Shaorin

in THAT case... the first thing i'd grab wouldn't be a MACROSS toy at all, but rather my precious Mikuru-chan♥, along with the wardrobe i've hand-made for her in the two years i've had her now; ...that aside, in the case of a MACROSS toy, it would, in the same scenario, likely come down to my HCM VF-1J, due to it's rarity, personal sentimentality, and the love i put into detailing it. for me, it is a uniquely meaningful toy, THE classic among the classics;

T. Yune; I CANT BE-LEAVE I'VE COME THIS FARRRRRRRR!!!!!! ~/~ THIS IS MY TIME TO BE A STARRRRRRRR!!!!! ♥

Meh, the 1/100 HI-METAL is very, very nice, considering it's tiny scale, and, in fact, i've been considering picking one up, for the sake of having a portable, pocket-size variable VF-1 for when i am forced to spend extended periods at my grandma's, due to her far closer proximity to the OHSU medical university campus where i get the overwhelming majority of my personal health related business done. still, the HI-METAL, especially when directly compared to the 1/60v.II, is a series of compromises made in order to to offer an item at a lower price point, and, ideally, appeal to a section of the fan-base that might consider the YAMATO offerings above their budget. AFAIAC, the 1/100 HI-METAL is wildly inferior to the 1/60v.II in far too many ways for comfort. one of the worst of which being the afterthought, non-functional landing gear. to my eye, on the whole, the 1/60 is a FAR more accurate rectification of just how a VF-1 would would be engineered in the real world, if such a technological marvel became possible. that, in itself, speaks volumes for the caliber of YAMATO's engineering skill, IMO. consider for a moment; a massive, megalithic corp. like BANDAI, with far, FAR, more engineering resources to bring to bear, continue, to this very day, to stubbornly insist on giving lip-service, at best, to any project they work with that doesn't happen to have GUNDAM somewhere in it's title, while a tiny, TINY company like YAMATO, continues, to the very moment, to break unimaginable barriers, and make the "Impossible" possible in the field of scale replica/"Toy" engineering. now then; does this sound like a serious case of DAVID and GOLIATH or what? small wonder at all why the mighty giant canned their "HI-METAL" line, tucked tail, and ran back to their cozy little GUNDAM Crib...

We got a new Thread, for the Bitching. now the time to Scramble - RO-BUH-TECK - Again... http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll310/shaorin-chan/MACROSS-ROBOTECH/macross-engrish.png

i certainly know that mine was...

Shut Up. i had to suffer through those first hand back in their day, a painfully desperate budding MACROSS fan with next to no choices available to me for MACROSS VF-1 goods that weren't 1/100 ARII plastic model kits. it was a sad, SAD time. all i wanted was a variable VF-1 toy. just one damned 1/55, even a stupid TF JETFIRE would have launched me straight to seventh heaven back then. but what did i end up having to settle for instead? THOSE STUPID F*&^%ING THINGS UP THERE. i still have all $200.00 worth of those forsaken bastards, a criminal waste at $20/25.00ea., stored away. i beseech someone, anyone, to take the sinful things off of my long-suffering tortured shoulders. Please, Someone... Grant me Peace...

tell me about it. at one time, i REALLY wanted that thing. in fact, the -19kai version was my very first MACROSS toy. i picked it up for $49.95 at a comic/collector's shop in my hometown of PORTLAND, OR. back around 1997ish. it was/is a homely bitch, but it was the only variable Valk toy i had, for FAR too long. as such, it got a LOT of love. i even panel-lined the thing, over a decade ago. it also got PLENTY of wear and tear. to the point, in fact, where just about everything that wasn't ratcheted was loose as all hell, until fairly recently, when i dismantled the entire beastly old thing, and tightened all those worn old joints with my usual electrician's tape method. today, with my new Yammie YF-19 1/60v.I handily taking the torch, that fugly old thing is back in it's equally worn box and put away. i'd offer it for sale for cheap, but i doubt anybody would want such an ugly toy, regardless of how nice-n-TIGHT i managed to make those old joints...

though i'm REALLY loving my new YF-19 1/60v.I, neither it, nor any other Valk could ever usurp my 1/60v.II VF-1J Hikaru T.V. as my no.1 favorite MACROSS toy. it's simply the finest iteration, to date, IMO, of my favorite variant of what i consider to be the finest Mecha design of all time, variable form or otherwise...

I SMELL MEMOESE!! WAAGGGHHHHHHH!!!!

EXACTIMUNDO. all these beautiful pieces of fantasy engineering are meant to be experienced and enjoyed. life is short, of course, a carnival ride we only get to go on once... big ditto here, man...

speaking of, i've been thinking of asking to have mine changed to "Master Tasuke" or "Tasuke" if there isn't enough space for the former. can a Mod help me with that, at their soonest possible convenience?

well, i've had a few days now really get the feel of the old 1/60 YF-19 ver.I, and, after all the necessary prerequisite corrections to fix it's major bugs are done, as was done on my copy by the previous owner, i have to assert that it truly isn't a bad iteration of the valk at all. yes, it is dated compared to this new standard in 19-series chassis design, no question about it, but it's really not nearly as inferior as one might think, at least to my seemingly unspoiled eye, and certainly well worth it, for the immense savings in price between it and the new modern reference. so long as those known problem areas in the arms hold out- -and i think that mine will, as i am VERY gentle in manipulating them during transformations, and they have yet to show any hint of flaws in integrity, even after over a dozen transformations- -then i think i'll have a solid winner here, that will effectively take the sting out of the likelyhood that i'll likely never be in a position, at least for the foreseeable not-too-distant future to be able to blow $300+ on a Yammie Valk. perhaps, in a few years, half a decade or more from now, perhaps, i might be able to get a VF-19F/S, or a 1/60ver.II YF-19 that MAY or MAY NOT be soon seeing the light of day, second-hand or something, for a much more reasonable price than $300 or more dollars. until then, however, i think this old 1/60v.I will fill my needs surprisingly well...

have Wile E. Coyote encase them in GLOOPSTIK... http://www.platypuscomix.net/hollywood/misfit30.html

i've transformed my new, second-hand 1/60 YF-19 1st.ed. at least a dozen times now since receiving it three or four days ago, with no obvious detrimental effects to those known trouble areas in the arm units so far, knock on wood...

Aye, verily. it really builds character... - EVERYBODY - was a pot smoker in the 60's and 70's. like doing dope as a kid in school in the 80's, it was THE Cool Thing for the Boomer generation to do, and i'm sure there was no shortage of those that were a wee bit older, but still young at heart, were imbibing just as vigorously as all the kids were...

my humble collection, as of 10/21/2011; i MAY be adding a YF-21 in a few months, and i am hoping to add a VF-11B and VF-1S Focker sometime in 2012. aside from that, i don't really foresee any further Valk purchases...

my latest addition; (GOD, i've waited a LONG time for one of these!!)

just got my YF-19 1/60v.I this morning, it's had all the mods done to improve it's overall fit in FIGHTER, the gunpod mounting correction and the main landing gear position and all. i've put it through over a half-dozen transformations so far, with no hint of stress or fracturing on those key areas. in fact, the overall integrity of the plastic on the problem zones look very good, to my eye. it could well be all dependent on the general atmosphere of the region the faulty copies of this toy are kept, or, perhaps, all these problematic examples are from a singular batch of bad plastic among several batches of the same, all used throughout the first production run?

great job!! must have been hard as hell to scribe all that in on there!! don't like the black on the tailfins, nor the skull+crossbones on the tailfins & blast shield, but that aside, looks absolutely magnificent on the whole!! would have been nice if YAMATO could have gotten that kind of detail into the basic 1/60v.II mould, but then i suppose YAMATO would have had to double it's MSRP or some crazy noise like that...

speaking of, i just saw the A&E set at my local COSTCO WHOLESALE today for $49.99 a copy. 13 or so discs, IIRC, crammed into four standard size DVD cases and nested in a flimsy cardstock slipcase. all in all, a FAR cry from the quality of the last ADV complete collection. -- LOOK UP- LOOK UP-LOOK-UP, THE SKY IS FALLING!!! -Yellow Belmont -- Yeah, FALLING on HG, one can only hope...

Stillborn, AFAIC... i found one of those, unbuilt, at a thrift, about ten years ago. coincidentally, there was also an unbuilt copy of the old 1/100 ARII VF-1J GERWALK Hikaru T.V. AS WELL as a sealed copy of the 1986 blister-packed VHS edition of the original FHE ROBOTECH Video release "BOOBYTRAP" Vol.1/Ep.1, to be exact. i had bought them all, and built up (rather poorly) the Lana and VF-1J. the 1J is long gone, the Lana i still have put away somewhere, and, as for the VHS cassette;

gotta love Hikaru's green hair and flight harness... HE'S GOT THE GERM!!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wajIliPFHk4&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PL353462E9BCDCABA1

my GOD!! it's the mid/late 1980's all over again... and in all the worst possible ways, no less!! after all the hard work that pioneering Anime fans of the 80's and 90's put into building a western Anime industry that was forthright and far above such archaic practices... what's left of it today seems to have backslided big time, and HG and ROBOTECH sure as hell ain't helping matters here one damned little bit. as always... in the end, the opportunists and hucksters always win out...

same here. for me, it just looks right. it gives mecha a very pleasing (for me) old-fashioned futuristic aerospace look, that, to my eye, harkens back to the halcyon glory days of the late 1970's/early/mid 1980s, the days of NASA and it's SPACE SHUTTLE program, of STAR TREK; THE MOTION PICTURE and vast imaginations running wild about an optimistic far flung future of space exploration... i mean, God, just imagine the raw imagination and creativity of a period that spawned magnificent works of high-technology art such as these; ...two fairly disparate fictional space-worthy vehicles that share a common sense of majesty about them, IMO, both of which, consequentially, were conceptualized within less than five years of each other. those are my personal examples, but there were/are oh so many more. truly a great golden age of conceptual aerospace design...

"lotta mighty peculiar people hanging around this silly "IN-TER-NET" thing, ain't there, dear?" ANYHOW... what say we get back to that argument over whether Kawamori-san is a divine engineering genius or a sinfully overrated, criminally under-talented hippie huckster? remember to play nice now, kids...