All Activity

I mean brand new decal/scheme variants though... would be nice to see alternate squadron versions of the VF-1 gerwalks, VF-25 series, VF-31 series... since they haven't gotten any yet. But I'd easily spend money on fun new marking versions of the VF-1, VF-11, YF-19, YF-21, VF-0, etc... As for Black Aces... I dunno. I'm sitting on 3 of the 1/72s and 2 of the 1/48s right now. I THINK the 1/72 technically has 4 build options in the box, and the 1/48 has 5. Part of me wants to go crazy and buy 1 more 1/72 and 3 more 1/48. My more rational side says no way in hell, you'd never build all of them. Having 5 of the 1/48 sitting around would be kind of insane.

Hey, I'm happy to see them finally prove the line isn't dead with a release I can happily snooze through. Wake me up when they decide to release something actually seen in a series or movie.

Madness. 😄 Y'know, I've often wondered why they completely eschewed real world scale, but apparently the trend stared with the original Diaclone and only got progressively worse from there. Once we got to the combiner teams, all bets were off, Bruticus being a major example of just how wonky scale is in the Transformers Universe. However, scale discrepancies were only amplified by the Sunbow animation and '86 Movie. astrotrain is a glaring example, alongside Soundwave, his cassettes, Reflector, and good ole Megatron himself. I 've also often wondered how Transformers would have turned out had Budiansky changed up the roster and kept Soundwave, his minions, Megatron, and Reflector all at their real world, human hand-sized scale and perhaps made them all spies or something. It would have been a completely different show, but I think it'd make for a neat alternate universe story completely devoid of mass shifting. Of course, the toys wouldn't be able to do that so there'd be obvious concessions there. However, it would be neat to have at least one line where the toys were all in relatively r/w scale to each other. See, that would have been logical. Too, I've always wondered why they chose a Concorde for Silverbolt's alt when the B-1B would have been far more apropos amongst a group of American fighters. Weird decisions. Well, in a toyline where they can make cassettes, motorcycles, dune buggies, and other relatively thin alt modes transform with no bot kibble hanging out, a jet fighter seems, to me, to be a far less challenging prospect. Moreover, I design transforming mecha from LEGO, my own designs as well as Macross. I've been doing it decently well for over a decade and from experience, it's difficult to see how you can start with a robot and design it into a vehicle or object, as so much of the alt mode generally informs the robot mode. Honestly, there's a lot of back and forth, so I have some understanding of the challenges Takara faces when designing Transformers toys. Designing with LEGO poses its own unique challenges, as I'm constrained by the palette, the dimensions of LEGO parts, and my inability to craft a custom part where it would serve better than what exists or what I can cobble together. It definitely pushes my creativity and innovation to overcome challenges. Anyway, Due to his general habit of making the entire powerplant become the legs, I'll concede the point- especially on valks like the YF-19 or the VF-17. And yeah, his latest designs have become thinner and lankier. I don't mind. Floro Dery's blocky designs in some ways improved the looks of the bots compared to their toys, but that blockiness seems to have had a reverse inspiration on the toys that would follow, unfortunately. Concerning the Diaclone JetRobo F-15 initially released in '83, it seems a step backwards in design philosophy since it likely succeeds Kawamori's far more elegant and realistic VF-1. The transformation involves partsforming the lower arms/hands which seems contrary to the majority of Kawamori's valks over the years, although, technically, the VF-1's, and VF-0's by extension, legs partsform from fighter to battroid. It has always seemed odd to me that they didn't just make the area for the arms a little wider and hinge the lower arms into that space to fill out the inner fuselage. I so wish they'd done that with the SS86 toy, but it looks like they followed the Classics/ Earthrise / MP solution of just recessing them into the sides of the plane. I'm not complaining; at least they integrate and aren't just hanging out there in the breeze like so many pf their other TF jetformers. You know my answer b/c they do it routinely with any other alt mode except jets, and they even managed to do it with Maverick, Legacy Prime Dreadwing/Skyquake, and Needlenose, and with Generations Scourge (an innovative blended wing design likely inspired by NASA's Boeing X-48), IMHO one of the all-time best aviation alt modes both by subject and execution. Fantastic figure. I'll throw the Classics fig in there too, whose only real disappointments were the too-shallow forward fuselage and the giant hole between the intakes that should have been filled by forward fuselage. My point is, there are precedents for doing good to decent jetformers; the question is, why are they the exceptions and not the rule? I don't think it's always necessarily about budgets, retailers' needs, or toy safety laws but more of an internal trend of relying on an old tried-but-true simple approach that gets the job done minus nuance, innovation, or adherence to what real jets look like. insofar as combining, again, they can manage to make just about any other alt mode, even construction machinery, look credible, but jets? Same old story: blocks with nosecones, wings, and tails thrown on. Even the G1 toys succeeded with conveying what aircraft they were supposed to be with slightly more accuracy than the Legacy versions. Step backwards. Frustrating both b/c they've proven they can do better, other companies have done it better, and b/c they seem locked into a formula that they seem to have no desire to amend or improve upon. After forty years, they should be able to take those blocky cartoon models and transform them into reasonably believable aircraft- it's kinda what they do, except when they don't. First point, yeah, no excuse for not taking a different approach. However, in Takara's defense, they didn't design the robot modes for Bayformers; a bunch of CG artists chopping up pics of vehicles and pasting those bent, twisted, and otherwise distorted shards of vehicles onto robot frames created the designs. Hence the reason they are impossible to develop as three dimensional toys without a buttload of cheating. I wish they'd let Takara develop the bot modes, although I have a feeling Starscream would've turned out little better b/c Takara's gonna Takara. I think all the ground vehicles would have had more logical bot modes based on actual transformation mechanics, and that would have informed the screen captures as well. Alas, we got Bay's shardbots and history is set. Second point, no, more like a single seat wide cabin area that looks like the Countach's windshield and surrounding windows in the middle of an otherwise normally scaled Countach. That's how I visualize the truncated forward fuselages on jetformers as it would translate to Sideswipe, for example. Apply the same formula to the rest, except Mirage who's already just a single seater. Throw his arms on the outside of the doors and completely close up his aft wheel wells to represent the general omission of aft landing gear. Now take that approach to nearly every carbot and see how the fans react. Guessing it wouldn't go over well. Third point: I checked it out! Appreciate the review. I got them myself last week after waiting what seemed an eternity for them to finally release. Agree on all points. Unfortunately, as you mentioned, the cassette alt mode seems like more of a loose suggestion, if that, on these smaller scaled cassettebots. They should just call them wafers at this point. As someone who really digs the cassettebots, it's a bit disappointing, but I do like what Wu's doing with them for the most part. These two were really well done, IMHO, and I agree that it's likely b/c they didn't have to make compromises for a combination gimmick. I hope he'll eventually do all the major character cassettes, as they'll at least benefit, I hope, from better articulation. If there's a Studio Series '86 Soundwave coming, hopefully at minimum, we'll get a better Ravage.

Anyone tested the lead levels of the paint and plastics of these knock-offs?

Imagine how butt-hurt the HMR Phalanx and Tomahawk must feel right about now....

Forgot the colours are based on Takani’s art, which makes it even more cool to me now.

Found another pic online, this one seems clearer of the face. It’s a different face sculpt, this one is based on Rick Hunter in the Shadow Chronicles. Agree, the Jolly Rogers looks kinda odd here. What threw me off more from the in-hand pics are the colors. I was expecting to see dark, low-vis, gunmetal-type shades as per the single image put out by Toynami earlier, but now it’s just a light blue color.

It shouldn’t. I would say heat it up just enough to where the plastic gets bendy, then before it cools too much to put the weapon in hand and then dip it in a bowl of ice water while holding the weapon to keep its new shape

Ugh, I could try. Do you think the hand will break while cooling if I leave the weapon in?

Honestly If they ever release this version I'd go nuts! 🤪

Is it the same head scuplt but with a new skull visor? There is an additional rudder/ vertical stabilizer at the rear of the bike. That reminds me of a Kamen Rider's motorbike. Even better, they could put two wings at the front. Ha ha...

I also saw the VF-1 "Black Aces" are in stock as well. I have two, but ...Very tempted..!

So no love for Max’s or Miria’s 1J then (as per the model kits by Imaii or from Bandai back in the day). So.. that means Bandai is going to leave us high and dry by way their teased yet never will be done projects (which seems to be the norm)

I wish there's a stand alone armor set. I have too many roys. prob will skip it.

pre-order cancelled

Nope!

Does it come with missiles like the recent vf-1j repackage?

It was actually listed on Toynami's website because there was a whole debacle about their shipment not clearing customs in time for SDCC. That' peeved many who attended SDCC in hopes of obtaining one.

That's true I forgot the Mechanic Edition was a lottery item. I did later give in and get one for not too bad of a price

Kinda hard to tell. Mechanical edition at fist were very hard to spot in mandarake. A couple have been sitting there for some time https://order.mandarake.co.jp/order/detailPage/item?itemCode=1306152847&ref=list&keyword=Vf 1&lang=en

Well not really the "Same" Version, since it was an olive green and had the wrong unit number.... But still nice enough to want one....🤗

Nice to see them release roy again and the armor looks cool. Getting this thing is going to be very rough. Luna Park already has it up and is asking for 59,800 yen. Overall price, even without Luna Park markups, is just not enticing enough for me. I'll be saving my money for a release that's new. Still holding out hope they release the Max and Milia VF-1J Valkyrie pair with super parts

I wish they'd do more of these. Special squadron variation re-releases. I don't think there's been any new ones since the VF-11 variants?

Are you serious Bandai? This was teased more than five years ago when Hikaru’s GBP was shown in public with Max’s version of the GBP as well. Bandai said that they were not going to make it, but they decided to after all (now 6/7 (?) yrs after the DX 1j & GBP combo set was released). 🤨

I Didn't find it all that hard to get the last lottery VF-1S Strike Valkyrie (Mechanical Edition) after all I got 7, But it was kind of expensive 🤪