AcroRay

It looks like the eye goes up and down inside the enclosure based on the elevation of the cannons. If you look at the upper picture where the cannons are pointing skyward, the eye is in the upper portion of the clear chamber. So those leavers in the channels on either side probably attach to some internal extension of the cannon mountings. Seems like a nice idea, but given Yamato's QC, I'd suspect we may find the feature to have a high failure rate.

Dude, I think you missed the joke....

Bah! Take the fun outta everything, why don't ya Mr. Freud!

Nah! Kids these days! They're so spoiled! When I was their age, I had to work hard, wheel & deal, and spend months to get every little thing I had. And you know what, we loved it! [Cue Weird Al's WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE...] Now these little whelps just go on the internets, pull out their credit cards & those PAYPAL things, and buy whatever they want & have it Fed-Exed to them overnight! When their not just STEALING it all off that bit torrent thing for FREE! Kids these days.... grumble, harumph! Seriously, though - It is great to get more stuff, and better stuff, more easily (my cup runneth over), but there was something more intrinsically exciting about every thing I managed to acquire back then. While I'm still amazed at my new Yammie Q-Rau and can't put it down, I still totally love the little CONVERTORS Zardak VF-1S that's still stayed in my collection since 1985. So, I get the love of the old AND the love of the new. More for me!

Yeah... Winter heating bills on the way, too. Its a good time - and a bad time - to be a Macross collector.

You collect old shoes and used pants? Wow....

(Wow - quite a salvo of replies there!!)

On the Defender? Those are cavities that the ammo is chain-fed into. Not missile rack bays like the Tomahawk. The covers are cosmetically similar, but different in function. They're covers on the Tomahawk, but ammo-boxes on the Defender. (As a note, the classic 1/72 model kit has the same 'hidden' detail feature.)

Hey, Valkyrie! Any word on the project?

Very nice! Thanks also for the middle-transformation photos!

I used much the same style of repair, but my 11b's hip post broke neatly when the thing was knocked off of a shelf, so I didn't need to shave the remains away. Different hardware worked well for me. I went to a local small True-Value type hardware store and picked up a couple of tiny metal bolts (with narrow threads, and no point at the end) approximately the same size as the ones holding the black joint knob on (that way the head of the screw nested inside of the ball joint), but long enough to reach just barely into the inner cavity of the fuselage, for more secure purchase but not to interfere with the landing gear well. I then removed the original screw from the broken-off post, glued it back together carefully with super glue, drilled out the hole in the length of the hip-post and into the inner fuselage enough so the tiny bolt could be pushed in like a peg and sit snugly, and then glued the bolt & knob in place with superglue gel. At a casual glance, the repair was unnoticeable. Then, as precautionary measures, I did the same thing to the opposite side's hip joint. And when I re-assembled the air-intake areas in the legs I made certain to seat all the parts properly (the cup-like halves of the socket were occasionally poorly aligned or put in upside-down!) and not screw them together overly-tightly - because discussions at the time (in the older version of the MW forums) seemed to indicate that miss-assembly and an overly tight ball-in-joint assembly was responsible for the breakage in the hip-posts. My 11B sat broken back in its box for nearly 2 years before I got around to making this repair. Afterwards, I was very happy to finally be able to play with the thing and display it. Some people also loosen the halves of shoulder assembly like the hips, to improve mobility and reduce breakage potential. Sometimes the ratchet pieces in the shoulder are mis-aligned, making it difficult to align them properly for fighter mode.

HLJ November restock on Alto Custom: http://www.hlj.com/product/BAN955525 Sale on some of the classic reissues, too. (Nos-Ger for $5)

Perhaps the angel-like wings folded to its back is the source of the "Messiah" designation. Either that or its a nod to the Little White Dragon song... "Is a very Messiah!"

Very nice! (Hey - Can I add a future request for Joe's G-2 car in Bird Scramble form? I've always wanted a model of it!)

I can only speak with regard to the mini-series, as I haven't seen the movie version, but I really enjoyed Macross II. Some really excellent mecha & character designs, decent characters & a tight story well in keeping with Macross' overall themes. It makes for a nice little Macross festival if you screen it all in one day. I honestly don't understand the fan community's supposed rejection of it, and I don't have any problem considering it an independent fiction 'within' the Macross universe, much as DYRL is regarded as more of a docu-drama. Certainly MacII isn't 'canon', but I'm sure we've all read enough historical fiction that isn't quite canonical with our own world as well. Macross II isn't given enough due credit, I think. [And I certainly enjoyed it more than what I've seen of Macross 7.]

Very nice kit and an excellent review! Thanks so much for posting that! Yeah, for budget reasons I think I'll be going with the kit rather than the Chogokin. Amazing as this looks, I don't think I'll be feeling too disappointed by that. Amazing work, Bandai.

Yeah, I already had that in my files. I wanted a production version shot.

Very interesting color scheme!

Comparison to 1/60 VF-1, please!!!!!!!!!

I was born in 1969. All this wonderment came out when I was in high school, so I feel even OLDER when there's another Macross anniversary. I can still remember my "What the heck?" when I saw a game called BATTLEDROIDS (during a rare visit to a game shop at the Century III Mall near Pittsburgh) with a Destroid Tomahawk on the cover...

My last one! I was chatting with Matt Greenfield when he & Tiff Grant visited the Pittsburgh Comicon. He's still got his, too - but the earlier paper version, with a 2-digit number!

An old Books Nippan Animation Fan Club newsletter in my collection, from probably about 1983... One of my original Cosmic Connection anime kit catalogs, postmarked 1984.... Leafing through these brings back memories.

I lived in a tiny, rural town in south-western Pennsylvania back in high school, pretty far from any real Japanese products. There was no 'asian community' whatsoever. Everything was via snail mail or on rare trips to big city malls around the holidays. My first exposure to Macross was via an import hobby catalog from a company called COSMIC CONNECTION purchased through Star Log magazine (yes, you had to BUY a mail order catalog for $1) in search of Star Blazers (Yamato) model kits back about 1983. In addition to a lot of GUNDAM stuff, they also had kits the catalog writer was raving about from a new show called MACROSS as well, so I asked if I could have this neat looking one called DESTROID DEFENDER in 1/72 scale as an X-mas present. I eagerly built it, and was completely amazed! The pack-in sheet had other incredible looking kits as well! At about the same time, I saw a book or two on the show - in Japanese - in the catalog of BUD PLANT - a company that dealt in comic books and comic art books. So myself and my single - and best - other similarly interested friend ordered them and some others via another mail-order catalog from a company called BOOKS NIPPAN which we'd discovered in looking for the source of the animated material in the CLIFF HANGER laserdisk arcade game (Lupin the III, of course!). At about that time, some indie comic shops we'd newly began to be able to visit (on family trips to more civilized areas) started selling anime-related small press fan publications, import kits and books. Macross toys also started showing up as knockoffs (MACRES!) or repacks (CONVERTORS!) and Revell's ROBOTECH kits in local stores as part of the TRANSFORMERS wave and were eagerly absorbed into my collection. Finally, the Comico early MACROSS comic was released and was very enlightening, and adverts for the all-too-expensive VHS dub were everywhere. I also joined the CARTOON/FANTASY ORGANIZATION, which happily served my other budding anime fan interests, as well as expanding on the anime I loved as grade-schooler in other forms. [battle of the Planets, Star Blazers, Speed Racer, etc]. A travelling comic-book convention operation called JUBILEE CONVENTIONS also held a small convention 2 or 3 times a year in my area, attracting dealers with occasional Macross & other Japanese stuff from nearby states' larger cities. I also regularly ordered and bought things from other mail-order kit and toy sellers like GALACTIC TRADE COMMISSION - GTC & ALPHA SECTOR. Then Robotech came out, and was - even if obviously edited - completely enthralling and added another show to my anime interests (Mospeada. Didn't like Southern Cross). It provided a wellspring of new Macross products and attracted even more anime & Macross stuff via importers energized by the interest in the fan community seen in local comic shops and conventions. Macross was always my strongest interest, though. My loving grandma let me spend $75 on anime kits through GTC one Christmas! I got nearly 2 dozen various Macross, Mospeada & Orguss kits, since they ranged in price at that time from $3 for Nichimo kits to as little as $10 for larger kits. (Believe it or not, I still have most of my 1980s mail order catalogs!!!) Here's my anime stuff shelf from those days (minus most model kits, which were on another shelf). There's even a home-made Macross poster on the wall, made from a photocopied enlargement from one of the Seiko Note Company coloring books! Can you spot it? I spent my high school graduation gift money on a $100 original VHS of DYRL from BOOKS NIPPAN (Which didn't show up until I came home for Thanksgiving my college freshman year!) Then I went off to college in '87 (My move in day was the same weekend as the first ever ROBOTECH convention in nearby PITTSBURGH PENNSYLVANIA - arrgh!!!!!), where I found huge numbers of other people with anime interests, people to trade tapes with, etc etc. Macross was almost always there at the core of those interests, which included playing Macross mecha in BATTLETECH as well. Interest sort of waned in the early 90s when I'd finished college, started freelancing (aka - going hungry a lot) & then working, and later in the decade got married. Early internet access actually prompted me to SELL OFF a lot of my Macross stuff ( stuff I hadn't already had to sell years earlier to pay rent) when I saw that THIS IS ANIMATION volumes were selling for over $100 each in some newsgroups at the time, and channeled those funds into other hobbies. But now, nostalgia, experience and improved internet - and video! - access brought about my own Macross revival not long after. I've been here at Macrossworld since '03. Its a blast, and in some cases I've re-acquired what I'd sold - but now for pennies on the dollar. Not many people here as old-school as me. I'm still shocked to hear people say "I wasn't old-enough/born-yet to watch ROBOTECH." That amazes me!

Excellent, thanks! I haven't messed with the missiles yet, myself. The only one I have is the Milia, and its been in Battroid form since I got the super pack. I did put the decals on the missiles, and go over them with a panel-line marker. But that's about it.

I'm in total agreement with Graham. In spite of how annoying it is that the kit has sold out so quickly, I couldn't be happier this has happened. That's a h3lluva good measure of MacF's success. Like watching your favorite racer jump out of the pack and cross the finish line!