1/1 LowViz Lurker

When humans finally discover how to recreate the effect of anti gravity, I sugest a statue is made of shoji kawamori's head that floats off the ground and has the staff of the original show bowing down to it worshipping the head. It would be far more interesting to me than the gundam 1:1 statue (or the chinese knock off that had to get changed so it looked different). VF-1 still looks good today. I own more VF-1 toys than any other mecha. And its one of the designs that still looks good in 3 modes. Although the ship being transformable was pretty cheesy idea to me. hehe This is one of the things I think doesn't need to be in future macross tv shows after the first one. In the tv show the reason the SDF-1 had to transform was due to getting power to the gun so it could fire. This was because in the first show all the mistakes the people onboard the ship were making because they were not sure how te alien technology worked, but the macross ships having to transform in later shows isn't explained well. Transforming can kill people who don't make it to the safety zones in time. It was hilarious to see a guy getting his head chopped off as one of the doors slammed shut, but it might be better to have dedicated giant robot ships rather than transforming ones imo. All it will do is add a delay to firing a gun.

That's a shame. I would have liked to see yf-19.

For me accurate proportions are important too, but I think the gimmick adds value to it. Just to say "this was possible we are advancing from toys of the past." You know how in japan they built a life sized gundam statue? I kinda wish they did that for a macross valkyrie in robot mode. And inside the statue were all the gimmicks that we saw in the show like the seat being flippable and the pilot being allowed to come out from the top of the robot and little details like that. Bigger things mean your eyes can see more details. A valkyrie and destroid would be smaller than a life size gundam but I reckon it would look better. (make the gunpod workable but no ammo inside it) A life sized vf-25 statue should be built imo.

Thats why I bought a himetal valk. They are made of harder plastic than most of the valks at their size and they are freaking expensive. But the quality is good and I never have to worry about something cracking if it ever falls off a shelf or something like that. Please japanese kids, pressure bandai to give me a yf-19 and yf-21 himteal so I can zoom it around with my hands and have pretend dogfights. I will pay good money for mini-but-durable toys that are not a hassle to hold in your hands or fall apart just by breathing on them. Just be sure to include the fast pack pieces with them.

As long as the paint isn't easy to scrape off I am ok with it being almost free of diecast. Any new pics of this toy (front, top, side). Not that I doubt bandai's ability to make a superior version to old version just curious to see those angles.

I like the slow pace. Gives time for the wallet to heal.

that's why I wanted front on view, side view and top view so we can confirm it's not the lens. I still think it is wider though.

good review pinoi. i subbed you.

The himetal, the monster, the yf-29, etc and the upcoming vf-25 version 2 show they are improving. Yamato have also improved so at the end of the day when they both compete for your dollars there is a rush to keep one-upping each other. I think the prices are high but since the releases are slow coming it's ok to me. One of the things that worried me was how the only thing that was done were vf-1 and less popular mecha get ignored. I'm willing to pay good money if the mecha is not as milkable as vf-1 (so many variants exist) which has been done to death. (I'm a hypocrit since I bought vf-1 hi metal out of curiosity haha but whatever...would love to see the yf-19 and yf-21 hmetal some day, and maybe bandai or yamato can give us vf-4) Some of the non-canon schemes are more interesting to me than the official stuff. I think bandai should do stuff with with monster like release a grey one or a brown one or something to see if they can get people to buy another.

Top view, side view, front view for each mode would be nice.

Those episodes could have been animation mistakes. Remember when toynami created a jack archer toy? Jack archer is a result of a mech that should never have existed but now does in the robotech universe thanks to the mistake. Macross plus also features yf-19 with missiles in the leg but I don't think that is canon. Also in SDFM the GBP armor has hand grenades that are seen firing like missiles that go straight. You can never tell what is real from animation. They could have been drunk or just makingthings up that were not even there. For instance I remember seeing episodes where the monster is rolling down a ramp without moving the legs, but I don't think monster's have rollers. But it doesn't matter, I want the feature. Anyone got ahold of graham's phone yet?

So graham, can the legs go forward?

I've already stated I want leg forward mode. There is no logical reason to me why this particular vf shouldn't be allowed to. I don't care if the mech designer thought it was cool, he has changed his mind before with vf-0 being grey for shin lol. They may say something like "oh that one pic of gerwalk leaning forward is an animation mistake" but so what? that did not prevent yamato releasing some of the animation mistake colour schemes from SDFM in their 1/60 vf-1 line. Money is money! If you don't like leg forward mode simply pose it with leg back. People say yamato are clever but they screw up too sometimes. (no upper torse lock in yf-19) May as well get in with input early on!

It;s like the little things on the side of the yf-19 in robot mode that nobody can explain.

Please don't be stupid. Anything that is post Space War I events is no longer a secret obviously. Just like knowledge of nukes is not a secret anymore post WWII. Sorry but I couldn't help responding to this one. Some of the responses here are like people who have not thought through what they are saying. You can have your landing gears but I say the usage of them in space is very limited which is why vf-17 barely uses them since the macross 7 is mostly in space. Please stop trying to reason why landing gear is so important in space, and think before you post. You won't convince me that the VF-17 or any spacecraft NEEDS landing gears. You can convince me that it can make use of them and having them is better than not having them (which I agree with - but that is not what the argument is about, it's about which of the three features to not make perfect transformable) but they are not crucial. Jesus people. I can't tell if they are troll posts or serious anymore. Just drop it and be happy we differ in opinions. Don't bother responding on this thread please just direct any responses to my PM to keep this on topic. Thanks. I'm happy to talk about toys and stuff but I always assume the worst and that yamato will compromise. So I think maybe I can convince people that pop-on landing gear isn't the end of the world. A quick example of a Gnerl fighter showing how spacecraft can still land without earth-styled wheels: http://www.macross2.net/m3/sdfmacross/gnerl/gnerl-lineart.gif Alternately hanging chains to lift them like we do with contructing buildings or using robot grip is another alternative so the maintenance guy can fix the bottom without lifting anything. maybe if adapted for earth they can easily swap out skis for wheels but if the primary fighting is in space who cares? If I want to stop I can use thrusters to slow down, why should I fly close to a wall? Why can't I dock normally and let a robot arm grab my craft? There is no up or down in space.

beam sabers

Laser may move at the speed of light but scifi animes always have fictional defenses like shields and other things. When luke skywalker flies into the deathstar to destroy an entire planet sized "ship" or whatever it is, he is at such a range that only smaller weapons that are close can get a clear shot. So they had to send others to shoot him down. This is the equivalent to sneaking inside an underground base to blow it up from the inside out (you are within range of giant canons but in a spot it can't get you) or flanking a machine gun nest by trying to get to it from places that it is vulnerable from. (bombing from above or using a heavy armored machine to take it out from further away) You don't always want to take the longest method of doing something. The vf-1 isn't meant to kill larger ship anyway, its to get the enemies in robots. His argument doesn't take into acount that other bigger ships than the ones that have big lasers might be within range of planetary defenses or even larger ships than the ones that the bad guys use and can't just go anywhere they want unless they want to get pwned by a ship bigger than them. What this will do is allow smaller ships from the good side to go to spots that the defense can cover them. (like a sniper on your side who shoots enemy snipers who can shoot you while you try to enter a building to get to the roof where they are shooting from - they are useless once you get close) So the tactics of the future shouldn't be criticised by people of today who have no battle experience given that they only take into account known technology of today and not things that have yet to be invented. It's a waste of time imo. In sci fi animes for instance when a robot uses some lasers I think one of the things used to counter it was a smoke bomb to weaken the abilities of it to fight in a room to make it hard to use that weapon. Now imagine if you were folded into the close range of an enemy ship (like what the yf-19 and yf-21 do, and while there you were able to take out the crew by jacking their own weapons? He doesn't take all the possibilities into account. I do agree with the comment that they were all influenced by WWII. George Lucas explains this in dvd commentary I think I remember seeing ages ago for star wars.

For those of you who wanted the old armour/super packs to be useable on this, I know what it must feel like. It reminds me of what happened when CMs released the Legioss Tread combo with extras that forces you to buy the whole thing all over again if you wanted those extras (since the extra only appeared together in the re-release.) If I were you I'd just sell all the v1 ASAP before other people devalue it once news of this new version spreads. lol

It's not me who is illogical, all I'm doing is respoding to weak arguments for why landing gears seem so crucial which they are not for space craft. Star wars isn't macross. Macross is macross. I don't know why they hell people keep mentioning gundam. Gundam do not transform normally. Macross has robot mode to fight giants. The robot is not meant to be cool in its universe but for fighting at close range so that when a giant soldier rushes toward you you can respond quickly with a giant gunpod and rotate instantly. Not just shoot with fixed forward firing weapons. Have you people not see those bits in macross zero where roy shoots down incoming micromissiles with his gunpod and head laser? That's what bot mode is for - it's got a purpose in-universe (while also looking cool too). So even though it looks cool they give us a justification for that mode. GBP armour is an example where you don't need landing gears. If you are angry that it has gone offtopic then fine just PM your reply to me instead of dismissing the argument against landing gears being so important in space. I am not convinced they are. We just got used to them because of the first tv series where the fighters naturally were a government secret and had to act like normal jets until the first zentradi attack. I'm not against landing gears being integrated guys, Don't put words into my mouth. I said I prefer landing gears being pop-offable (IF yamato has to compromise) and that in the the show a pilot can do without them majority of the time in space. So if you display the toy, many will just use a stand. Is that so hard to understand? For those who like just diaplying them without stand in fighter mode I can understand your concern but a lot of people just want to argue for the sake of arguing. All I did was give reasons why I am ok not having perfect transforming landing gear. In space there are valks with shortened wings which shows that the designers are aware that it's not as big a deal to make them so long, and in the universe they have FAST packs which can only be used in space because they want to show that there is a difference between a fighter that fights in zero g vs one that will fly in the air. (thrusters are more important for space types) So please don't say: "oh it's just to look cool" because there is a semi-realism to it as well even though it is still an anime. Showing me pictures of mecha from other shows is not going to strengthen your arguments, it just weakens your own. haha I use vf-17 as example because many times it just takes off the "DYRL style" in a zero g environment. They don't do that to "look cool and elite" - it's because they are in space and it probably save energy! The only reason they did it the old way in SDFM tv series is because they bolted earth-use carriers to the sdf-1 due to an accident. So it still makes sense under that show's reason for making people land in fighter jet mode like they did on earth (while they were in space). But post-space war I, it isn't as needed is all I'm saying. As for the toy having it, I want all 3 options but I will stil buy if only two gimmicks make it in. No fighter mode is probably easier to store. Think of fighter mode as the long range combat mode, (they engage enemies in this mode first) gerwalk as the vtol mode of choice, and battroid mode as close combat. (rotating quickly is easier) In DYRL they launch their missiles from long range, they come to a slow speed in gerwalk, then at close range they turn into robot mode to aim at wide angles more easily and catch all the guys that didn't get hit by the misiles. "Valks required zero maintenance"? WTF??? who said this? This is what I mean by people putting words into other people's mouths and using strawman arguments to make the other side look stupid by creating their own version of the arguments of the opponent instead of using direct quotes. I've watched all the shows and never do you see people land in fighter mode during heated combat. Why? Because it takes longer and isn't as efficient and smooth to do it that way. It's faster to go to gerwalk mode first. They will most often transform from fighter to gerwalk, and then go into battroid when they get at close range. Never do the landing gears get used for the action sequences. Now I'm not saying they are not useful, (you see hikaru escape from giant by enterting in a valk that is in fighter mode with landing gears out) just not crucial for space. This is where you are confused. You think that I don't want the landing gear, when all I said was that it isn't as crucial as people think it is. If you want to maintain a valk it is not impossible to maintain it in battroid mode either. How does basara get into his cockpit whenever he feels like leaving it in battroid mode and inspecting its systems in that mode before he goes out into space? Use your brain. Next time use quotes from my posts, instead of making up what I say. In many ways you could turn the argument around and say "Landing gears are cool" BTW. "The only reason people like them is because it looks cool and makes the fighter seem closer to modern day real world planes." But I didn't say that. I just said if yamato make a compromise, then landing gears not being on it as perfect transformation is ok since rarely will I pose it like that. It's because some people said in their post that "it doesn't feel complete".(without perfect transformation landing gears) But I responded that "some people feel lack of side covers and non-perfect transforming intakes make it not feel complete either. Is it all that much different?" And it is true: Many don't care about the side covers even though the show has them on when in robot mode. So its like they are discriminating on parts that they think are "complete" (ie part of the robot and not extras) based on their own ideas not on what is fact. (ie perfect transformation side covers and perfect transformation intakes are a part of the robot just as much as landing gears are part of the fighter mode to make it feel "complete", yet somehow we all get by without them being perfect transformation still. Personally I think not having perfect transforming landing gears is like not having perfect transforming intake covers on vf-1 or not having removable intakes on vf-19.

Himetal would be awesome. But I secretly wish they would release the yf-19 and yf-21 himetal first. Why no news for these releases? Are they scrapped? All they have to do is tell us: "we are still working on it" and people can relax.

Is there any reason to doubt this? With all the money they can devote vs yamato who is supposed to be smaller and have less $ than them? In fact many of us were shocked that bandai didn't bring their A game in the first place and release them to the standard of yamato valks. We see this v2 version as what bandai should have done in the first place. If they screw it up it will probably be some part of an evil plan to keep making us buy a fixed version. lol

We are moving on: All I am doing is responding to people who said that landing gears in space are crucial. When in fact many times whenever hikaru had to save minmay or misa's hot butts, he had to come to a virtual STOP which is only possible in the gerwalk mode since fighter mode requires you keep moving in a forward motion while in atmosphere. When a fighter lands it needs lots of space but what if you were in space? It's probably less dangerous imo to leave it floating in a special area where the gravity is not on, and then get out and use grappling gun to exit. (saw something like that in macross II) Big robot arms from the ceiling of the room or whatever can then grab the valk and move it where it needs to go. As for yamato releasing no hands? Nah. Yamato would never release valks without hands. They took so much abuse for 1/48 vf-1 having such tiny hands that they are focusing on reducing feet now. (yf-21/vf-22 heh) Soon feet will be swappable parts to get acurate proportions instead of hands. /joking If you were an elite pilot wouldn't you prefer going from fighter, then to gerwalk (slower) then transforming to robot mode? (bot = more stability and probably the most accurate mode to shoot targets in with a gunpod using both hands to hold the weapon). Not slowly landing in fighter mode, turning into a robot and then moving around after you landed down gently which wastes time. It's not as efficient and you never see this happen in a battle in macross over the former method. Why? Because landing gears are designed more for dedicated fighting aircraft. (my theory is that it's only there to make us believe they can't transform in the tv series until it is revealed that the fighter are robot too) The spacecraft may look similar but it is not as necesary is all I am saying since we only got used to them from visions in the tv series where aircraft carrier were used due to the events in the story. Just like how we got used to seeing the later macross class ships turn into robots when they pretty much only do this because of the original macross. (the sdf-1 "transforming into humanoid mode" thing was another thing that was due to mistakes by the young inexperienced crew. All the cool things are because people make mistakes lol) But robot mode for massive ships (that incidentally kill the people inside who don't get to the safe zones in time hehe) is not 'needed' is it? It might be useful but not "incomplete" without robot mode. Same logic for landing gears imo. You can still survive without it. (not that this is what I want, just that landing gears are not as crucial as people think - the reason I bring it up is because in the tv series of macross 7 they are seen launching in the similar way to DYRL)

Guys I'm not saying those who want landing gears are pussies. Just that majority of the good pilots fly around and land in robot mode to fight seamlessly from fighter to robot. In SDFM sometimes there were scenes of a valkyries parked in fighter mode (this was after the zentradi laser attack on earth) and you'd see robots standing there shooting the giants or guarding fighter mode valks on the ground. The pilots that need them are the pussies because when you fly you should know how to drive/pilot a valkyrie to use all three modes. That's what I meant. And yes I agree in the actual cartoon landing gears are useful, and I agree with the usage of them for hangar storage (poor destroids don't get landing gears, I wonder why?) just that if given a choice between missile and landing gear to get scrapped I say landing gear, since personally I can deal with popping them off and on just like extra hands, side covers or intake covers. Whatever...hopefully yamato can decide for themselves based on the limits and go for accuracy of the fighter mode and battroid mode over gimmicks. Missile or not I will still buy. I love the internal gimmicks too, (especially the cockpit being openable in battroid mode for vf-19 for example) but at the end of the day if they have to compromise again I think swappable gear is reasonable. Obviously I'm in the minority but we'll see what they can do. The way the landing gear works for yf-21/vf-22 was well done. Oh and maintenance crew don't necessarily need to maintain a valkyrie in fighter mode they can do it by walking on platforms to access all the parts of the robot and do their work that way. How else did hikaru fight in the gbp armour? He couldn't fly out the normal way. If the zentradi can deal with no plane mode in space so too can elite pilots aboard macross 7 is my thinking. In DYRL didn't you see how the FAST-pack-equiped valks fly off? They just had robot arms gripping the fighter and those arms would release. And in macross 7 they have "space cars" that fly around in space when someone wants to go to another ship haha. I can think of a few inventions that make landing easier: for instance arms automatically grab the damaged plane and bring it to where it is needed, or just have a zentradi giant push the plane along lol. There is no logical reason why exedol gets to be a giant and nobody else can be one. We see Max Macronised in DYRL. So why not Macronise one of the maintenance crew? lol The only reason the valks land on the SDF-1 the normal way in the tv series is because of story reasons. (they took parts of deadalus and prometheus and stuck them after doing a fold near the earth's atmosphere and accidentally bringing people on earth with them that were not supposed to be teleported to space.) I think you guys are just looking for reasons to have landing gears because you want "realistic jets" but you forgot that macross is a scifi robot anime too, where the majority of flying is in space. hehe

Yeah I agree. Graham tell yama...oh crap there is no graham equivalent on the boards who meets with bandai to cater to us and listen to complaints like basara forces us to listen to his songs. We are screwed. May as well save up for version 3 and skip this one. lol

Looking good. Skinny is the new black. The crotch piece angled out is just how I like it. Somebody compare with cg model.