MacrossMania

Aw damn!

I wonder if anyone got this, Indy.

Since you asked... And I don't see why the 1/48's are so maligned. Clearly Bandai's 1/48's are not the revolutionary toy everybody hoped for, and truth be told, the Yammie 1/48's really transformed the toymaking industry. It was the first time that CGI was applied, and applied so elegantly. Bandai really raised their game after this. It was only then that the MF toys started making their debut. So yea, I still have to hand it to the 1/48's. Pictured here is the toy that started it all for me way back in 2003. Got it all the way from Japan in a crumbling box with the edges exposed. Sent it off to AFA and it scored a 90, one of only two for the Low Viz in existence. Will always love and cherish it!

Digging this. There's something about obscure toys that I really like. Or even obscure versions of toys. I'm a vintage collector and I have a fair number of Convertors, the trashy second- to second-rate Gobots that never made it to fabled 80's toy lore. They just languished in the dustbin of collecting history, but seem to be gaining momentum these days. Not saying this is trashy, but obviously different from the MetalBuild and Fix Fig lines, both high end.

I hear ya, but what has everybody up in arms about the whole Zeta Toys thing which I kinda agree with is their version of Unicron was on the whole a better one. The poses were far more dynamic, the sculpt was great, and the transformation was far more intuitive and a lot less messy. I saw an interview with Hasbro's PR crew at a toy event somewhere around the world and they were so impressed with themselves. They claimed it was like engineering a complicated jigsaw puzzle. They had this vast impression of themselves as being consummate geniuses, and here Zeta Toys showed them how easy it really was to create a realistic looking piece with half the transformation involved. It was quite elegant. I think Hasbro knew this. They were on the ropes, and couldn't let a little third party company upstage their efforts with all the heavy PR they poured into this. So they threatened to sue, and the rest is history. We'll see, I'm hoping Hasbro will back down after the dust settles on this one, after they get their money. The thing about the Hasbro Unicron I don't like is it's basically a shell former. Zeta's was definitely not that. The shoulder was actually built from the shell itself, and so were the legs, rather than hiding the legs and arms and conveniently collapsing around it in robot mode. Which was what Hasbro's does. That was the huge difference for me. I see what you're saying about perfection. I don't like to settle either. But I guess for me collecting involves a limited time horizon. Other priorities begin to take shape in your life, leaving you only but so much time to amass as much of what you can. There may be a perfect Unicron in another ten or twenty years, just like Hasbro's latest version is a leaps and bounds above the Armada version, which I also have. But the thing about Zeta was that it took the best of both worlds, an elegant transformation, simple and intuitive and cartoon accurate, rather than some overly complex monstrosity which is what Hasbro's is shaping up to be at this point, and paired it with some really great, dynamic poses and evocative sculpting. That's good enough in my book, and something that Bandai at its best does really well (especially with the intuitive articulation of the Metal Build line, which, although somewhat limited, lends itself to human-like movements with the kind of natural limitations you would expect in a robot). But, it wasn't meant to be, at least not for now. I may be looking at the perfect Unicron ten or fifteen years from now, but may not have the appetite any longer to sink so much of my hard-earned income into these pieces, or may just have simply moved on with my life, taking up other hobbies, etc., and so Zeta as an ideal will have to do for now. Maybe forever.

Yep, really. And I agree with you. After this latest attempt to foil the third parties, I think I'm going to just boycott the Hasbro release. I actually think it's kind of a strange situation. Hasbro has to balance their IP interests against the real world scenario where the third party companies are largely responsible for generating interest in the Transformers franchise, at least from a collecting perspective.

Hasbro just forced Zeta Toys to take down their Unicron over an IP dispute, but they have no problem lifting Bandai's Metal Build designs to incorporate in their Transformers franchise. Hmmmm. It looks great, but I attribute this bad ass look entirely to Bandai's genius.

Am I the only one who thinks this is overkill? The armored parts for the latest valks have become increasingly more absurd. I mean, I get this is fantasy and all, and I am a loyal fan so I hate mentioning it with all the hubbub over the latest releases, but it must be said.

Re MP-44, I may be an outlier on this one, but I'm not exactly impressed with it. If anything, it seems more like Bandai's retooling of Yamato's 1/48's, rebranding it as their own - in this case, Takara choosing to reinvent the Masterpiece line more in keeping with the cartoon aesthetic rather than a retooling of a competitor's take on things. Problem is, with the advances in computer technology that see the cost of CAD design dropping on almost a daily basis, whereas the cost of labor, NAFTA agreements, and the cost of supplies and shipping skyrocketing on an international scale - in short, the cost of global production - this "rebranding" (if you want to call it that) smacks of nothing more than a cheap attempt to get rid of all the frills on any given Masterpiece toy - like chrome pipes and bumpers, which are cost centers no doubt - and replace them with undeniable advances in product design, which is also undeniably cheaper these days, employing as they do far less workers and working to scale at a much cheaper price on the design side given the advances in technology. Masterpiece was originally designed to be a real world counterpart to the cartoon characters which grounded their transformation technology in a sense. Now, that's been completely reversed. I'm not saying it doesn't have a certain charm - it does - but I do find it lacking in that certain higher calling if you will, that "Masterpiece" aesthetic which was almost like a call to arms for adult collectors - the sense that your highest dreams and aims as a closet collector (as we all were as children) could in fact be realized given the advances in technology. To see those same advances turn back the clock, so to speak, seems like a bit of shame to me. Not to mention a cheap ploy to mask the current realities of the global marketplace.

Really love this one. Did they change the mould at all? It looks like in keeping with the typical Arcadia retooling, they did rework it a bit, making it a bit sleeker in parts, but I can't tell with all the telltale gaps Yamato toys were notorious for, especially the SV-51.

Uh, wow, just wow. Lovin every minute of it. There's a joke here of course about compensating...

This is a true masterpiece. I think I went through two or three versions of this on the first run until I was satisfied with the condition of the one I got (I'm a box guy, I know, it doesn't make any sense with Bandai). But it was well worth it. I can only marvel at the engineering and design of this thing. There's only a handful of toys/collectibles that have the same sort of iconic weight and heft to them. The first Masterpiece Optimus Prime by Takara, the Chunky Monkey, the first Masterpiece Starscream, the YF-25 from Macross Frontier (and that may be stretching it a little). And none of them come close to the beauty of this thing. Simply superb!

LOL it's hard to jump on these threads midway through. Stand by my comments (any excuse to keep collecting!), but totally get you on the HMR mecha. They're the standouts of the line. They steal the show in my opinion, as evidenced by the fact that I don't have a single valkyrie from the entire line, only mecha. Don't have them all, but the really juicy ones (Monster - by far the best ever made -, the two Regults, and the Glaug. I've always longed for these really critical counterparts to the valkyries in the Macross universe. Before the HMR line came along, there's never really been a satisfactory alternative. The Matchbox monstrosities were really never that great to begin with, even by vintage standards, and the nostalgia factor didn't make up for the fact that they sucked as toys. Revoltechs don't count in my opinion, which leaves you with the occasional Takatoku, and the 1/100 line back in the day were really only curiosities in my opinion. But boy, when Bandai came along, they really hit it out of the park with the HMR line in that respect. Totally love em for that.

Couldn't agree more with you. And I have the same guilt-tripping going on too. I just chalk it up at the end of the day that we're all obsessed with robots, so the quintessential engineering that goes into them pretty much puts everything else to the side, and boils it all down to its essence. Either that or the robot modes always end up suffering in one form or another, especially with the butterfly effect on the backpacks of the Frontiers and Deltas, so much so that the pure joy of the vehicle mode ends up sacrificing a bit of the robot mode. An itch I still need to scratch, and end up doing that with the mecha.

Holy Yes!!!! All five of these! (The previous post included). This is the penta-fecta?? of pop-trash 80's mobiles. Love all of these.

I love how the hardest part is smuggling it past your wife, but not displaying it. Presumably she can't tell the difference with all those valkyries on display?

This.

I avoided this site for days because I wanted to avoid the parade of triumphs. Everyone getting theirs while I sat in the corner and sulked. Sites crashed, cartjacked, etc. But lo! Every single person had the same problems I did! Thank god for you guys! Misery loves company!

Where did you get your metal builds? Are there any left at a decent price?

Oh, and it may simply have something to do with bad actors in the marketplace trying to seize or create another opportunity in the marketplace. It seems to me that a lot of the interest in sales is manufactured arbitrarily. There may very well be only a handful of vendors in the market who have a boatload of this stuff just sitting around, and wanting to generate interest, and corner an as yet untapped market, start hiking up the prices in the hopes of manufacturing some interest that wasn't previously there. I see this a lot with the vintage toys. Once one brand is tapped out, vendors start hawking their wares in another, less known brands in the hopes of generating some interest. They seem to go down the daisy chain from the most popular toy brands like TFormers and GI Joe, to the lesser known ones like Crystar. Until even the Crystar ones are tapped out. The same could be happening here. I don't think it's any secret that a lot of the third party sellers in Japan and elsewhere in the East (and probably in the West too for that matter), are out to make a buck. And many of them are unscrupulous. I bet they'd be willing to generate some interest by artificially hiking up the prices in the hopes of baiting a collector or two, and then watch the market take off.

I've been wondering this myself. There is a story attached to them. Back in the day when the 2002 reissues were first being sold in the United States, Harmony Gold (aka the Evil Empire) reigned in those sales on IP grounds and filed suit against Bandai, alleging copyright infringement as Harmony Gold had the rights to sell them exclusively here in the United States. Yadda, yadda, everybody knows this by now. But this may have something to do with the limited production runs and why they are going higher in price. Although my guess is probably not because nobody's even mentioned it on this thread here so far, so it would have little if any bearing on its value in the marketplace. I don't think it has anything to do with anything else other than the honestly held belief that newer is better. Forget the old, the vintage toys. The quaint charm of the past, those garishly painted boxes. Those are just trash. The way it is done now, with improved production runs, superior plastics, etc., is just plain better. It has a whiff of this self-entitled arrogance if you ask me.

Yes, I know.

Yes! That's totally true! I don't know but the ability to double as a club-like weapon in a Game of Thrones fantasy is always a big plus in my opinion. And something none of the modern toys have. That should be a bonafide of AFA grading. Bubble, Box, Figure, and Club Potential.