New Macross Products news

[hevangel2]

One word about the 1/100 VF-0S: Ugly.

I can't imagine a VF-0S can be this ugly.

[Renato]

One of the problems with doing a proper perfect variable VF-0 toy, is that so far there is no official lineart from Kawamori of the complete transformation sequence to use as a reference. In fact so far, there is very little lineart at all. Even Hasegawa have guessed about a lot of the details.

Although episode # 1 does show part of the transformation sequence, there is not really enough information there for toy designers to be sure of getting it correct.

And realistically, there is no way that the swing bars on a toy would be strong enough if they were as thin as they are shown in the anime.

Also, a lot of people here on Macrossworld incorrectly assume that Yamato has access to the 3D computer models to help with designing the toy. To my understanding, they don't.

Graham

But you have to admit, Graham, the bloody Banprestos are better designed and better value than this thing. All you need to remove are the heatshields and maybe hands. And swing bars could be made of die-cast for the VF-0, since there is no other die-cast content in it whatsoever, meaning the whole thing would be light a a feather. That way it would be thin yet strong. It would be a similar deal to the 1/48 swingbar, only one bar for each leg, a la the Banprestos, or even the actual Zero animation. I don't see wh that's not possible.

The more news I hear of this, the more disappointed I get.

[Shin Densetsu Kai 7.0]

hey graham, adding on to yopur comment with the CG models, did you notice in the scan you just added to the model section, the CG VF-0S is now buffer and dare I say, CHUNKIER?

SOmehow that seems cool to me.

man maybe bandai planned this SHi* all along. WAiting till yamato freaked up kinda bad, to move in for the kill. Hell all of us are so dissapointed we would even like a cchunky monkey VF-0 more. Crap to me thats a dream come true.

chunky durability is king!

[Graham]

hey graham, adding on to yopur comment with the CG models,  did you notice in the scan you just added to the model section, the CG VF-0S is now buffer and dare I say, CHUNKIER?

Yeah, he does look a bit more buff doesn't he.

I guess he's been hitting the weights in the six months since episode # 3

Graham

[Shin Densetsu Kai 7.0]

yea he looks better that way. Not anerexic likee before. If bandai makes a chunky monkkkkkkkey it mgiht be even more accurate than this yammie that yamato is giving out.

I want to know if kawamori approved this and if so what the hell was he thinking. If they went over the design of the 1/48 3 x before release then did they even go over this toy at all? Removeable hands for god's sake! NO valkyrie aside the kaiyodo EVER needed hand removal for transformation!

See if this thing was almost all idecast and ABS then fine I understand the tradeoff but PVC? I used to be a defender of this toy but now.....

guys ever notice that a lot of peolpe who said they would buy it 4 months ago dont even want to go near the thing now?

I think its almost unanimous

fans from the globe and japan have united against a common hindrance to our nations and planet itself,

no not the zentran, the yammie VF-0!

Shhhhuku Desu! Berryyy Legg jointuuu!!!

those hips sure look bulbasauric

. If no perfect variable is made then they hav disgraced the macross 0 series and the license nmineswell go to bandai.

it would be stupid to judge possibility of a larger perfect variable on sales of this toy since i basically dont see it selling very well at all. Cripple leg VF11's sales probably wont be beat buy this soft thing.

[Graham]

One of the problems with doing a proper perfect variable VF-0 toy, is that so far there is no official lineart from Kawamori of the complete transformation sequence to use as a reference. In fact so far, there is very little lineart at all. Even Hasegawa have guessed about a lot of the details.

Although episode # 1 does show part of the transformation sequence, there is not really enough information there for toy designers to be sure of getting it correct.

And realistically, there is no way that the swing bars on a toy would be strong enough if they were as thin as they are shown in the anime.

Also, a lot of people here on Macrossworld incorrectly assume that Yamato has access to the 3D computer models to help with designing the toy. To my understanding, they don't.

Graham

But you have to admit, Graham, the bloody Banprestos are better designed and better value than this thing. All you need to remove are the heatshields and maybe hands. And swing bars could be made of die-cast for the VF-0, since there is no other die-cast content in it whatsoever, meaning the whole thing would be light a a feather. That way it would be thin yet strong. It would be a similar deal to the 1/48 swingbar, only one bar for each leg, a la the Banprestos, or even the actual Zero animation. I don't see wh that's not possible.

The more news I hear of this, the more disappointed I get.

I just want to clarify that my above post is not meant to be in defence of Yamato's poor sculpt of the 1/100 VF-0S. In the past I've been very supportive of Yamato, but a poor sculpt is a poor sculpt regardless of whether or not I like the manufacturer.

Personally, I think that even if the sculptor only had access to the line art and CG art reference pics from the Bandai Visual and Big West sites and had access to the DVDs, there is enough source material there to make a nicer looking sculpt, given a halfway talented sculptor (which Yamato obviously didn't use).

Note, I'm not talking about the transformation mechanism or function as that is still not 100% known, especially as to where exactly on the nose the legs connect to. My major gripe is with the sculpt.

And I still think that on a VF-0 toy of whatever scale (1/100, 1/72, 1/60, 1/48), if the hip bars were as thin as shown in the anime, they would not be strong enough, regardless of the material and they would have to be enlarged. Personally, I'd be happy if Yamato went with a back bar as on the 1/48 VF-1.

Graham

[Skull Leader]

hey graham, adding on to yopur comment with the CG models,  did you notice in the scan you just added to the model section, the CG VF-0S is now buffer and dare I say, CHUNKIER?

Yeah, he does look a bit more buff doesn't he.

I guess he's been hitting the weights in the six months since episode # 3

Graham

lol, I didn't know AgentONE was the model they used for the VF-0

Although Graham cleared it up for me, I feel I should say that my comments earlier are entirely speculation... I guess I'm a bit of a pessimist when it comes to Macross (I've learned that if you don't expect the best, you'll never be dissapointed... and it seems to happen so often with release dates, product quality, and so on...).

It's intense part-swapping like this that made the bandai 1/100 Transformable Valkyrie model line so insanely unpopular. Sculpts were incredibly inaccurate in all three modes and they were fragile as all hell. Being PVC, I won't be too worried about the VF-0 breaking or anything... but sadly... the sculpt looks pretty wretched. I'm not too worried about decals... we could easily get custom ones made here that would look just fine.

These are merely preliminary remarks... I'll reserve final judgement for when I have the product in hand.

[Toonz]

when is the GBP coming? we need it....

[Toonz]

this is ironic, yamato can design complicated valks from macross plus.....

but in this VF-0 case...well......

[Graham]

Well, to be honest, IMO they didn't really do too great a job with the sculpt of the 19 or 21, although at least they had perfect transformation

I just hope Yamato does plan a larger perfect transformation version of the VF-0A/B/D/S and gets a decent sculptor like Nishikawa-san to do it.

Graham

[Graham]

I find it a bit worrying that there has been no hint of an SV-51 toy from Yamato yet.

Mind you, the transformation is pretty complex, so it's probably got Yamato scratching their heads over how to accomplish it, even with parts swapping. An SV-51 toy would involve lots of small joints and hinges.

And I bet Yamato would have a real problem with Nora's paint scheme. It probably wouldn't be practical to paint on all those yellow markings as there are so many. And stickers would look truely awful. That basically just leaves Tampo printing, which would work, but from what I understand is quite expensive.

Graham

[Graham]

when is the GBP coming? we need it....

Should be end of this week or early next week.

Graham

[Neova]

I have to agree with Graham about the YF-19 and YF-21 sculpts. Its the best out there but after you compare it to those Hasegawa conversions in Model Graphix, you realize those first Yamato Macross toys were a mile of suck... ok that was being harsh and should only apply to MPCs... hehe

I think the VF-0S doesn't look bad in the pictures for a display unit but I'm worried about Yamato's lower QC standards these days and how cheap it may actually turn out once its released from production. I agree with others here in that I think they should just take their time, look at the competition (Hasegawa model kits) and give us one fugging kick ass product instead of a lame tie me over until the perfect variable unit comes out, but from a business standpoint, I can understand what they're doing.

They need to ride the OVA while its hot, placate the MASSES, guage market interests, generate market awareness (BAD PR is better than no PR), then come out and fix everything (cept for a refund on this 1/100 or exchange program) with that 1/60 or 1/48 scale perfect variable VF-0S, 0B, 0D, SV-51, Destroid, PVC figure set and etc... line...

At least I hope thats what they're thinking. For now, I'm going to get one just cuz I'm a huge fan of the VF-0S and worry that Yamato will have this go the way the YF-19 did...

Edited May 25, 2004 by Neova

[Black Valkyrie]

I knew it everybody is wishing for a Bandai VF-0S but then who know may be do have one in the pipline as M.G. or P.G. or even a chunky monkey, I`m dreaming ain`t I ........................ please Bandai

[Graham]

If Bandai put as much effort into Macross as they do for Guncrap, sorry Gundam, they could make some kickass Macross Toys or models if they wanted too.

Still, we all know that Bandai has little respect for Macross and when they do make a Macross toy or model, it's always a half-assed effort, a case of too little too late.

Graham

[GobotFool]

I can't believe Yamato plans to use this thing as a guage for people's interest in M0 toys, they seem like they'd have more business sense than that.

That's only fan speculation, we don't know if it's true.

Graham

It is highly probabable they are making this piece for all the people who can not afford their more highend products. Which may be a smart move. Kindof how bandai makes HGUC, and MSIA. Cheap crack for the average consumer, and then they go make PG's and Gundam DX toys for the grown up collectors.

[Graham]

It is highly probabable they are making this piece for all the people who can not afford their more highend products. Which may be a smart move. Kindof how bandai makes HGUC, and MSIA. Cheap crack for the average consumer, and then they go make PG's and Gundam DX toys for the grown up collectors.

It's highly probably that this is indeed a low-end product marketed at people on a budget. However, that is no excuse for the poor sculpt.

Poor sculpt or not, I'm still gonna end up buying it anyway though Yes, I'm a sucker for Macross toys.

Graham

[Radd]

Too small, innacurate sculpt, cheaply made, and it doesn't even transform properly.

The 1/100 VF-0S is not really small.

Back in the good old days when Yamato were still willing to share information, they did say that it is nearly the same height as the VF-11B battroid.

Graham

True, but look at the proportions. The VF-0, especially Yamato's rendition of it, is a very skinny, gangly thing. The VF-11 feels frail compared to any other Valk toys (aside from Banprestos wich are known to disintigrate on contact with air), and the VF-0 is even thinner and more gangly, with no die-cast to boot.

It may be the same height, but it will have less mass given it's anorexic proportions.

Even so, that makes for less of an excuse for the toy's 'transformation'.

[Black Valkyrie]

If Bandai put as much effort into Macross as they do for Guncrap, sorry Gundam, they could make some kickass Macross Toys or models if they wanted too.

Still, we all know that Bandai has little respect for Macross and when they do make a Macross toy or model, it's always a half-assed effort, a case of too little too late.

Graham

Didn`t Kawamori had a meeting with Bandai over a year ago in one those toy expo about making Macross-0 toy products ?! hmph...........

Please don`t say Guncrap.

[redsilk]

Geez...... after all the anticipation and crossed fingers for a decent release yes only the nose cone swapping is acceptable but nooooooooo with all the loose body parts to get it from one mode to another i rather they have it sold in 2 fixed mode ..... And personally i would not mind paying double for it if its in perfect variable !

[Jawjaw]

I find it a bit worrying that there has been no hint of an SV-51 toy from Yamato yet.

Mind you, the transformation is pretty complex, so it's probably got Yamato scratching their heads over how to accomplish it, even with parts swapping. An SV-51 toy would involve lots of small joints and hinges.

And I bet Yamato would have a real problem with Nora's paint scheme. It probably wouldn't be practical to paint on all those yellow markings as there are so many. And stickers would look truely awful. That basically just leaves Tampo printing, which would work, but from what I understand is quite expensive.

Graham

I'm worried about the same thing. If they can't get the toy friendly design VF-0 right (there are swingarms in the anime for crying out loud), the SV-51 doesn't have a chance. I don't care about the paint job - just paint it gray.

I suppose I wouldn't be bothered by all the parts if it did look good in fighter mode. I thought that was Yamato's trademark.

It sounds like very few among us are going to buy this thing. I hope Yamato understands why and doesn't do a Bandai by thinking Macross is dead. Yamato should know what fans want by now, especially after selling so many 1/48's.

[Shin Densetsu Kai 7.0]

hey black valkyrie where did u hear that kawamori met qwith bandai? with this craptgastic 1`/100 toy i think any news of bandai remotely doing SOMETHING is worthwhile

[Agent ONE]

hey graham, adding on to yopur comment with the CG models,  did you notice in the scan you just added to the model section, the CG VF-0S is now buffer and dare I say, CHUNKIER?

Yeah, he does look a bit more buff doesn't he.

I guess he's been hitting the weights in the six months since episode # 3

Graham

lol, I didn't know AgentONE was the model they used for the VF-0

...

They should pay me a royalty. They are so obviously trying to make the thing look like me.. Not that I blame them.

[Shin Densetsu Kai 7.0]

I just thought of something. Being that yamato usually shows a lot of stuff at shizouka, abnd there is no other VF-0 variant or SV-51 shown yet by yamato, I think the 1/100 is really just for cheap thrills and that yamato may have already knew the 1/100 sucked but is releasing it anyways since the molds are already done and they want to make a few bones. With that in mind, I think yamato has probably already started designing the VF-0 and SV-51 perfect variables. It always seemed weird to me why the VF-0S 1/100 was not really spotlighted much and was mainly shown in battroid mode in shows WITH NO other macross 0 toys to accompany it. Not even a resin proto. And by this time I think we would hav at least seena proto for a VF-0A....since all it needed was a different head. So perhaps yamato is working behind the scenes scul[pting the perfect variables for release earlier than x mas like i usually say.

and perhaps kawamori forgave the horrible sculpt of the 1/100 since he knew something better could come later. It is wishful thinking, its either this or bandai gives a chunky monkey phoenix to us./

But I think I could be right. After all, it doesn't really seem like yamatyo even cares for their 1/100 toy.

[Black Valkyrie]

hey black valkyrie where did u hear that kawamori met qwith bandai? with this craptgastic 1`/100 toy i think any news of bandai remotely doing SOMETHING is worthwhile

Last spring here in the old forums, I think the topic was wonder fest report and as I remember one of MW guys said it.

[Coota0]

It's not even a 1/60, so it won't go with my other Valks (well it will, but you know what I mean) I don't have a huge problem a few swappble parts (ala 1/60 style) but the whole thing is nothing but swapble parts...it's just disapointing.

[Aegis!]

The big mistake made by Yamato was that they promoted this thing as a toy instead of a prepainted model or something of that kind.

If they had done that maybe peoply would´ve been more comprehensive with this thing

What a shame though , this toy had much more potential and they screwed up big time , this may be marketed as a toy for the masses but the masses ain´t drooling buggers who´ll buy anything theu shove down our throats

Edited May 25, 2004 by Aegis!

[GobotFool]

this may be marketed as a toy for the masses but the masses ain´t drooling buggers who´ll buy anything theu shove down our throats

LOL, you have much more faith in the masses than I do

[Ali Sama]

wow. Damn thats more swap parts than I thought! mehhhhhhhhhh. Oh well since it's cheap I guess it

s understandable but the fact that almost the whole thing has to be rearranged with NMUMEROUS pieces being swapped out leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Leg attaching in battroid is much better than the 1/60 VF-1 toy. But all those parts to remove? Man I thought it was just removing the legs. swap out nose, attach legs, reattach head. Now we have removeable arms and whole entire backpack now too?

meh. Least its cheap though and it looks good. but those are the only saving graces.

you call $40 or so cheap?

[Ali Sama]

I seriously, SERIOUSLY doubt Yamato is going to go for a larger scale if this one doesn't sell. All they are going to see is people not interested in a Macross Zero line. We all know how ambitious and expensive a perfect transformation 1/60 VF-0 would be (it would almost be the size of a 1/55 or 1/48)... they will NOT dive into such an expensive project as a perfect transformation, large-scale toy until they've seen people bite the hook.

Admittedly I was wrong about the konig monster before... but it would follow every bad business rule I've ever seen for them to release a 1/100 version, no one buy it, so they release a larger one instead. Think about it.

No you think about it. they realese crap and sell it for $40-$50 . this tells them you will buy anything with yamato and macross on it. might as well buy the mpc. At learst you can get one for $30 now and it can transform.

[Coota0]

No you think about it. they realese crap and sell it for $40-$50 . this tells them you will buy anything with yamato and macross on it. might as well buy the mpc. At learst you can get one for $30 now and it can transform.

Where are you finding them for $30?

[Radd]

wow.  Damn thats more swap parts than I thought!  mehhhhhhhhhh.  Oh well since it's cheap I guess it

s understandable but the fact that almost the whole thing has to be rearranged with NMUMEROUS pieces being swapped out leaves a bad taste in my mouth.  Leg attaching in battroid is much better than the 1/60 VF-1 toy.  But all those parts to remove?  Man I thought it was just removing the legs. swap out nose, attach legs, reattach head.  Now we have removeable arms and whole entire backpack now too? 

meh.  Least its cheap though and it looks good.  but those are the only saving graces.

you call $40 or so cheap?

Where are you getting $40? I coulda sworn Graham or someone mentioned it would be around $25-30 way back when? If this thing costs $40 I'll definitely pass.

Is there any official statement on the price?

[Shin Densetsu Kai 7.0]

estimated MSRP was 4000 yen

. The toy is cheap compared to the other valkyrie toys yamato makes.

[Ali Sama]

No you think about it. they realese crap and sell it for  $40-$50 . this tells them you will buy anything with yamato and macross on it. might as well buy the mpc. At learst you can get one for $30 now and it  can transform.

Where are you finding them for $30?

here

[Ali Sama]

estimated MSRP was 4000 yen

. The toy is cheap compared to the other valkyrie toys yamato makes.

the price is less expensive but not cheap.