Brand-X

The Arcadia version only had one shield actually. I never owned any of the Yamato 1/60 19s, though I do own the 1/72 version, which also only had one shield. Did the Yamato 1/60 have two shields then?

I wouldn't mind seeing a reappearance of a previous Valkyrie, but I'm really hoping we get at least a couple new designs. I'm not a huge fan of the YF-30 but I could see it being used in some capacity, I just hope we don't start seeing the VF-xx1 becoming a trend. It'd get awfully boring if every new Macross series just created cannon fodder versions of the previous hero Valk. VF-251, VF-301, etc.

Just like how in the recent Thor movies our hero can summon lightning at a whim, and describes it as science and magic being the same thing to his people. Sorry, it's still magic. Or we could just pull out that ever so famous quote regarding highly advanced technology.

I'm one of those few North Americans who discovered Macross back in the 80s, but only came upon Robotech later. My dad took me to a little video rental place where I saw Clash of the Bionoids sitting on the shelf, and being as I was really into airplanes, the box art drew me in. I rented it, then the next week I rented it again, and again, and again. I did that for years after that, my dad kept trying to ask the owner to buy the tape from him, but he wouldn't sell it (probably because he was making a fortune off of me!) Later I found Robotech on VHS and was actually able to buy the tapes this time (Though I never actually wound up getting one of the 6 tapes of the Macross saga, can't remember which one though...) though I skipped everything after the first saga. As for the commentary on Zero above, I always thought it would have been a much better series if they just made it about Roy pioneering Valkyrie piloting, and skipped the whole protoculture music magic stuff (I was always a bigger fan of the earlier Macross series, where music was very important, but hardly supernatural). Shin, Sara, Mao and Nora never really interested me at all. I wanted to see more of Roy vs. Ivanov. Also, did anyone else find it a little odd that Roy had this whole love interest angle going on with Aries, when SDF Macross always made it seem to me that he and Claudia had been together in a fairly long-term, committed relationship? That's the way I took it, at least. To me it seemed weird that a year before Macross begins there's simply no mention of Claudia at all. And wow, that got off topic quickly...

Probably the same white they've been using on their other Valkyries.

Man you can really see in that latest shot how far the heat shield sits away from the canopy. I really want to like this thing, but I'm definitely going to have to wait until I see a final production shot before considering buying it.

Ah, I hadn't even thought of that. I simply assumed that there's no way a company would release a VF-2SS without the option for a SAP pack. I was super excited about this, even though it's not up to par with its competitors, but I think I'm going to have to pass on it now.

Hmm, very interesting. I just checked my DVD cover and it's not exactly the same as either of those images. Either way, I'm happy with it, DVD quality, English subs, that's about all I ask for.

Hmm, the version I have, which I believe is the perfect version DVD, does have English subtitles. This is the one:

It's one thing to edit your box art pics, it's borderline unethical to photoshop it to make it seem as if it can do things it can't, such as fit together tightly, or have a fighter mode without gaps between the shield and legs or legs and wings.

Oh yeah, I thought we were talking about the bits labelled "HIBLID sensor unit", the other bits I always figured were verniers, especially considering at one point we see the 19 shoot some sort of exhaust from something around that area.

Yeah I always thought they were cameras myself. I figured it was related to the see through cockpit, considering it was the first time we saw that cockpit design, and the first time we saw those diamonds.

While Kawamori's designs have always had an element of kibble, the latest ones just seem to take it too far. The 19's hip kibble didn't bother me because it was sort of a focus point, the rest of the Battroid was nice and sleek. The 21 had the backpack, sure, but once again, it was used as a visually distinctive element. The 25 wasn't so bad, as the wings on the back sort of had an angelic appearance to them which served as a great aesthetic addon. Hell, even the VF-11's shield was kibble in a way, in that it kind of just hung off the arm and covered up a huge gap in fighter mode. Thankfully Kawamori turned that into something functional, and in doing so, created a whole new design element that most Valkyries have included later on (the idea of a physical shield somewhere on the arms) The 27 and 29 however almost look like they just have an extra Valkyrie sitting on their backs. It goes from being an added little stylistic detail to remind the audience of its origin as a fighter and instead just kind of try to hide all the mess they couldn't figure out a more interesting transformation scheme for. I think this is likely because they use the same transformation scheme as the 25. If they had been designed from the ground up as independent fighters without reusing anything, I'm sure Kawamori would have come up with a much sleeker battroid than the kibbly mess we got. Perhaps that's why I'm such a fan of the FAST Packs of the VF-1, in their battroid modes there was very little kibble, mostly due to their fairly simplistic transformation (in comparison to later designs) so adding on extra bits of armour or boosters seemed more natural to me. The VF-0 had a similar transformation but I think that when the Angel pack was added we started to see a bit of the direction Kawamori would start to take with later designs, in this case literally putting an extra fighter sitting on the back. Gone was the sleek Battroid, replaced with extra bits just hanging off from everywhere. Of course I get the story reason for that, but visually it just didn't do it for me. With that said, the 27 does look nice in battroid from certain angles, and that's how I have it displayed. The 29 has a gorgeous looking fighter mode (at least in the Alto colour scheme, I'm not a huge fan of the repaints). I don't dislike them, but I can say they certainly rank near the bottom of my favourite VFs.

Yeah the prices are going down for sure, but they're still rather high and I was recently burned on buying FansToys Quakewave (a 3rd party transformer toy styled as the unofficial Masterpiece Shockwave) for quite a hefty price, and then 2 months later there's both a knockoff and new production run announced. So I think I'll wait for a bit, and even if they come down to the $300 or so price point, I'm still not painting a figure that expensive.

Oh I'm aware of the in universe reason, I'm just saying it's boring.

It's not that I don't like the VF-25's transformation, there's some interesting stuff in there that hasn't really been seen before. My issue was that the transformation was then copied over to every other VF in the show with the exception of the 171. Of course, I fondly remember in SDFM there was only a single VF as well, but there wasn't, say, a VF-2 and VF-3 which were just the VF-1 with extra spiky bits on it as we saw with Frontier. Felt a bit like a bait and switch, introducing a brand new VF, but it turns out that it's just the same as the last VF with a different wing shape and extra random bits and winglets sticking out of it.

I really gotta say, I loved this piece when I first got it, but now having the Bandai 19 and the disaster that's been for me, I only appreciate Arcadia's version even more!

Yes, please dear god. The VF-4 is one of the last pieces I feel I really need to finish my collection. That, along with the DYRL SDF-1 (Someday... someday). Even though I've found a few offers that were somewhat reasonable, I've always passed on it because I really wouldn't feel right having a VF-4 without the FB2012 scheme, but for such an expensive purchase, I really wouldn't trust myself to do the painting.

For many of us the interesting transformations are part of the appeal of Macross. Even though there's a high amount of anime magic involved in some, I always enjoyed figuring out those transformations and their mechanics. It set Macross away from many other Mecha shows of the time. For me, however, once I realized that the 25, 27 and 29 all had virtually identical transformations, Frontier became a little less interesting to me. That, combined with the generally unlikable and immature characters soured me on Frontier a fair bit. That's just my personal opinion though, I know lots of people really enjoyed Frontier, but it just wasn't for me. At least it was better than 7 though...

It's definitely not good enough for me haha.

I think Bandai would do decently well with an SDF-1. It is a very simple transformation after all with not much articulation. After my experiences with the 25 line and the new 19, I don't think I'll be buying much Bandai stuff that requires complex engineering.

Yes it is a matter of personal taste, but it seems a bit off to suggest that people who prefer Arcadia's valks do so out of loyalty rather than by forming an objective view. My collection is pretty much evenly split between Yamcadia and Bandai, and I appreciate them both in different ways, but this is the first chance I've had to see two products made by them side by side that are meant to be the same valk (okay, not exactly, but close enough) and in my opinion formed from toying with both of these, the Arcadia is far superior.

I dunno, I own an Arcadia 19 as well as this one, and the only thing this one has going for it over the Arcadia one is the amount of tampo. In my opinion, this one is deficient in nearly every other way.

Oh, apparently Bandai couldn't get the shoulders to work either...

Haha keep an eye on the Buy/Sell/Trade board, I was really excited for this guy but at this point I can honestly say I've never hated a toy nearly as much as this one. I'll give it a few days before deciding, just look for an ad saying "transformed 0.75 times" EDIT: Oh, I forgot the actual swivel at the shoulder that brings the arms out. So yeah, that was a good guess, 8 separate joints/hinges in the upper arm alone.