Graham

LOL.........if only you knew how many years the new YF-19 has been in development! 'Fast' is not the word I would use to describe it And the VF-0A only involves a new head and color change, so of course it is quick. Graham

While the Garland does appear to have numerous weak points, statistically speaking, the number of reported breakages is so far very low. Still sucks for those of us with broken Garlands tho! At least replacement parts should not be hard to obtain for it as there are no licencing issues like there are with Macross toys. I think generally Yamato's products are pretty durable, given the inherent strength limitations of complex transfoming plastic toys. I'm certainly not planning to stop buying from them because of one broken toy. I've had close to twenty 1/48 and only broke one BP-8 hinge through my own fault. No other parts broken, despite some falls and rough handling. I'm satisfied it's a tough toy. I've owned over a dozen YF-19 and VF-19A and only broke 1 x Tab B on the first release. The ver.2 YF-19 and VF-19A are very durable toys, especially the VF-19A with solid knees, which is a brick. Owned maybe 20 x 1/60 VF-1 and never had a breakage. Owned several original YF-21, with no breakage. Did break the crappy detachable landing gear on the YF-21FP, but the FP version is crap anyway. Have some stress marks on my VB-6, but no breaks. Q-Raus are all fine. My 4 x VF-11B-FP are all fine, no problems at all. Of course had a couple of hip breakages on the dozen or so original VF-11B that have passed through my hands My 3 x VF-0S are all fine, except for one bent tail spike, that was easily fixed. Graham

Rear visibilty on that thing looks non-existant. Graham

Review is written should be up tomorrow. Graham

I'd have to say not really. The use of CAD/CAM means we now get toys which are superior to the old hand-crafted designs, that fit together better, have less gaps or asymmetrical parts and look more accurate to the anime. However, I don't think it greatly improves the cost of product development and manufature that much. Yamato is still a relitively small company and they can really only afford to concentrate on VFs they think will sell well, i.e. the main VFs in a series. Saying that however, they have thrown us the occasional surprise before like the VB-6, so who knows! Although, thinking about it, I think the VB-6 lost money as it usually needs more than a single production run to break even, let alone make a profit. Graham

Saw the pics a few days ago. Thought you guys would be happy with the change of color. Graham

One thing to consider, which I believe somebody else already mentioned, is that the production toy may end up different to the CAD lineart. The same thing happened with the 1//60 VF-0S CAD lineart, which showed incorrect head lasers, with the laser being in the center of the ear disc instead of on the edge and also the gaps beow the knees, which on the CAD lineart were 'U' shape, but on the production toy were the correct 'V' shape. Graham

Is Lord Kungfu XStoys is disguise? Graham

Hurin, they are not prototype images. They are photos of the old 1/72. Graham

Hah, am I clairvoyant or what?! Matt Damon to be cast as young Kirk? Sorry, but after Team America, I just can't take Matt Damon seriously at all. Graham

With the typical long lead-times in magazine publishing, the color schemes shown in the magazine scans are probably not the final versions and the pics posted online recently are likely to be more up-to-date. Graham

Back onto the subject at hand, I would expect to see photos of the VF-0A in next months hobby mags, or perhaps even fairly soonish on Yamato's website. Graham

Also AFAIK, the licensee (Yamato) has to get approval from the licensor (BW), on a case-by-case basis, before they can release photos or pics. A lot of the time, it's not so much Yamato being secretive, but rather that BW hasn't given approval for specific photos or information to be released yet. Also, market strategies, factory production scheduling and a host of other reasons mean that sometimes a product may get seriously delayed even if in theory it is ready or nearly ready to go into production, so sometimes, it's just not a good idea to announce a product too early and keep fans waiting too long. Graham

Can you take and post a photo please? I want to send Yamato photos of the parts that are breaking. I'm not 100% clear which bit you mean. Graham

Looks like the Minmay & Hikaru photo frame figure is actually is a 3D bust of the characters, with a removable frame in front. See this pic. Graham

Guys, I've just posted larger 1,600 pixel wide scans of the Yamato 1/60 scale YF-19 CAD lineart from the August Hobby magazines, in the Macrossworld magazine section. Check them out: - August Dengeki Hobby (scroll down to bottom of page). and August Hobby Japan (scroll down to bottom of page). Graham

0A first, 19 later. Graham

Great work as usual Jung. I'll get this added to the MW custom toy gallery today, but only 18 of the pics. Adding all 31 pics is too much. Graham

It's coming along nicely. Graham

Ha, Ha, yes too good to be true. Graham

Sorry, I don't know the price, but if I had to guess, I would say it will probably be similar to the VF-0S. As for the planned release date, I'll see if I can get permission to say. Although release dates frequently change, so even if I told you a date now, it most probably would not be accurate. Graham

Oh, you guys are so March 2006.. I'm starting to think there's nothing that we haven't discussed at least once already. Graham

Moved, as it is not a Macross game. Graham

The YF-19 Battroid lineart which some of you have been posting (copied below) is AFAIK not by Kawamori and therefore not 100% official. It's also very obvious that the picture is optimised towards battroid mode. For those that don't know, the origins of that picture are that it was printed on the inside of the bottom tray of the Bandai 1/100 VF-19S plastic model kit box. As to why a VF-19S model box featured detailed battroid and fighter mode lineart of the almost completely different YF-19, nobody has been able to comfim to this day. However, speculation is that it may have been lineart for a Bandai YF-19 model, which never made it in to production. While it's a nice drawing, it's obvious that a battroid model or toy which had the same proportions as the drawing would have major prolems if it were to transform. The battroid drawing has gigantic lower legs and a big head, which would cause all sorts of havoc with fighter mode. Graham

Don't judge the looks of the new 19 just on those CAD drawings. She's a much prettier girl in the fleash, as it were. Graham