Blog #887: Review: Transformers: Asia Premium Series Ultimate Optimus Prime

This sucker was crazy expensive at $270, but he’s well worth it.  The Asia Premium Series Ultimate Optimus Prime has virtually every accessory you can think of accept for the Dark of the Moon Ultimate Optimus Prime Trailer.  Would have been kind of crazy if they’d been able to integrate that too, but I don’t want to think about what it would have cost.

As you can see, there are a few major accessories that he includes.  He’s got the fuel tank gun, weapons from Striker Optimus Prime, Jetwing Optimus Prime, and more.

As this is an Asia release, it has English text.  This blurb gives a little bit of an overview of the toy.

Here we have him in vehicle mode with every accessory.  I’ve put his fist accessory on the hood.  I didn’t see anywhere in the instructions that says where to put it in vehicle mode, but this sees to work best.  He looks pretty bad ass.

So, here we see Optimus Prime, and his hand weapon from Dark of the Moon.  Unfortunately, he only comes with one of these. It would have been nice to have two.  You can also see the mold change that was made to him.  He has new hands with moveable fingers.  Frankly, I think it’s going backwards, as it’s hard to get some of his weapons in these hands, and they don’t stay in very well.  The real unfortunate part is that they did all this engineering to make him have moveable fingers and they move in groups of two, so you can’t even pose him flipping off Megatron. 

Here he has his fuel tank weapon that first debuted on Buster Optimus Prime, a second version of the Japanese Revenge of the Fallen Optimus Prime that removed the old fixed fuel tanks and created a removable set that turned into this gun.

I believe these accessories themselves are new molds, but of weapons seen on other versions of Optimus Prime.  The swords and hooks are both from Revenge of the Fallen, at least I’m 99% sure they are, I haven’t watched in a while.  He later used the blades again in Dark of the Moon.  Not sure we’ve ever gotten hard plastic ones before.  I think they’ve always been soft plastic flip out weapons.  The hooks are actually hinged so they can be opened and closed.

Also included is the awesome Jetwing Optimus Prime backpack.  We did get this one in the USA with a repaint that was better than the Japanese.  This one might be the best.  The wings are silver, like both previous versions.  It lacks the blue and white G1 trailer stripes on the wings of the USA release.  This one has the engines painted blue, and have a nice bit of detail with the silver tips and red fans.  This looks really sharp.

Here he is with the weapons from Striker Optimus Prime.  This toy was released in Japan only for Revenge of the Fallen.  Now, this might be the only unfortunate thing about this toy.  The original Asia Premium Series Optimus Prime was a repaint of Striker Optimus Prime that came with the extended grill chromed.  When I first heard about this, I had hoped they would include that, but it is painted up to match the toy.  It’s kind of disappointing (since I never bought that version as it was just paint differences), but I suppose it’s more accurate this way.  He has his striker weapons as well that can be used in different configurations.

Here he is in all his glory.  Optimus Prime, armed to the teeth.  There are all kinds of configurations for the weapons.  One thing I had a problem with is the storage for his fist weapon.  The instructions show it being stored behind his head, but I can’t figure out any way to plug it in.

Overall: If you are a lover of the Bay movies, as I am, then this is the final most perfect version of the first trilogy Optimus Prime, but it is crazy expensive, as all Asia series toys seem to be.  It is kind of unfortunate that they didn’t give him a shield and sword and clip on “knight” chromed forearm covers from Age of Extinction.  My guess is that down the road we’ll get a Prime like this for the second trilogy, probably based on the Leader Class toy from TF 5, as the one from Age of Extinction is nice, but not perfect.  This one was good enough to keep using long after Revenge of the Fallen.  Hopefully we get a mold like that for TF 5.

Thanks for reading!