Graham

I'm just wondering if one of these days, Hasegawa will decide to give us all a big surprise and release a large scale PG style variable kit. Although if they did this, I imagine that they would play safe and go with the VF-1 first. Graham

Personally, I'd like to see Battroid mode kits of the YF-19/VF-19A and YF-21/VF-22S from Hasegawa. And of course Battroid mode kits of the VF-0A/B/D/S and SV-51 as well. Gerwalk kits would of course also be nice, but are probably too much to hope for as, the Gerwalk has always been the least popular of the 3 modes and Hasegawa may think that the sales figures would not justify the expense of producing these kits. What does surprise me though is that Hasegawa have not yet released a FAST Pack version of the YF-19 & YF-21 kits Fighter mode kits. These would sell quite well I would have thought, especially if they included a Fold Booster as well. Graham

Heh, first time I saw that pic, I thought what's with this group of Eminem wannabes Then, I realized they were *trying* to do the YF-19 thing that Isamu does with his hand in Macross PLus. Graham

I don't know since I can't read Kanji, but do they list Megazone 23 on the Japanese side of their site?. And, this is what I meant by Yamato going global. http://www.yamato-toys.com Their site used to be yamato-toys.co.jp, which now has a redirect to the new Yamato-Toys.Com. They also changed from the .co.jp URL to the .com URL at least a year ago as well. Common guys, get with the program here Graham

Old, old news. They changed the name of Toycom to Yamato USA like 1-2 years ago IIRC. Graham

We already know from watching DYRL that FAST Packs are installed in fighter mode. Yes, loading (oversize) cannon shells one at a time by hand is pretty funny. As for the hand refulling from a 55 gallon drum, it could have been a lot worse. If the guy who made the diorama had been a Row-Boat-Tek fan, he might have had the ground crew stuffing flower of life leaves into the fuel tank . Graham

The reason the other thread was locked is because there have already been half a dozen threads on this movie since July last year. This Admin would prefer members try to search to see if there is already a thread about the subject before starting a new post and then simply contribute to the oldest or longest thread you find. On a Macross forum where most members are fans of high-tech jets and/or aviation buffs, it's a pretty sure thing that a movie like this will have been talked about to death already. It's very easy to find these old threads, simply by searching for the words 'Stealth', 'Jessica' or 'Biel' . Here's the oldest thread on this movie, from July of last year. Some good comments on the plane design in this thread. http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?showtopic=9070&hl And surprise, surprise another member 'discovers' this movie in this thread, also from July last year. http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?showtopic=9687&hl Gasp............what do I find, but a third thread on this movie also from July last year. http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?showtopic=9483&hl Here's a thread from August of last year. http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?showtopic=10549&hl And yet another more recent thread, this time from just mid-February this year. http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?showtopic=13380&hl And today's new thread. http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?showtopic=13564&hl Graham

Actually, there have been at least 3 threads posted about this movie in the Other Anime & Sci Fi forum. Every so often another member starts a thread on it , thinking that he has discovered something that nobody else knows about . Graham

Even though of course the lion's share of sales are to the Japanese market, Macrossworld members around the world (not just the US), still manage to rack up a significant amount of purchases. A while back (maybe on the old forums, I forget), we had a long-running thread where people listed their total number of Yamato Valks and it came to quite an large number. One member even compiled the data onto an Excel spreadsheet, which I forwarded to Yamato and they were quite impressed by the sales. Back when I was still close to Yamato, I got see see information on the production run sizes and IIRC, the purchases by Macrossworld members was roughly something like between 2% to 5% of the total production, which is nothing to sneeze at. It may even have been a bit higher, but I honestly can't remember without finding and reviewing the figures. Graham

I completely agree with you. If Yamato (or another company) were to bring out a new larger scale YF-19 toy with the same fantastic accuracy, detail, poseability and quality as the 1/48 VF-1, then I'd bet my left testicle that it would sell extremely well. While the original 1/72 YF-19 toy was a good first effort for a company which had never before manufactured a toy, let alone a complex transforming toy, it is by today's standard sub-par. I still love it, but I can't help but cringe now at how ugly the nose/cockpit/front landing gear section is. Still it did sell extremely well in it's day and even today usually commands very high prices in online auctions, which is a good indictaion of it's popularity. It's a sad fact that Macross is not as popular as Gundam and every Macross toy or model released is not automatically guarunteed good sales, unlike most Gundam toys or models. Still, I think that besides the classic VF-1, the YF-19 is the only other VF with enough popularity to be a surefire hit. Graham

Still waiting to see pics of a greenie with stickers applied. Graham

The fans (ok me) demand pics ! Graham

And we have a winner Graham

Heh, yeah it's probably true that if you stuck a 'V' antenna on every Macross Variable Fighter, painted them red, white and blue and called them 'Gundam' they would sell much better as toys or models. Sorry for the extemely crude photochop job, but here's my rendition of the only way Bandai would probably consider releasing a YF-19 toy or model. Gentleman, may I present to you............ the RX-19 Gundam . Graham

The VF-19Kai/F/S/P does not even feature those pipes on the underside of the chest. They are specific to the YF-19/VF-19A. Graham

Sounds reasonable. OK, so far we have three possibilities for those chest-mounted thingies on the YF-19: - 1) Chest gatling guns for use in Battroid mode. 2) Locking bars for Fighter mode to withstand high-G maneuvers. 3) Verniers for use in Battroid mode. Egan and Nanashi (if you are both lurking), feel free to jump in at any time with comments or suggestions. Graham

First time I've seen the GU-11 55mm gunpod called a 'Photon Missile Launcher' Graham

I think the SHE VF-11 has a horrible nose. Worse shaped nose of all the VF-11 models/toys IMO. Graham

And a larger scan of the Tenjin box art. Beautiful pic as always. Graham

Here's the short article from the new April 2005 issue of Dengeki Hobby magazine on the Hasegawa VF-1A/J/S Fighter mode kit to be released in March. Graham

OK, here's the color 1/48 GBP CAD pics. Graham

Looking good. Interested to see how it turns out. Graham

I just picked up the new April 2005 issues of both Hobby Japan & Dengeki Hobby magazine, just out in Hong Kong today. Unfortunately, there is no news of any new Hasegawa Macross model kits, except for pics of the box art of the upcoming VF-1A/J/S fighter mode kit, which we already know about, that is due for release in March for a price of 2,100yen. Hopefully the news that Valk009 (Andy) mentioned will be in next month's magazines. Oh well, one more month to wait! Graham

The April 2005 issues of both Hobby Japan and Dengeki Hobby magazine arrived in Hong Kong today. I just picked them up a few minutes ago. Here's a quick run down of the contents that will be of interest to Macross fans: - Hobby Japan Unfortunately, very little Macross related. On page 244, there is a very small pic of the box art by Tenjin for the upcoming Hasegawa VF-1A/J/S fighter mode kit and that's it as far as Macross goes. Dengeki Hobby Dengeki Hobby magazine has one whole page devoted to Macross this month (page 141). The top half of the page shows color CAD pictures of the upcoming Yamato 1/48 scale GBP armor. The last time we saw some uncolored lineart CAD pics of the 1/48 GBP was 3 months ago, back in the January hobby mags. While it's nice that we are seeing new pictures, it's a little depressing that in 3 months the only progress seems to be that the CAD pictures are now in color ! IMO, it seems doubtful that Yamato even have an actual physical prototype yet, also taking into account that none was displayed at last weekends Winter Wonder Fest . No price is given yet for the 1/48 GBP in the Dengeki article and the release date is still sometime in 2005. The bottom half of the Dengeki Hobby page features photos of Hasegawa VF-1A/J/S fighter models and a small pic of Tenjin's box art for the upcoming Hasegawa VF-1A/J/S Fighter mode kit release coming in March at a price of 2,100yen. I'll try to get the Yamato 1/48 GBP pics scanned and posted when I get home tonight. Graham

Them be child bearing hips! Graham