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The thing is, I don't think these toys have much of a skeleton to speak of. A lot of mechanism and structure is already molded into the underside of the outer shells. They do have some separate pieces of internal braces, tracks, ratchets etc, but even those must be tabbed in or glued to the outer shell, so they mostly have to be new parts to conform to the new shell. And those really only make up a minor fraction of the total parts, compared to the externally visible parts, including exposed undersides, insides, and extensions etc. Even identical looking parts to the old ones need to be new parts accomodate the changes caused by the other new parts. Otherwise, the parts are just hollow appendages. Take for example, the VF-19's chest. The lack of chest cannons means that whole shell needs to be a new piece just to fill the hole, despite having identical details to the YF. All the associated swinging and sliding mechanism would then be deleted for the new chest because they serve no purpose. Then theres the head change, and the way the head needs to conceal without the old shields fancy features, you basically have nothing left of the old torso, other than the spine thrusters and the pilot egress hatch. Sure they save on a lot of guess work with transformation, but they need to mostly make new parts nonetheless, especially when everything from hips down/backward of intakes were intended to look different regardless of proportions. As for art style between M+ and M7, I see the latter as generally much more melted lol. If you were to challenge the size and scaling across series, what would it mean for the VF-22 that appears in both M7 and Delta, which features 171? Or going the other way and comparing those to the 21 and various 19s, all the way to the 19 Advanced, which fought alongside 171s. Should the 17 show up there and tower over its former co-stars that have their size and scaling made clear against the later CG valks?

So... ah... maybe not as exciting as some of the other cars... but... I bought a loaded 2026 Honda Odyssey Elite. Not much of a flex, but I paid cash for it? Picking it up once the factory delivers it. My other car is an EV6 GT and despite it being a KIA it'll smoke the vast majority of cars on the road and is fun to drive - so that's my offset, yeah. Besides that. Pretty sure I'm turning into my dad now - queue that insurance commercial.

Found my MUSHA registration card yesterday - including a mint CIB copy of Hellfire. My MUSHA is now complete-complete.

Something that makes the Fire Valk Optimus look absolutely sensible by comparison? Though to be fair to the design, I don't think it's going to work until it's painted. The colors are really the only thing that will make that recognizable as anything remotely Evangelion-related.

I guess that really depends on how much the family loves these characters. If they loved them enough to get through season 3 and still be satisfied, then the movie will probably make everyone happy with buttery popcorn and all, but if they’re not that into it, then I’d say wait on it and save some cash for something else

It’s so ugly……..I love it. Can’t wait to see how this beast turns out

Oh, I have a lot more intensive mods for this than just the fins planned. They're just generally in the way, and look out of place at the location they're mounted. If I can pull it off, I'll probably make it some new wings, and see if I can finally get my Master File VF-19F. At the very least I'm going to be stripping and repainting the red. Fortunately, Bandai (for some inexplicable reason) couldn't figure out how to make the fins turn, so they just slapped a spare set of shoulders in the package that I can happily chop the fins off of, and still keep the stock ones as a spare set. Like.. the fact they chose to do that is baffling on multiple levels, but I at least appreciate the convenience.

Yamato painted them the correct color. Bandai just trolling us now.

Forgive me for cracking up a little at this... They finally give us white gear, and it's on the one valk that canonically has them painted a different color

I'll forgive the janky VF-17 if Bandai gives us a red Miria version! (Staying in fighter mode, of course.)

Ne`I think the tooling that's needed to be done on a 1/35 version of the Valkyrie would make it really expensive and also not as desirable as a series! After all a lot of people are still fine with the 1/60 scale! As for the VE-1 I'm still positive this will be a thing, since it is cannon and very desired by collectors, although it is only seen for a couple of seconds on the screen! The Super Ostrich showed that this kind of model is very desirable to collect! But it's sad that they are taking the time about it! If they do, do a 1/35 version it might be something special for the 50th. anniversary of the series! The release of the Roy Focker with GBP, was a sign that the series is not dead, thankfully! But we will have to be patient for future releases!

Johnny "Earthworm" Storm

Yeah, that might have been me explaining the knees, but my point here was something a little different. If you look at the original battroid art, the YF-19 and VF-19 absolutely share the same proportions. They're fundamentally the same skeleton with different body panels. If they were cars, they'd be the same chassis with different body kits. From the toy manufacturing side, what I'm talking about is the internal skeleton that the valks transform on, independently of what any exterior panel is molded to look like. Whatever the exterior looks like, you can probably draw a very similar stick figure between every one of the major transformation joints, and the mechanisms involved will be mostly identical, with the same measurements between them. The big differences come from the way Bandai and Yamato/Arcadia approached their own designs. The Yamato and Arcadia YF-19 and VF-19 both compromised the length of the legs to make the battroids stockier, so they both have to extend the legs for fighter mode, leaving those knee gaps. But the fundamental proportions of the designs, the "skeletons," are the same between them. On the Bandai side, they made the conscious decision to model their YF-19 (and the VF-19 Advance) on the updated animation style without any mass shifting. The legs are proportionally longer and skinnier, so they were able to avoid the knee gap. Some people didn't like the changes, but it helped Bandai pull of a very slick fighter mode. While we don't have the DX Fire Valk yet, we can make some general assumptions, and it's very likely that it will share the same "skeleton" proportions with the DX YF-19. Once you figure out a working set of those measurements and mechanisms, it helps a ton to be able to re-use them, which is why they're doing the same for the VF-17 now, rather than re-designing it to match the original animation. It's just a lot less work. Far as the animation goes though... eh. On the off chance that we did get a modern animated version of the VF-17, I feel like it would be cutting way too many corners to just tweak the model like Bandai has done here. It's practically unrecognizable as the same valk. For the VF-19 and YF-19 though? The YF-19 was drawn in the M7 style, almost literally. Macross Plus and Macross 7 came out concurrently in 1994. The animation styles of the two were a little different, but the line art was all drawn around the same time, and is very similar. Also, something to keep in mind with the animation... Bandai can write whatever lore it wants about how the VF-171 is supposed to use the same components as the VF-17. Truth is though, trying to reconcile those designs between the two shows is just flat out impossible. The sizes of the valks in M7 were insane, and no amount of lore manipulation can make that make a lick of sense. Like, just for comparison. The 171 looks like its wings/waterline are about 6 feet off the ground. The VF-17 was animated to look absolutely gargantuan by comparison. The only way we know what size the valks in M7 were supposed to be is Kawamori's official notes, because M7's art scaling was not at all grounded in realistic sizes for any of the fighters. It really didn't try to make anything look as realistic as the other series did.

Just picked up my two and quickly unboxed one. Looks great.

Yack Deculture.

Would it be better just to go onto Bandai's or Kawamori's X post/social media and just have everyone comment about the too thin/too skinny proportions? Maybe with enough public outcry directly would get them to reconsider?

Don't close down before making a 1/60 YF-19 reissue... 😭 I need a 1/60 YF-19.

The moment I heard of this, I assumed it would be basically a reuse of the 171, and sure enough... I'm not a big fan of the 17, much prefer the 171, but even so I gagged a bit at the pics.

If it's gonna be based on the 171 here is a comparison with the Yamato. Photo's courtesy of @bat1911. Bandai should've made the Delta tan version too.

DHL charge for the 19P from AE was 5200 yen which feels steep but relieved it wants the crazy amounts some have been quoted.

Can quite sense Mr. K's frustration, and I do hope Arcadia can come out of the current problems & continue pioneering valks for fans. Bandai is getting really lazy.

I gotta agree that billing it as a 171 in fantasy or what-if M7 colors would be more palatable. I guess if I am getting this, I would pretend it to be so and lump it together with the Anniversary schemes in the shelf. Haha this is gold! I'm actually a bit meh on Yamato's 17 Battroid mode, perhaps too slim or scrawny in some areas, but I recognize they have done quite an effort to balance all modes in light of the heavy anime magic going on. At minimum, they acknowledge a key aspect of the 17 being a bulky boy. That said, I have your 17 pics saved to my phone for longest time, and I love how the angle plus black background of your shots effectively masks the shortcomings of Yamato's sculpt and giving it a full brute appearance.

I'm not sure I'm actually going to get my Tread's from Amazon.

i hereby christen thee...the picasso valk!