Shin Densetsu Kai 7.0

1/60s new name is needle dick. Floppy leg needle dick vs tough as balls perfect variable. Which sounds better? you decide. if your looking for the best loking valk toy get 1/48. if you want a display model that falls apart get the 1/60.

whao thse things are SMALL! Either way lets hope these are ABS and not that weak model styrene crap. u like the rpesentation and idea of these but the price...well i guess decent. HCM pro huh? HMMMMMMM damn you bandai fgive me HCM pro chunky monkeyu!

alternators were crazy to transform when i got my smokescreen. i got him down to 2minutes now but i mean come on....that arm transformation really needs top be worked on. transformers energon is selling well and though armada sucked to us, the kiddies bought it up. So yes gimmicks certainly did go far(uhm guys dont think that just kuz im tellln the facts and reasons wht haskara does this crap means i agree with them...i for one thing articulation rocks and the minicon gimmick was quite stupid) Energon is a step in the right direction and seems like a continuation technology wise of generation 2. gimmick may only get you so far. case in point. RID did way better with us then them meddln kids. Armada did way better gor them than it did for us. Point? its catered toward t˙em and as said before takara needed some douigh sop they appealed to us for car robots/rid. anyhoo alternators were started around the time rid ended so with that think of alternators as g1 influenced toys with acdvanced rid technology. the kids stuff is kids stuff. you cant ex[ect a 20 somethn yr old to like energon but it just so happens peolpe like me do. i love alternators too. alternators is our line. not the kiddies.

if anything its a nice thing to know and something thats gone undocumented for so long. We know a whole bunch about yamato from graham yet know close to nothign abotu takatokus stuff.

WDC DUDE! not only is this badass witha VF4 but its astonishingly clean! superb bro!

from what i recall he reportedly got it with a IR missle and may have used ISRT to track. althoguh i really think its jsut enemy propaganda a sam or AAA kill is more likely.

YS I AGREE! that and I want to know the history behind them...even if noone knows or forgot about it. quite sad. I want to know MUCH about what went into that toy!

WOW dude. I knew it was time SOMEONE made this just didnt know it owuld be you! this is spectaculr. BTW how much are you getting paid for this?

yea to me its all about bandais bad timing. IF the reissues came out before the yamato 1/60 line was even released, they would have done MUCH better. Specifically the late 90s into the year 2000. Thats when valk fdrought was runnintg wild, macrossworld was relatively new nad bursting with a lot of talented chunky monkey customizers. LOTS of us drooled over a joons on ebvay and at valk scrambles very nice galleries on the 1./55s. The 1/60 line efectively killed a lot of interest but to me, had it not come out at that time, the bandais would be much more regvered. I dont se the need for any flak, the damn thing was made in 1982 and STILL looks better than some macross toys now! Above all being that it was the pioneer it did many things RIGHT. MPC what? and wow dude. I wish mikado was that cheap when i went. BUying a VF19A excalibur for 120$ is something i NEVER want to do again.

another version is that a mig 29 pilot shot it down. one of the poopular aircraft mags credits the kill to im they even had an interview talkin about it with him./

me 2! also the HISTORY behind them! Like do we know if HCM fast packs were planned? How about a high detail 1.55? See that kind of stuff is unanswered. Graham do you or your macross buddies in asia know any of this stuff? sofar this is what i got from the scans here and articles at toyboxdx 1982?-First prototypes made. different nose sculpts, different heads(superior head on S model in later ads), less clear canopy but looks to be openable, tailfins loook different, overall looks to have short nose. wings, arms, legs, feet, hands and head lasers are ALL differnet and the toy has rather big wings. certainly a lot more goofy looking than final product. Canopy has lines painted white. swing bars painted too. Overall decent but the final is DRASTICALLY different for the better. 1982-3-first release. Product is VERY differnet from prototype with almost every part of sculpt changed. Less obvous airbrake and more accurate proportions and overall aesthetic. ZGone is the goofy look, and in is the realisti(for eaely 80s) aesthetic. nose is bigger and in PROPORTION. Overall the design changes in less than one year consititute not only bigger changes, but WAY better looks than the MPC line more than 20 yrs later by toynami. 1984-sometime before this bandai buys the molds from rival takatoku who unfortunately bcame bankrupt. Changes are the addition of clip on heatshields, stoppes for wing sweep, and screw in screw out heatshield with strike valkyrie. Swappable booster pods are introduced on thestrike and clip on missles. boxes change from normal window to window with front flap with big arse paintings. sometime after(1986)? Bandai makes the HCM. A more detailed valkyrie with more features. Of note are teh ability to mount missles, sweep wings back in battroid with missles STILL attached~(no toy afterwards has been able to do this...yet), slightly better articulation, balljoints on hips(not sure?), a somewhat more acfdurate and less accurate sculpt. BAclkpak placed to high, etcetc. however the battroid sculpt looks nice and the head does as well. PIlots in cockpit but nose is a little to blunt and big. At that time HCM was the most accurate toy valk until 1/60 yamato almos 2 decades later. Also has tailhooks. so folks im sure someone out there knows more. Like what else was planned nad background history. even though i love 1/55, id still love getting reissue HCMS( i know boat accidednt bla bla)

basically what i want is like a history and the stuff that we dont know. IM sure someone out there knows this stuff from japaense magazines and such. Kind of like how graham used to give us the info from yamato only this one from old takatopku sources who can reveal everything now due to takatoku folding back in the day., If anything a good discussion. graham was able to tell us about the changes to th2e 1/60 protoypes, VF11B and YF19 and 21 before release and the reasons why some things happened. IM sure someone back in the day did the same for takatoku fans in japanese magazines. IM sure mass amounts ARE available but just hard to find in this ay and age of yamato. THey only had 3 valks left to reproduce so im not sure if that constitutes "many:".(not counting skull1 pack in with GPS1) If mazinger can be revered so much to have several reissues over the years more than once and made into iddy biddy to giant ass to midle size SOC form, then I think the 1/55 can too! Just a matter of time. Not as earthbreaking as mazinger but hey its something in history. And its siomething we all enjoy evben in this day and age of high detail yamatos. Fanboyism brought the chogokin line to the frontline when far superior SOC mazingers existed, so fanboyism can do the same for macross.(yea i know but watch vbandai reissue stuff when noone notices lke they did a coupleyears ago). strike valk anyone?

WOOPS! sorry dude. lets hope this thread becomes as big as the CG modeling wip one!

yhea he only used it for a few minutes in the movie. if anything to me it seems out of place. Sure he beat the helll out of milia in a spectacular dogfight in it, but to me the hikaru 1S has more value and importance not to mention is more idollike since it stole the show at the end. I think if yamato made it it would sell worse then the VF1A max DYRL. what they should do is make a max Tv VF1A

it was slated for last summer. Check posts arounfd late 200 and feb 2003 during toyfair. IT was set for summer then delayed till fall then december then spring 04 to summer 04. I remember a lot of us being pissed. Mostly for being left out in the dark. Toynami aint competing with noone since they got the sole license for the damn thing. so theres no reason to worry about corporate espionage. Just spill the beans damn it!

bandais big enough to renew the license whenn they feel the need. I doubt they would have to work for it. I too would love it if the remaining DYRL valks would be reissued. The elintseeker is to me in its definiteive form in 1/55 scale. NOthing like a big chunky monkey thats durable and has a AWAcs like thing on top of it. such awssome ness. SO hardcore it came with its own GUNPOD even if kawamori designed it to be weaponless. Now the question is. Were the molds used on that takatoku ones that were designed before folding or all bandai? hmm SOMEONES gotta have the lowdown and book or magazine scans form the 80s to give us more history and shed light on this stuff!

you sure? man dude they suck. But licensees are per scale so.....possiblities are open to HCM remakes if they get off their ass and make new molds.*(molds rumored to be destroyed in boating accident) I also wonder if the takatoku officials were pissed bandai got their molds. After all what could they do their business was f***D. Anyone here have any magazine scans of original protoys or what could have beens that are not on macrossworld, toyboxdx or cooljapanesetoys? if so please scan here!

AWESOME! Bob did you use vectors on that skirt? Thanks for making this thread! its like the wip thread at polykarbon. Hey dude. what do you do professionaly? are you a graphic designer or something? That Vf-4 looks killer dude

if these toys are small as hell and cheap as hell, i will buy. Otherwise this damn market is saturated and its hard to match this verka new gundam figure to the arch enemies one.

Hmm. I wonder if any japanese books or magazines documented the rise and fall of takatoku. theres GOTTA be something. I hope one day, some publisher in japan becomes ambitious and decides to make a hardcover fcoffee table book on the 1/55. How it started, who takatoku fought for the license, all the protos of 1/55 stuff never made, what it would evolve into, the competitors prototypes, the final nail in the coffin for takatoku, how the original 1./55 designer feels about yamatos 1.48 and rival bandai using takatoku molds for the reissues, his viewe on HCM and MPC, what he and his team are doing now in the toy industry, what plans the 1/55 was set to undergo before takatokus surprising demise, and such. Itd be nice to see what happened or what was supposed to hapen. Also what would he wanted to have done to mkae the 1.55 better and if there were any blueprints to change around or make a new valk toy altogether. It puzzles me why bandai hasnt done anything either/ but chances are they are just lazy and incerdibly slow. once we go trough another macross drougt for a couple years, i bet yamato will come up with some new macross line to seduce us into while we crave more bandai, then out of nowhere i bet bandai willsuddenly reissue the DYRL strike 1/55. Then they willl become dustgatheres once more to bad timing. takatoku RULES

hmmmmm. A thought just occured to me. The original valk ddesign was based on kawamoris parody breast fighter concept. could takatoku have in fact made a proto of that as well? It surprises me how the bandai/takatokus 1/55 background stories(opreoroduction plans, competitors. rivals, design decisions what could have been etc) is not documented much. I also wonder if mounted missles were ever on the minds of the designers.

good to know it was lego. as long as its not a valk made out of duplo LOL> I wonder if matt alt will drop by and give us commentary on what he knows. I wonder if graham has extensive knowledge of takatoku like he does of yamato. Ever wish there was a book documenting the rise and fall of takatoku and the legacy they started with the 1/55? that makes for good reading.

ya know guys im sure SOME company would have tried taking on takatoku bfore teh license. Te question is, who was it? If it was bandai I really wonder if there initial prototype resembled the HCM. The head sculpts in the above ads are certainly different. The VF-1S molds for the head looks really good to me. Bette than both the mold eventually used and way btter than the one used on the 1990 reissue. I wonder if legos were around back then in 82. If so it would be nice to see kawamoris original lego assisted design. I would LOVE to see bandai go ahaead and finish what takatoku had planned, make VF-1D, Vf-A max and angel birds. Geez takatoku had it all planned out then! and yes its true. the hory froating one himself has a place in his heart for the chunky monkey as well., IN an interview a few years ago, the all time fav toy of his was the original takatoku VF1J. I want to know what else was planned;..like even more concrete info. I also want to know if enemy pods WERE planned or if they were just decoration on the back of the boxes., Also....where did thje designer of the toy go off to? Perhaps with yamato now? That would be a sweet touch. You know somewhere in the rising sun i bet there is a locked vault gathering dust with documents about what the line was supposed to evolve into. maybe someone will win it off of ebay japan. A legacy that lives on...

uhm oh yea guys. please dont turn this into a 1/60/48 vs 1/55 battle thread. ZThis thread is simply for the "hidden" history of the 1/55 series.

YES we need history folks! Graham, Egan, anyone? I too remember hearing about the paper variable but I don't recall if that was for the actual 1/55 toy. the proto pics are in the magazine scans of macrossworld. The prototype of the VF-1J seemed to have an opening canopy. BUt the toy itself looked kind of crappy compared to the evenmtual takatoku VF1J. I dont think the takatoku designer would make a /48, he is an experienced designer from the old school where as nishikawa is most likely relatively young in comparison. either way I am sure the takatoku genius design wqould be different. I wonder if anyone has the prototype blueprints or at least plans or ideas of where the 1/55 line was headed before the rather out of nowhere bankruptcy. On back of the takatoku boxes, there were pictures of enemy suits, batle pods, and a hikaru 1J with zfast packs. I am thinking that perhaps the Vf-1J was set to have the fast packs in a giftset until the series was cut short and hikaru recieved skull 1 in the show after focker died. perhaps had the line gone longer, we may have had battle suits! the prototype VF-1S on back of the fast pack box...or on front..perhaps that was the next evolutionary step for the chunky monkey?(i know it wouldnt vbe exactly like that but hey it may have loooked real close).