Shin Densetsu Kai 7.0

Just fold the wings man..that way it can fit into thin spaces in the house.

I actually like this one.

I have both voyager Starscream and the Activator. The Activator looks more cartoon like, since it has a painted canopy, and accurate null ray lasers. Both have automated transformations, but the Activator has the better one, since its more impressive, and not tricky to get into place, or actuate. I do like the voyager one better overall, because of the more detailed jet mode, and the articulation is better. The DX 1/55 and 1/65 Bandai macross homages are to my liking on the voyager. One thing I hate on the Activator is the short nose in fighter mode. The voyager has a long nose.

Okay boys, mine just arrived, and since I tend to play with my toys a lot, I figured my input will help others. For the record, Not once did I ever think the 1/48 was fragile aside the bp8 piece, and I thought the fragility of the 1/48 overall was far exaggerated. Mine is still in one piece after 4 years. A lot of people were scared to transform theirs and said it was like a model kit. I called bs and thought it was a disgrace just to leave it like that. With that out of the way, I go on to the new 1/60. First off, this is bigger than I thought it would be in battroid mode. I have an old 1/60, a 1/48, and now this new 1/60. This new 1/60 seems a bit bigger than the old one. This is good, as it makes me feel more like I got my money's worth. Most of the necessary details are painted on, this is very surprising considering Yamato rarely did this in the past. Seems like constant demands for more tampo prints finally paid off. The canopy is beautiful, reminiscent of the RAM coatings applied to some modern day fighters. Even the skull badge is painted aft of the canopy...something that tiny. Very impressed with that. I like that detail, and a sticker of that would be a pain in the ass to apply. When going to fighter to gerwalk, make sure to slightly twist the lower legs inwards before bending down. Whenever I do this, the thigh swivel comes into play, and actually aids this effort. The arm hinges are the tricky parts, and what David mentioned above works. Either grab the shoulders, or the hinge itself, and gently lift it above the stopper/ridge that secures it in gerwalk mode. The 1/48 shared a similar design but the hinge on that was less likely to break. On the new 1/60, you can tell that the shoulder hinges are definitely the weak links of the toy. Another reason its best to grab the hinge/shoulders instead of merely pushing the hinge, is that the shoulders are extremely tight. Tight enough that you risk breaking the hinge if you try to move the shoulders without supporting the hinge. I think mine actually has a tiny hairline crack out of package, so I am trying my best to avoid breaking that tiny piece of the hinge of. On the 1/48, the only thing to worry about in this area, would be the stoppers/ridges wearing down over time. You could push the hinges over those with reckless abandon on the 1/48. Gerwalk mode is outstanding. The best gerwalk yet, beating the MPC version's(which I previously thought had the best gerwalk modes of all VF-1 toys). The gerwalk on the new 1/60 makes the 1/48 gerwalk mode look boring, and make the old 1/60 gerwalk mode look ancient. Poseability in the legs is excellent in this mode, no worries of breakage, very solid, tight ratchets, nice clicking noises that inform you of position locking. Ah the sound of ratchets. Now the arms.....be careful posing them in this mode. Again support the shoulder hinge if you want to move the shoulders in any way. This is tedious and a pain in the ass over time. Great articulation that is fragile to use. The 1/48 did not have this problem, but in return, the shoulders loosened much, much quicker. Going to battroid mode is tricky, but not terribly difficult. The videos, and the instruction booklet definitely help. To seperate the intakes from the chest plate, the hip ball joints are helpful. Move them inwards first, making use of the ball joint, this will dislodge the intake from the securing notches, and once this is done, the swing bar can be popped off of the securing clip. Make sure the nose area is pushed all the way up before trying to get the hip bar into place in the nose. Getting the bar in, and having the door secure itself is all done in one motion. What makes this part tricky is the fact that the swing bar hinge itself is tight. I don't see a benefit of this method over the 1/48's, which dealt with merely folding down a door, plugging the hip bar in, and then closing the door shut. Maybe there is something I am not seeing, but on the 1/48, it is better. The hands fold out much easier than on the 1/48, and are neither tricky to get in, or out, like on the 1/48. At the same time, they are proportional to the body, unlike the 1/48. The head is also easier to get out than the 1/48. Battroid mode is excellent, better than both the 1/48 and old 1/60. The old 1/60 looks like a caricature in comparison, and the 1/48 suffers from a manly chest with feminine arms. The robot mode on the new one is similar to the animation model. 1 thing that I found neat, is that the ankles extend twice. They extend twice for gerwalk mode, and for battroid mode, you can push them back a notch, so that there is no gap between the feet and legs. When you open the thrusters all the way, a thruster in the middle of the foot is formed. The knee caps are an excellent touch, superior to the 1/48's. The head sculpt is excellent and dynamic. Damn this thing looks good. Arm articulation is great. Despite great arm articulation, using this articulation is a pain in the ass. If you were not dissapointed with the fragile shoulder hinge/stiff shoulders in gerwalk mode, you sure as hell will be in battroid mode. For fear of breakage, I always support the shoulder hinge when I want to move it into another position. Now I favor tight joints over loose, but I absolutely hate when the joints in question are attached to fragile hinges. I advise all of you who buy this, to support the shoulder hinge whenever you move the arms. We have already seen a few breakages in this area. Honestly, having a 1/48, and now this, I think the shoulder hinges are more breakage prone on this 1/60, than the bp8 on the 1/48. With that said, those of you with broken shoulder hinges, did yours break when moving the arm, or when transforming from fighter to gerwalk? Now if I could move the shoulders with reckless abandon and no fear that the hinges would break, I'd be much happier. I also wonder if POM was used on these hinges, because I think they are actually ABS. If I am wrong and they are POM, well...would diecast work better in this case? Has anyone figured out a way to remove the shoulder covers? I ask this because the covers block the screw ports. If the covers could be removed, the screws could be loosened, therefore reducing tension on the shoulders, making them looser in the process, but easing up pressure on the shoulder hinge. Yet, this would leave us with possibly less chance of breaking the hinge, but much looser shoulders. I hate compromises like this. I wish we had a near indestructible shoulder hinge, and tight shoulders. Currently, we have 1 without the other. This sucks! Also, even if HLJ were to offer replacement parts...it looks like the parts would be a bitch and a half to install. FAST packs attach very securely. In armored, and regular modes, I have no fear of bp8 breakage. You don't need the backpack hook for battroid mode. The worst thing about mounting the gunpod in fighter mode, is that its not secure in regular or armored modes. It will stay, but it won't always be aligned correctly. The left leg armor plating has fallen off on mine a couple of times. Not sure why, there is nothing broken. Fighter mode is excellent, except that there are no soft detents for positioning the wings. They rely on tension, I can only image looseness occurring after a long while of mounting the missles in battroid mode. Overall, very impressed, my favorite Yamato VF-1 toy to date. The 1/48 has a better(or rather, safer) transformation, but the new 1/60 has better articulation, a better sculpt, much better proportions, and much more solid/tighter modes. Details are better, since most of the details you'd want to put on, are already tampo'd on.

The peg from the base plugs into it.

I just got mine today, and I can see where everyone is coming from with regards to the shoulders. Damn those things really are the weak links. In this area the 1/48 had the edge, you can move those shoulders with reckless abandon and not worry about a damn thing. Except the shoulders would loosen over time. Here the shoulders are very tight, probably won't loosen over time, but the hinge they are connected to is weak. Its a pain in the ass to brace the shoulders every time you want to pose the arms somehow. Nonetheless, thats the best protective measure against hinge breakage. Loosening the screws might help but has anyone tried this yet?

Its a shorter stand, the peg on there is for the feet.

Thats true. Oh I forgot, make sure your fingers aren't close to the landing gears when you press the triggers! I intentionally left mine close after opening my Origin of Valkyrie VF-1J(damn I think I am the only one that bought it here!), just to feel the pain I felt during childhood. Bandai rules.

It wasn't, but Kawamori retconned the size this year...

If they are like Toynami's 1/100 line, as in not needing parts swapping to transform, then I may pick some up. At 1/100 the VF-25 is still a good size, bigger than most people think.

I actually lost a lot of love for Energon Starscream, the mold it is derived from is far superior(g2 smokescreen....sleeker fighter mode, far superior range of motion in robot mode). From the side Energon Starscream looks terrible, the landing gear in the front is not long enough, so it suffers from the nose drooping down, and from the top, and sides, the vertical stabilizers are a joke. This is the same reason I think movie Starscream had a better F-22 mode. I like Animated Starscream's jet mode, there are a lot of subtle homages to the 1/55 bandais, and even the DX 1/65 Fire Valkyrie toy.

It is, I'm amazed at how well it turned out. I like the modular swappable cannons.

You need to worry about absolutely nothing. Two words, HAVE FUN! I love the damn bandais man.

DARTH VADER TIME!!!.... "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Damn it, I hope the parts swapping is just relegated to either the landing gear and landing gear door blocks, or minimal parts swapping, as in part swapped goes somewhere on the toy, without going loose, that way there are no parts to lose. VF-19SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Materials mentioned are ABS, PVC, and POM.

YES! AND A VF-3000 ALONG WITH VF-171!!! The 17 and its derivatives are sexy. The 3000...god damn..that thing just rules.

Solscud mentioned Battle Convoy, but I think he also did Powered Convoy, which became Ultra Magnus in the Transformers line. He may have also done the F-15, which became Starscream.

Very interesting find solscud, I love threads like these, its not often that we get a glimpse into the history of the chunkies. If Kawamori designed the transformation for the 1/55, then he is a freaking genius, it was one of my favorite toys as a child via Jetfire, and one of my favorite toys now. I wonder if he designed the original Diaclone Acrobat F-15, which later became Starscream. If thats the case, its no surprise that he was called in by Takara to design both MP Starscream and THS-01 Convoy. Coincidentally enough, the Energon Shockwave from 2004 had a head that was very reminiscent of the VF-1J Takatoku sculpt.

The original was close to 1/68 from what I remember. Graham did say that Kawamori retconned the actual size of the VF-11, so that the 1/60 one will actually be bigger than previously thought.

Doesn't look like it to me.

I have a feeling the heat shield is actually stored underneath the entire canopy/cockpit, you merely swivel the cockpit up on a hinge aft of the opening canopy hinge, about 110 degrees upwards, swivel the heatshield out, put the cockpit back down, and with the heatshield no longer underneath it, the cockpit can be pushed in further. Then the heat shield is swiveled downwards over the canopy, with an interlocking tab that is secured behind the canopy into the fuselage(neck), this way in battroid mode, there is no indication that a tab is even there, its cleverly hidden. This is the most feasible way I could think of, I think a canon shield storage would be very tricky, especially if its a 2 piece, canon spring loaded mechanism that I am thinking of.

That set is awesome, I looked forward to it for such a long time. The regular version and Sith version rule, the Jedi(redeemed) version would have been on par with ball jointed elbows. All of the Force Unleashed figures are great. Darth Vader, even with the lopsided helmet and weird limb proportions, is one of my favorites. Rahm Kota is one of the best EU jedi figures I have bought...freaking ninja/samurai jedi. The clones look great as pilots even if they aren't. The sith lady has a nice sculpt. The Shadow Guard is a nice repaint.

So after loosening this hinge, is the BP8 situation virtually gone from the 1/60? Can the backpack bend all the way, over the bump/stopper/groove(if there is one), without breaking, unlike the 1/48? Also THANK YOU SO MUCH for the tips, they help a lot. I have a feeling I will be ready to tackle the transformation, and your tips are exactly what I was looking for.

If they can cut a deal with Toynami, like Toynami distributing them here, its a win/win situation for all of us, because we could get them for cheaper than usual. It sucks to be a Mospeada fan in a way, seems like in Japan it's not very popular, therefore outside of the anniversary, there aren't many chances for products to be released/even made. Its a shame really, its a great anime.

Isn't that already out>? It wasn't shown in plus. The B model is in Plus, the C in 7, so there is a chance that only the C model has it. Now I wonder, will Yamato include the dual atmospheric boosters, and FAST packs, or make a supplementary set for them? Also, it would be great to see some drones come with the VF-11B, like the ones in the scene where Isamu is the chase pilot for Guld and steals a kill, and pisses him off.

I actually meant DX Legioss. Imagine, a DX Bandai legioss....drool...FTW. Cheaper than CM's, more detailed, more durable than the model kit based Aoshima....god damn it...damn...that would be awesome.