Shin Densetsu Kai 7.0

Lets put this clear. Bandai's Macross F 1/60 DX toys are clearly made for collectors.

As found on MW toy section: Reissue price was 6800 yen. Of course it would have costed more in a smaller toy shop. Anyways I hope the hobby mags start showing the DX Macross F toys in their monthly coverage. Itching to see what Bandai cooks up.

The 25 with FPs reminds me of the Metal Siren. I dig...I dig a lot!

I used the fat ones for stripes and trim on my other toys too, and after sometime they turned purple. =(.

Yes.

Hey Wicked Ace, the bad thing about Sharpie markers, is that the ink turns purple after a while...it happened to my Gundam figures I panel lined with them.

You are missing the point entirely. The Macross 7 toys were targeted towards KIDS. There is no doubt that they were trying to make a quick buck when they reissued them at the higher price that Yamato was selling their 1/60 VF-1 a few years back. I never doubted that they were trying to make a quick buck the easy way that time by taking advantage of Macross remerging on store shelves. Yet, maybe their price was due to inflation? The toys in question have molds that were 6-7 years old. Maybe a limited production run? Who the hell knows. My point all this time was that they were originally designed for children. It seems that the 1/72 battroid model they had in the pics is a good size. The 1/60 will be even bigger. This makes me happy.

They are fun to pose in battroid mode and the gerwalk mode looks great, but the fighter mode is where it falls short. The backpack is too narrow and so is the distance between each vertical stabilizer. It ruins the look, you may not notice it at first but it is noticeable after a while. They are fairly durable, more durable than model kits but their sockets tend to break. Due to the way they are positioned, it won't result in loss of articulation and it isn't noticeable until you look closely. Even if a socket or whatever the hell the pins are inserted to break, since it is secured in both sides, it still retains functionality. This is not in defense of toynami, since a breakage like this should not even happen. Even with the breakage it still remains functional. It sounds to me that you are new to this toy since much of the things that bothered you do not bother me. Again not in defense of toynami, but the things that bothered me were different. It sounds like you were expecting a nigh indestructible 1/55 Bandai shrunk down to 1/100. Let me tell you though, as of yet, no Macross VF-1 toy has yet to match Bandai/Takatoku's 1/55 in regards to durability and worry free handling. Since you are not happy with the durability of the toynami 1/100, I doubt you will like the HCMpro Gundams either. There are things you mentioned that I agree with. Some of the joints are too tight, which requires more force to move and could result in breakage if you are new to it. I don't like how the legs align in fighter mode. This might actually contribute to the breakages I mentioned earlier. I don't like the multiple stand attachements, it should have been universal. Other than that I do think that you get more for what you pay for with these figures than with Revoltechs. These are better than the bandai 1/100 variable plamo from years back. Not to mention a lot more durable. Nonetheless there could be better VF-1 toys in similar scale, but that scale is pushing it.

Same here. If the 1/100 toys turn out anything like the Gundam Hcmpro they will be Macross toy crack.

Those were made in the mid 90s for kids. Yes they were meant as real toys. Can anyone honestly look at those and say they were meant to appeal to collectors? Look at it this way; when Bandai made those, they aimed them at kids. When Yamato made the 1/72 YF-19 they aimed them at adults. HUGE difference. Why wasn't there an SOC Gundam? Sounds like, "HG no like Macross 'til Toycom showed up@SDCC" debate. High-end Gundam? Those were high-end?....... Actually the saturation dissuaded them from putting out their original plans for their Macross reissue line. Target market back then was kids. Were japanese kids watching Macross Plus? I don't doubt it, but I doubt they were the majority of people watching it. 14 year difference, times are much different now. Yamato wants to cash in on the gashapon & small toy market that Bandai/Popy and Kaiyodo already dwelved in for Macross. Wait so if Yamato does it, its excusable and a defendable act right? Eureka 7 only got models and a PVC parts swap line. Macross F is already getting both 1/60 DX and 1/100 simple transformation lines in addition to 1/72 Plamo. Already much better treatment than Eureka 7 got. In fact, what Bandai is doing with Macross F reminds me of what they are doing with their Eva lines.

Same here. I took out some of my Cybertron figures last night and still like them as much as they day I bought them. That was one overlooked toyline.

Yeah years ago. Yamato caught them with their pants down with the VF-1. The reissues did not do well, because the 1/60 came out, then the 1/48. Same reason the new heads that were tooled for the reissues never made it to the production toys. You can say that Macross 7 was left in the dust and tied up just to piss Yamato off, but whats more popular in japan, the Fire valkyrie or VF-1? What was selling more at the time of the Bandai reissues, the Yamato Macross Plus toys or the 1/60 VF-1? What was so damn popular in Macross that Yamato even pushed it up to a bigger scale, and back again now? The VF-1. Maybe Bandai felt they wouldn't sell as much new mold Macross 7 stuff with similar products that Yamato was pushing at the time(1/72 Macross Plus). What is more popular? Plus or 7? YF-19 or Fire Valkyrie? YF-21 or VF-22? Oh and Macross II? If Kawamori gets upset about Macross II, maybe its possible Bandai may not want to drive him away from helping in the development of their product. Hell if people defend why Yamato won't do Macross II... Agreed. They worship upon a shrine of 1st edition broken VF-0S/A arms, incense, a picture of Kawamori smiling, photoshopped with a jpeg taken from google images of random japanese dudes and photoshopped text layed overtop saying "Yamato employees". Certain sellers to us, not necessarily the japanese market. See if Yamato was able to sell Macross stuff in the US, there is no doubt a lot of the stuff people keep saying Bandai or Yamato neglect, may be given a chance here. They do for me, I wanted a damn chunky monkey for years. They didn't even do that with a Mazinger or the SOC Dancougar, who is fairly heavy. They had substantial metal on Gunbuster and it seems everyone here loves it. Bandai knows how to handle diecast better than Yamato. Bigger company=more experience. In fact, the all metal Gundam they made was a one-off, and I don't think they would make an all metal valkyrie like that, they haven't done anything else like that in years. Except for the fact that each worker in their factory is required to dress like that. Not to mention they may have not even been in a formal meeting, it looked like they were in an exhibition hall while a con was going on. If you want to talk about formal, Kawamori presents his designs with F^Y&8&88***n legos. LEGOS. If the Yamato professionals went to him at wonderfest dressed in votoms gear, I don't think he would care. Everyone here can agree that they want good Macross F toys. I want good Macross F toys, at the end of the toy I could care less who the hell makes them, so long as they are good. I was even hoping Takara would give Macross a chance.

Because even the gundam toys sucked back then, and were lazy too. Again those were marketed to kids, not like the takatoku 1/55s, which were geared towards not only kids but the older audience, since at the time, it was one of the most realistic toys in the market. In 1994 there were kids, kids kids. This is 14 years later, with regards to kids being born in japan, there is what we call decline in birth rate. Comparing the toys of 1994 to the future toys later this year is like comparing the 1995 Master Grade Gundam to the Master Grade Gundam 2.0.

They don't go well with Yamato, not Bandai. The slumbering giant vs the little guy who tried? The slumbering giant finally awoke, they might blow Yamato's efforts away. Compare the various reviews of the recent SOC's compared to the reviews of Yamato's latest valkyries. What do you get? Broken VF-0 arms until 3rd release, aft canopy folding hinge breakages on the YF-19, and possibly others. Sure some might be isolated cases, and this is not saying the SOC's are problem free, but there is a big difference. Even some of the diehard suckup apologists here started getting pissed once their VF-0 arms broke. No not all VF-0's are breakage prone, but to say everyone was happy and smiled while staring at a ripped off arm, wait for HLJ replacement that is still breaks, and shuddered at spending $210+ for a "fixed" Ghost bundle, would be a lie. Did we hear anything similar with SOC Baikanfu? Did we hear anything with the Soulspec Dragonar? The list goes on. Again there are some problems with SOC, but nothing on the scale of Yamato's valkyries. Yea the new qc guy made sure the Nora and quite possibly the 21 will be of high qc, but he sure as hell wasn't there for the past valks. Bandai has a lot of experience, just never did anything catering to collectors with Macross since the mid 80s with their HCMpro. Did any of you think that maybe they didn't take on Yamato years back with new products was because they did not have the licenses Yamato had? Maybe they wanted to do a 1/60 but couldn't when Yamato had the 1/60 VF-1 license. There was no Macross F at that time, and Yamato may have had the Macross Zero license before Bandai could get one. What opportunity do they have now that Yamato does not? First dibs on the F license. To compare their previous Macross efforts to what they can do now is ridiculous. 1994 was a far different market than now. I think we will get great toys from Bandai, but still have people wanting them to fail, because Yamato won't have the license for a couple of years. If Yamato ever makes Macross F toys, and some of those break, there will be apologists saying its understandable because they are doing something new and that Bandai's suck because they came out years earlier. No doubt Yamato could design a nice looking valkyrie, but I am more questionable with Yamato's quality than Bandai's. Yea Yamato is the little guy but questionable quality is questionable quality. Look at it like the military toy market. 21st makes aesthetically pleasing designs, and is a smaller company than BBI. BBI's quality blows 21st out of the water and is very similar in aesthetics to 21st. BBI just never puts out as much stuff as 21st. 21st has the edge in accuracy, but BBI has shown that they have caught up, though like Bandai, are a sleeping giant, and seemingly come out of nowhere. See a parallel? I just want some good toys. I just think Bandai is more capable of making something I want.

Those pictures may have been taken during Wonderfest and the Bandai reps were probably dressed like that all day, or had just come from a Gundam presentation with no time to change clothes. Even if they were to meet with Nightow later on for a Trigun discussion, its not like they would change clothes. Anyways I am itching to see more prototypes. It would be awesome if the 1/100 line has interconnecting stands like the HCMpro line has. Or a hangar display to store weapons and FAST pack parts like the SHCMpro. Who knows, maybe the 1/100 line will branch off into Macross 7, and the fan favorites get made in 1/60. If they still have the Macross 7 license(which is oft blamed for Yamato not being able to make Macross 7 toys), we can have hope that Bandai makes use of it in that scale. I'd love to see a 1/60 VF-17 and Blazer valk accompany my DX VF-25s. This way we get more valkyries, and Bandai still doesn't step on Yamato's toys. Instead of a YF-19, Bandai pulls out a VF-19S or Fire Valk. Instead of a YF-21, Bandai whips out the Max and Milia VF-22s. At the end of the day we are all happy and no one complains about the same valk made by 2 companies. I hope the VF-25 DX toys are out in summer.

I like Lugnut and Blitzwing's alot modes, but it was hard to tell whether Blitzwing's jet mode is faithful to the original lineart shown a while back. Some fans think the Ark turns into Omega Supreme.

Not a fair comparison, you are judging toys from 10+ years ago. Anyways what excites me is that we have only seen 2 VF-25s so far. Who knows, we might have some bad asses later in with awesome color schemes that we have yet to see. I'd love to see the VF-171 in a different color scheme. Who knows, maybe the teal ones were just from one squadron.

He did say:

What we have here is the big guy vs the little guy. Bandai vs Yamato. There was never any doubt in my mind that Bandai could produce a better VF-1. They just never did. With the market getting saturated a couple years back, I wasn't surprised. Now they have an opportunity to do good. Some of us wondered what it would be like if Bandai made a new valk and made it appealing to collectors, unlike the kiddified Macross 7 line. This is finally happening. Some of us wondered how another company other than Yamato would take on valk toys. This is finally happening. If Yamato ends up making a VF-25 years later then we will have a variety of VF-25s to choose from. Its been 14 years since the airing of Macross Plus and just now we are getting a 1/60 YF-21. All of us have waited that long and yet we are still excited. Its not like anything will change. Experience has shown us that we are willing to wait years for a Yamato toy. Hell we still are. I see this as a good thing. Its about time Bandai came back into the game. Now lets see what the big fish can do....

Its because its not just international fans outside of Japan that visit Macrossworld for news, some of the japanese fans do too. Sure its a given not every member that visits here knows english or even contributes to the forums, but pictures speak a thousand words. Its not so much "OMG how did the gaijin Macrossworld site get pictures first?!". So its not Macrossworld specifically, its the fact that news travels fast on the internet, and the magazines are always in constant competition with it. Maybe Valkyrie Scramble went through the same thing when it was still online. They don't. Once the HG debacle is over they can. Out of friendship. Also he does not get all the samples. Once someone who is given secret info spreads it, he/she will not get secret info any more. Thats the way it works. He can share what he can, but if he starts divulging the juicy stuff everyone wants to know, everyone will get what they wanted, just that one time. Afterwards he probably wouldn't get any info to give us. Industrial espionage, and products in the photos not being indicative of the final production toy. Also whichever magazine paid to for first rights to publish the photos ends up wasting money, gets pissed, and may never give Yamato they advertising they were going to give in turn for being the first to publish pics. Contracts. They make deals with the magazines. Besides, why bother with a market you can't even sell to? Its been 8 years since the Toycom fiasco at SDCC, Yamato has yet to make deals with Toyfare, Action Figure Digest, or any other western(non japanese) publication for Macross products. No I am not talking about the ill fated Sun whatever toy ads that never bore fruition. I'm talking about full fledged premiere pictures, the stuff that Hobby Dengeki and the like get. An article in the monthly japanese hobby mags is good advertising for Yamato. Its like Toyfare magazine here, sure the internet is faster than them, but they still manage to have exclusive pics before other sites and magazines. Its the same scenario with Yamato and the japanese hobby mags. Its more like "hey, we paid good money to have first dibs at showing those pictures of your shiny new toys, if you let some internet site post pics first, you can say goodbye to our deal". Not just Macrossworld, any internet site really.

I think its similar to HCMpro, which has the same features for the mobile armor modes.

Hey Graham put up scans for the Yamato 1/24 Patlabor in the other forum, so who knows, maybe the new hobby mags he got scans from have new Yamato Macross pictures? I wouldn't be surprised to see the YF-21 since its close to being released.

I doubt niether one of them would care. Legally they can't support us. Plus Graham doesn't work for Yamato, so if a review for the DX VF-25 is front paged, it wouldn't really matter. I think they are handling the 1/72 models that Bandai has announced. The VF-25 in 3 modes sans armor was the 1/72 prototype. The only glimpse we had of the 1/60 was the one with FAST packs in fighter mode only. Judging by the pics, the VF-25 is close to the size of the YF-19 in 1/72.

Weathered VF-1S Focker type