Bandai Macross Frontier toys thread

[Vifam7]

Do we have to keep bringing this up?

[1/1 LowViz Lurker]

Here's a few rhetorical hand grenades to add to the fun. Enjoy!

1. To the people who say that Bandai has not made quality non-gundam toys: just saying something like that doesn't make it true. Try actually buying a few of Bandai's non-gundam toys. Here's a short list of recent high quality Bandai non-gundam toys that pop to mind:

* SOC Voltes V

* Soul Spec Layzner

* Saint Seiya Myth Cloth Wyvern R.

* DX Senpuujin (Hurricaneger)

* Chogokin Mechagodzilla

just to name a few. The truth is, Bandai is practically a byword for quality. Have they ever produced crummy items? Of course! Is it possible their Macross F items will suck? Yeah, I guess so. But at their peak, Bandai has achieved quality the likes of which Yamato can only dream about. The only Yamato toy that competes at that level is the 1/48 VF-1. If you're betting on whether a new high-end Bandai line will turn out good, the smart money is on 'yes'.

2. As far as I can tell, the belief in the supposed 'mistreatment' of the Macross license by Bandai (which is absurd on the face of it, Bandai is motivated simply by money, not hatred for certain licenses) is based on the Macross 7 toys they produced in the mid-90's. (I guess Bandai doesn't get credit for the excellent Takatoku reissues?) Firstly, remember that those Mac 7 toys were produced BEFORE the big toy-collectible boom of the late 90's. Therefore, they were actually intended to be real TOYS, not ultra-accurate fanboy wankoff fodder that shatters with a look. And as such, they succeeded! They were fun, and I've yet to hear of any breakage issues, unlike practically every Yamato toy ever churned out. Secondly, for better or for worse, Bandai has subsequently fully embraced the modern toy-collectible movement, and has produced a ton of fantastic toy collectibles in other lines (see above). There is no logical reason other than knee-jerk Yamato-worship to think that they can't do the same with Macross.

Whew. I'm out.

1. We addressed this issue already. We want to talk about toys for macross because we were sick of waiting. All those other series being good quality? GREAT! Enjoy them. But why not put that great amount of effort into the macross 7 license in the form of new VF-17? Hopefully now they will go back and update some of the stuff we saw in macross shows with better toys. If a fan can't get it from them, they will want it from someone else who is willing. Problem being if there is no other company able to touch it, you could be waiting 20 years with nothing.

2. OK, but why couldn't they remake the toys to be better to reflect the demand for high quality toys that don't shatter AND actually look close to a model? So you're saying you'd be happy they just sit on the license and reissue an old outdated toy instead of make a newer one? (couldn't they have remade better versions of the old 90s toys like 5 years ago?) You're right: "there is no logical reason to think that they can't do the same with macross" but so far there was no serious attempt (5-7 years ago) yet of them doing it. Nobody is doubting they can't, just that majority of us feel neglected that they didn't for so long! So that is why people hope they don't have the same half-assed atittude to the license like with mac7 where they only want to aim at a younger market. Please actually upgrade those toys (VF-17, Blazer valkyrie) rather than reissue old stuff. Make them as good as whatever they did for those other lines you just listed.

If they don't, it would be a huge waste of potential, since as we established already pages ago, they must be held to an even HIGHER standard than yamato given their size and money and resources to be able to afford to have the license exclusive. Just as Electronic Arts has tied up all the popular movie rights for games and can get away with average quality gameplay since they are the only ones exclusively making the videogame so there is no other choice due to being the only game in town. Being exclusive holder of a license can sometimes mean less incentive to try as hard as when they are forced to compete with others who are trying to outdo them and threaten to take away some of their profit.

It would be different if the license wasn't exclusive because it would mean a smaller company can at least compete with them but that's not going to happen which is why we are whining about lack of choice. They may be quite capable of doing a far better toy than anything yamato could ever do, but will they choose to based on past experiences with macross toys? What if they decide not to because they don't care as much about macross? It's not like you have any other choice since you'll only be able to get a vf-25 from them right? Did you ever consider that if others could compete (like with the Mospeada ride armor) it would make fans happier because now they have more options? There is some negatives to big companies having exclusivity on toys for a show in that what if they just SIT on it for ages with nothing for 15 years and the fanbase is left with nothing but reissues of old toys from the past instead of updated toys? Waiting for 2.5 decades for new toys and not getting anything is still worse than if a smaller company (with a flaw here or two) is able to make something during that time, right?

The former option says: "no one can have anything until the big guy decides it's worth their time to redo. No guarantee it will ever be done in your life time though.."

The latter option ensures the fans at least have something and not have to wait 2.5 decades. Having something (updated macross plus toys for example) is better than nothing for years.

Oh and to stay on topic....

woah those pics of the thought bubbles are awesome!

Edited March 5, 2008 by 1/1 LowViz Lurker

[Fort Max]

I've owened many Bandai toys over the years, including several of the SOC line (Various Mazingers, Getter, Combatler V, Grendizer). Also, more recently the SPEC Dragonar, which is an amazing toy.

But I still don't want to see painted diecast in a Bandai Macross Frontier toy for the following reasons: -

1) Die-cast metal toys will suffer from paint chips sooner or later, no matter how careful you are, especially transforming or combining toys.

2) It's never possible to match the color of die cast cast painted parts and ABS parts exactly.

3) Weight may not be such an issue with non-transforming toys, but too much weight can cause serious issues with parts locking on transforming toys.

Bandai hasn't proved themselves to me that they can make high die-cast content transforming toys. Toys like Voltes V, don't really count IMO, as they are combiners, not transformers, with relatively simple combining function. The only really complex die-cast transforming toy I can think of from Bandai with complexity on par with VFs is the SOC Gunbuster, but I don't own that personally, so can't really comment.

Graham

Fair enough, I do have the Gunbuster and most of the diecast is either internal (lots of strengthening bars etc) or it's parts that don't really scrape against anything else. I think (hope) that Bandai leanrt their lesson with the SOC Dancouga which I belive (I don't own this one) had paint scraping issues where the metal "ear" parts of the mammoth had to be carefully folded isnide the chest. If it'd been plastic there wouldn't have been any trouble.

[Beware of Blast]

Bandai is good at mixing plastic and metal parts on transforming toys with little to no paint chip at all. This is because one part of the toy doesn't depend on another part to lock firm or snap shut tight during transformation from one mode to another. They always think the mechanics of the transformation through and through.

What we usually get from Yamato is a lot of snaps, crackles and pops during transformation. We see a lot of plastic parts locking down hard on one another, putting plenty of pressure on one mode and when we free up the pressure in the next mode, you see stressmarks. Yamato gave us stressmarks in order to avoid paint chips.

Color matching between metal and plastic parts isn't such a big deal because Bandai paints over the plastic parts in order to match with the metal parts. Yamato gave us raw colored plastic surfaces - that's why we get mismatched colors all the time. Also, unpainted colored plastics look cheap when placed side by side with painted over plastic.

For once I would like a transforming Yamato toy that can be transformed without all the snaps, crackles and pops because not only does the toy sound and feel fragile, it gives the impression that the buggers that designed the toys are LAZY or worse, lazy retards that can never learn from so many past mistakes.

Edited March 5, 2008 by Beware of Blast

[Shin Densetsu Kai 7.0]

I really doubt your argument that the Macross 7 toys were meant as real TOYS.

Those were made in the mid 90s for kids. Yes they were meant as real toys. Can anyone honestly look at those and say they were meant to appeal to collectors? Look at it this way; when Bandai made those, they aimed them at kids. When Yamato made the 1/72 YF-19 they aimed them at adults. HUGE difference.

kinda reinforces the "Bandai no like Macross 'til Yamato showed up" debate. at least for me.

Why wasn't there an SOC Gundam? Sounds like, "HG no like Macross 'til Toycom showed up@SDCC" debate.

hell, i was hoping Bandai would do MG Macross kits when they started doing the MG's

then the "15th" came around & all we got was even more high-end Gundam & reissue Macross.

High-end Gundam? Those were high-end?.......

they probably wouldn't have cared about it at all if Yamato hadn't saturated the market with their stuff.

Actually the saturation dissuaded them from putting out their original plans for their Macross reissue line.

why aren't there any Bandai Macross Plus toys from 1994-95 ?

Target market back then was kids. Were japanese kids watching Macross Plus? I don't doubt it, but I doubt they were the majority of people watching it. 14 year difference, times are much different now.

The way I see it, Bandai really wanted to cash in on the market that Yamato started.....but did badly.

Yamato wants to cash in on the gashapon & small toy market that Bandai/Popy and Kaiyodo already dwelved in for Macross. Wait so if Yamato does it, its excusable and a defendable act right?

I forgot to mention that I didn't include SOC and SPEC into the mix simply because they didn't sponsor the series that the designs came from. The SOC and SPEC line are based on mecha designs from old series they don't own.

Eureka 7 only got models and a PVC parts swap line. Macross F is already getting both 1/60 DX and 1/100 simple transformation lines in addition to 1/72 Plamo. Already much better treatment than Eureka 7 got. In fact, what Bandai is doing with Macross F reminds me of what they are doing with their Eva lines.

[Graham]

Eureka 7 only got models and a PVC parts swap line. Macross F is already getting both 1/60 DX and 1/100 simple transformation lines in addition to 1/72 Plamo. Already much better treatment than Eureka 7 got. In fact, what Bandai is doing with Macross F reminds me of what they are doing with their Eva lines.

But for all we know, the 1/100 Frontier toys might be something like the awful, Eureaka 7 toys, i.e. PVC with lots of parts swapping.

I'm hoping they will be more like HCM-Pros as has been rumored, but that's all it is to date, a rumor.

Graham

[Shin Densetsu Kai 7.0]

I'm hoping they will be more like HCM-Pros as has been rumored, but that's all it is to date, a rumor.

Same here. If the 1/100 toys turn out anything like the Gundam Hcmpro they will be Macross toy crack.

[UN_MARINE]

Why wasn't there an SOC Gundam?

maybe because more than half of their operation is Gundam?

woulda been triple, even quadruple redundant if they had SOC Gundam.

but that's a pretty good question. with them "Gundamizing" their factories, it's kinda weird that they didn't do SOC Gundam.

High-end Gundam? Those were high-end?.......

at the time, yes.

Actually the saturation dissuaded them from putting out their original plans for their Macross reissue line.

fair enough. but for me, the key word here is reissues.

they were willing to put out the toys, but there was no effort to engineer new ones(retooled heads don't count).

that's what's disappointing.

don't get me wrong, i love Bandai. i have a whole bunch of their stuff. it's just that none of them are Macross.

[wolfx]

Those were made in the mid 90s for kids. Yes they were meant as real toys. Can anyone honestly look at those and say they were meant to appeal to collectors? Look at it this way; when Bandai made those, they aimed them at kids. When Yamato made the 1/72 YF-19 they aimed them at adults. HUGE difference.

<snip>

Eureka 7 only got models and a PVC parts swap line. Macross F is already getting both 1/60 DX and 1/100 simple transformation lines in addition to 1/72 Plamo. Already much better treatment than Eureka 7 got. In fact, what Bandai is doing with Macross F reminds me of what they are doing with their Eva lines.

You're basing your assumptions on the simplistic designs on who is the target market. Did you consider the price which is a more accurate basis on the target market? No parent (unless they're dirt rich) will buy for their kid a 6800yen toy. Super sentai and masked rider toys cost less than half of that. And about them appealing to collectors, hey...I bought them. But sure they're quite crap for the price they're being sold for but collectors collect anything, what more if its the only choice they have.

And about MF getting treated better than E7, remains to be seen. More toylines doesn't mean anything. I wanna see the end products.

[Vifam7]

You're basing your assumptions on the simplistic designs on who is the target market. Did you consider the price which is a more accurate basis on the target market? No parent (unless they're dirt rich) will buy for their kid a 6800yen toy.

IIRC the Takatoku VF-1s were even more expensive back in the day and yet they were still made for the children demographic. Back then and even in '94/'95 all toys were for children. The concept of selling "premium collector's" toys to adults was not quite there yet.

And I think this is the reason why toys were not made for direct-to-video anime (OAVs) like Macross Plus, Megazone 23, Gall Force, etc. back then. OAVs were for the older crowd and I suppose the thinking back then was - the older crowd doesn't buy "toys".

Edited March 6, 2008 by Vifam7

[CF18]

Good reason Vifam7. TV anime are great toy ads for kid. OVA were made to sell video.

I am sure Bandai had considered making toy for M+, but they probably would just modify their VF-19 toy and that would be rather pointless for us.

Bandai re-issue chunky monkey instead of making new one make sense for them. The old one is still a great toy, and it is far cheaper to just make old one that still sell instead of new one. And unlike most other mecha, engineer a transforming toy is more expensive. I guess Yamato made quite a gamble to make a transforming toy as their first product in an unproven market.

[Dr. Z]

Actually, the Gunbuster might be quite a good example of Bandais engineering - it has the most amazing transforming feet ever.

Wasn't that design borrowed from the S.H.E. version though?

[wolfx]

IIRC the Takatoku VF-1s were even more expensive back in the day and yet they were still made for the children demographic. Back then and even in '94/'95 all toys were for children. The concept of selling "premium collector's" toys to adults was not quite there yet.

And I think this is the reason why toys were not made for direct-to-video anime (OAVs) like Macross Plus, Megazone 23, Gall Force, etc. back then. OAVs were for the older crowd and I suppose the thinking back then was - the older crowd doesn't buy "toys".

Except that the takatokus were actually priced about the same as high-range transformers then, Optimus Prime being the TF equivalent. I remember this cause my parents WOULDN'T buy me the high-range TFs, and the taka valks were one of my wish lists that fell above their budget.

So i had to settle for the 1 gestalt part during my birthday. And it goes without saying TF didnt' last 6 birthdays for me to complete Devastator.

Anyway point being, high range transformers still cost much less than the Macross 7 toys, even by today's Voyager Class Transformers standards. Thus I grade them collector's market toys.

[Vegas]

since were talking about reissues here, wouldnt it be great if bandai reissue the strike valkyrie, super ostrich and the elint! that will be so awesome!!!! i think its about time they do that til were waiting for some mac f toys from them.

Edited March 6, 2008 by Vegas Valkyrie

[Beware of Blast]

Wasn't that design borrowed from the S.H.E. version though?

Bandai's Gunbuster design is their own. S.H.E's version doesn't have the transforming feet on top of its slightly different transformation vs Bandai. The company that "borrowed" the most from S.H.E. though, was Yamato.

[Smiley424]

since were talking about reissues here, wouldnt it be great if bandai reissue the strike valkyrie, super ostrich and the elint! that will be so awesome!!!! i think its about time they do that til were waiting for some mac f toys from them.

Nice idea but I'd rather see Bandai come up with an entirely new design for the VF-1 series instead of breaking out the old classic mold (which they already did for the Vf-1J, Super Vf-1S, and M&Ms).

[EXO]

[areaseven]

:lol:

[Beware of Blast]

Now THIS is bloody brilliant.

[Nani?!]

Always a riot with the humor, EXO.

Laughed my butt off.

[Sumdumgai]

It's so funny I almost started crying!

[Graham]

LOL!

Graham

[Dante74]

LOL!

[wolfx]

It be better if it fit in 4 panels.

Probably remove the 3rd panel. Otherwise

[warpaint22]

Now that's comedy GOLD!!!!!!!

[Beware of Blast]

[Dr. Z]

I'm okay with Bandai. All the Bandai toys I have look AND feel good. My Yamato toys (SV-51, YF-19, VF-1J, Garland, Konig Monster) look good but don't feel so good. Not that they feel cheap, but they don't feel as sturdy as SOC toys. HasTak still makes the best transforming toys out there, no contest.

[promethuem5]

I'm really quite excited to see what Bandai can do... I've yet to be disappointed by a modern Bandai transforming mecha toy.

[Nani?!]

Kawamori expression saying "ma...cross...." was classic~

What would have made it even better is if you put "Gun...damu" instead of "Gundam",

But yea, I imagined it like that anyway... freakin hilarious, haha

[Lonely Soldier Boy]

I can help but notice on those pics that the Bandai people didn't even offered Kawamori a cup of cofee.

Edited March 6, 2008 by Lonely Soldier Boy

[Apollo Leader]

Now if only some of Macross World's past humorists would return and bring the Kawamori Floating Head back to life... But yeah, poor Kawamori; a Macross otaku in a Gundam world.

[CF18]

Now if only some of Macross World's past humorists would return and bring the Kawamori Floating Head back to life... But yeah, poor Kawamori; a Macross otaku in a Gundam world.

Repent! Kawamori-sama is not some lowly otaku! He is the Macross messiah, converting a bunch of Gun-ota using his god-like Lego skill!

[konimon]

Those were great jokes. I hope Bandai won't include "Burst Mode" that transform VF-25 into a Gundam.

Although I agree Mr. Kawamori would feel more confortable with Yamato considering their extensive partnership and Yamato's experience to properly handle his design. I often work for graphic designers and to "get" their design properly is usually the first big task.

I would still may get whatever Bandai may offer as this is a new valk I've seen in a while.

I'd hope for VF-2S revisited as R3 line while they are at it...

[Zinjo]

Good reason Vifam7. TV anime are great toy ads for kid. OVA were made to sell video.

I am sure Bandai had considered making toy for M+, but they probably would just modify their VF-19 toy and that would be rather pointless for us.

Bandai re-issue chunky monkey instead of making new one make sense for them. The old one is still a great toy, and it is far cheaper to just make old one that still sell instead of new one. And unlike most other mecha, engineer a transforming toy is more expensive. I guess Yamato made quite a gamble to make a transforming toy as their first product in an unproven market.

Yeah, Vifam7 I'd say you have nailed it.

Most of the OVA kits of the day, with the exception of Mac Plus, were resin or poly garage kits.

[Ginrai]

Now if only some of Macross World's past humorists would return and bring the Kawamori Floating Head back to life... But yeah, poor Kawamori; a Macross otaku in a Gundam world.

What? Kawamori wanted to make Macross BECAUSE he was a Gundam nerd.