First off, I have to admit that I’m a huge Masterpiece-10 Optimus Prime fan. In fact, he may just be my favorite toy of all time. I love his scale, his very intuitive transformation process, and I love the way he’s just a fun toy to play with. Now, even though DisThunder tried his best to get me into the Masterpiece Transformer game sooner, I jumped into collecting the line late, so I was forced to pay secondary prices for some of the earlier-released characters in the line. Namely, for one, Optimus Prime. Since I didn’t get into the line till after MP-10 was long gone at both retail and online for the original price of $99-$150, I was forced to pay quite a bit more for him. I resorted to scouring eBay every day for months waiting to pounce on a sweet deal, and, eventually, I scored one for a price that I liked.
I thought I was content after I nabbed the Toys R Us version for a decent aftermarket price. Well, that was until I saw pics of the knock-off Prime on eBay and a few other Transformer-related forums. His richer, darker colors popped to me, and once again I found mdfu. He came in the mail a few days ago, so I figured I’d take some pics and let you good Fwooshers know how he is and how he stacks up against my TRU version of MP-10, especially for those Masterpiece collectors who still don’t have any version of MP-10 in their collections and could maybe look to this guy as a cost-saving alternative to buying an official one from the secondary market.
I have to admit I know zilch about the knock-off market. I’m not sure if this is an altered original mold of MP-10 or a completely new one, but either way I look at this guy as a very well done third-party Transformer, which I also collect a lot of. Whether he’s all new or remolded, he’s definitely worthy of adding to my Masterpiece shelves.
Right off the the bat you’ll notice his reds and blues are much darker than the TRU version and are more in line with the Takara version of Prime. This makes me super happy because the TRU Prime’s colors always seemed a bit too light to me, and that made him feel a bit more like a toy than some of the other Masterpiece figures in my collection. He also has a few more areas painted silver than either official version and just seems a bit more shiny, almost metallic-looking, both of which are positives in my book.
While the darker paints are a plus for me, there a few negatives to this guy. First being his eyes are not painted and the plastic used is clear. It almost gives him a “sleep” look, and I wish they used some kind of lighter plastic for the eyes. Not a huge thing to me, but I’ll probably open up his head and paint the eyes to give them a bit more pop. While the eyes don’t really bug me, the one thing that kinda does are his forearms.
His forearms seem to have a bigger gap than the official version. It’s not huge, nothing more than a few centimeters, but it stands out to me. It looks like the piece of his arms that swivels over and in during his transformation is a bit smaller than it should be, so in ‘bot mode it leaves a slight gap. From what I understand, the first version of this knock-off had a much larger gap there, but they fixed it for later releases. I also believe the first release came with extra forearms that allowed you to fix it. Or, at least, fix it to where this version is now. So neither version is aligned as perfectly as the official release. Not quite a huge eyesore, but it is there for sure.
The next big difference is both an improvement and a setback. The good is they fixed his pointing finger so that it’s actually pegged in and not just snapped on. So no more having his finger pop off when adjusting them.
The bad thing, though, is that the rest of his fingers are not molded correctly to simulate fingers, so you’re left with almost a “mitten” look. I know that there is a third-party release of a new set of hands and a blaster for MP-10 coming down the pipe soon, and if those fit onto this guy, I’ll grab a set to replace these.
The finger issue, or lack of molded ones, actually bugs me the most out of any flaws I could find. On the bright side, at least he can point out orders without fearing that his finger will pop off onto your floor and disappear forever with other lost tiny pieces and parts that disappear into the mysterious lost toy land.
Besides the better paints, another plus for me is that his feet are die-cast instead of just plastic, which definitely gives him a weighted feel to his lower half. I’m a big fan of die-cast parts, so this is a score for me. I wish all Masterpiece figures had more die-cast parts. Another good thing about the feet is that his ankles don’t feel like he’s going to topple over at any second. He can stand on the shelf without fear of him taking a nose dive to the cold, hard, toy destroying ground below.
I can explain all the differences between this guy and his official version till I’m blue in the face, but the best way is to see for yourselves:
These comparison pics with TRU MP-10 show that they’re the exact same height and size. I’ve heard from a few different reviews that the first release of the KO Prime was bigger than MP-10, but this guy is definitely not. When you put them up against each other, the KO figure’s colors definitely win out in my opinion. He just feels more like “Prime” to me. The darker tones and the shiny metallic silver on his legs and face really make me happy I picked him up.
Just like MP-10 he comes with his blaster, his energy axe, and his Matrix of leadership. The Matrix fits into his chest just like the original and has no issues at all with it. His blaster seems to be pretty close, but if you examine the two together, there are some tiny differences.
Now the axe, on the other hand, is much bigger than the official version. It’s huge in comparison. Much sharper on the edges too. I feel like I could cut meat with this thing.
The one thing he is missing that the original includes is his trailer, so when you change him to his alt-mode, you may definitely feel like he’s missing something without the trailer. The transformation to his cab mode is exactly the same, though, and doesn’t have any issues with adjusting or moving parts like some other third party releases have. He feels sturdy, and I can move his transforming parts around without feeling like they’re gonna break at any minute.
His alt-mode is pretty much the same cab once you transform him. Again, just like his ‘bot mode, there are some added silver highlights to his piping and details. The one strange thing about his cab mode, though, is that he appears to be smaller than the original, height-wise at least.
It’s not much of a difference, and perhaps it’s just in the wheels, or the wheels being raised more on one than the other, but it looks shorter to me. I really think the size difference has to be all in the wheels, though, because the ‘bot modes are exactly the same size, both in height and mass.
The trailer, like I said, is NOT included, but it does fit onto the pegs on his legs just like the regular version does.
Overall, I’m really happy with him. Like any figure or toy, there are both pluses and minuses to him. He’s by no means perfect, but his colors and added details have me considering replacing my TRU version of MP-10 in my display. There a few kinks here as I mentioned, but I paid less than half of what an aftermarket official MP-10 goes for these days. So if you’re in the market for a Masterpiece Optimus Prime and feel like the prices are crazy, this may be the route for you. Or if you’re like me and are a huge fan of the MP-10 mold, you should also consider grabbing this guy just to add to the collection. He’s a cool toy and I definitely recommend him.