Frequent visitors to our 2005 Boards Transformers Toy Discussion forum will perhaps have stumbled upon the Masterpiece Speculation Thread - where rumors and speculation on upcoming Masterpiece Transformers releases are shared and notes are compared. 2005 Boards member iGrimlock has come up with a very interesting theory that we thought we might share with you - it might be a coincidence, or it might be the first hint that a Masterpiece Mirage is coming our way in the future.

Takara-Tomy have been uploading Generation 1 episodes on to their Youtube channel. They are not always in order, not always uploaded on a strict schedule or anything. Generally, the episodes are going up roughly in sequence and roughly monthly, but once in a while, a random episode gets thrown in. They started on September 30 2012, not with the first episode but with A Plague of Insecticons. This was the episode where Sideswipe used his piledrivers that the Masterpiece toy came with - and it was uploaded the month before the release of Masterpiese Sideswipe.

After this episodes were uploaded in order until December 2, 2012. The episodes uploaded at that time were Auto-Bop, an episode where Soundwave got a lot of focus fighting Blaster, and Auto Berserk, the Red Alert focus episode. December was the month when Masterpiece Soundwave was originally planned for a release and the month of Masterpiece Red Alert's release.

The next batch of episodes to be uploaded came earlier than might be expected from the previous trend and included Roll For It, which is an episode where both Prowl and Bluestreak were prominently featured. This time, the upload preceded the announcement of the Masterpieces by about a month.

Coincidence, or a deliberate move on Takara-Tomy's part, these episode uploads all corresponded to toys which were either about to be released or shortly afterwards announced for the Masterpiece line.

Which brings us to the point of this whole speculation - Takara-Tomy just uploaded another out-of-sequence episode, the episode Traitor. Traitor focuses on a few characters including Bombshell and Cliffjumper, but it is the episode that is most strongly identified as the characterization of the Autobot Mirage.

Given the established trend, is this a coincidence, or is this a subtle hint that a Masterpiece Mirage lies ahead, in our future? Bear in mind there are also whispers of Takara-Tomy having licensed the alternate mode for Generation 1 Mirage...

Join in the speculation and be sure to keep it TFW for more news and rumors as they surface!