Graham

M7 mecha size comparison.

At a bare minimum I hope Bandai may consider the folloing changes before releasing the 1/60 DX VF-17S, to make it slightly more acceptable: Shoulder armour resculpted to add the VF-17's characteristic twin micro missile launchers, which were priminantly featured in the anime Complete leg resulpt to get rid of the VF-171's leg micro missile launchers, add the VF-17's gunpod port, make the legs slightly more chonky and add correct panel lines. Make the crotch piece in Battroid mode angle straight down instead of forward. Beef up the arms as much as possible. Remove the hard points from the wings (VF-17 never used external hard points). The above is probably just wishful thinking and may not even be possible. To be honest, being a huge VF-17 fan I'd prefer a clean sheet of paper design, rather than them basing it on the VF-171 toy, but I'm enough of a realist to know that is not likely to happen, given the VF-17 is not a fan favourite design. Hopefully one day we get a better VF-17 sculpt in from either the HMR line or the HG Shortcut Change model kit line.

For further comparison of the VF-17S vs the VF-171, here's the 'detall-up' VF-17 lineart showing full panel lines and other details. IIRC, these pics were first seen in the "Macross 7 Animation Materials" book, published in 1995. Credit to macross2.net for the pic, saves me having to scan the page from my book. 😅 Interestingly, despite their simplified transformation and limited articulation, the old Bandai 1/65 scale VF-17D/S toys from the 90s actually feature most of the panel lines from the detail-up lineart. There is so much detail difference and proportional difference between the VF-17 and the VF-171. You just cannot use VF-171 legs and most other parts of a VF-171 and call it a VF-17......sigh. Being a huge VF-17 fan, the more I look at the Bandai DX photos, the more depressed I get.

I think that no matter how good BRV AAM missiles get, there will still always be a need for dogfighting capability, due to rules of engagement limitations. Just because you have the capability to shoot someting down at BRV range, doesn't necessarily mean the politicians in charge are always going to allow it and there may be cases where visual ID is required, so a robust WVR / dogfighting capability may still be needed. Even if it's only maybe needed 1 time out of 100, I feel it's still better to keep guns and the capability to dogfight.

New swag just arrived.😊

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

Just received the Genesis Breaker book from CD Japan. 😊

I hope Bandai get enough complaints about this that they consider changes. Honestly, I can't believe they are being this lazy.

It's shocking how much better proprtioned the Yamato looks, especially in Battroid and Gerwalk modes. I was originally thinking to order 2pcs of the Bandai DX VF-17S, but now I think I'll just get1pc and keep it in fighter mode. Unless Bandai significantly reworks the sculpt between now and release.

The 1/65 VF-17D/S is still one of my favorite Macross toys.

I'm hoping that Bandai will make some last minute changes to the DX VF-17S to make it a bit more lineart accurate, but I'm not holding out much hope.

I think the only way to get a VF-17 that looks lineart/anime accurate in all three modes will be if Bandai makes a model kit of it in the HG Shortcut Change model kit line, with swabable chunky lower legs.

But, to be fair, so far the revival VF-171EX is holding up OK, with no issues.

Yeah, so checking the pics more carefully, it looks like they are reusing a lot of VF-171 parts. As a result, there's a lot of things that are not lineart correct for the VF-17. It's missing the VF-17's dual micro-misille launchers on each shoulder. It's got incorrect VF-171 dual micro-missile ports on the inside of each lower leg. Lower legs are way too skinny. I'm sure there are other areas that are not lineart correct also.

Way too skinny in Battroid mode. Looks like it's optimised for Fighter mode. But as the VF-17 is one of my all-time favourite designs (it was my top favourite for decades), I'm in, will be buying.

Hope it's not game over for Arcadia.

HMR VF-19P Box art .

Great work, looks fantastic.

By the way, does anybody know what the yellow array on the TREAD is supposed to be? Is it a sensor array? Beam guns? Missile launcher?

I'm only really a fan of the original 82 movie. I didn't really enjoy Legacy to be honest. So for Ares, I think I'll wait until it's on D+ before watching it.

Hmm.........IIRC, isn't the HMR VF-19P out at the end of this month?

I'm guessing KC don't have a prototype sculpt yet, so just took the Bandai HMR and photoshopped the colors for their website pic. 😅

Miami Vice is still to this day my favorite (non-anime) TV series. Just actually rewatching it again at the moment and currently half way through season 3. I actually quite disliked the Colin Farrel & Jamie Foxx movie though. Not sure we need another movie, but I guess it's cool that they are setting it in the 80s.

Yeah, I guess they have just used a recolored Bandai Spartan for their pre-order page. All the panel lines, markings etc are identical.

Yay, managed to score the Sentinel Tlead last night.