Shin Densetsu Kai 7.0

The unarticulated TV hands? Just trying to make sure.

An increase in qc now that they are not the only producers of 1/60 Macross mecha, and their main rival is Bandai....who typically has far superior qc. Now, they can't just sit back and not worry, they actually have competition now. Bandai isn't just making one toyline, they are making two, AND a model kit line. Before, Yamato didn't have to worry about anything, they were the only game in town to go to for your perfect variable fix. Hasegawa never made variable kits, and no one else in Japan was making new perfect transformation valkyrie toys. Now it is different. Some of you may think this is a bad thing, I personally feel that this is a great thing. Suspect qc drives consumers away, no matter how ambitious or innovative the company, in fact it cancels out the potential greatness of a toy, you can't enjoy what is easily broken. Competition breeds innovation and greatness, as well as cheaper prices as the competitors try to outgun each other. Anyways I think they will go for the overlooked mecha that they have licenses too, such as the VF-5000, and VF-9, the latter being mentioned in a magazine article last month. In fact I would not be surprised if the VF-9 is next. With the Macross Frontier movie coming out in summer, the series being popular, brand recognition will increase next year, so there is less risk releasing an overlooked valkyrie in toy form. It would be risky if there was no Macross media on at all, but since there is already a popular series, and a movie to look forward to, 2009 is the best time to release any new toys based on overlooked mecha.

1-angle the swing bar(once you pull back on it, it will angle out, you can do this by pulling on the backplate, there is a detent which you will definitely feel get the bar into place) 2-rotate both legs forward simultaneously 3-push the hip bar up and out of the nose assembly. I hope it is POM I am actually trying to determine whether or not the hinges on the newer valkyries from the 1J onward are using ABS or POM. Most of the toy is comprised of ABS, for example the chestplate, wings, lower arm, et al. The TV hands are made of POM, but the hinges may now be made out of POM too, but I don't know for sure. If it feels very rigid, compared to a piece like the wing, it might be POM. The Hikaru 1S is molded in a very light grey, if the hinge is brighter, that piece might be POM. POM tends to be a bit brighter than ABS. In the latest 1J pics I saw last night, the hinge definitely looked brighter than the bright white ABS. The bright white ABS had a warm tint, while the hinge was almost ultraviolent white. Neither were painted.

No confirmation, just me staring very closely at pics of the 1J shoulder area on the internet. The more I look at it, the more I think the 1J shoulders are POM, it is a faint difference but depending on the lighting, you can see that the white plastic used on an area, such as the chestplate or wings, is different from the ones used on the shoulder hinges and hands. No problems at all reported with the 1J. Also, on Yamato's blog a while back, they mentioned how the factory had sent one of the samples to review, and it was originally grey, instead of bright white. If I read right, Yamato did not want grey, and wanted bright white all along, and that is why we have a bright white 1J. Works for me, I tend to like grey more, but the v2 1/60 1J looks wonderful as is.

The toy in general is highly sturdy and very durable. The true test is to test out the shoulder hinges under stress. From what you did, nothing would really break. You have to pose the shoulders a lot, move the shoulder hinge in and out, see if there are any cracks, if there aren't, the problem might be solved. There are breakages no matter where the pin is facing, so I really don't know, the only viable solution I can think of is to mold the hinges out of POM and be done with it.

It is considering that is less than the yen equivalent last week(12000 yen=$132 give or take last week) I hope they make Alto's super armor non exclusive eventually and do the same for Ozma's heavy armor.

That does look a lot better. That is disappointing. It should be easy to fix though, I imagine. Bandai might have did that as to not "break the sculpt" so to speak, though this mainly happens with action figures such as comic based heroes, not so much on mecha. It is a disappointment to me but I can understand why they might have left the joint out.

A ton better and far more accurate to the design it is based on than the VF-17 and Fire Valkyrie were to the designs they are based on. Now that I have seen the gamu toys review/gallery, the leg/knee joints bend farther back than I have seen in the initial pics. That's a relief. If I get my hands on a DX soon I will try to find a way to store the gunclip in battroid mode, and a way to get the gunhands into the shield somehow. If more plastic from within the shield needs to be carved out, it might be a very easy modification.

The new Roy rerelease this month and the Hikaru Strike might..

Thanks for the additional reports Graham and Drifand. Just how limited are the hip ball joints? Are they limited enough in range of motion to make ball joints redundant? Are any of the leg joints prone to looseness, especially the hip ball joints? How about the knee joints, they look double jointed, how far back can they bend? In the early pictures, it didn't look like they could bend at 90 degree angles. I love the gloss finish. The 25S looks beautiful with all those markings prepainted/printed, and that gloss finish. Are the head lasers on ball joints? The reason I ask, is because I like to see them splayed outwards in a "v" formation, angled back. That position makes the VF-1S head look bad ass. My main issues with the head are the short neck. The head itself looks great. In a way, I wonder if the short neck will make the 25S with heavy armor mounted look more menacing. I wonder if the peg that needs to stay in place would be better off with a coating of nail polish or super glue. I think it is a given that the plamo will outdo the toy versions. Very rarely does this ever change. For example, compare the Arch Enemies Gundam figure with the MG 2.0 RX-78, Yamato v2 1/60 VF-1 in battroid and fighter mode to the 1/72 Hasegawa VF-1 battroid and fighter model kits, or even the 1/72 Imai variable VF-1 model kits to the 1/55 Takatoku/Bandai VF-1 toys. Is there a way to still move the hips but avoid paint scraping? I tend to play with my toys rather than just leave them on display, so I want to know what to look out for when posing. Is the ball joint itself made out of metal too? That disappoints me too. Is it possible to store the gun holder in battroid mode, in the same area that it was place in fighter mode? Or is it blocked? In your opinion, how does it fare compared to other valkyrie toys that you have bought over the years, with regards to durability?

To be honest, considering how big the Beta is, how well it turned out, and how it is so much better it is than the other MPC toys, I actually think it is worth it. That thing is HUGE and I am surprised it is only $150.

I love gloss coating, maybe I am in the minority, but I know for sure I was not the only one that liked how Yamato gave one of the VF-1A Max types for DYRL a semi-gloss coating. I wasn't the only one that thought it was a neat thing for them to do, and hoped it was a sign for things to come. I think this was on the first 1/60 versions. As for Bandai engineering a way to protect the pilot...Yamato never really did, all they did was go off of what Kawamori designed. The heat shields covering the canopies on the VF-0, VF-1, VF-11, et al, that has nothing to do with Yamato's approach, that's all Kawamori. You have him to thank, not Yamato. Yes the 25 plamo does a better job of hiding the cockpit but it's not like there is a heat shield covering the thing. The PVC lasers can be angled out more and straigtened by softening them with a hair dryer, bending to the preferred position, then immediately dunking the part(s) into cold water. This is an old trick for PVC. I don't see anything wrong with anyone giving Bandai the benefit of the doubt. They succeeded in making a good toy of the VF-25, just not one accurate to the show. The mecha plamo market in Japan is much larger than it is here in the states, and larger than the toy market. The Japanese fans are used to buying kits for accuracy, and having more options and variety more than us. Does that mean we shouldn't get an accurate VF-25 toy? Of course not, but at the same time, I can see why Bandai and Kawamori chose a different approach for their toy. Kawamori has already stated that he initially wanted the battroid to be big, and the DX, already called chunky over here(not surprising) is definitely bigger than it is in the anime. To say that they did not care about this toy is ridiculous. Why would they go out of their way to make it sturdy and durable, as well as get Kawamori's supervision while designing this toy? If they really didn't care they would have just given us a toy that falls apart out of the box, has design flaws all over the place, horrible quality control, and not a second thought to parts composition and how the materials might have some unforseen chemical reaction resulting in defective toys and an inevitable 2.0 version months later that still might not even fix problems. Hell they even tampoed the entire thing up. Yes they are the biggest toymaker in Japan, but Graham once mentioned how expensive tampo printing was and how Yamato(years back) wasn't tampo printing most of the details on their toys due to cost. If Bandai did not care, they would not have even bothered painting and tampo printing everything on the toy. That is easy money saved if they chose not to do so. Even their 1/55 Origin of Valkyrie reissues don't have everything painted/tampo printed, there are at least +20 stickers to apply if you choose to do so. Yet here we are with the DX, and everything is tampoed/painted. The toy is significantly bigger than the 1/60 VF-1 so I can see why the prices are very similar. As for being out of scale by 2cm, that is no big deal to me. Pilot figures are never a good judge of scale, you guys posting in the Mospeada thread know this. Even the 1/72 kits have out of scale pilots. I wouldn't be surprised if Yamato ever had underscaled pilots. Anyways, Bandai, Yamato, Toynami, whoever, the scale of the pilots doesn't matter as much to me so long as they are in the cockpit and the vehicle itself is relatively close. For example BBI's supposed 1/18 scale F-16 is actually 1/17....but do I care? Not at all! I appreciate accuracy, but I don't abide by it all the time. For example, I love the movie Starscream figure, and Masterpiece Starscream, both being inaccurate in many ways, especially the former, but fun toys. I don't care about any of the inaccuracies of the upcoming VF-1D, the only things I worry about are the shoulder hinges. The main gripe I have with the VF-11 is the small size of the tailfins. At the same time I was disappointed with the DX Fire Valkyrie toy. To me the DX VF-25 is nothing like the highly inaccurate DX Fire Valkyrie. You don't see the LERXs shoved so far up the nose that they look like a Legioss hybrid, or an EVA like battroid mode. Yes the DX 25 is not anime accurate, but yes it was approved by Kawamori, yes it looks like the sketch on the box, no I'm not using this as an excuse, but rather a reason for explaining why Bandai went with a different approach. Does it bode well for you guys who wanted something accurate? No. Yet not being accurate doesn't make it a bad toy, not at all. There had to be a reason why the DX turned out the way it did after Bandai spent all their money, resources, and sessions with Kawamori to produce the DX. There are things I am dissapointed in. The main things being the lack of a space to store the gun holder in battroid mode, the neccessity to swap hands to hold the weapons and the fact that the weapon hands cannot store in the shield, the gear being underdetailed, the nose drooping too much, and the front gear not being longer. The plamo and DX get the gear wrong, the VF100s version get's it right. Nonetheless, the DX does many things right in my eyes, such as the gloss coating, durability, balanced appearance, having everything painted on, and much more. It's good that we have more variety to choose from now, and I hope this is just the beginning of what Bandai will bring out. If it inspires Yamato to become more competitive with pricing and quality, then GOOD! How is that bad at all? More variety for all of us, and when have we ever had variety? What if Yamato decides to do the VF-9? What if Bandai can't make it but decides to make the VF-14? Bandai entering the foray is a good thing for all of us. Taking a brand seriously doesn't equate to suspect quality and making new toys with broken parts out of the box. Taking 8 years to have an aggressive quality control guy onboard doesn't show very much seriousness on Yamato's part. Having that guy onboard, and still having broken parts on the v2 1/60(like mine) doesn't show seriousness on Yamato's part. If Yamato was truly ready to take on the big dogs they ought to have been critical on the quality of their toys before they even hit the market. I have defended them numerous times and still stand by my stance that the fragility of their toys tends to be highly exaggerrated, but I cannot lie about the breakages that fans like us have witnessed from them over the years. From broken VF-11 hips(happened to me), Tab B, missing pieces, broken VF-0 arms, hairline cracks/breakages on the v2 1/60 VF-1S/A shoulders, stress marks on Ivanov's SV-51, BP8, cracked v1 1/60 hips, cracked intakes on the 1/48, et al. Yes Bandai has it's share of lemons but the majority of their toys are not. If you guys are willing to give a company like Yamato,with all the breakages I just mentioned, the benefit of the doubt, Bandai deserves it too. You guys are some loyal fans. Broken parts does not equal seriousness. You guys that wanted the anime accurate 25 didn't get it. No one is forcing you to like the DX 25, but there is probably a good reason for why it turned out the way it did, Bandai didn't do it just to irritate fans. I have a feeling if Yamato made it, with Kawamori's supervision, it may have turned out looking very similar.

No it is called "giving the benefit of the doubt" and look at the sketch on the box, the toy looks more like that than the CGI model.

Thanks for the initial report Graham. Can the knife be stored anywhere in battroid mode? In the instruction manual I thought I saw a picture where knife is stored somewhere in fighter mode, I wonder if the area isn't blocked by anything in battroid mode. Do Alto and Ozma's VF-25's share the same neck piece? Maybe the head on the 25S is significantly bigger than on the 25F, resulting in the neck not being as apparent. Is it possible to carve away some of the interior of the shield to house the hands that can hold the weapons, yet still remain functional? Also, is the toy more durable than the 1/55 or 1/48?

I was referring to not much more releases for the 25th/Classics line than we have already seen.

No, I actually prefer the dark grey and orange combo, it is distinct and unique, no other Macross valkyrie toy has that aside from the VF-11. I hope the tailfins are enlarged but with April coming in less than 5 months, I doubt it.

Happy birthday man! How did the durability turn out? Does it feel like anything on it might break? Any warning signs? Also, can the hands that hold the gun fit into the shield, or do you have to swap them out to transform back into fighter mode? Where does the gun holder go in battroid mode(the one that holds the gun in fighter mode)?

Man I would pay that much! That is cheap considering how much it would cost to bring over here! To get it over here in the US, it would be $30-40 more, taking shipping and the weak dollar/yen ratio into account. That is, unless you pre-ordered at BBTS before they changed the price earlier this week, or pre-ordered at Over-Drive a while back.

Can you check the shoulder hinges and tell me if the metal pins have the burr(rough) ends facing downwards in battroid mode? I won't buy another 1/60 till I find out if the hinges have truly been fixed. The thing is, I really want the 1J Hikaru and 1D. The 1D looks fine to me, I don't mind the longer fuselage, compressed canopy, higher chest, all that stuff doesn't matter to me, it is a beautiful toy; I just care about the shoulder hinges.

That isn't confirmed, I posted why the neck might not be apparent, and it is because(from what I've read), the neck piece has to be pushed into position but does not lock into place, which may explain why the S/F in battroid mode on the box lack visible necks(front view)

Okay, from what I can gather, the flaws that were pointed out by the reviewer are that there is no stand, no super armor available yet and different resistance than the model kit. He likes how weighty it is and how well it locks together. Still trying to figure out what he was referring to with regards to the neck piece, not sure if I read it right, but it seems like the neck piece isn't very secure, which is probably why we see a lot of pics with the VF-25S without the neck exposed.

Maybe it's the lighting, maybe it's just me, but is thatultraviolent white that I see?!

Delayed till next year, hopefully not too much longer, valk exchange has the best price on the web for it! After all these years I still love the 1/55.

Great Review jenius, a great thing to read on Christmas morning! Looks like next year is going to be an incredibly awesome year for all of us Mospeada fans, I am glad I got into it this past spring! So many things to love about it, so many things done well, yet the series is so overlooked. I know this is out of the loop, but is it possible to mount the CMs Legioss somehow on the Toynami Beta's connecting booms? After seeing how the Beta turned out in Toynami/Aoshima's hands, I'd hope to see Aoshima engineer an all new Alpha/Legioss from scratch, and just have Toynami distribute it here in the states. I bought an Aoshima Legioss this year and had buyer's remorse..hadn't had that in a very long time! I remember hearing about what went wrong, and things certainly did go wrong on mine, so rather than taking Toynami's Alpha as a base, it would be better for Aoshima to just make their own, still compatible with the new Beta. I might pick up a red Beta later next year, even if my red Legioss is busted, the Beta looks like plenty of fun by itself. It looks incredible. Maybe between now and then, I can figure out ways to mod my Aoshima Legioss.

The Shadow Commander set has been released in Singapore. Any of you pre-order this set? It looks awesome, and the color matching to Nemesis Prime seems spot on.