Via Loopaza on Facebook, we have our by now customary early look at advanced product solicitations from TakaraTomy, and it's a big one this time. From the slightly more mundane end, we have confirmation through this that Power of The Primes Wreck-Gar will be available in Japan for the price of 2800 Yen as PP-41, alongside the TakaraTomy release of Nemesis Prime as PP-42. But everything turns sideways from there. Also in December is Encore Unicron - but it seems not the kind you'd be expecting. Plus there's Masterpiece news, all of which we'll go over in full detail below!
So, let's talk about Unicron. In the listing provided it's marked as "Micron Aggregate Color" (the kanji that we're getting translated as "aggregate" being 集合体), which seems like it should refer to the predominantly clear green Unicron that represents the copy of Unicron made by the Mini-Cons during the final arc of Transformers Armada/Micron Legend. The original version of that was a lucky draw item, limited to just ten copies made. Transformers At The Moon actually has a gallery of this item, an image from which you can see immediately below.
On the Masterpiece front, February will see a rerelease of MP-32 Optimus Primal, the month after MP-43 Beast Wars Megatron will be released. As we now have the release month pinned down to January 2019, we also have a price attached: ¥35,000. As of right now, Megatron has broken the record for most expensive regular retail Masterppiece release. It is very likely import costs for this figure will start at around $300, assuming the dollar-to-yen exchange rate doesn't take a bad turn in the meantime.
We might also use this to surmise that the upcoming third Masterpiece Optimus Prime recently revealed will probably also carry a retail cost well in excess of what we're used to, quite possibly matching Megatron. But only time will tell on that score.
As good as the Armada Unicron is, I still hope for a different mold some day. My main issue is the wings won't stay in one place and his feet are too big.