The first thing Takara Tomy has printed about any of these four figures is not a press release and not a box; it is a small electronic label propped on a plinth at a trade show.

Takara is at the 64th All Japan Model Hobby Show in Tokyo this weekend with a glass case of figures it has not yet put a price on, several of them under a red plaque reading first public display. Inside were a Masterpiece G Megatron in Generation 1 colours, riding a tank that looks as though it wandered in from Generation 2, and a Missing Link Arcee with a detachable head. Beside them sat an Overgear attack helicopter in black and acid green, and the Wild King Optimus Link Prime set with its clear plastic animal partners [1]. Its own Transformers account on X had already put images of the Megatron, the Arcee and the helicopter out on 1 October, before the doors opened, so the show was never going to be the reveal. What it added instead was the little card sitting beside each figure.

Those cards matter because the English coverage cannot agree on what any of this is called. Seibertron ran the Megatron as MPG-32. TFW2005 headlined it MPG-28 and then called it MPG-25 in the body underneath, with the gallery captions following the body rather than the headline. Toy Habits went with MPG-28. MPG-25 is impossible, because Takara’s own Masterpiece G index has already given that number to Broadcast and Steeljaw, the Blaster set that came West in July, and MPG-32 would skip four numbers the same index has never used [2]. Nothing in the English coverage sourced its number to Takara, and the placard is the first thing that does.

A Takara Tomy display card reading TRANSFORMERS, MPG, MPG-28 Megatron Style Gen., with release date and retail price both listed as undecided. The tread of a grey tank sits behind it, under an acrylic plaque reading First public display

MPG-28 Megatron Style Gen. Release date: undecided. Manufacturer’s suggested retail price: undecided. Reference exhibit. There is nothing else on it, no price, no month, not even a line of product copy.

The same card format settles Arcee, under a different name from the one the English coverage has settled on. TFW2005 and Seibertron both call her Headmaster Arcee, and that describes what she does; Takara’s card calls her C-16 Arcee (The Rebirth Type), after the three-part 1987 finale in which Daniel Witwicky becomes her Headmaster partner. The exo-suit he wears there came out of the 1986 film, but the bonding is pure Rebirth, and the card points at the serial where the bonding happens rather than at the gimmick anyone can read off the toy.

Two small grey units stand on the black display plinth beside Arcee's lower legs and the nose of her pink car: a tiny robot with yellow eyes on the left, and her own white face folded into head mode on the right

Both pieces are sitting out on the plinth in the show photos, the little robot on the left and the head on the right, so the split is easy enough to count. Seibertron identifies the robot as Daniel and reports that he can ride in Arcee’s car mode. What the card does not tell us is whether that body is new tooling or a part borrowed from elsewhere in the line.

The Overgear OG-02 EX Grinder colour sample in helicopter mode on a dark plinth: a black gunship with an acid-green translucent canopy, green stub wings carrying white brush-stroke kanji, pink-tipped missiles and a rocket pod

The helicopter is the odd one out, and for our money it is the best thing in the case. Overgear OG-02 EX Grinder is a collaboration with Chuocho Tactical Crafts, a Japanese cyberpunk and tactical-apparel brand, laid over the Blackout mould that BigBadToyStore has open for preorder at $139.99. Where Blackout is a sober military grey, Grinder is a black airframe with a translucent green canopy, white brushwork down the stub wings and pink tips on the missiles. Takara does not usually go this far toward a custom paint job. No price on this one either.

Takara's display card reading TRANSFORMERS, Missing Link, C-16 Arcee (The Rebirth Type), with release date and suggested retail price both undecided

Takara’s own product pages have not caught up with Takara’s own table, and until they do, every outlet covering this is working from a photograph of a label. The Masterpiece G lineup page ends at MPG-27. The Missing Link page ends at C-15 Ratchet and has already rolled over to a D prefix for the two Soundwaves, so a C-16 would be a return to a prefix Takara had moved off [3]. Neither Megatron nor Arcee appears anywhere on the official site, and on both cards the words reference exhibit sit directly under an undecided date and an undecided price.

The Wild King set is the exception, because its card prints a date: late March 2027, matching the order window Takara Tomy Mall opened on 2 October [4].

Two of the sets in the case are already orderable in dollars, and we read both listings again this morning. New Legends NL-09 Dark Amber Leo Prime and Blue Bolt, shown in the case in both beast and robot modes, is $99.99 and open for preorder at BigBadToyStore. Nothing comes off your card until the set is in stock. Dramatic Capture Series Dinobot Island Part 2, with Slag and Sludge on the stand in grey and red colour samples, is $139.99 on the same page, but that one takes a down payment when you order. Our full breakdown of Thursday’s four Takara listings is here, and if Age of the Primes is more your line, Herald of Unicron came in stock last week.

None of this is a promise, and neither the Megatron card nor the Arcee one carries so much as a month. But a placard with a product code on it is the first thing in this story to come from the people actually making the toy.

Notes

  1. The rest of the case was colour samples of figures Takara has already announced: Studio Series waves 15 and 16, Age of the Primes wave 16 with the Powerlinx Red Alert and Mini-Con eight-pack, Icons Megatron, and a Synergenex Evangelion Prime Unit-02 standing beside the Unit-01 Optimus Prime.
  2. Takara’s own Masterpiece G index runs MPG-24 Eject and Ramhorn, MPG-25 Broadcast and Steeljaw, MPG-26 Destron Rhinox, MPG-27 Twin Cast and Rewind, and stops there.
  3. The Missing Link index runs C-01 through C-15 with a C-01N Nemesis Prime inserted, then D-01 and D-02 for the two Soundwaves. Arcee already holds two numbers on it, C-07 for the prototype version and C-08 for the standard release, so The Rebirth Type would be her third.
  4. The yen price on the Wild King card is partly washed out by a reflection in the show photos and we are not going to guess at it. TFW2005 read 19,800 yen off the Takara Tomy Mall listing on 1 October, the day before the order window opened. Trust that figure until somebody gets a cleaner shot of the card.

Sources