r32

1. It's not Metal. is there a reason why i thouht it would be? I seem to recall a youth where I had an original taka or bandai and it was metal... If that was the case, why are the reissues not metal. Also, I got this for my son's first birthday as Yamato's are too expensive for a 2 year old and I understand the bandai are much more sturdy.

2. Solid tranformation. They may not look as fancy and clean as the Yamato, but when you tranform em, they stay where they are, everything locks. That's the best.

3. Limited poseability. but what did you expect? toys back in those days weren't too concerned about points of articulation. GIJOE was the best there was at the time for posing.

4. Printed details. Really nice. I love how the details are printed on the valk instead of all relying on the sticker sheet. Huge plus. With or witout the sticker sheet applied, it looks pretty darned good.

5. Spring loaded landing gear. Again, was this always the way it was or something they added for the re-issue. I don't recall any sprin loaded action back in the day.

6. 1/55 is pretty huge. Same as Jetfire, of course, only, back in the day (cuz I have this memory of the old valks I had a long long time ago) didn't seem to be this big. Was there a smaller metal valk released a while back. perhaps those were bootlegs?

7. My son can still break this thing. I bought it for a two year old thinking - metal, indestructable, gonna have to rethik that.

Anyhow, thought I might share those impressions with you all.

BTW, I posted a bit back thepix of my son playing with my yamatos which I allowed him to do for a bit. He basically broke the fin of my custom repaint on the 1/60 by falling on it while playing guns, and he busted a leg off of Rohby's recast... I should have known better. Was hopin these Chunky Monkey's would be the end all of valks, but now that I have my hands on some, I give it 2 or 3 dys till something comes off it...

Cheers!

1. It never was completely metal, just the inner halves of the legs, the swingbars, parts of the air intakes, landing gear, IIRC. Back in the day, a 10 year old kid (me) managed to break the nose landing gear, one of the cannons of the Vf-1J head, but everything else stood up to the beating (and I took it apart a few times as well)

2. Agreed, and it transforms in less than half the time needed for any Yamato 1/60th or 1/48th. No floppiness.

3. Poseability traded off for stiffness.

4. I like these too (on the reissues), again IIRC the Takatoku original I had, used stick on decals.

5. Yes, they always had springloaded landing gear, it always slaps hard against my fingernail when I try to open it.

6. Its bigger if you had the VF-1S Super version, but the 1/48th Yamato is naturally bigger.

7. Just buy a cheap used loose one, or better still one of the plastic bootleg variety that pervades ebay. Expensive Valks are like breasts - only dads get to plays with them.

I need a Heatshield C1 (from the Roy Fokker VF-1S) as well as the R-L2 and L-L2 air intake parts.

Would like to enquire about availability and cost. Thank you.