Inwards

This is Sea Marine from Fireman. The robot himself is of course called "Fireman" as well. http://www.zincpanic.com/series/329.html

Everything Yamato: http://www.zincpanic.com/view_manufacturer.phtml?toys=12293 Everything Macross: http://www.zincpanic.com/view_series.phtml?toys=464

Here's a list of most of his designs: http://www.zincpanic.com/view_character_de...ort=Date&page=1

Yamato got a new president and he doesn't like talking to fanboys. Graham wasn't the only one to get cut off. It probably didn't help that he visited this website once...

Complex and pricy collectibles really began with Banadai's Soul of Chogokin line back in 1997. Later, garage manufacturers like Studio Half Eye putting out crazy stuff like the perfect change Getter Robo. Released in the latter half of 2000, Yamato's 1/72 Macross Plus valks were relative late-comers to the adult collectible toy market. By the time the 1:48 appeared on the scene in November 2002, it wasn't really anything unique or special. But I guess we can thank Yamato for proving to the industry that there's a market for over-priced, obsessively-detailed collectibles with marginal QC. >:>

That would be Gaogaigar, he made my list Are you sure that it's Predaking? There are a hell of a lot of other lion-chested robots out there...

Baxinger?!? No accounting for taste, I guess but damn that toy sucks. Here's why: And it is for this reason that I really can't get into any of the other aforementioned designs. All of the early combining transformer toys needed piles of extra pieces in order to work. It was a pain and has always seemed like an engineering cop-out to me. I don't mind so much when you have to discard pieces, though. I guess that's why I like Tomy's Eldoran line so much; from this springs Great Ganbalger which, at 16 inches, towers over every other combiner out there. Takara put out some great combiners from their Brave line. I personally dig Great Goldran and Super Build Tiger (which kicks Devastator's ass). If we're talking vintage, I'd have to go with Takatoku'sBig Dai X and Bandai's Voltes V and Diarugger.

Here's a good picture for scale: You can find more pics of the rest of the VOTOMS mechs here.

<shill> http://www.zincpanic.com/view_toy_line.pht...el%20No.&page=1 </shill>

Since Zinc Panic has already been plugged above, allow me to pimp it a bit further... Here's a fairly complete listing of Macross toys and designs. And here's a fairly complete listing of everything that Kawamori has designed (Macross and more). Oh, and a wee bit more info on the mythical Yamato Koenig Monster... There's loads and LOADS of Japanese robot info in there if you follow the links...

ToyboxDX does have a review, along with some pretty nice pics... http://toyboxst.inwards.com/rumblizer/view...article_key=182

I have both of these things and I have to say that they're just awful; certainly the most poorly-designed and/or QCed toys in the 1/60 line. Floppy in all modes and generally poor fit and finish -- you totally won't be doing any barrel rolls with these suckers... Just getting all three of VE-1's wheels touching the ground at the same time is a major achievement. It's lucky for Yamato that so many Macross fans are completists -- these suckers deserve to be warming the shelves.

1/72 = 3 1/60 = 9 1/48 = 2