Sumdumgai

I just got my YF-19 w/FD+FP from Tam at Twin Moons. I love it and also want to inflict grievous bodily harm upon the factory workers in China. It doesn't want to stay locked together in fighter mode. The chest area will not go down and lock with the left leg and wingroot. The left swivel part of the leg over the knee is annoyingly loose and it affects how well fighter mode holds together. Tightening the screw in the area does not tighten that swivel joint. I wish there was a mechanism to lock down the chest in fighter mode better so it doesn't jut up in front. I've got the stress marks on the gray hinge things, which got a little worse when I transformed it into battroid for the first time (talk about nerve wrecking). No stress marks on the neck or gullet area, no stress marks on the upper arms either. The right elbow joint is really loose. It took me forever to get this baby back into fighter mode because it just refused to lock back together. I think I went through every single curse I knew, and then invented more. I'm not going to even bother putting on the fast packs (1: because I don't care for them and 2: because I have bad feelings about fast packs since my 1J Miria's bp8 broke because of the fast packs). And I do see what you all meant about needing a locking mechanism for the chest in gerwalk and battroid. I originally thought it wouldn't be that bad. Boy was I wrong. That's like the only part that Bandai got right. Speaking of which... I'm going to go pull out that Fire Valkyrie and gloat now that I have that 19 I've been dreaming of getting since 1994. addition: after fiddling around with it for a long time I managed to learn how this girl is supposed to handle and managed to do transformations much smoother and easier. Although, she doesn't want to hold together easily in fighter mode. The chest still wants to pop up. I also managed to get the fast packs and fold-dildo on her. She looks nice, the YF-19.

Surprisingly, Leo Aioria was the very first Gold Saint to be released in Myth Cloth form, so he's done a good job of standing up to the other Gold Cloths. While I think that his is a bit more rough in design, it's great. I took away the Aries Cloth from Mu and put it on Pope Shion. So now he has become Pope Mu (his head barely fits on over the Pope neckpiece thing). Man, I still can't get over how Surplice Aries Shion looks. That metallic purple looks so damned good, especially with a bright light shining on him.

It was officially 1/72, but in reality it was a bit off. I forgot what it was more sized to. I'm sure someone else with a better memory can chime in.

My Siren Sorrento and Surplice Aries Shion just came in. I My camera is out of batteries right now (and I don't have any spares), so I can't take pics. I'm impressed and troubled with the version 3 bodies. While they are much more poseable and the joints are more integrated and don't stand out as much, the thinner and smaller parts make me worry about the durability of the bodies. In particular when you push on or pull off the armor parts. On the other hand they look fantastic. I've waited for Siren Sorrento since I saw him in the manga. The Myth Cloth version is fantastic. I'm so glad I didn't buy the chunky-monkey version out of desperation two years ago. Both hair sculpts are fantastic, and the face rocks. I just wish that they had gone with the manga hair color of lavender, as opposed to the anime blue. The box art has him with manga color hair too. The armor fits together really well. I'm always impressed at the improvements Bandai makes as they progress in making these figures and armors. There's a great deal of metal as usual. The plastic parts are the base waist armor (the skirt part is all metal), the wrist gaurds, the elbow guards, the ankle guards, the wings, and the mask. The flute is plastic, much to my disappointment. I must say though that posing him playing the flute is really really irritating, and tried my patience to the max. You have to balance the flute just right in the posed hands, or it slides out. I damned near blew a blood vessel trying to get him to hold it. Other than that, he's awesome. Comes with a cape that you can use alternatively to the wings (unlike Aioros, where you have to buy Pope Shion to get his cape). Surplice Aries Shion. Awesomeness and annoyingness. There's no doubt in my mind that this really captures Surplice Aries Shion in the form of a figure perfectly. Smug look, glaring eyes, and well sculpted hair. Getting it out of the way now, the long flowing hair aggravates me. It keeps falling off and not holding onto the neck peg. So when you try to fit the main hair piece onto his head, the long hair falls off. I almost bit his head off for that. I love this figure despite that annoyance. The surplice is mostly metal. The plastic parts being the horns (two types, like with Aries Mu), the shoulder pads, the plates that snap onto the backs of the armored hands, the chest plates (two parts instead of one like Aries Mu), the base waist armor, and the goat face on the back. It does not come with a cape, and there are no pegs to attach a cape to him. He comes with a wide array of hands. I got my Pope Shion figure and put the Aries Gold Cloth on him. There's a number of differences between the two basic figures. Surplice Shion is taller. Surplice Shion is paler, with a corpse-ish complexion as opposed to Pope Shion's pale yet still alive complexion. Pope Shion's main hair piece is composed of two parts glued together, where as Surplice Shion's main hair piece is one solid sculpt with slightly different detailing, for a cleaner look. Pope Shion's hair has some highlights or lighter colored sections in his hair, whereas Surplice Shion has a much more even distribution of color which is also slightly darker. The long hair piece was recycled, it looks the same to me, just in different shades of green. There's slight differences in the basic design of the cloths too, besides the obvious switch from Gold to Surplice design. The chest plates are two separate pieces on the Surplice, as opposed to the one piece for the Gold Cloth. The crotch armor is fixed in position on the Surplice and connects to the belly plates, where as it can be rotated on the Gold Cloth and does not tough the chest/belly plates. Oh yeah, and there are little plastic armor plates that attach to the back of the hands, unlike the Gold Cloth version. I guess Pope Shion shrank with age, and revived Surplice Shion is at the height he was when he was eighteen. I love my two newest Myth Cloth figures. edit: forgot to add something.

My suggestion is never buy anything made by toynami ever again.

I think Robotech is hokey and lame. I just watched the intro to Robotech II: The Sentinels the other day and had to stop because it was causing me pain. Rick and Max's new character design and costume choices left me feeling like barfing.

A VFX2 Ravens VF-19A is very likely, since they released one in the past. A VF-19kai is highly unlikely since they'd have to redo the entire 19 practically from scratch. And a "Hell yeah!" to a Blue Supernova 19. I like non-cannon paint schemes. Low Visibility version 1, Stealth, hopefully we'll see Dobber's scheme on a SV-51... Don't get me wrong, I like the 25th Anniversary 19, I just don't like it enough to spend that kind of money. I'm prioritizing.

I was worried it might be an issue like the VF-0 shoulders. For the longest time, no problems. Then after a while, they started cropping up. I'm hoping these are just isolated incidents.

Has anyone had a 19 from the FP set break an arm yet? Seeing as how two first release 1/60 YF-19s are having arm troubles in the same area, I'm starting to feel a bit worried. I hope these two are just isolated incidents, but my eyes couldn't help wandering to my armless VF-0A CF on my desk...

Why not play with them? I play with my Low Vis v1. Unless your definition of playing is slamming it against other toys making explosion and impact sounds (which I did as a kid, but haven't since I was a kid).

I'd be happy if Yamato pulled out a 1/100 Destroid Monster. I'm really glad I didn't settle for second best and go for the Koenig Monster in desperation.

Improve the shoulder and hip joints, and I'll be all for fighting game revoltechs. Leona Heidern, Athena Asamiya, Mai Shiranui, Chun-Li, Cammy, Iori Yagami, Ukyo Tachibana (Bust version, black colors), Shizumaru Hisame, Cham-cham, Shingo Yabuki, Sakura Kasugano, Shermie, Blue Mary...

Well if you mean the 25th Anniversary transformable VF-1S and YF-19 with the black and gold trim, then you want to go for the 1/60 scale Yamato toys. If you mean the 25th Anniversary non-transformable fighter-mode-only VF-1 in dark blue and gold scheme, and the YF-19 in dark purple and gold scheme, then you want to go for the Hasegawa model kits. HLJ.com is a good place to get stuff (avoid Hobby Search like the plague). I haven't tried laftoys or BBTS, but I pre-ordered the YF-19 w/FD+FP from Twin Moons since I heard a lot of good stuff about them here on MW. I've heard some good, but lots of bad about Tisinc99.

To me it looks like an unholy combination of a VF-11 with a Legioss.

Red visor on a black 19, now that's what I've been urging! This would look great as a stealth if you changed the gold/purple highlights to grey and of course removed the 25th anniversary text and "YF-19 Excaliver".

Okay that's the ONLY good point on the Bandai VF-19 series, the chest locking mechanism. The rest makes me regret spending my money on that chunky-monkey. Well, on the bright side I'm going to have it to put next to my new YF-19 once I get it. Oh baby. It's very encouraging that there hasn't been that many reports of problems on the 19 w/FD+FP.

Thank you! Finally some pics to see the 1/60 compared to the 1/72. I couldn't find any pics and spent last night searching through the MW forums. Nice review Jenius! I'll pop back into this thread to let you know how my YF-19 turned out once I get mine from Twin Moons.

Didn't Sadamoto say that Shinji is Nadia as a guy? That he drew hinji with girl's eyes?

You nailed that one on the head vermillion01, track 3-VF-Zero for the first 13 seconds is the same as that theme in Startship Troopers. It doesn't just sound similar, try to play them at the same time. On Macross Plus music in Iron Chef, check out the France Battle. Yoko Kanno's music is all over the place, be it from Macross Plus or Escaflowne (in the second battle). Plus you get to see a chef from La Tour d'Argent in action for the first abttle. I got to eat there a couple times, and there's no comparing them to any other restaurant I've ever eaten at before. Best food ever! The M+ and Escaflowne music is in the second battle with a Chef from another restaurant. You might want to watch the whole episode, since it's different from the usual Iron Chef episodes. Iron Chef France Battle (part 7)

Wouldn't it be cool if the YF-21 came with a bonus alternate canopy and bonus alternate face from the VF-22? Like they were planning to do with the old 1/72 YF-21 w/FP as seen here: Graham's 1/72 YF-21 w/FP prototype review You know, just to hold us over until they do a VFX Ravens VF-22S. I know, I know, the VF-22S has different, larger, belly plates to store the gunpods. But, we could always pretend it's the YF-21 Prototype 1 with conventional conrols. I'm crossing my fingers that Yamato gets it right on the first run. They should really test the hell out of the toy, and oversee things to make sure there's no problems like with the YF-19 first run (crooked gunpod, tight neck, and landing gears not canting outwards), or the batches of SV-51s with identical hinges. I really hope they get it right on the first time, because I don't want to wait for a run with fixes because the first run had problems.

Why the F*&K would HG have anything to do with Macross Frontier? Big West and HG aren't exactly on friendly terms. Good point, with the amount of time between now and release, companies will have the time to work on and hopefully perfect the valkyrie toys from Macross Frontier (hope they're worth getting if that's the case).

That is awesome! I'm the type that doesn't like the shark's head/mouth on aircraft, but I like this Low Vis. The head remaining a 1A Max is a bit weird for me, but I like that you made the headlaser black. And the valkyrie symbol on the heatshield is a really nice touch. The way you did it makes it look really like the successor to the VF-0A CF with style.

Well, now they won't (in my mind) have an excuse for recycled animation. Especially battle animation and transformation animation.

Bad news guys. I had my wife read the parts in Japanese for me. The series will come out in 2009. However the pilot episode will air before then. And Sho Hayami says "Another two years?" while SK confirms it. Damn. And here I was hoping for a good dose of some Macross goodness before the end of the year.

If they do it, maybe they can include a sticker for the pilot's name as "Dobber", in tribute. That would be pretty cool. Of course, knowing their engrish, they'll spell your name "Dovver", "Dobver", or "Dovber" I third that, if it gets made, Dobber should get a free one.