Chronocidal

It's much easier than that, just make it out of a paper towel roll. That's actually one accessory that would be pretty easy to make yourself.. it's just a big tube... well, kinda. Betcha it makes all the fold boosters jealous though.

I'm actually wondering if any glue will be absolutely necessary.. maybe for certain things like the head, but the V.2 VF-1s I've taken apart seem to use glue as a backup for the screws in some places, rather than the main method of holding things together. I had to take apart the left leg on my TV Max 1A to fix a floppy strake, and while it wasn't glued together too heavily, I did wind up breaking off one of the locator pins. But putting the leg back together with just the screws worked perfectly well. If anything really needs glue, it will probably be the nose section. I'm probably going to try and avoid glue entirely if possible, just to make maintenance easier if it's ever needed. *curses all the glued joints and screw covers on the YF-19*

Very, everything you need to get to just unscrews. The trickiest part is probably popping the shoulder armor off so you can get to the shoulder joint screws without snapping it apart. Couple of mine have come apart from not being glued together well, but they're easy enough to fix.

The voices weren't too bad.. I just kept expecting Hikaru to clap his hands together and shoot lasers or something. Yeah, I just finished watching the original last week, so this is.. weird. Everyone's FAR too excited with their voices. Not to mention, the sound pretty much blows. Music's the same, but the sound effects just don't cut it.

So I've been comparing my DX VF-25G and 1/72 kit today, and I was reasonably happy to finally figure out why the wings stick up so much. That has been my one overwhelming problem with the DX really.. fix that, and I can deal with the rest easily. I even figured out how to get the wings to sit completely level (minus the built in curve bandai can't seem to fix). You'll never guess what you have to do... You have to take the arms off. Yeah, the lack of communication between the DX and model design teams was epic (fail). The model's wings go level just fine with some tweaking, for one big reason: they left a cut-out in the hip for the shoulder to fit into. On the DX? No cut-out. The arms are too wide to let the wings and arms sit where they're supposed to. I noticed when I just snapped one leg into the wing on one side, it sat level.. but the shoulders got shifted off center. They're too wide to fit in the intended space between the hips. Soo... if you want to display fighter mode with level wings, just take the arms off, and everything sits perfectly. I keep hoping they'll do a version 2 of this, because whoever designed the DX really wasn't thinking. What I'd love to know is why the prototype pics didn't have this problem. At least with the super packs, the wings drop further, so I can just keep it that way. What I really wonder is if anyone's tried to fix this? You'd have to cut a decent sized chunk off of either the shoulders or the lower hips, and I dunno what effects that might have.

Heh.. and go figure, the DX has an all white bottom.

Heh.. yeah, I forgot about the MAXL's shoulder magic. Too bad, I love delta designs. Oh well, it's true there's really no canon milking potential for that plane. Sure, you could make all manner of repaints, but unless you could come up with some way to make parts of Mylene's MAXL and a standard VF-11 interchangeable, there'd be no reason to make a non-pink MAXL. My original thought was that the Sound Force VF-17(T?) would be close enough to the other VF-17's that you could make it without too many changes, but then again.. the cockpit and head were very different, and I don't think it'd be as simple as a VF-11D Jamming Bird mod. Either way, it's very good to know those issues have been brought up about this one, and looked at. Agree on the locking chest area in gerwalk, you need something to hold the thing together. Also, hopefully they'll improve the attachment point for the hips to the fuselage.. the YF-19's just doesn't stay together. If they use the version of the mechanism from the Bandai it'd work well I think, even if it is a blatant copy. I'm kinda meh about the changing faceplate.. it'd be nice, but not if it's too complicated. One way you could do it.. have a reversible faceplate, similar to Masterpiece Starscream.. just have the top of the head pop off like the YF-19, and the faceplate lift out and turn around for the closed mouth. Shoulder speakers would be nice, but not essential I think.. it'll be hard enough cramming stuff in those shoulders as it is.. and I want these shoulders to be STURDY, ratcheted if possble. The limp shoulders on my YF-19 are pretty sad. Combined with the standard requests of a lower nose and reduced gullet ... yeah. Remember, lowered nose is really the more important part.. whether the gullet gets cut or not, the nose tip needs to be lowered so it's nearly level with the center of the feet, like the bottom in this comparison. For that drawing the only changes are a slightly altered Z-fold line/angle and a slightly smaller flap on the underside of the nose. The landing gear, gullet, and forward nose aren't really changed at all, but angling the forward nose down makes a world of difference. If Yamato can do even this much to improve the VF-19, I'll be thrilled.

I don't know about the fast pack version, but the recent GBP release has had definite problems.

I'd say it's only a matter of time. Granted, it's an entirely new plane, but Yamato does love to make complete sets of things, whether it's paintschemes, or groups of Valks from a certain show. They've done the YF-19, now they're doing the VF-19, which has quite a bit of mold-milk potential, what with the various versions. I think the biggest clue would be whether they decide to make Mylene's MAXL or not. The VF-11's already been done, and while the relationship between that and the MAXL is similar to the one between the YF-19 and VF-19 Kai in terms of shared parts, the dirty work of designing the transformation has been done (and done very well at that). If they do wind up doing the MAXL, I'd think the VF-17 is almost a sure bet. Not necessarily because they can milk the mold so much as they might make the VF-17D variant, just so collectors can have a complete Sound Force set. That's not saying the other VF-17 variants wouldn't sell as well as a Roy/Veffidas valk (probably better, due to the Diamond Force paintschemes), but making a complete Sound Force might be a good motivation to get the VF-17 ball rolling. Btw, when I mentioned including the booster packs as standard from the start, I was mainly referring to the other VF-19 variants, not so much the sound boosters. There's very little difference in terms of content between the VF-11 FAST packs and the later packs we see on Emerald Force (can't remember if there were separate atmospheric and space versions though). The sound boosters on the other hand are more akin to things like the Ghost for the VF-0. They're much bigger, with quite a few gimmicks of their own. I could see those getting released separately, possibly with extras like a fold booster, or maybe the giant speaker missile they used in a couple episodes (forget the official name, but I like to call it the ICBS - inter-continental ballistic subwoofer Yes, I know, no continents in space). The big questions now: how much does Graham know about this (that he can share), and when do we get to see some CAD?

Three words, Yamato, just three words. Drop. The. Nose. The YF-19 has its snoot so far up in the air, it ruins the sleekness of the design. You don't even have to fix the gullet (though slimming down it would be nice), just drop the nose till the tip is level with the engine centerline. It'll make a world of difference. You think it's too much to hope they make some crazy new innovations on this design, and then use them to redo the YF-19? Either way, this is great news. The Hi-Metal is just way too small for me, and I've wanted a good Blazer for years. Let's just hope they follow the trend with the later Mac+ valks, and make the FAST packs standard from the get-go.

So, how long till someone starts the next official MW Upcoming Release Panic and Blatant Speculation ThreadTM? Usually it takes at least a CAD drawing to start it off, but since we already have the YF-19, maybe this'll be kicked off earlier.. I mean, we probably don't even need pictures to start up the chants of "KILL THE GULLET!"

Just to clarify, there are enough available to place an order now? (as opposed to earlier when it was announced) I wasn't sure if they were being ordered in bulk, or just to fill the current demand. If so, I'll send a pm shortly.

Ok, possibly dumb question... what's the actual proper color scheme for the underside of Michael's plane? Bandai included both blue and white versions of the panel surrounding the front gear doors, but it makes absolutely no sense to me to use the blue one, while the rest of the underside (gear doors and the panels to the rear) is white. I guess it's a moot point for me anyway though.. either way, I plan on making the entire belly white, even if it's wrong. I just think it looks better to have the underside consistently white. Really, Bandai seems kinda clueless with the correct color scheme on the VF-25G.. Aren't the entire intake assemblies supposed to be white? If I make my Alto with the super pack, I might use the spare white intakes on Michael's plane.

Actually, my personal little jump-for-joy moment was when I noticed all the improvements they made over the 1/72... not so much in the finer details, but overall shape. The 1/72 always looked like the entire plane was bent to me.. they mounted the lower legs at downward angle that really didn't look right. This one has them up at the same angle as the Yamato 1/48, and it really improves the appearance to me. One other thing they fixed is the screwballed assembly for the tail section/backpack. I don't know what the people who designed the 1/72 kit were thinking there, but the whole boat tail section should've looked like this to begin with, smooth from front to back; the 1/72 has a huge step down to the very rear section, which I still scratch my head over.. They really did pay nice attention to detail on the panel lines this time too.. the hinge points on the tails look like they're staggered enough so they could actually overlap properly when folded. Only thing I'm kind of surprised about is how thick they made the lower section of the wing glove. It's probably closer to the original line art, but it's much deeper than the 1/72, or any of the transforming Yamato VF-1s. That picture of the canopies does illustrate one interesting thing about them, and why real canopies tend to be bubble-shaped... I think I like the shape of the less rounded one more since it matches up with the fuselage better, but you can really see how the bubble shape of the other one helps reduce distortion. I love my 1/48 YF-19, and if this is anywhere near it, I might have to buy about a dozen. What I'm really waiting for is the inevitable transforming customs people will do. Considering it's the same scale as the Yamato, I'd half expect most versions to be a mashup of this kit with Yammie internals (plus things like hands, etc). Not to mention, you could potentially use the Yamato weapons on these, rather than wait for Hasegawa to release a set (inversely, mounting high detailed missiles on a Yammie would look awesome.)

Not really.. generally speaking the only place you ever see a used cf is in the middle of a debris field, in pieces.

Had to happen sometime, and I am glad I saved them all before they went poof, but I'm also glad they're finally getting an official release that I can read in my favorite reading nook, rather than on a screen. On the plus side though, the delay in publishing might lead to them actually having time to finish Vol. 9... Either the online translation is incomplete, or the author pulled a move out of Monty Python, and died in the middle of the chase scene. There was just no freaking ending. The book just stopped. We get a glimpse of what's happening, but the story isn't far enough along for a cliffhanger yet, because we don't have a clue what the events even mean.

Maybe they took the Columbus route?

Wow.. I wasn't actually planning on getting this at all, but it looks to have completely blown the VF-25 out of the water... And... intake covers ftw (even more so if they're actually integrated, but I'll take what I can get. )

Ok, I have pretty much no anime figures, and I'm not really of the figure collecting type... but if I ever did get one, that Miku Hatsune remix would be it. That thing just screams at me to buy it. It's just something about that face.. it's kind of haunting.

What's great about these kits is that they're finally in the same scale as a Yamato, so they can finally share parts. Basically, Hasegawa is giving us all those spare TV heads that people wanted for making Max 1A custom jobs. The head swap operation on a 1/48 couldn't be too difficult. Honestly, it looks like Hasegawa is doing one of two things though... either they're superdetailing the head just for the folks they know will make custom variable conversions.. or they're going to share parts with an already planned battroid kit. Seriously, the head is so hidden in fighter, I don't see any other reason to detail it so much. Sheesh, it even looks like the heads have working neck joints!

Ok, I honestly have a hard time believing that. They gave you the entire stand, except the part that lets you actually stand it up?? That's ridiculous.

From the pics I've seen, it looks like it uses almost the exact same transformation as the 1/60 YF-19, except maybe without the sliding back joint. The nose still has the same type of mechanism to make it shorter. I'm not so disappointed to hear about the amount of metal as I am that Bandai used the name as an excuse to gouge the fans. I can't see any reason this should cost so much. Is the Macross license that expensive? It's in the same size range as a mid-sized transformer figure (about 7 inches long in fighter), yet it costs around 7x as much. And it doesn't even launch any missiles! I dunno. I guess you could apply this reasoning to all the Yamato valks as well with regards to pricing. I just hope Bandai gets it together before the VF-1. If they charge this type of price for a 5 inch valk... oy.

The one thing that worries me most about this one is the nose tab, the one that snaps to the plate on the back in battroid. If that tab ever gives way, the nose won't hold up.

Jokes indeed. Best part about this one? It was the gundam from Sweden.

It does look very good. If they make a YF-19, I might have to get one, but I still don't like this pricepoint for something this small. The thing that's frustrating to me personally though.. Yamato needs to take note. THIS is how you make the gullet look decent: DROP THE NOSE. The nose on the Yamato is just too thick (at the front near the cockpit, I'm not even talking about the front gear area), and the tip aims so high it ruins the overall curvature of the plane. It's simple: drop the nose tip till it's level with the centerline of the engines. It does wonders for the design. I pretty much prefer the proportions on this to the 1/60 YF-19 in almost every way, honestly. Bigger wings, wider wing roots, and a nose that looks directed into the airstream. The gullet's still there, but with the nose lowered so much, it doesn't stick out. I just wish it was bigger.