MKT

The PFs are done from the batch of base YF-19 released few months back. But it appears the reissue of this base YF-19 has quite a bit higher defects than normal? So just speculating, there could not be enough leftover for the PF after accounting for defects & replacements, so Arcadia might have to schedule a whole new production batch for it.

@Kicker773 never fails to amaze everytime!

The mold is already there, they have 2 x Hs repaints to choose from, and they can also do a WWW release to up the numbers...

Haha I don't mind at all @no3Ljm. Love what you did with them!

Well, still waiting for the Elvis valk, and after so many years, this mold continues to be a once and done thing. I happen to take down the SV-262Hs from my shelf, where it has been in the same Battroid pose for years, pretty much from when it was new. We know, this toy has relatively less amount of metal in it compared to other chogokins, then also reflected by the much-reduced size of the chogokin logo on the box. Could the less metal be to its advantage? So am now happy to report, that most of the joints, especially in the legs, appear to be pretty much as stiff when it was new. The right shoulder joint does not seem to be as tight as I would like, as it has problems holding the admittedly rather heavy gun in a more outstretched position, and always wants to swing back down. I'm not sure if this is caused by it bearing the weight of the gun over the years, but perhaps not, as the other shoulder also exhibit the same semi-looseness even though that arm only carries the shield. Here's a pic of its frozen-in-time stance whilst we are it: Meanwhile, I recently happen to come across a rather cool pic, that shows off an F-4 Phantom II underside.. I sometimes think views of fighter jet undersides can be a bit under-appreciated, and so it inspired me to take couple of pics of the VF undersides because it is one of Macross VFs' strengths as far as transforming jet toys go. The first is of an VF-31A, because why not. Such clean execution. Yumz! But back to the SV-262Hs, I flipped my other copy in Fighter mode to have a look at its bottom, and have renewed appreciation on how well-executed it is. Now the YF-21 / VF-22 have the smoothest underside, but Kawamori kinda worked around it because it was mostly 2 panels covering it up (a semi shell-former!), but here on the SV-262 it is really just great design to have all the various parts come nicely together... And lastly, another extra pic. I just love the SV-262Hs color scheme, and all its tampo markings; they stand out so well in all modes!

Drill holes on a piece so small? I wish I got that steady a hand.. Nice work!

Great score!

The yet unreleased Bodolza toy gets to re-experience death all over again.. hence no toy of him for another 40 years!

These were from the Imai Files? They look much better than the new designs, although both have some similar elements. I suppose, I wish the new designs would give us something more variegated in the base bike itself, that requires different enough transformation scheme, rather than just variations of weapons & skin-deep cosmetic changes. We already have these types of variations in the existing quartet. Something beyond skin-deep would be, for example, the hoverbike ride-armor variant that was also shown in the pre-production sketches, which at least gives us different enough flavor in terms of the transformation. Although, I understand the unstated main purpose of this new Breakers is just a way for Sentinel to re-use as much as existing molds as possible to milk fans. I don't know, it appears the Tread may not sell in as much numbers as the Legiosses; and if that is true, then for a new unanimated series (not even a comic / manga) that have revealed just a handful of drawings so far, the designs have to be really good to convince enough folks to part with their money for the eventual toy.

Haha just did a comparo too. Yeahh Mirage's bigger. And whilst at it, we can see the whites of the insignias follow the base valk, so Max's brighter.

Lol so here Bandai did a reverse and made it more complicated on the toy than needed. Chalk this one up to more of Bandai's.. idiosyncrasies.

This never gets old..

I'm conflicted whether to get extra copies, for the eventual Ghost or Reactive Armor packs. Yet Bandai has never done add-on packs for the Macross HMR line so far, only full-set packs. Although for the older HM line did they separate them out.

Good observation @MacrossJunkie. Looking back at my copy, the insignia doesn't seem to be terribly out of alignment. I suppose this is why the Delta chogokin valks all have their insignias resized, reangled or reproportioned compared to the line art, to avoid them spilling onto more panels and prevent higher chance of misalignment.

Megazone 23 Part II

Haha the arm missiles looked like it came off Macross Delta Armored before, now the shoulder missiles look like it got pilfered from the VF-1 GBP..

Great pic! Although I would say the VF-1 here look much shorter compared to other VF-0 vs VF-1 pics posted earlier. It really highlights how small shifts in leg & feet positioning really affect the perceived heights. Personally, not a big issue for me now as long VF-0 is noticeably bigger, but this all started when Bandai published the same 14cm VF-1 height for the VF-0 lol..

It kinda triggering, how most of reviews so far don't bother to angle the cockpit shield properly in battroid. Only the initial review a few pages back, seemed to have got it right. Even so, it doesn't appear to be as flush as Arcadia's, although the gap is not as noticeable as the HMR VF-2SS's.

Nice! Happy it can do Gerwalk well. This was one of the shortcomings of the HMR VF-1, which does highlight the age of its HM roots.

Any eventual Reactive Armor for this should already look better than Arcadia’s, because of the plug-in shorter wings option. The lower armor at back will not look as disproportionately large, as though it’s wearing coattails.

A great first look video Some thoughts: 1. As some members speculated earlier, the arms are on sliding rails, consistent with rest of Bandai’s VF-1 toys. 2. The landing gears are also an improvement over other HMR VFs in its implementation, although still not perfect transformation. 3. Nice to see integrated shoulder covers for this scale. 4. Unlike its close cousin the HMR VF-1, it’s great that the gun is not a partsformer. 5. I find it somewhat hilarious the arresting hook is blocked by the gun. This is similar to Arcadia’s mistake in their first VF-0(D) release, but fixed in subsequent VF-0 releases by moving the gun slightly forward to allow full clearance for the hook. 6. It is disappointing the cockpit can’t be opened, but have to be pulled out completely. In the HMR VF-1, well perhaps due to its smaller size, visually it might have been arguably better to have partsforming cockpits between modes. But on this VF-0 with the integrated cockpit shield, there is really no reason to not have a hinge for the cockpit. As per the HMR VF-4, I don’t see why it can’t be done when cockpit hinge was implemented for the VF-2SS. 7. It does have some visual advantage over the larger Arcadia. That rainbow cockpit is looking real pretty, & the larger, fixed posed hands do make for more expressive battroid poses. Arcadia curiously omitted fixed posed hands, so its integrated hands look somewhat small.

From the Twitter link @seti88 posted above, HMR VF-0 fighter mode is also not that much bigger than the VF-1. No surprises I guess. Below 1/60 VF-0 & VF-1 comparison:

The upscale does look better comparatively. As it is, Bandai appeared to have made the VF-0S about same height as the VF-4, & just a smidge shorter than the VF-2SS. Irregardless of the correct scales for both VF-1 & VF-0, we are so used to Yamato/Arcadia's comparative sizes that this just feels like Bandai made the VF-0S slightly bigger just to be able to say that it is larger than the VF-1. Well, let's see how the fighter modes sizes stack up later..

It is kinda par for Bandai's Macross molds of that era though. Which is why Arcadia's molds generally have much better precision with their tighter fit, whilst Bandai's always feel a bit more toylike with slightly more freeplay and gaps here and there..