Masterpiece Showcase: Part 2 – 1984 Decepticon Cassettes
One thing that I was never able to do the first time around was to “collect them all” and gather all of the figures shown in the catalogs. With the Masterpiece line however, I’m finally able to work towards that goal with modern updates of the original figures.
Like Soundwave, the original cassettes were from MicroChange and transformed into a 1:1 scale micro-cassettes. Sadly, I don’t think we’ll ever get a modern set of alt modes that work as well as these. The Titans Return tablets worked on a technical level but didn’t really look like real-world tablets and there was no explanation as to why you would be inserting them into something else. I suppose, to make it more relatable, you could make Soundwave into a car carrier and his minions cars but you loose that special relationship. To keep the relationship, you could make Soundwave into a Drobo enclosure and the cassettes into hard drives but it’s not very relatable to most people.
All of the 1984 Decepticons cassettes came out in 2013 shortly after Soundwave so this is another easy to complete step of my Masterpiece collection completion plan.
19) Rumble and Ravage
MP-13 Rumble
Rumble (yes, he’s red) came in a two-pack with Ravage.
The most poseable of the Masterpiece cassettes, the robots feature several ball joints.
To recreate his trademark special power, Rumble includes a set of pile drivers that mount on his arms.
Both backpack rifles can be stored within the pile drivers when not in use.
There’s also an accessory that allows you to mount the pile drivers to the robot’s back, but mine is packed away somewhere.
MP-13 Jaguar
Ravage (Jaguar in Japan), like the condors, features a fully integrated transformation where the missiles fold into the cassette mode.
Another feature of the new design is that head splits and includes a flip-out nose which is very easy to miss during transformation.
20) Frenzy and Laserbeak
MP-16 Frenzy
For some inexplicable reason, Frenzy comes with blue versions of Rumble’s pile drivers, mine never left the box.
MP-13 Condor
Too famous to wait, Laserbeak (Condor in Japan) was released along with Soundwave.
_) Enemy
Not featured in the catalog, Enemy was part (literally, it was glued to the front!) of a Transformers AM radio available in 1984. The Masterpiece version was released as part of MP-15/16E.
Additional Reading
- Masterpiece Cassettes: covering all of the cassettes in my collection prior to the release of MP-15/16E.
- MP-15E/16E Cassettebot vs. Cassettron: covering the four most recent Masterpiece cassettes from Takara.
Third-Party Alternatives
As mentioned in part 1, Ocular Max has a series of larger cassettes for any of you who feel that these are too small and don’t mind that they don’t fit inside Soundwave.