M'Kyuun

Hence my winking smiley face. The original forms for both VB-6 and the Variable Glaug are what normally constitutes GERWALK for all other variable mecha in the Macross universe. That's why they have the best GERWALK modes, IMHO. However, I love how he took these formally non-transforming mecha and gave them a 3 mode conversion. both are really cool designs, and I hope someone makes the VG at some point. It's a too cool to ignore, and would fill a void in the enemy mecha toy lineup.

Although not true valks, the VB-6 and the Variable Glaug get my votes for best GERWALK modes. Of all the valks, the SV-51 really embodies an avian predator in GERWALK, which fits with the bird theme running throughout Zero, and is the most fitting GERWALK of any valk. The VF-1 and the VF-0 by extension, have decent GERWALK modes. The flip-up backpack on the VF-1 and VF-0 is a great design.

Kids come up with some funny stuff, and sometimes remarkable. A friend has a 13 year old daughter who built a working candy dispenser that uses a simple slide to input a nickel. When the slide is pushed in, her machine takes the nickel and dispenses a gobstopper. It's small and can only hold a few gobstoppers, but the mechanism can be used continuously just by moving the little coin slide in and out. She even put a translucent red tile on the slide to indicate the end of travel. I asked her about the Friends sets; not for her. Needless to say, I was impressed by her ingenuity. I'm gonna have to sing, "Everything is stinky" next time my wife is using the facility. Love is bliss.

Wow...that's a lot of one set. Yep, I've seen the varied space theme Magnetizers, and they are very cool. I've seen that in a number of different space sets, where a model from one theme is rebuilt in the style of another. The Solar Snooper was always one of my favorite sets, and is one of only a couple in my collection that never got cannibalized. I still like to pull it out every few years and rebuild it, test it's rolling parameters, inspect the potential zero-G capabilities, all out of purely scientific, tactile, and observational motivations. Even the zooming sounds I produce vocally are to challenge the plastic's integrity when bombarded by sound waves.

Or horde it for yourself and just get her some generic doll to lose interest in after 20 minutes. Obviously, I don't have kids. I have LEGO, Transformers, Valkyries, and peaceful happiness instead.

As much as I want a regular Uni-Kitty fig, the rest of the set just seemed like a mish-mash and didn't interest me. It is cool for the variety and colors used, but the overall set, compared to what they could have given us from Cloud Cuckoo Land, just seemed lackluster. I may bow to impulse for it, but I'm pretty much holding out for Space Kitty. On the nostalgia front, I finally caved and ordered an M-Tron Mega Core Magnetizer set from Bricklink, complete, in good condition, w/ the original instructions,box and insert for $125. All in all, not a bad price for a vintage well-kept set of this size with the box. The box is torn, I guess, but that's why tape was invented. I've wanted this set ever since it came out in '90, and I recently made a friend who has 2 copies of it in his LEGO room. Seeing the awesomeness of the thing in person was the final nudge I needed to commit. Chomping at the bit for my invoice.

A lot of AFOLs have really good jobs, lots of disposable income. As far as procurement of parts, I've noticed that European stores seem to have a greater abundance of hard to find parts, especially retired parts. But if you're willing to pay the shipping...

Moko's Eva Unit 1: https://www.flickr.com/photos/legodoumoko/8681046404/ While this is just plain awesome, the rest of his photostream is full of great stuff.

Wow, Twilitech and porn stars. These are dark days on the forums. As much as I'd love to see Macross become more prominent in American pop culture, I really hope this never gets made. I don't want HG to achieve any form of success whatsoever from this license, at all, ever. I hope that within my lifetime, they will become financially incapable of holding the license and fold, taking Robotech with them into the annals of cartoon history, opening the door for the true Macross Series to be made available and uninhibited internationally. I figure they had their moment 30 years ago. Time to let go.

Although I don't care for GERWALK in general, I have to agree with Exo that the SV-51 has a cool looking GERWALK. But then again, it's badass in all 3 modes.

I 'm probably alone here, but I think it's pointless. It looks like it got stuck mid-transformation. Moreover, everything for which GERWALK is used can be accomplished by the battroid mode, so why not skip the intermediate step. Just my humble opinion.

Scyla, the hip mechanics are virtually the same as the VF-19, i.e. the fore and aft swivel attaches to the body, and the thighs attach perpendicularly to those swivels, allowing for the legs to swing laterally in and out. It's a great design, IMO, as it's much more solid than ball joints which inevitably always become sloppy. The differences are that on the YF-19, the small leading edges with small intakes that rest above the main engine intakes are on a swing bar and move to rest behind the thigh in battroid. They attach to the fore/aft swivel. The other difference is in the size of the leg position lock. It was large enough to use a finger on the VF-19, but very small on the YF-19 virtually necessitating a small tool of some sort to press it.

For the Japanese speakers among us, I'd assume that folks throughout Japan are blogging about the new YF-19. Are the same complaints cropping up there as well, and do Mr. K and his team look at them to gauge the reception of their new products? If I ran a business, I can think of no better way to get a brutally honest assessment of how well I've done than perusing the unrestrained comments, praise, and criticisms of my consumer base. I'm curious if any of these observations are getting back to Arcadia, and if they take any of it seriously enough to affect future products.

Best of luck to you, Mommar. Sincerely. As far as the YF-19, once assembled, does anyone know if these things are transformed through their various modes to actually check fit, tightness, paint, etc, for quality? Given the relatively low production numbers, it'd be nice if every piece was given a test run at the factory before being boxed up. Too much to hope for? No issues with plastic quality. All my YF-19's issues are engineering/design based. Except for lack of tampoed intake markings. That's just laziness or excessive frugality on Arcadia's part. Stickers suck.

Wow, that's some seriously sh1tty customer service. I hope you're able to find a resolution, without resorting to dishonesty. Think I'll stick to HLJ. They did right by me a few years back when I had an EVA figure come with 2 left knee pieces. I contacted HLJ, and received the right piece in the mail, at no cost.

xrentox, hope yours comes problem free. Mine came in excellent shape. I've transformed mine from fighter to battroid and back to fighter, with and without packs. Currently it has the packs on, but I think I'll be removing and boxing them for the interim future. Already, my ankle ball joints are starting to feel loose, as well as the wing swing bars. I really could have lived without the high speed feature, and all it does, IMO, is introduce one more point of weakness into the toy. While I've never had an issue with my VF-19's ankle ball joints, my YF's are already starting to weaken. It was a known weak area on the VF, and really should have been corrected with some improved engineering. My aft stabs don't lay flat, either, and I'm afraid to push them too much, as they feel like they'd break if I did so. I also wonder why they made the leg lock tabs so small... I needed to use a mechanical pencil to push them in. I can press them in with a finger on my Blazer. My overall impression is that both quality and engineering took a step back from Yamato's VF-19 series.

The love isn't gone. It's just diluted. The YF should have been superior in quality to the VF, but in my case, the opposite is true. Still, it's a damned cool toy. No regrets.

Transforming the fighter takes some fidgeting. The mid-thigh joint needs to bend one click, and the lower leg slides need to adjust from full aft inward towards the knee just a little for the wing mount pegs to line up with the slots in the leg armor. I messed with it for about 30 minutes to finally get it all lined up. The final result, at least on my copy, is a fragile but beautiful beast. But I fear it'll all fall apart lest a single mote of dust land on it.

Mine arrived today as well, from HLJ. The only packing was a single sheet of cardboard under the YF-19 box with a piece of thin cellophane stretched over it to basically keep it from sliding around. No other wrapping of any kind. While I like HLJ, their packing leaves somewhat to be desired. My 19 was pretty tight out of the box, esp the mid-thigh clicky joints. I found one tiny red paint smear, but all other apps look pretty good so far. Bummed they didn't even tampo the Danger Intake markings; those are standard fare on a valk. Pretty damned inexscusable on a $300 collectible, IMHO. A couple issues on mine: In battroid, there's a 3mm gap between the belly plate and the landing gear doors once the nosecone is snapped into the chest. The lower edge of the belly plate sits too high, and will not flush up to the gear doors. The nosecone/belly plate angle into position perfectly prior to being snapped into the chest. I can't determine what's keeping the whole assembly from angling down further, but it looks off, and it bugs me. Also, one of my shoulder FAST packs would not attach due to the connection being a hair too wide. I filed it, and now it works. There's no click to the leg packs, at least on mine. I had to press the hell out of them to keep them from falling off. And, the right ankle ball joint already feels a little bit loose. It holds a pose, but it's noticeably looser than the left. I don't do GERWALK, so I can't say how it will fare in that position. Overall, after handling my VF-19, which is about as perfect as one of these things can be, I'm a little let down by my YF-19, for the above reasons. It's still an awesome figure, and outshines the Yamato YF-19, but for the money, I would have expected a little better. And c'mon Arcadia, Bandai tampos the crap out of their valks. Even Transformers have more tampo printing.

Carted one on AmiAmi, as well, but had to register, by which time they were already sold out. Just snagged one over at CDJapan. 5000 yen for EMS shipping. Ouch! But I didn't have to register; Paypal and done. I never heard of CDJapan, so I appreciate the heads up. Skullmilitia, I'd hang on to the G. It sells for higher value than the F, plus, IMO, it's the nicest looking of the VF-25 series, even moreso with Super Packs. Thus far, it's the only renewal 25 I own, and I love it. If I had to choose, the G would be a keeper.

I'm looking forward to this, too. Good reboot of the series, IMO.

On smaller models, I don't mind picking through a pile. However, when you have a multi-thousand part model, I wouldn't mind subassemblies. The opposite is true, though. My wife got me the Tower Bridge set (4287 pcs), and nothing is numbered. There are multiple bags of the same parts, though, so I would exhaust one bag, and then open another, just to keep the clutter down. I remember the UCS Millennium Falcon taking me a week to build, as my space was severely limited, so I had to keep the parts bags in the box and sort through them for parts. I think that was the only time I didn't enjoy building a set, since it took so long to find the parts I needed for any given step. Sure looked fantastic when it was done though. Worth the frustration in the end. I have a sizeable collection, the majority of which is not sorted, so I feel like an archaeologist everytime I need a particular part for a project.

The green and red striping just under his windshield looks out of place. I wish that was a 2 sided part that could rotate to present a black side for bot mode. It's not a deal breaker, but it I don't think it looks right. Better yet, the windshield could slide down to cover it and sit just above his hips to give him a much more animation accurate look.

Light bluish grey is correct (medium stone grey, LEGO official name). Light grey, the original classic color, has been long retired. Agree with opening a virgin set...great feeling. I'd also rather have an unassembled set shipped to me. Thus far, every used set I've ever bought came disassembled or mostly so. As far as the next new valk, I hope Kawamori-san steps away from the traditional fighter look in favor of current 6th gen fighter concepts. There are some really pretty designs on the web, and the next manned American fighter is going to be a wholly different animal from its predecessors, along with its weapons systems. We're rapidly bridging the gap from sci-fi to sci-reality. Not sure if such a thing would work in Macross...50 missiles with their windy exhaust trails rocketing towards their target is a pretty cool visual, as opposed to an EMP emitter, sonic weapons, or non-lethal incapacitants. Same can be said for any projectile weapon...much more visual impact.

Lucky, I probably won't get mine until Friday. Gonna be a long week of anticipation. Funny, Thursday's my wife's birthday, but I'm getting the better present.