1/1 LowViz Lurker

Maybe they should redo the 1/60 for scale freaks? The lightness of the 1/48 is good. It may feel cheap because of it, but no worry of joints getting more stessed especially when you put on gbp armor. They got to improve the hands. Give the people some fixed posed robot hands that are slightly larger than the chicken hands, have a stronger joint, and ability to peg the gun pod into the palm. Something like smaller versions of gbp hands. And by default the extra GBP armor side pieces should come free with the stand alone valk. Come on yamato give us some value. (not a batty just a suggestion )

Go the 1/48. Best vf-1 toy so far. Only thing are the chicken hands which are the archilles heel of the toy. The wrists can sometimes be a little limp. But overall this is better than the 1/60. The releases based on the TV series come with fixed pose hands though. The 1/48 comes with lots of gimmicks and details. So it looks good as a display and if you like to look upclose. If you get the fast pack set, individual micro missiles are included, and you can put them into the fast packs. Same with the GBP armor. Gimmicks, details, (pilot, cockpit, hands) better headsculpt, and tightness of joints (no floppy limbs or hips, and uses clicky ones to be able to support its own weight even with the gbp armor) seem to be the main points for me. Plus it is light for its size (well without FP at least) so battroid mode isn't so scary to pose. The last thing you want is for it to crash of the desk to a hard surface and something snaps under the stress. (happened to my 1/72 yf-21 which broke the head laser. That design has tiny feet though) I think also it will hold its value for long time being that it is the best toy so far of the vf-1. The thing that got to me was how the legs detached on the 1/60. I feel as if a toy should be forced to stay as a single perfect transformation and not be swapped or or have parts detach unless they have to. Had the vf-0 been swapping parts, I don't think I would be interested and would have prefferred buying a model of three modes. Toys should be PT imo.

Ah I see. Still I can't complain. The cheap price plus the increased articulation of these new reimaginings is perfect for me. One thing I didn't like was how the part of the arm beyond his elbow joint seemed a little short. It would have been good if that hand could extend and you see pistons where you pulled it out from. Maybe even put a spring in there and you push a little button to pop the hand/wrist out. As it is it just looks like he has dwarf wrists.

If they reboxed them as mospeada technically they are from a different world with different characters though aren't they? They could have improvements like strong plastic instead of diecast, better locking together of parts, just generally higher quality materials. Then just release the mpc as mospeada toys on RT.com later on for purists of the original japanese show. No reason why toynami can't do both the robotech versions of things as well as the mospeada version of things. After all we got "macross" toys from them (1/100 vf-1) alongside robotech toys (the veritech mpc including jack archer repaint) and that caters to international fans of either show. (couldn't they just cheat and say this new line of mpc are the mospeada line??)

Just bought Classics grimlock. Love both the dinobot mode (good articulation on his legs) and humanoid mode. Big improvment from his old 80s version as now the parts of the dinosaur don't just hang off the back like wings. It's got *weathering on its body but no where else which I found a little strange. Its like the autobots took parts off Grimlock, cleaned those parts to make them nice and spotless, but then forgot to wash the middle portion of grimlock. So it looks aged in one area but new in other areas.. I may get classic ramjet and SS now.. Argh there goes the money for the 1/100 toynami vf1j...Maybe when the fast packs finally come out. *Yamato this is what the low visibility should have had! Not the stuff that rubs off on your fingers.

Good to hear. I'm going to wait till everyone buys up all the ver 1s first and then dip in when ver2 are everywhere. That is once I get over my sudden TF classics and alternator addiction...

The GERWALK is a retarded looking mech if you think of it having to fight in that mode, but when you think about how it is used in the anime it makes so much sense: When a fighter plane is coming in for a landing where there is no where to land, it needs to hover with feet pointed flat on a surface and come to a gradual stop first, before then turning into a battroid. Although newer macross shows have the transformation happen very quickly, I think of the gerwalk mode as being the mode required to first get the machine to a safe stop before turning into bot mode. I don't imagine a fighter going at high speeds then suddenly transforming into a robot and then falling to the ground violently. Instead i think of the gerwalk as the safe intermediate mode necessary to get to bot mode first. It all happens in the episode when roy first transforms his fighter in SDF macross in front of hikaru and it is done slowly and gradually for us to see. Or when hikaru is crash landing to earth in the trainer and you see the feet of the gerwalk mode first, and then after a time when it crashes into stuff, turns into a bot. It just reinforces the idea that this is a necessary mode as opposed to a half-assed mode. Yeah it could fight in gerwalk mode, but I can't imagine it would be more useful than battroid mode apart from having the backpack pointed behind you to travel faster. The arms hanging off the sides just look too awkward to me. (gluag gets away with it because it has tall legs and massive feet so a spread stance would provide stability) I think the main issue people have with it is how the arms just kinda dangle at the sides which makes it look clumsy. But only after you see the anime, do you understand how useful it can be having it. Without the gerwalk mode, you can't really "park" the vehicle in a place without a clear landing or land gracefully without bot mode tripping over its' own feet in bot mode due to going too fast. I don't think it was shown to be useful in mospeada since th fighter in that can just hover in that mode.

Models in the 80s, (never got to buy jetfire) nothing for the 90s, (grew out of it) and then now fast forward to around 2k3 (the new robotech dvd boxes I saw in a game store reminding me of my childhood and making want to find toys of the mecha) and I stumble upon MW for more info about the various toys for macross/robotech that have been around. At first I went to Robotech.com to see what they had, was about to get a toynami vf-1 as they looked pretty nice in pics, but then decided on yamato macross toys after doing a bit of toy research and seeing such positive reviews for it as well as seeing pics of other things on the net. (mac plus 1/72 toys which made me pee my pants) The pics in graham's reviews made me decide to skip the 1/60 vf-1 range since these use detachable parts which I wasn't a fan of. Ever since then I have been a big 1/48 vf-1 fanboy. Things I love about it: -joints that feel stiff and click -upgrade to all the things in the show and movie (FAST pack and GBP very well done) -good in all modes -details (especially the cockpit) -poseable -light (not a fan of paintchipping) -the heads look just right -transformation is quite complex and heatshield is transformable -parts click together firmly. (unlike a certain banpresto toy whose backpack keep flopping down) My first yamato vf-1 was the low visibility ver1. I thought to myself: It's a model kit in toy form. If this is the only one I get I will be grateful. Later I find out various places to get other vf-1 and end up being addicted to the collecting aspect. Normally I would ignore toys (I don't collect transformaers except for the alternators) but out of my passion for the mecha in macross I just had to have these new yamatos. What's in store for the future? Maybe if someone can top yamato I will end up selling these to get that version. But overall I think vf-1 is overdone for now. It needs a little break. But for noob's sake I hope yamato reissue all the stuff others might have missed. It's an iconic mecha to anyone who watched RT or macross and as a kid was pissed at how hard it was to find a toy of the valkyrie. Today you can here people whine and complain abut yamato QC but we sure have come a long way since the bad old days when you had to scavenge for the toys. Hopefully what has happened for macross with the yamatos will eventually happen for mospeada and people get a detailed updated toy worthy enough to stand up to the model kit in anime accuracy and proportions. Because these are collector grade toys though, I do pay attention to quality. If you pay the high price, it should reflect in the toys durability and not just how good it looks. (which is why I manage to resist buying the MPC Toynami alphas and always look for reviews before jumping in. Floppy limbs, being easy to break, paintchipping, the threat of parts wearing out over time just from normal use etc are all things to consider. I should be able to hold onto a toy for years without worrying I will eventually snap something just from handling or transforming it, or it having stress in certain areas that it explodes in time) Now having said all that: I never feel scared with the transformer alternators. It's a shame collector grade stuff has to be "scary". Please toy companies: think of "durability" as much as the quality of the sculpt and details. Start easy and work your way to hard. Don't sacrifice durability if it means making it look a little bit nicer or making it feel heavier. No point spending large amounts of money on a toy that you can't even transform or touch because the materials are too weak.

They just don't call it macross. They already did a macross plus live action movie with non-transformable planes. So I don't see the problem.

Huh? But they ARE terrible. Yuck yuck yuck It's not a bandwagon if you originally didn't even like them as a kid when you first saw them. I have the same issue with some designs in the gundam and transformer universe (not singling out southern cross) so it 's not like bashing it to feel a sense of belonging to a group of people to feel good. Sometimes things just plain look crap!

Maybe letterman is just a huge closet robotech fan, buys all the robotech dvd in every version available and watches shadow chronicles everyday? Has that ever crossed your mind? Maybe he owns the RT masterpieces and HG are giving him hats made out of money to promote the RT themes to get more people subliminally humming the RT music and go out to buy the RT dvds? What do you think? Is this like the coke subliminally advertising thing?

I just got this idea that if this does well maybe there will be some kind of a resurgence in the whole transforming robot genre of movie? So something like a voltron movie get made or a zoids (ok so they don't transform) movies or something like that. So the guy talking about a macross or robotech movie: who knows? It will be interesting to see what other movies get made that try to cash in on the kiddy robot shows of the 80s. Look how many comic book movies movies based on games are done.

Southern cross has some fugly mecha. Yeah I think this has to do with a yamato thing. They see the profits and fanbase for macross so it's natural to want to do mospeada. Mospeada mecha being pretty much a clone of the idea from macross and all.. Shadow Chronlicles recent exposure to robotech fans could just be the icing on the cake. The market outside japan must count for something.. If they are smart, HG should import whatever mospeada stuff that gets made from japan and sell it on their site imo. (not just be loyal to the toynami break-a-pieces) In any case, it's about time mospeada got some love. No more having to pay the high prices on ebay due to nothing being produced. SaveRobotech: why do you want to save robotech? Why not Save mospeada or Savemacross?

So whose version do you think is going to be the best? I find it odd they are doing it. Such an old series, you would think people forgot about it. But maybe collectors over there are dying for a modern transforming toy of the mecha just because its rare or something? (like the vf-1 was when robotech came out in the 80s in the US) HG could benefit from all of it just by repackaging the thing for the RT.com crowd and feed the massive hunger for a safely transformable toy of the alpha fighter. Since all futuristic valks in the robotech world will be the alpha and betas any upcoming toys for SC will look the same. They could milk it for any future show that uses the alpha as the main transforming vehicle and even do what yamato does and release non-canon schemes to milk those collector types who buy everything. Heck if they want to, just create a new head like the VF-1 with the 3 head lasers for that robotech game. heheh

Thanks but I will wait for subs. Hopefully the quality of the animation is good! Can't wait to watch Macross Zero in tv form with a glaug!

They need to do skyfire already to challenge starscream in the air. You can then display masterpiece prime fighting megatron. And have MP SS fighting Skyfire, his old buddy from millions of years ago.

Think of it this way: Alien robots are more advanced Humanoid robots are more primitive. Advanced technology always looks wierder than human tech because we don't know enough about how it works. So it look mysterious to those who haven not seen it. People don't believe ufo's are real because its not common. It's not common because we don't use AG. It's wierd because nobody understand it if it were real. It's mysterious and a little scary because if it were real, it's unknown how it does things. Unknown things scare humans more than known things. Aliens therefore must always look different to give off that effect that these are more sophisticated and older civilisation or race of beings than ourselves. Example include the alien from the movie abyss. It can morph to look human but generally has its own native form. If it were real you would piss your pants. You;ve never seen anything like it before. An example of a humanoid robot with mechnical parts would be the t800. It looks slow, moves like crap, has parts crudely put together, and was made specifically to look like us to diguise itself amoung humans to blend in. It's not sophisticated because it uses modern tech not futuristic tech. It's understandable immediately to people who have seen robots in a factory or whatever so it look like a man-made thing. 1 is sleek and sophisticated as if it is a living thing, and the other is primitive and easy to spot as a machine. (with all kinds of machine-like sound effects and stuff) Now from what I have seen in the first cartoon: cybertron is more advanced than ours with futuristic AG hoverars, things that can "morph", and aliens that are comfortable being the upright 2 legged kind when they need to, and being a vehicle when they need to get from one place to another for convenience. (because it is more efficient I would assume, like how humans can ride a bicycle or run) As far as I'm concerned the movie does an ok-ish job of making them looking "foriegn" (as in high tech but not humanoid high tech) but still holding true to the spirit of the cartoon. (ie that these are robots from cybertron and that they didn't have "f14 fighter jet in space" form 4 million years ago like the silly cartoon.) A movie audience that sees a alien robot that is just like an f14/f15 is going to look at that and say: "that is sooo stupid". It just doesn't make sense. So the whole argument of "they don't look like the cartoon" isn't really that much an issue for me since these are supposed to be aliens from another planet. Not just human made machines. They started out with wierd looking alt modes in the toon, so a movie version has to show this evolution from thier old appearance (something that looks weird to human) to the terrestrial form. One thing to remember is that if humans evolved from the monkeys and we look just like these monkeys, it is possible the aliens had similar looking form in ancient times to hold things with thier hands and stuff. So having two legs was more efficient to 3, having hands instead of claws allowed more choice in weapons to hunt, and having a head on top of shoulders made viewing an area a lot easier in areas with tall grass or bushes. So the function of that form naturally became the most efficient and superior form over others forms. This idea is similar to the inbit in mospeada who eventually realise the humanoid form is actually the best evolved form to take. I'm thinking that the Transformers on cybertron came to the same conclusion, used the humanoid shape as thiers, and had alt mode to do certain task faster or more efficiently. So say you are a monkey that can climb trees faster with long arms, you choose to transform into "monkey mode" since it requires less effort but when you want to grab an alien bannana in an area surrounded by other creatures like a giant gorilla which can knock a whole tree down with its size, you can morph into alt mode to fly off. The whole point in my opinion of the transformers taking human forms and basing alt mode on earth vehicles is partly for these reasons: 1. digsuise as outlined in the cartoon 2. it's easier to roll than run, more energy efficient. If humans already have purpose built machines for specific tasks, why not just "copy and paste" the ideas instead of creating your own version? So instead of having an alien hover car, they just keep the humanoid look to not attract attention (they have to hide for stealth reasons) and take advantage of the vehicle mode for its functional advantage. (ie monkey mode means you can hold weapons and fight by punching or lifting object, while vehicle mode means speed) It makes perfect sense that in order to adapt, they just choose the form that makes them comfortable. So if you come to a planet full of dinosaurs, you become a dino to blend in. If you come across a planet full of advanced monkeys with tools, you transform into a monkey form to not scare them. But...there would still be elements of the alien tech still that give you away. Like a funny face. (maybe they didn't get a good chance to scan the humans up close because they looked at it from a long distance?) But the impact of having them look fugly does remind you that they are not human at all. The cartoon can get away with it, because it doesn't need to be scary. We are seeing it from thier point of view. But I get the feeling this movie wants to "build up" the aliens so they are mysterious and make us want to take notice. (not seeing it from their own perspective if you know what I mean. It's going to be more like what ET is as opposed to superman.) The reaction when you first see the movie and are not familiar with the comics or toon is: "WTF is that thing?" more than "cool its my hero from the old cartoon". Movie version assumes we know nothing to keep us wondering so its better to not assume or expect something to be just like what you saw. It might seem fresh if you approach it as a retelling of an event or ancient myth and detail is just added in, as opposed to natural part of the cartoon canon. Once you start expecting this to follow a strict set of rules, you are not going to like it no matter what because you will be biased toward what you saw as a kid, regardless of how the movie stands on its own. If the movie ends up being bad it will be bad because the movie itself is bad, not necessarily because the designs are not 100% accurate to what we liked as a little kid.

When I go to see it, I will not bring all the baggage of the g1 toon with me. I'm just going to treat it like a movie about aliens who come to earth and they happen to have names that are like the transformers. I just watched the first episode of season 1 where the autobots are on cybertron and even though they look identical in robot form to their terrestrial forms on earth (after teletraan 1 repairs them) they still transform into alien vehicles! lol The cartoon wasn't as great as well all remember. (I also remember in the jetfire episode when they showed a starscream flashback from million of years ago when he and jetfire were still buddies, that SS didn't have his triangular fighter form, but his earth form) Yep, the cartoon sucked. I can understand now why they have gone with the whole insect look, we aren't supposed to know WTF these are. So it makes them more mysterious and less easy to identify with at first. We see it from a human point of view maybe? (as opposed to the robot point of view?) As for realistic macross: Nah, keep it in anime form where it belongs. I would prefer the realism to be in the form of how things move in animated appearance as opposed to live action appearance. (more freedom for the fancy dogfights and mecha battles we all know and love, that had they been done in real life, would kill the pilot)

I would have bought one now if I didn't spend the money for it on transformers classic jetfire.

So these are problem free then? Might get the Max 1J.

In my case I need to save up for the mac zero and mac plus things. I like the look of this though.

You're not really supposed to like him though. He was a pretty pathetic character in the first movie too. What's funny is he gets booted from his job in this one which makes him go back to his old self. And Rocky's son quits his job. This movie is depressing! It's like they WANT everyone to fail, just so they can have them all attend rocky's stupid fight.

I hope they are not just toynami distributors. The more versions of the cyclone/ride armor we get, the better. They could steal idea off each other to make the best ride armor possible.

Fave for me is Battroid mode. Especially equiped with the backpack weapon's strike canon. Be careful it doesn't tip over though... The GERWALK mode looks the best if you have a stand though..

Yep little kids can't deal with poo like that. It's funny that Hasbro are celebrated for taking this "ballsy move" when their only real motivation was to just make some money on new toys. hehe. But when you think about it, prime could just as easily been reborn in a new form the way megatron and hotrod was if they wanted to. Make prime into a new vehicle that gets a tougher upgraded body. They didn't have to kill him completely the stupid dummies. I was so glad they didn't kill the dinobots though. They are like the "chewbacca" of the transformer universe who you mainly want to see kicking ass not taking damage and getting hurt. Who cares if they are dumb and clumsy and slow, if they can squash things like the hulk? Finally found a classics Jetfire. Very happy with it. The helmet is kind of oversized (why do robots need a helmet?) but its a great update to an old design. No swivel joint in the bicep area, and can't do the gerwalk mode with forward knee joints, since they only bend backward. But otherwise pretty good. Hands don't retract but they've been cleverly hidden behind the arm weapon so you don't notice this. I had no problems putting the bot into a standing position without falling backward though. Not as bad as getting the yamato qrau to not fall backwards at least..