Graham

Took the woodland camo GBP armor out of the box last night. Very happy with it. Haven't had time to take apart the chest yet to see if any improvements were made. The attention to detail continues to amaze me. I love the way that even the inside of the armour has panel lines. One change I noticed compared with my standard GPB, is that the backpack thrusters now have a distinct click, when moving the thruster nozzels between the two positions. Graham

Fold Booster & FPs will be released together as a set, sometime early next year. Graham

Very happy with my Angel Bird. That said, I haven't transformed it and probably won't. Fighter mode looks the best IMO for this paint scheme. It's going to end up on display in fighter mode, without any missiles or gunpod, just the way it was in the TV series. It's great that we finally have a production toy of it. Graham

Here's a bigger scan of the pics from the November Dengeki Hobby. I took the page out of the magazine to get it completely flat on the scanner. Click to enlarge Graham

Not mis-transforming per say, just they didn't want to show the feature until now. Made me have a good laugh when the CAD art was first published and everyone here was bitchin and moaning about how the shoulders should angle up. Graham

Should still be late November. Graham

Strange POV IMO. The non-canon Valks as well as recent canon Valks such as the Angel Birds have been selling pretty well. Certanly there's not huge piles sitting unsold in warehouses. Yamato didn't really blow a whole load of money to produce them as the cost of the molds (the main expense) was paid for a long time ago. So it's only production and materials cost, plus a small amount of cost involved in development for choosing the paint and plastic colors to use. There is definitely profit being made on them. The more profit Yamato makes, the more it will encourage them to produce other Macross toys, such as those from Plus, Zero and others . Graham

No! Graham

It pushes in to make space for the arms in fighter mode. Graham

Oh, there's about 3 more cool features I can think of that haven't been shown yet. Graham

Beacuse Yamato likes teasing you and revealing the features slowly, one by one, to build up anticipation. Graham

Bigger version of the same pic, showing the upwards hinging shoulders. Click thumbnail to enlarge Graham

The November hobby magazines are out a few days early. Just picked them up. As it's shown in the magazines, I can now reveal one of the hidden features of the YF-19 that I've previously alluded to............. Upward hinging shoulders, to make the battroid more accurate to Kawamori's line art! Also note, the CAD pic of the upcoming Fold Booster & FAST Packs for the YF-19 and the Ghost Booster for the VF-0 (that we've already seen). Not final colors! I'll get a better scan up at the weekend. Graham

I don't know yet. I did talk with them 2 days ago, but I forgot to ask.........sorry! Graham

Hobby mags come out on 25th of each month. Graham

I have a nice comparison photo of the YF-19 Battroid standing between a 1/60 VF-0S and a 1/48 VF-1. Unfortunately, I'm not cleared to show it. Graham

Tail fin markings will be stickers not tampo AFAIK, as you have a choice of Rabbit or Skull squadron stickers. Graham

Bear in mind that at 1/60 scale, that tab is actually a decent size. It's certainly not as small and fragile as the tiny tab on the Bandai VF-19Kai/S/F kits, which is extremely prone to breakage. Different materials as well. Stronger toy-grade ABS on the Yamato, fragile model-grade styrene plastic on the Bandai kit. I wouldn't worry about it. Graham

Actually, the way the crotch-piece folds and is stored in fighter mode, is correct to Kawamori's transformation lineart. The Yamato 1/60 is the only toy to get this correct so far. Graham

I can confirm those hobbystock pics are of the painted resin prototype, hence the large gaps with some parts, which will be reduced on the production toy. Those pics are actually pretty old. I've had them for 2-3 months already Graham

Not really sure about the colors they're using on those pics. I always thought that the chest and shoulder hatches were grey and the blue of the armour more subdued. See Tenjin's art below: - Graham

VF-0A is still on schedule for Sept 25 release. Still trying to clear up what is the exact situation with the 2nd run of VF-0S. Graham

The cover art of the TIAS mac Plus book shows the top part (barrel cover) of the gunpod removed. The Club M 1/72 scale YF-19 resin kit also had a gunpod with a removeable barrel cover, which you can see in the bottom right corner of the instruction sheet below. The instruction sheet also shows the optional wiing weapons. Graham

Saw the Toynami Max VF-1A in a toy shop here in HK. It looked pretty good, but at HK$169 (US$21.66), I decided to pass. If Toynami wants to send me a sample, I'll be happy to do a review Graham

Actually, the YF-19 has more parts and is slightly longer in fighter mode than the VF-0, so higher tooling and design costs. AFAIK, FPs will come as a set with the Fold Booster. Graham