I didn’t know what Macross was until a few months ago when I joined here. I was only familiar with Robitek. I’m glad I found this forum!
I remember RT from when I was a kid, but even after watching the real “Macross” over the past few weeks I can say I must not have seen too many of the first generation episodes. I remember the mecha (I had a Jetfire too), but I don’t remember 90% of the episodes. I remember watching the stupid Hovertanks and not understanding how that part of the series fit in. My favorite stuff was the “New Generation” stuff, or as it should be called, Genesis Climber Mospedia (I just got the DVD of this yesterday). I was an absolute nut for those episodes, so of course the toy that sticks with me the most would be the Cyclone. I remember there was a crappy second rate department store that was in the crappy second rate mall that had the Gakken Cyclones on the shelf. I had been to every toy store I could get my Mom to take me too and I never, ever saw any RT stuff, let alone a Asian market toy. For some reason I remember that the Cyclone was $36, which was a bit of change for a 7-8th grader. It’s a good thing I had a paper route! I think I had three or four Cyclones. It’s too bad I didn’t keep any.
Strangely enough though I can thank the Cyclone for getting me into Macross. For some reason this past summer I remembered that I had one as a kid and I jumped on eBay and searched one out and bought it. And that is all she wrote! I stumbled across the Toynami Mastercrap stuff and in a flurry of insanity I bid/bought all of them one weekend while I was at the track. While doing great harm to my Paypal account I stumbled across the Yamato YF-19 and picked one of those up too. When I got back into town the Toynami MP Foker was already at my house so I unboxed it and transformed it. At the time I thought it was great. Then the YF-19 showed up a few days later along with the rest of the MP stuff. I unboxed the 19 before un-boxing any more MP stuff and I am glad I did, the 19 blew me away. And there I went, I listed all of the MP stuff I had just purchased right back on eBay and went on a Yamato spending spree. Somehow I found this board shortly after.
Long story short, the Gakken Cyclone is the toy I remember. And I can thank it for getting me into Macross stuff now.
I know, it's not a Valk, but it's a good story