Missing Link Arcee (2025)

As I said last month, most of the new characters introduced in The Transformers: The Movie had corresponding toys that came out in 1986 (even if, as I suggested earlier, these will likely not be the versions of these characters I'll be featuring this year on the blog). Such was not the case for Arcee, although for rather different reasons than was the case for the Quintesson Trooper. Arcee was not the first female Autobot to appear in the franchise (there were several introduced in a season two episode of the cartoon^*), but she was arguably the most important. Despite the character's prominence throughout the remainder of the era, the prevailing wisdom was that boys didn't want to buy toys of girl characters, and so fans would have to wait many years before official toys of Arcee were finally made available.

But although no actual toy of Arcee was released in the Generation One era, that doesn't mean than no such toy was ever considered. In fact, fans learned some years later that a prototype design was created, albeit with a color scheme that gave Arcee orange highlights instead of the white trim of Arcee's character model. That leads us to this toy, released as part of Takara's Missing Link line of toys. Whereas previous Missing Link toys (some of which I'll likely feature in the future, but likely not in 2026) re-created Transformers toys to resemble the original toys that were released in the 1980s (but with far greater articulation), Missing Link Arcee brought the unused prototype to life for the first time (although also with greater articulation than the original design would have been likely to include).

In fact, two Arcee toys were released simultaneously for the Missing Link line. The version seen here uses animation colors, as seen in The Transformers: The Movie. Takara also released Missing Link Arcee in her orange-and-pink prototype color scheme. It is well-understood that using a mold more than once helps to reduce production costs overall, but it's worth noting that the two toys aren't quite physically identical. This version gives Arcee a head design that is closer to her appearance in the cartoon than that of the prototype, as well as a different weapon.

Both versions of Missing Link Arcee are still pretty easy to get online as of this posting, if either appeals to you.

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^*Although other female Autobots did appear in the cartoon several months before the release of The Transformers: The Movie, Arcee was actually created before the creation of the others, due to the long production time of the movie. According to the TFWiki, writer Ron Friedman wanted to include a female character in the cast of the movie because his daughter was a fan of the cartoon.