eriku

Fuu is looking very nice. Momo better be hiding somewhere in that kimono. http://toyfair2010.figures.com/showphoto.php/photo/1567

I had to laugh because I did say "Who the heck is Darkmount?" but then it was immediately followed up with "Who the hell is Straxus??" I assume Straxus is a comic character?

We haven't seen nor heard any evidence of the joints being ratcheting or not. Keep in mind Bandai does commonly use ratchet joints in their various toy lines whereas Yamato almost never does.

Yeah, I wouldn't judge Bandai's current Macross output on the DX VF-25 alone. The DX Quarter is excellent, the Hi-Metal VF-19 is excellent, and even the VF100 VF-25 was a solidly built toy (it's downfall being the maddening amount of parts swapping). I'm not saying there's a magical guarantee that most of the stuff they make will be great, but I also don't see any logical reason to assume the worst.

I'm indifferent to Thrust. I'm glad he's coming out for those who want him, but to me he's just another repaint of an old sculpt and thus not very exciting. I don't find Drift particularly exciting either, but the toy looks great compared to everything else around him on display. I don't know, I just look at most of the new toys unveiled and think "half-assed". Those combiners look like a joke. The Power-Core toys look like rejects from the Armada line and all of the movie-style stuff (including Seaspray) looks dull. The WFC toys might look better in hand, but I'm just not feeling the alt modes on Prime and Bee. Perhaps the toys for the upcoming Transformers cartoon will be more inspired, but for now everything Hasbro has planned makes it look like they have no focus or vision for the line. Good gads I'm starting to sound like VFTF1. I think I'm especially bummed because there was so very little in the way of Transformers that appealed to me last year, and now it looks like another year of the same. But that's fine. As long as other people like it and buy the stuff the line will continue and possibly turn back into something I can take an interest in. :::EDIT::: Scratch all of that I said. I just saw the Yoda Transformer and suddenly all is right in the world.

Wow, I hate to sound like a negative nellie but that is a big bunch of nasty looking crap coming this year. Drift is the only thing that looks great to me. The WFC figures look sort of alright, HA Jazz looks pretty cool, but the rest of it looks like a huge step backwards...like into Armada territory.

Oooh...a Colorcode version of TV Fokkur would be just dandy! http://www.new-un-spacy.com/sdfmacross/vf-...orcode-vf1s.gif

How about an inflatable one? Just add air!

Well then I guess we're blessed to have an informed expert such as yourself to correct us. I don't have personal access to the molds to inspect them myself, like you apparently do, but to my eyes the toy looks like the product of a shabby mold combined with poor painting and poor assembly. So business as usual for the Toynami Alpha, basically.

Oh dear god, imagine the size of the box Yamato would use for that!

Yeesh, by those nice close-up pics I can see that the Toynami Alpha mold still looks shabby. It has that rough-around-the-edges rough and unrefined garage kit look. They really, really need to just give up on that mold and start over. Good to hear it's not falling apart or anything though. And at least they finally seem to have addressed the hands.

Also, it's apparently a VB-2 and not a VB-6. Anyone know the difference?

Yamato said a month or two ago they are going to stop tinting canopies, so there you go. *assuming you meant the pearly tint on the V2 toys...

I'd love to see a bright white TV Fokker. Would match the Chunky and JM versions I have of him. As for not being enough differences to warrant one....eh? It's a different color. That's one of the only differences between most variants of the VF-1. Plus a TV Roy makes more sense than the low-viz Roy we got last year.

True. Maybe they're trying to show what the bone-white plastic will look like after a few years. That said, I certainly wont be disappointed with bone-white. It's the main reason I bought the VF-1A TV Max and the unpainted VF-1S.

I also like the grey internal bits better, as well as the slightly off-white of the earlier photos. I guess we'll find out it a week or so what it really looks like.

Picked up a Mindwipe yesterday. Alt mode looks really nice, super slim and no robo-bits portruding anywhere. Everything locks together nice and tight. The "tattoos" on the wings are quite lame, but a few minutes with Qtips and alcohol took care of those. Transformation is fairly straightforward and easy with everything but the wings being incorporated into the bot. One thing I really like is that you can position his legs so they look normal instead of chicken-like. The hands are really the only letdown for me. When I saw pics online of the clear red knives that are permanantly attached to his hands I assumed I could just remove them. Alas, the knives are actually the cockpit which splits in half. This is a horrible looking gimmick to me, especially because you can't really work around it or remove it (unless you want a stealth bomber with no canopy). The knives don't even look good because they look like...well...a canopy split in half. I've seen photos where the 'knives' are tucked back behind the arms, but I can't get mine to stay there, they spring right back to the stabby-stabby position. That giant niggle aside, he looks rather good in bot mode and has some really good articulation. The overall design is still a little too Bay-ish for my tastes, but it's less pronounced than most. He looks more like a robot and less like a pile of cutlery.

They've never left the box as I find them totally unnecessary.

I was wondering how long it would take someone to notice. I originally planned to have the mouth face pointing out but I fumbled it into a big box of other toys and didn’t have the patience to mount a rescue search.

Thanks for giving me another reason to transform it. Note: The little square wrist covers that plug into the wrist holes really don't have to be put back on in fighter mode, they're barely noticable. I actually just leave the hands on at all times. The main thing to deal with are the head parts. Unfortunately Basara just has too much flare on his head to be neatly tucked away in fighter mode. I'll be curious to see how Yamato handles this problem. I'll take this opportunity to say again that this really is a great little piece. I find the transformation easy and fun and after doing it a few times now nothing feels like it's getting loose or worn out. I'm glad Yamato is making this bird, but to be honest I'm so happy with this one that it's hard to get excited for Yamato's.

I took these photos around three years ago so the pain has long since subsided. On the contrary, I usually chuckle whenever I dig out these photos and look at them.

That's part of what makes the Aoshima so frustrating. You might get a good one, you might get a cruddy yet acceptable one, and you might get an unholy abomination like the one pictured above. Seems to be an equal chance of getting any of those. -__-

The Aoshima is quite a gamble. If you must have one, you should know going in that it's quite possible to get one like the one I got: I've never in my life beheld a toy so seriously flawed on so many levels. Thankfully I was able to return it for a full refund.

Perhaps they're saving the best for last.

Preoders are up at AmiAmi: http://www.amiami.com/shop/?set=english&am.../e_display.html http://www.amiami.com/shop/?set=english&am.../e_display.html