Hazuki

i've had my 2007 MegaHouse 1/6 Mikuru Asahina since around 2009/2010 or so. i love her so much, that i have meant to pick up at least one more as a spare, and when a MIB copy showed up on the BAY a couple months ago for a mere $75shipped, i leaped right on the opportunity; these dolls are based on the generic OBITSU 1/6 doll body system. aftermarket Anime-style doll bodies for the hobbyist, that are available in various skin tones and bust sizes. MegaHouse's extensive 1/6 "ACTION FIGURE PLUS" Anime doll series are all based upon the OBITSU system. notice the much more accurate, attractive facial sculpt on the new Mikuru; she must have been from an earlier production run, when the head mold was in crisper condition, i dunno... new doll has undies on, original is naked. lip detail on both are thanks to TAMIYA COLOR X-17 PINK;

prefer DYRL for the more detailed, realistic overall VF-1 design, but tend to the most most of T.V. for it's Hikaru VF-1J scheme, which, to me, is every bit as iconic and attractive as the Jolly-Rogers' based SKULL-1...

elements of my very modest MACROSS toy collection; VF-1J Hikaru T.V. collection, finshed '85 BANDAI 1/72 HCM, '01 BANDAI 1/55 reissue, and '09 1/60 YAMATO VF-1ver.II, all with custom GU-11 straps custom made myself; YAMATO/ARCADIA 1/60 -19 series collection; Girls of MACROSS;

hi, guys. so, as a long-time Cardcaptor Sakura fan starved of product, the recent renewed interest in the series among Anime merchandise mfrs. has been a serious boon. i found out about this brand new figure last year, and jumped right on her with a preorder for a MAY 2015 release, which was pushed back a month. she finally shipped just a week ago, and mine just arrived yesterday;

i wouldn't mind owning one, wish i could swing one while they're still "affordable" but i just can not at present. as it was, i was damned lucky to have -just- been able to afford my ARCADIA last year, wish i could have managed a spare copy, perhaps i'll get lucky in the future. i really like the BANDAI's nosecone profile, as i've always found YAMATO/ARCADIA's 19 nose sculpts just a tad too aggressively "droopy" for my taste. all the same, while i do own plenty of BANDAI products, - including a 1/55 VF-1J Hikaru T.V. 2001 and a 1985 HCM of the same - i do tend towards a strong bias and overall loyalty towards YAMATO/ARCADIA, since they have taken great care of us MACROSS fans the world over, while BANDAI was spending all that time seemingly willfully ignoring that same fanbase, perhaps out of spite for not being GUNDAM fans first and foremost, or for whatever reason that only BANDAI themselves seem to know. YAMATO/ARCADIA have made a lot of misteps, shafting a lot of fans in the process, to be quite sure, but it seems to me that otherwise the firms have done everything they ever have with the greater good of the average MACROSS fan firmly in mind...

i mean, i actually LIKE complex mecha transformations, a LOT, in fact. all the same, my ARCADIA YF rather just falls together into place in each of it's modes, quite elegantly, and with a minimum of massaging, for such a complex piece of engineering. sadly, it sounds as the same definitely cannot be said of this Frontier iteration... - from what is gleaned there, this toy looks overengineered, but manageable enough. what bothers me about it, is the over-complexity. not because it might be difficult to transform, mind you, but rather because such elaborate design usually does not lend itself to long -term reliability. i mean, both my VF-19S and YF-19 have seen many, MANY transformation cycles in their time under my roof, and they BOTH STILL lock together rock solidly to this day. this cannot be strssed enough in my book; both toys have seen many years worth of accelerated wear and tear, at least by the standards of the average MACROSS toy collector, and BOTH have weathered such "Abuse" with jaw-dropping aplomb, particuarly for such coplex examples of toy origami that were once thought virtually impossible to render in three physical dimensions so faithfully. this, above all else, is why i consider the YAMATO/ARCADIA 1/60 19 kanzen-henkei toy series to be peerless engineering meisterworks that have handily earned their pride of place in my modest mecha toy collection. very sorry for rambling on/thread-jacking, but i felt that that had to be said...

sounds overengineered to hell and back. perhaps it is just as well i cannot really afford at present to join this particular owner's club...

please do consider sending it my way first...

Cute~

just finished G GUNDAM for the first time, it was awesome. while i was on a GUNDAM kick, i rewatched my 0083 set for the second run. Fantastic...

on the balance, this appears a reasonable realization of a seemingly Anime-Magic ridden design. MACROSS II was one of my first Anime back in the mid-1990's, and, while i happen to personally prefer the VF-2JA "ICARUS" i have always had a soft spot for the -2SS, and had always wanted the old BANDAI 1/00 parts forming kit. as such, i expect this new effort to leave the old model kit in the dust, and look forward indeed to how this promising design fleshes out. hopeully this prottype is merely but an early build, and this design sees refinement before final pre-production samples show up...

in a way, i wish i could have afforded to jump in on this one, since i really like the forward fuselage/nosecone profile, much more than that of my ARCADIA. on the whole, however, the ARCADIA wins out in my book, especially the look of it's BATTROID, and the seemingly "wider" appearance of it's FIGHTER mode wingspan...

hi, new guy here. once had a YAMATO YF-19, suffered the grey plastic shoulder failure. jumped right on pre-order of the ARCADIA treatment, sure glad i did. sure it was expensive, but oh so worth it!! it and the YAMATO M7 -19's are, IMHO, the very best MACROSS toys ever made, and the 1/60 VF-19S in paricular is the most perfect MACROSS toy of all time. in general, the YAMATO/ARCADIA -19 series, AFAIAC, are THE perfect marriage of 1980's-like build quality and 21st century transforming mecha toy design...