jenius

I love the fact that pic with all the VF-X equipment shows the 17D in a natural looking GERWALK mode instead of that wierd GERWALK with the shoulder lasers and stiff legs.

The handle is snap fit with no glue so you can remove the handle for fighter mode.

Yep, fighter mode in your pics has all that nastiness around the intakes too (little gaps and such). Still, overall, I think they're a pretty good buy.

Eugimon is still full of anger??? I thought he was just going through a phase in like Feb-March. Remember the "WHat?? Yamato's 1/48s aren't good enough?? Quit asking for more! You won't get a YF-19 or an Angel Birds so shut up and like it!" I think that was how it all went... j/k

[sarcasm]Holy crap, you guys must be right, this movie must not exist![/sarcasm]

We get poo like Friends volume 22 on DVD but we don't get the show with a rip off R2D2 crossed with Mork living in San Francisco? Where the hell is the justice in this world??? I never saw that Benji, Zax, and the alien Prince show but I certainly would love to now. Man, the only whacky poo I remember was that show that had a six year old cyborg girl and was a sitcom of some sort.

Interesting... I never considered drawing Miria with clothes on! Eh, who the hell am I kidding, you can't tell if stick figures are wearing clothes or not.

So do you doubt that anyone has actually seen The Shadow Chronicles? That seems a bit silly. I'm sure the group has an NDA of some form going. Next conspiracy: "They have an NDA because they know it sucks!" Oooh maybe... or it might be standard operating procedure. I'm sure with everything being finalized we'll start seeing more info pouring on to the web. I'm just hoping some of it has to do with a new toy line

I don't think anyone is talking about the SDCC one, we're talking about all the regular releases. They're showing up with more regularity for $59.99 and there's a good bet they'll make their way for that price to brick&mortar stores so you will be able to get them for $20 each... and not long after that the retailers will probably mark them down even more. If you look at new Yammy 1/48 releases, they always start at one price point because not all the vendors have them yet and work their way down over the next few months as competition escalates... the same will happen here (on a much smaller scale... literally!)

Well, I'll be one of the first to buy it and review it on my website Unfortunately, I'm so MOSPEADA biased that it's bound to rub off on the new Robotech production. I'll have to watch it several times and try to be as critical as possible... but no matter what I say I'm sure many will vehemently disagree. As always, take it for what it costs right? The best opinion on something like this is your own.

This is just a word definition post, it's not meant to sound snippy or anything but we disagree so it may read that way - As I mentioned before, heatshields and swapping have nothing to do with "perfect transformation." The original Takatoku is a perfect transformation toy and has no heatshield so you can see the cockpit in battroid mode (or, conversely, it has only a heatshield so you can't see a cockpit in fighter mode). That toy is heralded as being one of the best early examples of perfect transformation. Therefore, the fact that this Toynami 1/100 can go from battroid to fighter and back again with either a cockpit or heatshield equipped the full time (granted, it'd look a bit strange in either one or two modes) means it operates within the realm of perfect transformation. This also means that the MPC, with its removeable heatshield, is perfect transformation. By your logic, the 1/48s aren't perfect transformation because you have to remove the intake covers... You have to draw a line somewhere... that line is drawn by most where accessories come into play, such as heatshields or intake covers. The funny thing is, about your comment regarding saving for a 1/55, I'm currently doing a full review of the first Banprestos (not that anyone really cares about those anymore) and in the concluding paragraph I go into the options and say That review will be up tomorrow or Friday... my batteries died on my camera tonight and I'm helping a buddy move tomorrow.

Holy crap is the Alpha ever a fight to get back into fighter mode. Yes, those tabs are meant to hold the legs. I've actually found that the vast majority of people who say their Alpha sits on its chest instead of the landing gears actually haven't managed to get their Alpha back into the proper fighter mode... most likely due to those tabs. Believe me, I'd be the first to overlook the flaws on any new Legioss toy but damn, the design of that toy doesn't work at all in that scale. Whoever mentioned the retarded use of diecast in the arms was spot on too. Eh, I still think it looks gorgeous though and that's why I've got so many of 'em.

By perfect transformation I just mean "perfectly variable", as in you don't have to take it apart and reassemble it like some old SDF-1 toys and the Yamato 1/60 line. I won't hold the heatshield against it since you don't really NEED to swap heatshields and the original Takatokus didn't even have heatshields and they were "perfect transformation" toys. I'll go back and edit the wording though, I think "perfectly variable" is much more concise. Edit - For the record, I am not a "Toynami supporter" but I do come across that way at times because of how much I hate the Yamato 1/60 (VF-1) toys. I would like to believe that if this exact 1/100 toy were made by Yamato, Bandai, or Banpresto I would have created the same impression of it. I also am a pretty easy going guy so as long as toys don't fall apart in my hands I tend to enjoy them in some respect. I am a Legioss/Alpha supporter though, I have to admit that Edit II - Did anyone notice the art on the back of the box shows Hikaru with a black heatshield on his VF-1S? Also, for the member who photo shopped the weaknesses of the sculpt down (shoulders and chin)... great job!

I still think that even if Basara's valk is 90% different it's not a huge deal. The engineering is the same. They would just have to reproduce the existing molds with lots of minor tweaks and slap it together just like the previous toy. Costs would not be prohibitive. If your point is that they wouldn't do it because it involves effort and they could just repaint the thing non-canon colors and keep selling it then you very may well be right.

He may be going off the actual dimensions listed by sites as the dimensions for fighter mode. Seriously, the dimensions the fighter is supposed to have are wacky short and stocky with tiny wings. IIRC, the MPC Alpha is over an inch too long in fighter mode.

My review is the latest post on my site, to read it, CLICK HERE. I rushed it out so if you see anything patently wrong or even spelling flub ups let me know I'll work on doing some fun comparison stuff and setting up a second post as time permits.

One time when Eugimon was yelling at me for dreaming of a 1/48 2 seater I examined how to make a heatshield that would work. I forget what thread it was in but I think I came up with two ways that weren't all that crazy complicated to get the heatshield to work. It would definitely take a bit of retooling of the current molds but since that's necessary already it doesn't seem like that's a problem. All my hypothesizing is pretty meaningless though, if NB4M can actually make it happen, now that's something!

Graham, can you please enlighten me as to how anyone at Yamato felt the Koenig was worth making yet they wouldn't dare bother to put together a toy of the actual Macross???

A word of caution on the Banprestos, they are extremely photogenic. Here's a pic from my review of them, it's a pic I love to this day so don't pick on it I think that pic looks great but the toy leaves a ton to be desired. I'm kinda bummed that most of the comparison shots I've seen so far compare the 1/100 Toynamis to previously made toys that include fast packs. I don't blame people for this though since it's kind of a hassle to strip your toys down for some comparsion shots but I think we all know how much fast packs do improve the look of these toys. Still, proportion-wise, I think we can all see the 1/100s have some weaknesses. I can't wait to get mine so I can do a thorough review!

So let me get this straight, you're arguing that the other variations would be unlikely because there'd be a fair amount of remolding involved.... but the YF-19, as a one-off product, makes sense?? That is some seriously confusing logic. Yes, the YF-19 is the best known but the VF-19K isn't all that far behind (tragically). I think once you get the engineering done the modifications to molds isn't as huge a deal as some would lead you to believe. As an accountant I actually poured through some numbers on this once (albeit, the analysis was open to numerous flaws) and the costs per unit of remolding several pieces was never prohibitive (so long as demand didn't fluctuate too violently).

Great stuff, I've always wished I had a modicum of talent when it came to things like this.

Yeah, I've always suspected we'll see a Shadow Chronicles lines of toys. By its very nature this means we'd see new Alpha toys and, potentially, Beta toys.

LOL, so true.

Hey thanks a ton, glad you appreciate them. It's definitely a labor love! I take about 40 pics of every toy, some day I'll have a photo archive linked to my website so people who access the review can check out the 40 reference pics also (most of those are just static pics for comparisons... I usually only take 3 or 4 pics of the toys actually in action poses). In the meantime I'll keep posting some gems over here for a much wider audience

More pics from my reviews at www.anymoon.com (shameless promotion, I know, but I like my pics!). I added all the Mac+ toys: (yes, I know the VF-11Bs should have their orange heatshields... I just never removed them from the plastic... check it out though, I did get the YF-21FP back into the proper fighter mode without a gap behind the cockpit)