Graham

Interesting, so Ernest Johnson is not NUNS? I'd assumed from his uniform that he was part of the NUNS force (warships, VF-171s and Destroids) we saw in the prequel episode

Whether it's canon or an alternate timeline is irrelevant to me. I love Macross II, always have, always will and love the VF-2SS design. However, I DO NOT love this toy. I so wanted it to be good, but to me it's just a big disappointment. Even battroid mode which as others have said locks together much better than fighter mode has issues. IMO, I basically consider it a fixed pose statue, as as soon as you start to pose the hips, the hip bar connection starts to unlock, as sometimes do the to small tabs connecting the back and chest plate. And as soon as you start to pose the shoulders or upper arms, the shoulder tabs want to come unpegged as well . And lets not get started on trying to get the battroid to actually securely hold the gunpod.........Grrrr. It's sad, because with just a few small changes, this toy could have been awesome.

ET 1/60 VF-2SS. One word "disappointing" . But not unexpectedly so Graham

OK, I've decided as much as I love the VF-2SS with SAP design, I am NOT going to pre-order the Evolution Toys version. If once it's out I hear there have been significant improvements in the fighter mode locking mechanisms, then I may reconsider my decision to purchase one. As it is though, the toy is just not fun enough and too frustrating. The added weight of the SAP would likely only exacerbate this. Graham

OK, so I took my VF-2SS home last night, unboxed it and did one transformation from fighter to battroid, skipping Gerwalk, as I'm not a Gerwalk guy. My initial thoughts................... As others have said the plastic feels cheap (but isn't), but it is thin in many areas and does feel a but flimsy in places. The glossy fold out instruction sheet with color photos is nice, however, I did have trouble trying to figure out what some of the pictures were trying to show espeially for some steps for the torso, neck and backpack transformation. So I just ended up winging it for some steps..........haha. I'm sure If I could read the Japanese text it would be perfectly clear. So I'm primarily a fighter mode guy and I wanted this toy to at least hold together well in fighter mode. I'd already accepted long ago from the various photos online that it would only look good in fighter mode from certain angles. But the frustration factor with fighter mode was just too high. getting the arms and legs to stay tabbed in in fighter mode for any length of time when holding and swooshing the toy is an exercise in frustation. The right side leg on mine especially didn't want to stay tabbed in for more than a few seconds, so I gave up on fighter mode and went straight to the battroid transformation, as that's the mode that others on this thread have said locks together the best. Now for me, although I like as my toys to be as accurate to the line-art as possible, I'm not overly hung up about it, as long as the toy has a high fun-factor. That is the fun of handling, swooshing, posing and trasforming the toy should far outway any frustration factor caused by a difficult transformation, or a toy that doesn't lock together well, or is a floppy mess, or one that breaks easily. With the fighter mode, the frustration factor way outweighed any fun factor. Anyway, it took about 20 minutes to get it transformed from Fighter to Battroid mode as I went slowy and some areas like getting the neck panel swung out took a while as I thought I was gonna break it at one point........haha. So yeah, as others have said it locks together better in battoid mode, but leg pose-ability is a bit resctricted if you keep everything locked together. I'm also not sure how well some of the small tabs in this will survive multiple transfomations. Also, some parts do still unlock with handling (the rubber piece that pegs the two diecast swing bars together, which IMO is a strange choice for a locking mechanism), unpegs fairly easily when you re-pose the legs. So overall, this is a fair, but ultimately frustrating effort for a small company's first attempt at a perfect transformation VF toy, especially a Valk with a tricky transformation system like the VF-2SS. I'd give it a 1.5 out of 5 score for Fighter mode and a 3.2 out of 5 score for Battroid mode. With just a few small changes, such as better locking tabs, a gunpod that actually fit in the hand properly etc, I would have given it a highter score. As it is this is going straight in the display cabinet and likely won't get handled much due to the frustration factor. It's a shame, because I do love the VF-2SS and have wanted a transforming toy since 1992. Graham

Haha.......yeah, I also have no idea what all these Transformer toys are people keep talking about, as the only mecha I collect is Macross.

I'm past my buying multiples of anything phase, but I'll definitely be buying one each of the Fighter and Battroid modes of the VF-31S/F/E/A. Graham

Yeah, I'm looking forward to these a lot. Graham

I've had a few Bandai and Banpresto toys made of white plastic over the years that have seriously yellowed in the box without ever being put on display. Guess it just depends on which plastic is used by whatever factory they contract with at the time.

Waiting for more pics of their VF-31 line. Really bored of the VF-1

No, Yamato were not blocked from the MII licence, they just didn't want it. The CEO always thought that MII was not popular enough and the toys wouldn't sell. Also, I was told repeatedly each time I bought up the subject of MII toys that they were worried that it might annoy Kawamori if they made MII toys. Whether this is true or not, I don't know, but it is what I was told several times. Graham

Excellent video review Veef. No need for me to do one now, nothing to add.....haha. Graham

Cool, look forward to watching.

Ha, last time was for the Yamato 1/60 YF-19 IIRC. But yeah, planning to do one for this. Graham

Just received mine from HLJ at my office. Can't really play with it here though as gotta work But I did briefly take it out of the box for a minute. Initial comments: 1) It's bigger than I thought it would be. I've always thought the VF-2SS was quite a small Valk, so the size suprized me. 2) Plastic does look cheap. 3) Not much detail or panel lines, but that's not really Evolution's fault, the original lineart doesn't have a great deal of detail either. 4) Box art is pretty spiffy. More comments later after I have time to actually handle and transform it.

Personally, I never really liked this kit, due to the extreme down angle of the nose.

Yeah, the location of the rear landing gear is one of the current unresolved mysteries of the VF-31. The panels on the underside of the wing are clearly the forearm shield and the hand cover. There definitely doesn't seem to be any panels on the wing for rear landing gear. And unlike the YF-30, there don't appear to be any doors on the VF-31's shin for the rear landing gear. Bu the VF-31A underside line-art clearly shows what appear to be front landing gear doors, so we have to assume that the VF-31 series doe's have landing gear.

I think I'm in love.

Damn, that's really not what I want to hear:(

Sad to hear the fighter mode doesn't lock together well, as that's always my favorite mode.

Here's a clear and close-up a shot of the gunpod(?) detached from the weapon pod and shown in the VF-31J's hand from the cover of Figure-Oh magazine. Sure looks like a gunpod to me, but the question is is it shell firing or an energy (beam) gun, or other? Graham

Personally, I've always had zero interest in a live-action Macross movie, regardless of whether it is from Japan or Hollywood. A live-action Hollywood movie would likely be too Americanized and loose much of what makes "Macross". Anyway, we already had the live action Macross Plus adaptation "Stealth", and look how well that turned out Live-action Japanese sci-fi movies have never impressed me either with acting or special effects and would probably end up looking like a Super-Sentai show (which I hate). Graham

As the plastic has been described as cheesy, I'm thinking a piece of sliced cheese could be cut to shape and used to cover the underside bars

Defintely buying the 6" Sabine, Ashoka and Kanan figures.

Yeah, me too.