Chronocidal

Yeah, I really just cannot understand the weird elbow thing. All of the packaging still shows the original (correct) design as well, so I don't know what went wrong. Looking specifically at the elbows, they do not look like they're a separate moving part, they look like they've been sandwiched between the arm halves as part of the structure now. I think my biggest overall concern, from a handling perspective? This thing is beautifully painted, and nice and heavy.. but because of that, it comes off as something you are not intended to handle frequently. Yamato/Arcadia, and even Bandai valks are primarily unpainted plastic with varying amounts of tampo prints, and they can generally be handled without too much worry of scraping or damaging the paint. The couple of Arcadia weathering versions I have seem to have a clear coat specifically to protect the weathering. This thing may as well have a giant sign on it saying "WARNING: FRAGILE PAINT - HANDLE WITH CARE." Everything is painted. All of the plastic, all of the metal. But I'm not seeing any sign of a clearcoat. The two thruster/sensors on the sides of my intakes have already lost all of their panel-lining, just from me picking up the toy. It brushed off disturbingly easily, and it makes me wary of actually handling it too much. The tampo warnings on the nose blisters are wearing off just from clipping the hips into the nose. It looks very nicely finished, but that means it's much more like a model than a toy, and should probably be treated as such. On the other hand though.. I know I complained earlier about needing the side covers to hold the battroid together. That's not entirely true. The hips still clip in well enough to hold it decently, and I discovered earlier that leaving the back able to shift enables a few poses you wouldn't be able to accomplish otherwise. Without the chest and back locked by the fillers, you can push the wings out far enough to let the intake rotate completely back. The torso is a bit sloppy this way, but it also gives you a pretty substantial upgrade in flexibility. I'm not usually one that experiments with poses much, so I'm not sure if any of the other VF-1s on the market can pull this off, but I don't think any of them have this deep of a knee bend. Have we ever gotten a transforming VF-1 that can do a kneeling/aiming pose? (No, the Revoltech doesn't count ) The only real downside to those ankles (aside from being a little loose forward to back) is that they don't twist side to side, since they aren't ball joints. So yeah, the more I mess with it, the harder a time I have giving a this guy a fair assessment, because I keep finding things it can do that I don't usually look for.. The amount of paint worries me with the potential to rub while handling and transforming it, but this may be the most posable (near)perfect transformation VF-1 we've gotten to date. I'm just having a harder and harder time calling it a "toy," because it seems the most likely to lose paint out of every VF-1 I own at this point.

What I really want out of the HMR line at this point is for Bandai to actually acknowledge all of the things they have teased, and then buried in their "unfulfilled promises" warehouse like the ark of the covenant. And, you know. A mini YF-19 and Non-Bandai DX-based YF-21 mold.

Yeah, no. I tried, and it looks like they've completely redesigned the arm since that initial photo. The elbow section feels completely glued in place. Just doesn't make a lick of sense.

Generally "non canon" just means things like DYRL which are supposed to be movies that were filmed in-universe, similar to how part of Frontier's plot is the production of a Macross Zero movie. I think some of the characters in Macross 7 at one point actually discuss watching DYRL in theaters, so the whole thing is really one giant pile of meta-narrative. The really "fun" question to ask.. was the Macross Zero we watched the in-universe movie, or the actual event? It's been debated back and forth what the "actual" version of any event really is, with regards to things like the differences between SDFM and DYRL. The same thing kind of happened with both Frontier and Delta, since the summary movies changed some key events (Frontier's changes were probably the most drastic). I think the most common consensus is something like "the truth lies somewhere in the middle." Which.. of course, only Kawamori really knows. I believe Macross 2 is the only one generally referred to consistently as an "alternate timeline." While you could speculate it could also be some kind of in-universe production in the canon Macross universe, I think everyone just agrees that since Kawamori wasn't involved (in either the designs or the plot itself), it needs to be placed in a separate category.

Just in a general sense, I think the Bandai DX does about half of those specific things, which the ThreeZero entry mimics for the most part, as well as adding that inner ankle panel you mention. Bandai did add some coverage for the empty spaces from the top of battroid by adding a filler panel to the hatch that opens to let the head through, and added that specific outward joint at the hips, though it doesn't have as much range as you might hope. I'm not sure there's actually enough room in the intake to put a full 90-degree lateral extension. while still maintaining the other 90-degree bend for gerwalk mode. Getting the hips to clear the wings is probably a pipedream without somehow shortening them, but I'd be curious what you mean for the hip bar and mushroom swivel. Some of what you mentioned might actually be closer to how the HMR VF-1s do the hips, since they forego the thin hip bar for a larger bracket that mounts behind the nose and clips around it, and they do include a smaller clip-on set of wings for battroid to get them out of the way, but the HMR releases accept a fair amount of parts-swapping. Not sure a really good way to lock the backpack has ever been developed though, short of how the backpack booster mounts lock it in place by presence alone. A more robust backpack hinge with solid detents would probably be a good start. You might enjoy some of the tweaks ThreeZero made to the design, since it seems more focused on making a solid battroid figure. My comments were pretty harsh on it, but I got soured a bit by some paint damage and having to heavily modify the arm sliders out of the box to transform the toy at all. Have to agree with your earlier thought though, I'd be really curious to see how Takara would approach the subject. On another subject entirely, I've always wondered if someone could manage some kind of insane collapsing panel origami to give Megatron legs that were a good size in robot mode, but collapsed down to make the grip of the pistol not look like some kind of double-wide magazine customization.

The Messer HMR was just a completely baffling choice, full stop. Why, when Delta has two canon VF-1J schemes seen in the training episode, would they just whip up some bizarre half-cooked transfer design for the scheme of one of the least-interesting characters in the show? (At least, I was under the impression he was, but I don't even try to understand the Japanese character popularity ratings.) It was DUMB. And they still have not made those Hayate and Mirage schemes in any format. Seriously, WTF Bandai? Unfortunately, a lot of the best schemes they cooked up for Macross 30 were for toys that Bandai just doesn't seem to care about revisiting, unlike their golden child the YF-29.

Maybe crossed wires and thinking of the VF-0S HMR Max? But yeah, they'll do weird one-off schemes sometimes, but I'm sure it's dependent on how well the base mold has sold. The ridiculous abundance of YF-29 repaints is honestly staggering compared with everything else.

They also produced several paint schemes (Ozma's. Rod's, and Isamu's YF-29s) and one valk (the YF-30) that are entirely unique to either Macross 30, or one of the other games. I seriously doubt there is an IP issue there. There were also a lot of really good schemes out of Macross 30 that they entirely ignored, probably because they were on other valks that didn't sell as well, and they didn't see them as worth the investment. I'd probably chalk Aisha's pink VF-19A up to that as well, since I really don't know how well it would have sold, but even with how bad the VF-171 releases were, I would have absolutely grabbed the Diamond Force or Millia repaints they gave it in the game.

Thing is, there are still plenty of repaints Bandai could do of the YF-19 mold. They just don't. This applies to Arcadia too though. The closest we've gotten was the VF-19 Advance, which was just a YF-19 in SMS markings, while everything else remained essentially the same. I think Yamato got burnt with their Double Nuts and Bird of Prey releases for the old YF-19, and concluded no one really wanted anything else. There have been several video game schemes that could have been used (both VFX, and Macross 30 ones at least), and that's not even touching the Master File, or the assorted sets of markings that Hasegawa has released their kits with (which may have also come from the Master File).

One thing I actually didn't consider, and realized just messing with transforming it again to mess with battroid, it really doesn't have anything to hold it together without the side fillers. I generally leave those in the box for all of my VF-1s, since I've never really been bothered by the side gap, but this one absolutely needs them to keep the torso together. Almost feels like I should apologize for the frequent edits, but I'm still kind of processing my thoughts on this one. I think.. overall? The paint and finish are something that sets it apart (though the panel lining on the intake pods has worn off just from me casually picking it up by the thighs?), and it's definitely heavy. I'm not entirely sure what is and isn't diecast because I think all of the plastic is painted to match it, but it feels like some substantial chunks of it are. My first impressions weren't good, thanks to the non-working arm sliders and messed up paint on the wing, so I might have judged it a bit too hard. But the short/simple summary is that this is just an odd beast to measure up. Good: - Lots of detail, sturdy joints, even if they aren't ratcheted, it just feels good to handle overall. - Overall shape and design are solid, looks like a nice hybrid of Yamato, Bandai DX, and HMR design features. - Many features taken directly from the Bandai DX and shrunken down, with better landing gear than the DX. - Some good innovation on the feet with the sideways hinge. - Transformation works smoothly, no real hitches once the arm sliders were fixed. Bad: - Arm sliders may or may not work without drilling them out. - Missile pylons seem completely oversized to use the wing hardpoints, while also looking incredibly small for 1/60 scale. - Panel lining is seeming pretty easy to casually rub off with mild handling, but will have to see how it survives over time. - Hidden button locks are an interesting feature, but just make transformation more annoying, and you almost need three hands to operate them because they're so awkward to press while both holding the toy and pulling on the part to extend it. - Elbow joints are just bizarrely designed, and bend in the wrong place entirely. - The little sliding hip bar slot cover (the front of the nose blisters) was entirely sloppy on mine, had to pull out the pin and wrap it with tape to give the slider friction. I remember this being a problem for someone else as well. - The beefy forearms are really only a negative in fighter mode, since they look good otherwise, but between them and the oversized gunpod, they hang too low, and that gunpod is planted firmly on the ground when displayed on the landing gear. Though, as an unintentional bonus, it stops the arms from sagging off of their pegs, so... partial positive? Ugly: - This valk actually requires more parts swapping than an HMR to transform. Two side covers to hold the torso together, versus swapping the canopy cover on the HMR. And whether or not you consider swapping the transforming fixed fists to be able to hold the gun acceptable, that's also something the HMR VF-1 doesn't need, because one of its tiny fold-in fists can hold the gunpod. I kind of feel like I want to see if I can make a stowable fist that can grip the gunpod. None of the issues are really huge, but it kind of feels like the small issues add up. The partsforming aspect feels bad though, and it didn't even occur to me until today, after I was transforming one of my HMRs to compare the proportions, and realized I only need to swap a single part. Late Update: I will absolutely give credit to ThreeZero where it is due. They're shipping me a replacement for the wing with the damaged stripe as soon as they can get the part in-hand to send. If only Bandai could ever be that helpful!

Yeah, not sure why the ankles aren't great, but I'm just not a fan of friction-only joints in general, and these are all just pinned with no screws to tighten if they ever loosen. I was actually surprised they're not ball joints, since that ankle panel would give them so much room to twist if they were. Maybe I could squeeze something gently with a pliers to tighten them up. The paint wasn't a QC issue though, it was a boneheaded packing issue. The sleeve they taped over the wing to protect the painted details got aligned badly, and stuck the tape directly to the painted stripe, dissolving it, so removing the tape ripped it off. I emailed them about a replacement part, so we'll see if they can send me a new one after they return from holidays next week. (Getting a valk with actual customer service feels weird though. ) The hands.. eh. I didn't realize the fists actually would fit into the arms, so that is slightly better than I thought. I didn't think the doors opened far enough to fit them. Still would have preferred a blocky fist that could hold the gunpod on one side, but it is what it is. Really, it kind of just boils down to this one looking best in anything but fighter mode. It doesn't look terrible at all, but the weird leg angles and chunky/droopy arms don't work well, and those problems just don't exist as long as it's in gerwalk or battroid mode. (Or maybe it just needs to never be displayed on the gear.) Amusing side note.. this is probably the sturdiest box of any valk I own. ThreeZero uses thick cardboard for their packaging.

Really fun reading your thoughts, thanks! The box absolutely blew me away when I saw what it was, it's just hilariously brazen. But yeah, it's a pretty good quality level for a KO, but there are definitely differences you can feel in the quality from one of the originals. Adjusting the shoulder joints, and filing down the chest tabs to let it unlock easier made a lot of difference for me. I ordered a pair, and will be converting one into a more faithful Jetfire, stripping the UN SPACY markings off, but probably not going so far as to try and replicate all the mechanical details painted on the original legs. One very easy change to make is removing the skull from the canopy cover, since it's just tampo'd onto black plastic, and comes off with some thinner (I used a Gundam Marker eraser pen). I know the original toy had the bare canopy, but the canopy cover gives him the look on the box-art, so I figured it was a good option, if I don't want to just pop the cover out of its track and remove it. The skulls on the boosters are going to be trickier, since they'll need repainting, or stickers to cover the entire thing. I expect we'll see custom sticker sets for these coming out from various sources soon though.

I'd be pretty surprised if Bandai actually does the whale blood version, though a few people joked about that as a limited run for the Yamato when it came out. If they did that as an exclusive, and made the plain white one a regular release, I'd be perfectly happy, but I wouldn't put it past them to only make the bloody one, and never give us the clean version.

The one you're thinking of is the VF-19P, and so long as Bandai doesn't just drop the line abruptly, it's the most similar model to the Fire Valk, since it only needs a new head, gunpod, and leg panels, since they put back the lower leg fins seen on the YF-19. Something to note, the HMR Fire Valk already has the peg-holes necessary to mount those fins on the shoulders. Whether they actually make it remains to be seen, but this one would be the least work to produce after the Fire Valk. I wouldn't expect this one to be a regular release though, so probably more likely to be a webshop item.

Yeah, it's a mistake alright. There's a big smudge in the middle of the wing where it looks like someone just jabbed there thumb before the paint was dry. Unfortunately, I'm probably out of luck returning it to BBTS, since they don't offer returns for "minor paint defects," which.. I wouldn't call it minor, but it's not a huge glaring issue. I contacted ThreeZero directly to see if I can just get a replacement part for that wing, since I've read they do offer pretty good service for parts replacement. As far as transformation goes though, I'm actually pretty satisfied that I was able to fix the arm sliders myself. The backplate is pretty easy to completely disassemble, just a few screws, so I was able to get to the arm sliders to work on them. What it resulted in was me having to drill them out so they would actually move under a reasonable amount of force. Note, I didn't drill them completely, because then there would be absolutely no friction, and there's no solid locking mechanism for them in fighter mode. I basically drilled halfway into each slider with a 7/16" drillbit, and it reduced the friction enough that I can move them reasonably easily, but they don't slop around. So.. overall positives? It looks good. Probably best in battroid as others have noted, since the chunky arms don't work well for fighter mode. Like I mentioned before, the landing gear doors are a serious mechanical improvement over Bandai's. Paint all looks good, minus that wing, and the panel lining isn't as stark in person as it looked in early shots. The details like the lenses on the wrists and lower legs are a step up from plain tampo like the Yamato, or even the molded detail on the Bandai. I'm not sure they're supposed to be lenses, but they look nice that way. The wrists are just metallic paint, but it pops. The negatives of the design are pretty numerous though. No ratchets anywhere to be found, and it actually makes posing battroid and gerwalk pretty precarious. My ankles are giving me flashbacks to the Yamato Fire Valk's, and they take some careful balancing to make sure they don't just collapse. It even has issues standing on the feet in fighter mode, which is something I've never really seen happen on any VF-1 before, since most of the weight is low to the ground in that position. It's not exactly wobbly, but give it much of an angle, and it just flops over. As mentioned, yeah, there are no hands in the arms at all. It's really bizarre that the entire arm opens up with a ton of space, and it only stores the peg to mount the fixed pose hands on. If they had reversed the hands to put the socket on the wrists, there would have been no reason to open the arms at all, and you could have just snapped covers over them. I would have been perfectly fine with even some basic blocky G1 Jetfire hands to fold out, but there's just nothing in there. Generally the design uses the same attachment pegs for the legs and arms as Bandai, with all of the same detriments. They just sag overtime. Nothing locks the arms in place in fighter at all, they just stay up by friction in their joints, and that same vertical peg into the elbow. Only, unlike the Bandai version, the arm-locking pegs are actually metal on this one, which means it's much more difficult to sand them down to make them fit, and the arms just pop off constantly. No painted gear, like Bandai, and there are some odd exposed metal joint pins on the legs that probably could have been covered somehow. The locking buttons for the legs and feet? I admit they're a novel idea, and function as intended. But they're more of a nuisance than anything else. I'd much rather have simple clicking extensions. And there is absolutely no clearance for the gunpod on the gear. The arms are just far too thick, and it drags on the ground in front and back. The gunpod is also quite a bit larger than the one on the 1/60 Yamato, so that's part of the issue. It looks like it was scaled based on the Bandai DX instead. Now.. the weird bits. This thing.. is really hard to pin down. It feels like a three-way hybrid between a Bandai DX, a Yamato 1/60, and an HMR. It has a pile of features lifted directly from the Bandai DX design (the foldout support in the backplate for battroid mode, the shape of the built-in neck and shoulder covers, the hip mounting door in the nose, the sideways joints in the hips, the shape of the feet and thruster vents, the folding nosecone). But the overall shape of the valk in fighter mode though is closer to the more raked angular look of an HMR VF-1, with the arms angled so that the gunpod would probably blow the nose off when fired. It also has the exact same ratcheting joint content as an HMR, which is to say, none at all. All friction joints, all the time. Although.. the side view even reminds me of the 1/72 Hasegawa mold. The whole body is fairly angled, with the legs angled downward pretty noticeably toward the rear. The size is almost dead-on identical to a Yamato v.2 1/60, though the chest profile is a bit wider, and closer to an HMR, which probably helps the battroid proportions. It's just such a bizarre combination of best-of/worst-of from all of the major manufacturers. I bet if I had a KC 1/72 to compare, I would probably find features copied from that one too. It's just.. weird. Though, on a slightly hilarious note.. for those of you having issues with the missiles not fitting... If you happen to have that Fugu-01 Jetfire that just came out? The missiles fit it perfectly. I did also try the missiles from a standard Yamato release, and while the TV and box missiles don't fit, for some reason, the reaction missiles somehow do. Otherwise, the holes are slightly too small for the standard Yamato hardpoints, and there's no locking ring for the clips to engage with. As far as the stock missiles go, I'm leaving them in the box, because they're roughly 60% of the size of the Yamato 1/60 ones, and look ridiculously tiny.. besides also being far too big to actually fit into the mounts they're intended for. I'm just going to stick with the Jetfire set, since they look much better, and forcing the included missiles in would probably spread the mounts, and ruin their unintentionally perfect fit... though, on the other hand, spreading those mounts might make them fit standard Yamato missiles too.

Just got my copy of this one from BBTS.. and I'm kind of just wondering what to do with it at this point. It's not badly designed, or badly made, but a couple of issues are making me consider just returning it. First off.. the arm sliders are impossible to move. They do not slide, they will not budge with even what I would consider excessive force on the entire arm, and even trying a drop of machine oil did not loosen them up enough to slide more than a quarter of the way, and that was only by wiggling the arms back and forth with the legs completely removed to give me room. The toy, in its current state, is completely incapable of transformation to fighter, because the arms cannot be pushed in with the legs attached. It.. otherwise works.. and looks fine. Maybe it's best left as a battroid only figure though? Just disappointing that the tolerances are so impossibly tight, because it otherwise looks fairly good. The funny thing about it to me is that it actually gives me the impression of being a bootleg Bandai DX. Some of the features are suspiciously similar, to the point that it looks like they just copy pasted Bandai's work and shrunk it down. Also.. I'm kind of pissed about the "protection" they installed for the paint, and wish they wouldn't have bothered. Whoever wrapped the wings to protect the paint managed to achieve the exact opposite, because they managed to slap tape directly onto the paint, and dissolve the stripe in the middle of the wing. It came off with the tape. Yeah. Not a good start to an unboxing. I don't know. I'm irritated about not even being able to transform it, I'm pissed off about the paint, and thinking it's just better off sent back. Really a pity because it looked so promising, and whether this specific one is just a lemon, it kind of satisfied my curiosity about the dumb elbow joint, because nope, it doesn't bend where it should, and maybe I'm just better off getting my money back for a failed experiment. I will give them credit though, they managed to design much better main gear doors than Bandai. They actually fold out without the sliding hinges I'm so tired of, and managed to get out of the way of the strut with no trouble, so there's none of the goofy sliding the door up and down to find the right position that doesn't conflict with the strut and leg fin like the DX has. Edit: On the other hand, I might be able to just order a replacement wing from the company directly, since ThreeZero might actually be able to provide after-purchase service. I'm not sure if I care that much if it can't transform, but we'll see what they say, and whether I can just order a wing without missing paint.

Hopefully it plays for you, but this clip shows him doing the zip line. I also picked up a long distance shot that gives perspective about how big the valk is relative to the buildings around it. You can barely see the head peeking out on the left.

The Yamato might be closer in scale, but the overall functionality and stability of the Bandai release generally tops it in almost every way, from what I recall. It's definitely based on the Frontier styling though, which has some differences from the original VFX game artwork. If you're not opposed to building kits, there also is the VF Girls kit of the VB-6, and it's engineered to mostly function independently as a fully transformable model without using the figure intended to ride it, but it makes some compromises on the proportions. It's also closer to 1/150 I think, so significantly smaller by comparison, but also closer to the VFX lineart than the Bandai Frontier interpretation. The only real benefit though is the price, and relative availability compared with the Bandai and Yamato versions. It does display pretty well as the shuttle, but not as well in the destroid or battroid modes, due to the scaling and size compromises. https://www.hlj.com/macross-delta-vb-6-konig-monster-reissue-aos06428-2 Here it is compared to the Bandai version: The lack of the backend is due to turning the chassis into a motorcycle-style mount for the figure it came with. I'm not entirely sure why the guns are so undersized though, since the shuttle proportions worked out so similarly.

Boy, I will always have a weakness to this design and mold, in pretty much any scale. I'll be curious to see what shade of blue Bandai settles on for the VF-19F/S if they do them... but I will probably buy multiples of all of them regardless. I feel like the lack of canards makes the nose seem longer, with less of the LEX issue, and it just looks so good. : Interestingly, the Fire Valk should be the only one that actually needs any parts swapped on the head, since it's the only one with the side lasers that fold in. They aren't actually ball jointed, the lasers on the 1/60 just had a tiny hinge that let them fold inward, and there was no way to replicate that on the HMR. Aside from those, it's pretty impressive that Bandai replicated all of the other necessary panels and moving parts to get the Fire Valk's head completely hidden exactly the same way Yamato did in 1/60. The S and F head lasers both stick up above the shield, and while the VF-19P's arrangement is closer to the Fire Valk's design, the side lasers stay elevated above the shield, so they won't need to be swapped.

I wouldn't necessarily count on there being a VF-11B/C if they do Sound Force, since there's pretty much no commonality between the MAXL and the normal VF-11. I can't think of a single part they could actually share... maybe landing gear? Everything is a completely different shape. I'm right there with you wanting them to make both designs though, along with Ray's VF-17, since neither have ever been done in any sort of transforming format that I know of.

Mnn.. below MSRP this soon isn't a good sign though, unfortunately. I was hoping Bandai was somewhat committed, since it includes the details necessary for a VF-19P, but I guess it wouldn't greatly surprise me if they just walk away from the series after this, despite the Sound Force tease.

I would probably wait to see what the plans are for the VF-19 mold. Whichever you actually like better, the old one is likely to drop in price once a new one is released, and be easier to pick up from people upgrading. I think it's fairly likely they will do the other 19 molds, since the conversion is so simple, but what's kind of funny is that the VF-19P is actually the most direct color-swap from the Fire Valk, so I would not be terribly surprised if we see that next as a webshop release.

There are a few reviews I've seen on Youtube of the Fugu Jetfire, and at least one compares it directly to the KC version, if you want a more specific comparison. For me, the existence of the Fugu version stopped me from buying the KC option, since I've never cared for how their 1/72 looks in fighter mode.

Oh, I was thinking of all of the copy-pasted knights that got next to no development or even dialogue. We had Keith and Ketchup, then there were creepy twins, the actual cannon fodder character who died early on, and the two vets, and I can't remember the names of any of those. I want to say the two older guys were treated better, but I barely remember anything they did.

Looks really good for a first print! Yeah, auto-supports will do that a lot, and learning what direction to orient prints is an art unto itself. The process I've gradually developed for larger prints is to build thin supports into my models that will give protection to any hard edges, and essentially give me what resembles a pour stub on a resin kit. It's much easier to cut and sand down those supports than it is to rebuild a mangled shape, and when you are printing long thin parts, it really helps to have the extra margin for error. Depending on what material you're using, you might also be able to just use a filler primer, or even make a putty with some of the filament, and use that to smooth over the ugly parts.