Graham

What no T&A? Not interested then . Graham

Actually, I've always had a problem with this line of reasoning. I mean it's only what about 20 years difference between the PT and OT and in 20 years, design aesthetics don't generally change that much, that quickly. Using real world examples, it's 2005 now, but 20 years ago in 1985 we still see a lot of the same planes, cars etc as we do today. Boeing 747 yep, F-15 Eagle yep, Porsche 911 yep all in use 20 years ago, all still in use and/or being manufactured to this day. Graham

i am not sure if i am looking at the right one, looks alittle like a revamped Astray The Murasame's head is quite similar to the M-1 Astray's head. The February 2005 issue of Hobby Japan magazine features black and white line-art of the Murasame in both MS and Fighter mode. Somebody already scanned the pics and there are links to it in this thread a few pages back if you want to look for it. The Fighter mode looks a bit like Zeta, except with forward swept wings. Graham

The HK vol.3 DVD of Destiny was released about a week ago. It contains episodes # 9-12. The English subtiltes for episodes 9-10 are excellent (as they were on the first 2 DVDs). However, for episodes # 11-12, the subtitles take a sharp turn for the worse, with quite a few errors in sentence structure, grammar and frequent name changes, e.g. Shin becomes Zhen! This is quite annoying as the subs for eps # 1-10 were so good, I'm pretty sure that the bootleggers were actually using proper fansubs. One good thing about the vol.3 DVD though is that it retains all the cool Japanese Gunpla, manga and console game TV advertisments, which were not included on the vol.1-2 discs. It's nice to see a cute Japanese woman jumping up and down and getting all excited about the 1/60 Force Impulse Gundam kit. If only it were so easy to get women turned on in real life by Gunpla . Not a bad DVD for HK$40 (US$5.13), especially with the fantastic action of Episode # 12. It was so nice to see what Shin is really capable of. Graham

Yeah, it's true I have transformed this toy about a dozen times so far, including in a dimly lit restaurant where I couldn't really see what I was doing . That's not a huge number of times though. I'll also admit to being fairly rough during some of the tansformations. Hey, gotta find out where the potential weak spots are ! However, for those of you thinking of not buying this toy just because 1 toy so far (mine) shows some wear, Id advise you to wait until more people have the toy and more reports (either positive or negative) start coming in before you decide to cancel. And at least here in HK, the VB-6 is not too expensive. A shop near my home was selling them for only HK$780 (US$100). At very least you gotta give Yamato some credit for having the guts to produce a toy of such an obscure mecha as the VB-6. And from the intricate transformation, you can tell that the designer put a lot of heart and soul into the design. Graham

That's sarcasm I hope. Maybe in some parallel dimension the 1/55 reissues sold well, but they definitely didn't do too well in this one, hence the line being cancelled before it was finished. Graham

Any idea which company is doing these? Graham

08MST, 0083, 0080, CCA, F91 & V are all UC Gundam anime that I enjoy. Overall, my top 3 favorites are V, 08MST & 0080. I never could get into original MSG TV or the movies as I find the mecha designs too dated (not to mention just plain fugly) and Amuro extremely annoying. Flying in the face of popular opinion, I find Zeta extremely overrated and boring (I fell asleep watching it several times). It starts off good IMO, but goes rapidly downhill. Graham

I've gotta say despite the wear-and-tear issues I'm having with some of the pegs and holes on my VB-6, I'm getting to like it more and more day by day. It just looks so imposing in all 3 modes. I've got no regrets about buying it. My only problem is finding somewhere to display it. Standing at 44cm tall in battroid mode, there's no way it can fit in my display cabinet. Guess it's going to have to be displayed in either Shuttle or Gerwalk mode, but something is going to have to be removed first to make room for it. Graham

Here's a pic in Battroid mode of the kness sort of bent backwards. Good luck getting the Battroid to stand without support if you do bend the knees though . In this photo, I'm using a chair back for support. Standing normally with the legs locked straight is no problem and doesn't require support. Graham

Here's another potential problem. Notice the white stress mark on these two pegs. These pegs are used in both Shuttle & Gerwalk mode, but use different holes for each mode. They seem to be under some stress in Gerwalk. Graham

I may well be doing it incorrectly and missing some special trick, but getting the arms locked into place in shuttle mode is a bit tricky as they sort of have to be twisted into postion. It's difficult to describe, but when you have one, you will know what I mean. It's far to early to start panicking anyway, as we need to wait and see does everybody else have the same problem or not. Graham

Here's a close-up pic of the damaged hole in the arm, which ataches to a peg in shuttle mode. I'm a bit worried that sooner or later, the hole will shear at it's thinst edge. Graham

OK, my bad. I forgot about that pic. I just went and had another play with the legs of my VB-6 and yes, the knees can bend back like in the pic. On my VB-6, the knee hinge assembly is quite tight, so yesterday when I tried to bend the knees back I didn't use much force and just assumed that the knees didn't bend back when I tried to move them but got no backwards movement. Today I used a bit more force. Also, the knee assembly is fairly complex, so you've got to know which bit to pivot. Graham Graham

OK, hope this shows what I am talking about. Graham

Yes, it's confirmed that the VB-6 comes with a sticker sheet (didn't read my review did ya? ). The kite symbols are the same size as the 1/48 stickers. The VB-6 comes with 2 sizes of 'U.N SPACY' stickers. One size is the same as the 1/48, the other slightly smaller. For some reason the VB-6 sticker sheet even includes two skull squadron symbols (same size as the 1/48 chest skull). There are a lot of other stickers on the VB-6 sticker sheet that are just copied dierectly from the 1/48. Graham

Just beware than ankle joints on the S & EX-S MG kits. Snapped mine on about the third transformation. After that I decided to stick with the the GFF versions . Graham

After several more transformations last night, I have noticed another potential problem. The missile launching end of the forearms (i.e. the end that doesn't have the hands) has a small hole, into which a peg located behind the head attaches to lock the arms in place in Shuttle (Bomber) mode. However, to get the peg into and out of the hole requires some force and twisting of the forearms. I noticed this morning that the hole in both forearms has already elongated slightly. This would not be such a big problem, except for the fact that part of the hole is very close to the edge of the arm, so has a very thin rim, which I could see breaking after not too many more transformations. It's possible that I might be transforming the toy wrongly and causing the problem, but I don't think so. I'll try to post some pics over the weekend to show you what I mean. Graham

I always thought that Slave 1 was inspired by an Elephants head. Graham

I'm perfectly willing to pay that much to get one, maybe even a bit more, but with only 10 being released the chance of securing one is probably lower than winning the lottery. For a perfect variable limited edition resin kit, that's not really such a high price. Consider that 10 years ago the perfect variable Macross Plus SHE kits were selling for about ¥22,000. This new Liquid Stone version is a big improvement over the SHE kit, as it comes molded in 3 colors, features landing gear and is pre assembled. I consider the price quite reasonable. Graham

that actually toynami you're speaking of. yamato is the "almost perfect" toy maker. they know they can make it better, but they enjoy sticking to us fans way too much. as far as the leg connecting part, i'm really hoping it 2 seperate pieces, that way i can put some goo-gone on it to remove the glue and don't have to chop into a brand new toy. The leg connecting part is 2 seperated pieces, the 'L' shape connector itself and a glued-on rectangular clip over the end that stops you from removing the connector. Last night I tried using some super glue debonder to remove the clip, but it didn't work. Graham.

No, the toy has to lean forward a bit in Battroid mode. Graham

OK, just got my VB-6 at lunch. Big-ass flap top window box measuring 36cm x 37cm x 14.5cm. Box is made of typical flimsy Yamato card stock with damn awful photochop box art, as has been mentioned already. The inner card tray is not plain as some people have said, but is in fact a very pale picture of the sun covered with clouds. Toy comes packed in the box in shuttle mode and is secured to the plastic tray by 3 twist ties. One instruction manual and one sticker sheet are included. There are no other accessories. The main body of the toy is molded in a sort of greenish-brown plastic, with some of the smaller parts such as the hands, rear thrusters, underside of the feet and knee internals being molded in black plastic (actually sort of very dark grey I would say). The only other color plastic used is a sort of pale orange plastic used for part of the shoulders. This toy has very little paint, most of it being molded in the correct color plastic. The only painted parts are the cockpit windows and small retro thrusters on the nose which are painted in silver. The eye piece is painted green. There are some small panels painted black on the legs. The engine intakes on the feet and the front center of the chest block are painted a pale orange. Paint job is generally OK, except on the feet engine intakes, where there are some areas where the paint was applied too thickly. The toy does not have any Tampo printed markings (cheapskates !). All markings, including the UN Spacy Emblems and the Eyes are on the supplied on sticker sheet. Actually, the sticker sheet includes two sets of eyes, one orange and one white. Strangely, the sticker sheet includes 'SDF-1', 'ARMD-1' & 'PROMETHEUS' stickers. This is odd as VF-X2 takes place some 40 years after the events in original Macross . As others have mentioned, the instruction manual does not include any guide showing where to put any of the smaller stickers. However, to be fair to Yamato there is no official information on this from Big West, so it's simply a case of put them wherever you think looks good. The black and white instruction manual is quite confusing. Maybe it would be better if I could read Japanese, but I doubt it. The photos do not do an adequate job of showing what needs to be done IMO and several small but important steps seem to have been skipped. Still, if you have half a brain and some prior experience with transforming toys, you should be able to figure out the transformation. Honestly, when transforming the toy, half the time I found it more helpful to refer to the color photos of the toy in all three modes on the underside of the box flap, rather than puzzling over the crappy instruction manual. Transformation is not terribly difficult once you get the hang of it although it is quite fiddly. This is definitely not a 'transform in 60 seconds' toy, as there are quite a few steps and lots of bits that need twisting, turning, locking together, especially in Battroid mode. However, for myself I found I was able to memorise the transformation sequence to and from each mode after about 3 transformations and no longer need to refer to the instructions. So far the toy seems quite sturdy. The only potential weaknes I've spotted so far are a pair of small cylindrical plastic locking pegs located in the lower middle torso area in Gerwalk mode, which are already showing some stress whitening after only 3 transformations. The toy locks together fairly well in all three modes and stands and balances quite well as long as all the feet and leg parts are correctly positioned. However, it looks like the tabs that secure the Shuttle's wings, may have been assembled backwards as they are shown facing the opposite way in the instruction manual. This does unfortunately mean that the Shuttle's wings (i.e. the Battroid's legs) do not attach that firmly in Shuttle mode. Just remember when transforming to shuttle mode to pull the wings backwards a couple of milimeters so that they lock in place a bit more seurely. There is not a great deal of detail on this toy, but then again Kawamori's line-art doesn't show much detail either. Yamato choose not to go the Hasegawa route and just make up extra panel lines. The toy does have some nice features, such as the black color rifled barrel inserts and the hidden elbow missile launchers though. Dimensions are as follows: - Toy weight = 730 grams. Length in shuttle mode = 31cm. Height in Gerwalk mode = 23cm. Length in Gerwalk mode = 26.5cm. Height in Battroid mode = 44cm. Articulation is nothing to write home about, but I wasn't expecting great articulation form this toy anyway. The arms have pretty decent articulation at the shoulders and elbows. however, the 3-fingered hands have only ony hinge point per finger where they join to the hand. Also, there is no wrist articulation, the hands just being press-fitted onto simple pegs. Leg articulation is pretty poor, but that was obvious from the photos anyway. Although of course the knee can bend forward to go into gerwalk mode via some fairly complicated rearranging of the leg parts, the leg cannot bend backwards like a human leg, so no kneeling poses in battroid mode are possible. Correction, after more experimentation with the complex knee assembly, I can confirm that yes, the knees can bend backwards. Overall a fairly nice toy, but more of a display piece IMO with not a great deal of play value or gimmicks. Graham

Wouldn't call it a mystery peice. Although it's not mentioned in the instruction manual, this missile launcher is shown in the VB-6 line art in one of the VF-X2 game books. The legs still can lock in shuttle mode, you just gotta make sure that when they go on the tab you pull them back about 1-2mm. It's still not a very good lock though and they do fall off the tab quite easily. Yes, it probably would have made more sense and been more secure if the tab was facing backwards. Graham

OK, I've just merged the two Yamato VB-6 Konig Monster threads, as it's pointless having two separate threads on the same subject. Post all comments on the toy in this thread. No starting new Yamato VB-6 threads or they will be locked. Graham