MoDel - Model-002 MP-13 Soundwave Upgrade Kit

MoDel - Model-002 MP-13 Soundwave Upgrade Kit

The Hasbro edition of Soundwave was my first Masterpiece Transformer, given to me as a gift many years ago. It was and is a great figure, particularly given the inclusion of five of Soundwave's cassettes when the Takara release included just one. Identical in almost every way, the only thing that ever bothered me was Hasbro's decision to give its version toy accurate yellow eyes rather than cartoon accurate red eyes. When he was the only figure in my collection it wasn't such a big deal, but once I obtained the entire season one Decepticon line-up, Soundwave just looked out of place. Previous mod kits have been of little use as they required you to disassemble the head, something rendered very difficult by the glue holding it together. In fact, it was very likely to break as the tabs inside the head were easy to cut when trying to use a craft knife to slice through the glue (not to mention the obvious external damage caused by trying to separate the two halves of the head with a knife).

Thankfully this new kit addresses the problem by offering an entire replacement head piece, one that only requires the removal of a single screw at the back of Soundwave's neck. This does still cause some minor damage as there isn't quite enough clearance for the screw to come out without scraping against the blue plastic at the rear of the head. Thankfully it's really not all that noticeable - the head of the screw removes a small semicircular piece of plastic as it comes out - so people wanting to swap back to the official head can do so without it looking unsightly. The kit offers a number of options (not all for Soundwave, but more on that later), so let's take a look at what's included.

• Replacement head for Takara MP-13 Soundwave (or the Hasbro version)
• 1x yellow visor
• 1x red visor
• 1x replacement concussion blaster
• 1x audio casette
• 1x screwdriver
•  1x back-plate for MP-36 (bonus add-on)

Here's a clear image of everything laid out:

Replacing the head was a simple affair. I just removed the aforementioned screw, taking care not to damage the original head any more than absolutely necessary, then unscrewed the neck piece on the replacement head (easier because there is clearance for the screw), put the neck piece around the mushroom peg on the shoulders, then tightened everything up. The head comes with the yellow eyes installed, but they are easy to replace. You don't even need to disassemble the head; you simply push outwards on the spikes at either side of the head (there's a bit of play in them), slide the yellow visor out, then push the red one down until it clicks into position. The light-up functions are activated via a small button on the left side of the head and offer a choice between slow/quick pulsing and 'always on' settings. Unfortunately there's a fair amount of light bleed, which is most noticeable when the light permanently activated. Thankfully I didn't buy the set expressly for the light up features, so I'm happy to report that both visors look good even when they aren't illuminated. The yellow is slightly more vibrant than the red - and indeed the red isn't as vibrant as that used for  the stock Takara eyes - but both look okay under normal lighting conditions. There's even a subtle metallic fleck to both the eyes and the blue paint on the head itself, although it's not as obvious as with the stock head.

The other light-up feature is that of the replacement concussion blaster. The weapon is generally a good match for the official piece, but it doesn't compress to allow you to store it on Soundwave's back. That's not much of an issue though, as people will most likely store the official weapon there and pose Soundwave with the replacement. The end of the blaster is a sort of purple plastic, which looks pretty good when illuminated (there's no light bleed). It only has one mode, on or off, but it does the job. Here are a few official images of both light-up effects in action.

They look pretty good in promo photos, but the results are somewhat mixed in a 'real world' environment. The blaster is quite impressive, but the light bleed from the eyes isn't great, as evidenced below (I've also included some more pack shots, along with before and after head shots).

As you can see, the red visor actually looks pretty good in natural light, even when it isn't illuminated. It looks better when viewed head on, as when viewed from a slightly elevated position the head crest blocks the light and makes it look darker than it actually is. Still, it doesn't look any duller than the official Hasbro yellow visor. As mentioned above, the light bleed is quite significant and as such the visor is more of a washed out red than a vibrant one. Oh, the eagle-eyed among you might have noticed that the replacement head also has the little silver triangle just above the crest, which is present on the Hasbro release but not on the Takara release. I for one was glad not to lose it.

The included cassette is undoubtedly the weakest element of the set. Most of the dialogue is in Chinese and the Chinese Soundwave voice actor sings his dialogue with an odd wavy vocal affect overlayed for good measure (I kid you not). It sounds terrible. The actual quality of the samples is also pretty bad, which doesn't help. There are a few English samples, namely one Frank Welker clip, part of the opening theme tune and two transformation sounds, but that's your lot.

As I alluded at the start of the review, the kit includes a bonus accessory for Takara's official release of MP-36, Megatron. The piece in question is a plate that covers up the unsightly back kibble, which is one of the most common complaints people have about the figure. Previously versions of the plate have been available that fit the KO MP-36 figures and the Infinite Transformatons reworking, but to my knowledge this is the first time it has been made available for the official Takara release. The plate is pictured below, along with before and after shots of Megatron.

Wow, what an improvement! Honestly, I think the plate is almost worth the cost of the set alone. It really cleans up the back of the figure, not to mention adding rigidity to the gun barrel, which had an annoying tendency to flop around. The colour is also a good, if imperfect, match to the factory paint. It took just seconds to fit and really improves the overall aesthetic, to the point where you wonder what the hell Takara was thinking in leaving it uncovered in the first place...

I can't really recommend this set on the strength of the silly gimmicks, but if you own the Hasbro release of Soundwave and want a cost effective, hassle free method of giving him 'toon accurate eyes this set is pretty good value (although annoyingly it could have been even cheaper without the light and sound features). The MP-36 back-plate is a really great addition to the pack and one that would definitely sell if it was available separately, something that the manufacturers would be mad not to do. It was listed as a pre-order bonus when I bought mine, so I'm not sure if it will be included with every set going forward, which is something to bear in mind if you're on the fence about this release.