Hasegawa News
Attached are the latest pictures from the new issues of Hobby Japan magazine and Dengeki Hobby magazine of Hasegawa's upcoming YF-19 1/72 scale plastic model kit due for release on 19th March 2002, for a price of ¥2,400.

The kit looks to have much fewer parts than Hasegawa's VF-1 kits and thus should prove slightly simpler to build, not that the VF-1 are particularly difficult mind you! For those of you wondering what the molds used to make injection plastic model kits look like, one of the pictures of the YF-19 shows a picture of the mold used for the upper and lower main fuselage/nose sections

 

Bandai News
Here's a nice picture of the upcoming Bandai 1/55 scale VF-1S, due for release in March 2002 for a price of ¥6,800.

Unfortunately, it looks like Bandai is remaining faithful to the original Takatoku design and selling this toy without a clear canopy and with only the screwed-on black heat shield.

Personally, I find this very disappointing, as Just like the original Takatoku, I personally think the toy looks very silly in fighter and Gerwalk modes when using the black heat shield!

How difficult would it have been for Bandai to supply the toy with a clear canopy or optional clip-on heat-shield.

 

Yamato News
The tentative release date for the first Yamato VF-1 FAST pack toys is now May 2002.

At the moment, the TV type Hikaru VF-1J Super will probably be the first of the VF-1 FAST pack toys to be released. The order and date of release for the other toys has not yet been finalized at this point in time.

Yamato are still deciding whether or not to release their VF-1 FAST pack toys with both Strike and Super type FAST packs.

Release of the Macross Plus toys has almost certainly been pushed back to 2003 as Yamato's design and production capabilities are tied up on the VF-1 and other product lines until then.

It is confirmed that the VF-1A production type due for release in April 2002 at a price of ¥7800.

 

Banpresto YF-19 Key-ring
Earlier this year Banpresto released a series of five double packs of Super Deformed (SD) mini key-rings from one of their seemingly never-ending series of popular Super Robot Wars (SRW) console games. One of the key-rings in the set is a super-deformed YF-19 battroid.

I'm not sure of the exact release date of these key-rings or exactly which SRW game they are from. Perhaps somebody more knowledgably can let me know the details?

Anyway, I recently came across these previously unknown key-rings in a Hong Kong hobby shop and decided to buy the YF-19, as this is the first time I'd seen a SD YF-19 Battroid. Unfortunately, the shop was only selling the key-rings as a complete set so I had to buy all five double packs even though I didn't really want the other mecha. The whole set cost me HK$99, which works-out to about US$12.80.

The YF-19 is pretty small standing at about 1 1/8" tall (2.5cm) when measured from the feet to the top of the head laser, but the detail is quite good despite the small size.

The five double packs contain: -
1. GX-9900 Gundam X and YF-19
2. MSZ-006 Zeta Gundam and Master Gundam
3. Heavy Metal L-Gaim MKI and Daitarn 3
4. Turn A Gundam and Turn X Gundam
5. Aura Battler Billbine and Dangioh (another Kawamori design)

That's all for now.
Graham