally, you might want to bring a prying tool for her car mode seats. That being said, it’s easier than Hoodlum, and everything works. Also, you can swap her swooshy retro fin on the top of the car mode out for a flat surface for robot mode, but I just decided to leave it on.
Vehicle Mode:
The first thing that I noticed about this car mode, and the thing that still impresses me now, is how FLAT it is. They really managed to just compress this robot into a car mode that’s thinner than the entire robot mode is, and it’s really impressive.
In fact, it’s even thinner than Thrilling 30 Arcee, and only a little bit wider, despite extending to Voyager heights in robot mode. Seriously. The compression here is ridiculous.
That being said, sculptwise, this retro-future racer isn’t as slavishly accurate to her cartoon model as the robot mode was, mainly due to the windshield, cockpit, seats, and back end being way proportionately smaller than they are on the show model (plus, there’s some blatant robot mode kibble in the form of a bunch of backpack scaffolding right in the middle of her cockpit).
In addition, while the color layout still loosely matches her prototype, it’s not as dead-on as the robot mode, so obviously, the robot form was the priority here. On one hand, the Takara Masterpiece definitely seems to have a more proportionally accurate vehicle mode.
On the other hand, it seems like it does this by just having the entire car mode be that giant backpack, whereas Azalea’s car mode is mostly made of actual robot parts, so that’s a tradeoff I’m comfortable with.
It still looks like it’s meant to cruise the vaporwave speedways at sunset, thanks to those colors.
Gimmick-wise, her two guns have fold-down handles that let you mount them on the back of the car for an attack mode.
The one big flaw of this car mode, however is that it doesn’t roll really well on its tiny wheels, and parts of the underside always want to scrape the ground. I’ve tried transforming it carefully, but it seems I’ve got no luck.
So, it’s good to look at, but tough to roll.
Overall
Everything being said, I love this figure. Firstly, in terms of unique ideas, homaging the Arcee prototype is the kind of deep cut I like. Secondly, I love these Sunset-vaporwave-80’s-looking colors, they’re really unique and appeal to my aesthetics. Thirdly, the core figure is a really good representation of G1 Arcee, losing the huge backpack and weird fixation on humanized female appearances, and replacing them with really good design and engineering, and a more normal-on-main design. The only flaws are a kinda-tough transformation, and a vehicle mode that was obviously second-priority. Oh, and a weird set of bonus faces, I guess.
So, yeah. If you can get your hands on this exclusive, I highly recommend it. As for the other decos Azalea’s available in (G1 Cartoon, G1 Studio Ox Character Model, Green Paradron Medic, Black Stealth Version), I’d say it’s worth owning some version of it. And while I don’t own Masterpiece Arcee to compare, on a sheer aesthetic level, I can confidently say this is the superior-looking tooling for your Masterpiece collection, and probably the superior figure overall (Also, if anyone knows where I can get the pink version, hook me up).
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