MKT

Nice! Happy it can do Gerwalk well. This was one of the shortcomings of the HMR VF-1, which does highlight the age of its HM roots.

Any eventual Reactive Armor for this should already look better than Arcadia’s, because of the plug-in shorter wings option. The lower armor at back will not look as disproportionately large, as though it’s wearing coattails.

A great first look video Some thoughts: 1. As some members speculated earlier, the arms are on sliding rails, consistent with rest of Bandai’s VF-1 toys. 2. The landing gears are also an improvement over other HMR VFs in its implementation, although still not perfect transformation. 3. Nice to see integrated shoulder covers for this scale. 4. Unlike its close cousin the HMR VF-1, it’s great that the gun is not a partsformer. 5. I find it somewhat hilarious the arresting hook is blocked by the gun. This is similar to Arcadia’s mistake in their first VF-0(D) release, but fixed in subsequent VF-0 releases by moving the gun slightly forward to allow full clearance for the hook. 6. It is disappointing the cockpit can’t be opened, but have to be pulled out completely. In the HMR VF-1, well perhaps due to its smaller size, visually it might have been arguably better to have partsforming cockpits between modes. But on this VF-0 with the integrated cockpit shield, there is really no reason to not have a hinge for the cockpit. As per the HMR VF-4, I don’t see why it can’t be done when cockpit hinge was implemented for the VF-2SS. 7. It does have some visual advantage over the larger Arcadia. That rainbow cockpit is looking real pretty, & the larger, fixed posed hands do make for more expressive battroid poses. Arcadia curiously omitted fixed posed hands, so its integrated hands look somewhat small.

From the Twitter link @seti88 posted above, HMR VF-0 fighter mode is also not that much bigger than the VF-1. No surprises I guess. Below 1/60 VF-0 & VF-1 comparison:

The upscale does look better comparatively. As it is, Bandai appeared to have made the VF-0S about same height as the VF-4, & just a smidge shorter than the VF-2SS. Irregardless of the correct scales for both VF-1 & VF-0, we are so used to Yamato/Arcadia's comparative sizes that this just feels like Bandai made the VF-0S slightly bigger just to be able to say that it is larger than the VF-1. Well, let's see how the fighter modes sizes stack up later..

It is kinda par for Bandai's Macross molds of that era though. Which is why Arcadia's molds generally have much better precision with their tighter fit, whilst Bandai's always feel a bit more toylike with slightly more freeplay and gaps here and there..

Bandai have been really efficient in making the packages as small as possible lately. The Chogokin VF-1D is one example. It'll be a bit of shame if they reverse course now. Perhaps it's their way to justify the unusually higher MSRP for this..

Another fantastic box art! Though looking at the back, only 1/5 of the space is taken up by the actual toy itself. Wonder what fills the rest of it..

Nice score. This 1/72 v2 doesn’t appear often. I won one at YAJ last year, but the deal eventually went sour. So still looking for a copy myself.

Ace Toys also releasing a black version. Although, it looks too drab & details are kinda lost in this scheme.

Just quoting what the designer says in his Triple Jim presentation, words in brackets are my own interpretation: 1. Helicopter blades can be folded up and hidden into the toy for Car and Robot mode, unlike the old toy in which the blades are just unplugged and put aside. 2. The cockpit for Car and Heli mode fits Reina in it, whilst there is a smaller cockpit parts-forming option in Robot mode for a more toon accurate look. Although the smaller cockpit will not fit Reina, in the anime Reina is never shown to be inside the cockpit in Robot mode anyway. 3. There is also another slimmer parts-forming option to replace the bulky underside of Heli / the back of Robot mode (bulky part looks to be the rear of Car mode). 4. Reina will have her own sword sized appropriately to her, although it is technically the same sword used by Rom in the anime and looks larger when he wields it (Rom figure in the video appears to be the same figure that came with the already released Pose+ Baikanfu, and Reina here appears to be scaled appropriately to him). 5. There are no plans at moment to release the other bots in Machine Robo, due to licensing complications. (Early in the video, the host commented that while other bots in the anime were adopted from an existing toyline, Triple Jim was a bot conceived specifically to the anime and the toy only came later. Perhaps this is where the licensing complications comes in.)

It looks like both bike & rider are based on the Popy PX-03. Kaneda himself is almost the same pose, except with interchangeable arms and much sharper face sculpt. As for the bike itself, its stand at the bottom and the front forks being able to be lifted higher are features that are similar to the PX-03 and if I’m not wrong, not present on the 1/6 version.

Ok I mixed up copper with bronze lol.. just like whatever color it is on those intakes.

We are going to find out very soon, the actual height of this HMR VF-0..

Well, I came across this today. A 3rd party 1/15 Kaneda's bike with nice light up features like the official 1/6 version:

Looking great @MacrossJunkie! On top of the general colour scheme for Max's, one of the nice standout detail unique to this scheme would be the bronze intake covers that's very visible on battroid. Somehow makes it pop.

I love how Pose+ designer regularly comes out & directly presents a preview of the stuff being made, although this video is a bit light on details. For the Tri-charger: 1. JJ is 3.7” tall (which appears to be slightly being less than the advertised 10cm), so that places him to be approx 1/18 scale. But JJ is still a prototype, & may have some changes before release. 2. Trike mode includes a pair of plug in hands in front, to emulate the scene in the anime of the trike pushing against a trailer(?). 3. Due to nature of Tri-charger transformation, theoretically any well articulated 1/18 figure as its rider would be compatible for all modes. It is also this reason that standalone articulated Apple & Champ figures may be made in future, depending on fan response to this Tri-charger. It’s too bad he did not demonstrate the transformation of the prototype Tri-chargers; I hope he’ll do that in a future video. Planned release is after all rather far away in exactly a year. Also liked the way the display stand for the toy has these couple of cool acrylic inserts:

Yeah can’t figure out where the blade goes in bike mode..

Let’s say both TV & DYRL SDF-1 weren’t flying off shelves at the beginning, the prices now have rocketed way beyond their MSRP. This being looking at Yamcadia DYRL & Cosmo Fleet TV SDF-1s. But Chogokin Quarter being the only toy of itself will still occasionally turn up at less than HMR (VF-0) prices.

I don’t know why the Chogokin Quarter didn’t do well. Was it because capital ships traditionally don’t sell well? Yet the SDF-1 toys don’t have this problem. Was it because it generally wasn’t a great toy due to not being able to hold up its own limbs well? Perhaps there were too many Macross toys being released in that few years time frame. From memory, it seemed there was a Chogokin & Yamato release every month, so valks become the priority for most people. But usually as time goes by, prices of these things increase as supply dries up & people realizing there are no updated or new versions of a particular toy. Yet, the secondary prices of Quarter still firmly remain below MSRP after all these years.. It was nice Bandai did Macross Elysion under the small Mecha Collection range, but I am still hoping they come out with something much larger, & extend it to the Gigasion or something.

Mecha wise, Battle Astrea looks the most appealing, somehow grafting on those wings makes it look good. I like how Macross Gigasion was depicted as well, though not so sure about its colors.. Would like Bandai to make these into Chogokins, but I think outside of Frontier when it was the golden age of Chogokins, slim chances on these then.

I don't know... Almost half of what Bandai show for Macross these days turn out be blue balls items. Really takes you on high and lows.. Conversely, Arcadia hardly does that. What was the last item they majorly hinted or shown, but ultimately cancelled? Was it the VF-0 CF?

Barring some production or QC issues, this look to be a fantastic interpretation for the Tri-charger. JJ look to be a good action figure on its own, as compared to many other mecha toys that comes with its pilot whose articulation is always much more basic. Liking how the monitor screen graphics can be swapped out between modes.

I gave the movie a second watch, and this time I enjoyed it better. This was after I went through specific scenes from the Delta series and parts of the Walkure concerts, to recap some of the details and mood it sets. Probably my mistake watching it first time round was going in straight thinking I could still sufficiently recall details from the earlier shows, but could not and so quite a few story details went over my head then. But I still could not accept the insanely fast cut battle scenes involving the valks this time around, nor the framing of them. They are just horrible & Michael Bay-litis in the worst way. Mostly, it is just not enough time given to the shots in the beginning for the viewers to establish what they are looking at or where they are in the frame. A couple of many examples to choose from: When watching Delta series the first time around years ago, I remember thinking the valk battles were already too fast, and could barely follow the action on some of them. But rewatching them now, they feel like such a treat compared to this movie. So for this movie rewatch, I had to do a lot of pausing during the valk battles to fathom what they were actually doing. Based on this alone, watching it on home media is the best way to appreciate it because I bet lots of the valk battle details would be lost on the audience in the cinemas.

I’m thinking;