Macross
Newsletter #24
By
Graham Parkes 09/14/00
Guys,
Two
items of news today: -
1.
Yamato YF-19 Toy (Ver.2) Release
The
version 2, product improved Yamato YF-19 toy is now available in Japan and
Hong Kong. I picked up two of the new toys today and also had a chance to
examine several more in the shop where I bought them.
The
differences between the first and second production runs are described below
in point form.
- Externally
the ver.2 box is identical to the first production run. (at least I
can't find any difference). However, there is a small difference in
the internal clear plastic packing which covers the front of the toy.
On the first production run, the internal packing had a hole for the
toy's nose cone to stick through. The version 2 toy has no hole and
the clear plastic tray completely surrounds the nose cone (comparison
pictures of the inner plastic tray attached).
- The ver.
2 toys come with an additional sheet of printed instructions in Japanese
(picture attached). These are additional instructions for transforming
the toy
- The shoulder
joints are now made of plastic instead of die-cast metal. This change
was apparently made to reduce the problem of paint rubbing off the die-cast
chest plate caused by friction with the metal shoulder joints. Personally,
I never encountered this problem on my ver.1 YF-19 toys (comparison
picture of ver.1 & ver.2 shoulders attached).
- The breakage-prone
small plastic tab which slots into a hole to the rear of the canards
has now been made thicker and has been strengthened by changing the
cross section to a "T" shape. I'm not sure if this change
has solved the breakage problem, as I haven't transformed the toy yet
(comparison picture of ver.1 & ver.2 tabs attached).
- The joints
on the ver.2 toy have been made tighter than on the ver.1, which was
a bit too loose in some examples. I'm not sure if the joints will stay
tight, only time will tell. However, even if they do get loose a few
minutes with a Phillips head screwdriver solves the problem
- The lower
chest slots for the wing tabs in GERWALK mode have been made a little
larger so that the tabs now fit without any filing.
- The gunpod
can now fit into the trigger finger hand without having to enlarge the
hole in the hand. This is unlike the ver.1 toys where the hole was often
too tight to remove the gunpod after you had forced it into the hand.
- For some
reason the metal wing tabs on the ver.2 toys are all bare metal whereas
on the ver.1 they were painted tan color. Not only are the wing tabs
bare metal, but it is obvious that they were previously painted and
the paint has been removed with some very crude file work! (picture
of ver.2 wings attached). I think this was done so that the tabs would
fit into the chest slots more easily.
- The vertical
tails have been redesigned so that they now fold backwards and do not
fall down so easily. However, one of the tails on my new ver.2 toys
was so tight that it would not open all the way up. I had to disassemble
the lower leg and do a bit of remedial file work to get it to move freely
(picture of ver.2 tails attached).
- On all
the ver.2 toys I examined today (about 8 in all) the nipple tabs were
all bare metal. This is different to the ver.1 toys where about 50%
had fully painted or at least partially painted nipples.
.
2.
No Macross Calendar Next Year
Now
for some bad news................It looks like there will be no 2001 Macross
calendar :-(
A
few days ago I visited the a local branch of Animate (an anime hobby shop)
and they had the annual display poster up (as they do every year around
this time) advertising all the new 2001 Japanese anime/idol calendars.
Anyway,
I looked and looked at all the thumbnail calendar pictures on the poster
but I could not see a Macross calendar for 2001. I even asked the staff
and they confirmed that there would indeed by no 2001 Macross calendar.
That's
all for now.
Graham
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Tab
'B'
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Packaging
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Vertical
Stabilizers
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Shoulders
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Wing
Tab
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Additional
Instructions
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