jenius

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)

I swear, I will have an exhaustive review and many others will too. First I need mine to get here, I'm sure other would-be reviewers are in the same boat.

Here's the ultimate solution: 1) Toynami ditches 1/55 scale... it works in the Macross universe well but does not work for Robotech where all the mechs outside of the Macross Saga were much smaller. 2) Toynami redesigns the VF-1 in 1/35 scale. That's right, 1 friggin' 35 scale. I've even fabbed up a design that's better than the Yammy 1/48 (IMHO of course) for full transformation and non-removal of parts (although the intake covers are tricky). 3) Release 1/35 scale figures to go along with the new 1/35 scale VF-1s. Yeah, they'd be small but you could make them decent representations and somewhat poseable (Hip, shoulder, elbow, knee, neck). 4) Release 1/35 scale Alpha with all the lessons learned from the first attempt including foresight of a massive 1/35 Beta to be released later. 5) Make some $$ in the meantime by selling little toys for the 1/35 figures like hovercycles, cyclones(non transformable... or break-apart transformation if they're really brave), Jim/Lunk's jeep . Another thought would to be make the main characters only available if you laid out the $$ for their respective mechs. 6) Release a 1/35 scale Beta. 7) Release a 1/35 scale Hovertank (any smaller and it'd be too small anyway. Here's the kicker, sell everything in boxes that are just functional but focus on making the products inside superior. Exo, in regard to Toynami's construction techniques, glue is cheaper and allows for sloppier tolerances than screws. In the Alpha's case it seems that the screws would have been too hard to conceal in several instances also. The Yamato 1/60s have lots and lots of screw covers on them but they flake off really easily and look funky. Toynami probably figured it was better just to go the glue route and hope nobody ever wanted to take the toy apart... not realizing how easily broken this thing was going to be.

You know, my parents were great to me as far as Transformers go and I don't collect them now. I'm sure they would have hooked me up with Robotech toys too (I'm American and at that age Robotech was all I knew about) if I ever knew to ask for Robotech toys. Problem was, I didn't get huge into Robotech until like 1990 and by that time you couldn't find merchandise for it anywhere. I wanted RT merchandise so bad I would have dreams about it. I spent my days reading those RT novels and drawing the vehicles from every saga (even Southern Cross!). I watched the shows over and over again in their FHE version. I used to scour the Longs Drugs models section hoping to find an old RT model that somehow managed to stay on the shelves. So, it's no wonder that when I got out of college and started making decent enough money and discovered a whole new world of toys that I actually began making my old dreams reality.... little did I know how costly it would become. Still, I'm grateful to Yamato and every other company making the toys I once dreamed about, the more the merrier. I've actually been pretty surprised by just how high quality all of the new Macross (and Robotech if you believe what they tell you) toys have been. We got the really crappy Banprestos and then everything else was meant to be collectors dealies. That's part of the reason I'm happy to see Toynami producing what looks to be decent equivalents of your standard GI Joe toy... something you can play with, beat to death, then replace (the 1/100s that is).

Sorry folks, don't let me derail anything or lead us down some sort of Toynami vs. Yamato thing 'cause that's the last thing I'd ever want... I just was drawing some comparisons. Believe me, I'm as bummed as anyone that more isn't being done with the GCM license. As for the whole blocking of cool Macross products, I thought that Bandai is as much the problem as HG is and I'm not even about to make heads or tails out of that situation. Basically, if a Beta gets built I'll buy it and I'll let you guys know all about it... then you can decide if you want to buy one or not

I voted that I liked it in all forms but with the understanding we're only discussing the VF-1. The VF-19 has a horrid GERWALK (IMHO) as does the VF-17 when it does that stubby guns and legs down thing. The VF-22 has a strange GERWALK I don't quite understand. So basically, for any of those other valks I mentioned they'd get "any mode but GERWALK" and the VF-1 gets "any mode, plain and simple."

It's true, I definitely threw out some huge "what-ifs" and I don't mean to make it sound like I have huge expectations or that you should. I just think everyone who is feeling burned by Toynami is misplacing a bit of their anger. Toy companies do their best and try to be profitable doing it. If their product ends up sucking but we buy a ton of it then we get angry at them instead of ourselves... and that doesn't quite make sense. So, I certainly think everyone can safely say we don't buy into the Toynami hype machine anymore... and everybody's heart is in the right place when they say "no more from that company ever again" but the statement should really just be modified to "from now on I will exercise much better judgment where that company's products are concerned." Yes, I am biased toward GCM mechs and so I do hold a higher level of optimism in regards to Toynami then most... since at this point it seems I have to.

Amen Exo though, what were you doing buying all the Alphas upon seeing the Beta?? Why not just buy Scott's since that's likely the only Alpha that would ever sell out? That way there you could handle it and determine if you wanted to buy more at some later point? Can I play devil's advocate here? Did you purchase the Mac+ toys from Yamato? Did you snap both your VF-11Bs legs off? Did you watch your YF-19 crumble in your hands? Did you enjoy opening your VF-19A to find the paint had already worn off the leg fins in transit? Did you give Yamato a second chance? Did you buy the 1/60 VF-1s? Did you marvel as the screw-covers popped off during the first transformation only to never be seen again? Did you lose one of the stupid arm guards after putting the gun in for fighter mode? Did you ever put it in GERWALK mode with super armor and laugh at the fact you could no longer twist the legs? Did you give Yamato a third chance? Did you get a Yamato 1/48? Is it not worth all the craptastic efforts that came before it? Aren't you thrilled you didn't swear Yamato off for those issues you saw in their earlier products? Yamato has grown leaps and bounds much quicker than Toynami has/will but I still think it's silly to swear off a company based on their first two "quality" products. What if the Beta comes out some day and it's Toynami's equivalent of the 1/48 VF-1? What if it doesn't come out but Toynami picks up some other license and does something stellar? Being skeptical is one thing, being rash is another. Besides, we're all familiar with prototypes not making it to production. We're all frustrated and we've become impatient... but I think we should just all turn our eyes to the great Yamato products coming out and hope some day we'll be pleasantly surprised to see the MPC Beta resurface... as something transformable that actually attaches to Alpha.

Sure, once I get it I'll see what other toys it has some similarities to and get all the pics together I can. I might just load up the server with a temporary review with a ton of pics and then go back a month later and slim it down big time.

There are ways (I would think) Toynami could probably get this thing to hitch together in a somewhat decent manner... problem is that "somewhat decent" just isn't going to fly with the negative feedback they've gotten on everything else. Everyone will immediately hit forums and say "Ugh, this thing BARELY connects, it can't even do two barrel rolls before the alpha falls off!" Ya get what I mean? The better it connects the more people will want it to live up to a toy's standards of being able to connect like Legos so the level at which people will be truly happy is a mighty high standard.

I'll be doing a full review and then a comparison to the Banprestos on my site. Bobe says he's shipping mine Thursday(ish) so I should get my review up sometime next week.

Hey Bobepat, did you ask about them releasing the 1/100s with the super armor as a separate box set like my theory for how other people will be able to get the Hikaru VF-1S?