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Any chance of a vf-2ss?


auberondreaming

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I dunno about it being political reasons though. Like I said earlier, it's not like Yamato ONLY does Macross designs by Kawamori. The 1/3000 Macross wasn't designed by Kawamori. The Destroids weren't designed by Kawamori. I don't think there is any reason why they couldn't get the rights to Macross II like they do to all of the other licenses they make toys for.

The vf-2 is in a show that kawamori probably doesn't approve of though. SDF-1 was part of the official universe canon despite not being designed by SK. Destroids are part of the official universe canon despite not being designed by SK. Yamato isn't pissing off the guy who designed the robots from the canon universe when doing those ones that belong in the original.

If yamato wants to be friendly to the creators of the whole IP, (and the guy who designed the VF concept) they are not going to want to make stuff for non-canon sequels that the creators didn't want being done in the first place. I think bandai might be able to get away with it since they are a bigger company and seem to be able to survive without macross so they are not as desperate to be nice all the time. They can wear silly gundam uniforms and create Valks with fat bodies and still make money selling to casual fans without caring about the diehards who want model kit quality sculpts. Yamato need to maintain good relations. I think that is why they wouldn't do it imo. Maybe I'm wrong but I bet they would be too chicken to do a vf-2 for this reason.

Edited by 1/1 LowViz Lurker
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Did Kawamori outright say "I don't approve of Macross II" though? If so, where and when? SDF-1 appears in Macross II too, if I recall. I'm not sure I understand your last sentence.

Edit: I see your new edit but still don't understand it clearly. Anyway, it sounds like speculation. We don't really know either way what the creators of Macross "want".

Edited by xrentonx
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If we don't get macross II toys from either company, I would love to see a revoltech vf-2 with the super pack. (make a transformable one and non-transforming one)

Not many people here liked the transforming revy vf-1 but I thought it looked ok from a distance and after you stuff enough tissue paper between loose bits so it doesn't suffer floppy limb syndrome. :)

Edited by 1/1 LowViz Lurker
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Yamato need to maintain good relations. I think that is why they wouldn't do it imo. Maybe I'm wrong but I bet they would be too chicken to do a vf-2 for this reason.

Sorry, I don't read up on relations between creators and such. Did Kawamori get into some kind of hissy fit slap fight with the guy who designed the VF-2 or something? What am I missing?

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Anyone who's got the interviews to back this up, please fill in the references- this is just what I've gathered from watching the boards on the subject for far too long . . .

Aparently after Flashback 2012 and a gaming stint, Kamawori pretty much told any interviewers that brought it up that the Macross story was done, it no longer interested him, and he was moving on to other projects. Heh, and that Misa and Hikaru fell into a black hole . . . .

So Big West decided to make a Macross movie without him and it flopped. Aparrently Kamawori hated it so much that he decided to come back to Macross for the sole purpose of making sure that M2 could not ever be considered canon (heh, and possibly because no one would pay him to do any of his ideas unless they had the word "Macross" attached to them somewhere - so you might say he also came back so that if that universe was going to continue, it would be his way). He then went full bore into making both Macross Plus and Macross Seven. You might argue that if there hadn't been a Macross II, Kamawori would have never returned to his universe.

Of course the Hoary froating head kind of changed his tune later on. . . . When asked to explain how he handled the differences between the movies and the TV shows he took a very metafictional approach. The real Macross story is out there somewhere, but what the audience is watching are literally movies and television series from the Macross universe about historical events that happened in that universe. So neither one is actually accurate (any more than you can depend on war movies to tell you exactly what happened to real people in the war), only the real characters would ever know - and it doesn't look like they're around to ask!

Macross II eventually came to be accepted as kind of canon. At some point Kamawori said it was an alternate timeline. It is recognized in the compendium and if you go to the official Macross website under "series" Macross II: Lovers Again is listed as one of them).

So yes, Macross II is officially canon, just in an alternate universe that Kamawori has shown no interest in exploring -

I'm not sure, however, if that is just him accepting the fact that yes, the thing exists, or if his dislike of it has softened over time.

In short, yes, it COULD be political since it seems that Macross Plus, seven, and theoretically Zero and Frontier, all exist partly to negate Macross II.

Of course Kamawori just might be new age minded enough to say - hey, it's a another interpretation, if people enjoy it, let 'em. Only he and Yamato know.

Edited by NeoverseOmega
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Well the way I see it is that since studio nue wasn't involved, it could be considered morally wrong to try to make money off the creator's baby (macross in general) without them having the ability to control it, direct it, whatever. And the creators want control. :p

If yamato were to make toys from it, that would be like associating with the bad guys wouldn't it? Look at all the hate Robotech/Harmony Gold gets in here for removing the credits to the original people involved for christ's sake. lol

And yeah I agree that if 2 wasn't made maybe we wouldn't see any future macross shows.

I think yamato should do mospeada toys. I am not happy with the detail on the CM Legious toys I bought. It's time for an upgrade!

Edited by 1/1 LowViz Lurker
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Many years ago, Yamato told me that Kawamori-san wouldn't like it if they made a VF-2SS. Whether this still holds true today, I don't know.

More recently (at least once a year), I suggest to them tha many overseas Macross fans would love them to make a perfect variable VF-2SS toy with removeable SAP. Their reply is always the same. They don't think the show and designs are popular enough.

Graham

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In short, yes, it COULD be political since it seems that Macross Plus, seven, and theoretically Zero and Frontier, all exist partly to negate Macross II.

Of course Kamawori just might be new age minded enough to say - hey, it's a another interpretation, if people enjoy it, let 'em. Only he and Yamato know.

Nah, they exist to make money. :)

I guess that is the ultimate question whether or not a VF-2SS gets made.

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Awesome, thanks Graham! Thanks again for making our voices heard and keeping us updated! (Heh, are you bugging them about Mospeada as well? Kinda off topic - but they could really blow those designs out of the water).

That sounds about like what I expected - lets face it, Big West just wanted to cash in on the Macross name when the original creators weren't interested and did something that they probably wouldn't have approved of. Thus: Macross II. I can see why revisiting that would rub Kamawori the wrong way.

That and the movie wasn't popular on either side of the ocean - heck, Bandai didn't even do much with the license when it was still running. One model kit? No toys? From Bandai? Yeah, I can see why Yamato wouldn't expect to make back the tooling costs on this one.

I still love the designs though!

And yes xrentonx it is about money, but part of the question is whether the little money that could be made on the VF-2SS and VF-2J would be worth possibly losing their connection to the creator of the original series. It sounds like they pride themselves on his approval and judging by his scratch marks on the early VF-4 cads he seems to have some input on the physical designs as well. There is a lot of love and passion in Yamato's designs, and they have always taken criticism seriously. While money is probably what makes the final decision, I think there's more than a little emotion in those decisions too, and I can't see them willingly straining the honor of having Kamawori inspect and approve their work. Of course at one point Yamato said they weren't likely to do an SDF-1 or VF-4 either. . . .its a matter of what they get to first, revisiting and improving more popular designs, or digging into the list of lesser known valks to try something different.

Unfortunately the Mac II valks have more than lack of popularity working against them. . . .

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Anyone who's got the interviews to back this up, please fill in the references- this is just what I've gathered from watching the boards on the subject for far too long . . .

Aparently after Flashback 2012 and a gaming stint, Kamawori pretty much told any interviewers that brought it up that the Macross story was done, it no longer interested him, and he was moving on to other projects. Heh, and that Misa and Hikaru fell into a black hole . . . .

So Big West decided to make a Macross movie without him and it flopped. Aparrently Kamawori hated it so much that he decided to come back to Macross for the sole purpose of making sure that M2 could not ever be considered canon (heh, and possibly because no one would pay him to do any of his ideas unless they had the word "Macross" attached to them somewhere - so you might say he also came back so that if that universe was going to continue, it would be his way). He then went full bore into making both Macross Plus and Macross Seven. You might argue that if there hadn't been a Macross II, Kamawori would have never returned to his universe.

Of course the Hoary froating head kind of changed his tune later on. . . . When asked to explain how he handled the differences between the movies and the TV shows he took a very metafictional approach. The real Macross story is out there somewhere, but what the audience is watching are literally movies and television series from the Macross universe about historical events that happened in that universe. So neither one is actually accurate (any more than you can depend on war movies to tell you exactly what happened to real people in the war), only the real characters would ever know - and it doesn't look like they're around to ask!

Macross II eventually came to be accepted as kind of canon. At some point Kamawori said it was an alternate timeline. It is recognized in the compendium and if you go to the official Macross website under "series" Macross II: Lovers Again is listed as one of them).

So yes, Macross II is officially canon, just in an alternate universe that Kamawori has shown no interest in exploring -

I'm not sure, however, if that is just him accepting the fact that yes, the thing exists, or if his dislike of it has softened over time.

In short, yes, it COULD be political since it seems that Macross Plus, seven, and theoretically Zero and Frontier, all exist partly to negate Macross II.

Of course Kamawori just might be new age minded enough to say - hey, it's a another interpretation, if people enjoy it, let 'em. Only he and Yamato know.

I think you're putting too much "stink" into the story. From what I understand, Kawamori insisted he never saw MacII for a very long time after its release. He didn't return to Macross because MacII was ruining his legacy, he returned because A) he had a Top Gun-esque style story with transforming jets he wanted to make and the advertisers wanted him to shoehorn it into the Macross universe and B) because part of funding Mac Plus also included a stipulation that he would work on a more traditional sequel to the Macross television show (which later became Mac7). So, MacII gets made without Kawamori because he didn't want to revisit Macross, then Mac Plus gets made because no one will fund his new idea unless it's part of the Macross universe, and then Macross7 gets made because he's contractually obligated. It isn't until MacZero and MacFrontier that he's playing with Macross again for the sake of playing with Macross but again, there's no indication MacII sullied anything or inspired him.

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Thanks Jenius!

Any stink was unintended and any attempt to blow it out much appreciated - it does get hard after a while to weed out the quotes from the paraphrases from the conjectures. It's interesting that he didn't even see Mac II until much after its initial release. That does kind of kill the whole myth of him just outright hating it - Studio Nue did declare it an alternate universe instead of simply saying "never happened".

Although it is interesting that at least in the past Kamawori wouldn't have liked it if they did the VF-2SS - of course as far as we know he might have just been thinking "my god, so many intakes" and not "These were the bad guys that messed up Macross". Macross II is a far cry from his sense of aesthetics.

I still have a soft spot for those designs though. ;P

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Personally I think SK should reboot macross under a different name so people outside japan ca finally get all the toys easily.

Have the final show of macross be about the end of the universe as protodevlin return to fight against basaras son who is a heavy metal fan and becomes possessed with the souls of dead pilots like roy fokker, kakizaki, shin, and hikaru and he becomes a newtype and kills alll the demons single-handedly with his angry music that fills the protodevlin with so much energy they can't contain it and explode like a bomb. (fist of the north-star style)

For the first time in macross,, music is used to kill the space demons by overfeeding them and using conventional weapons to fight their genetically modifed space monsters with nukes. Everyone dies in it just like in the end of gundam zeta and Basara's son goes batshit insane at the end of it all and humans evolve and become the new protoculture that destroyed itself thanks to meddling with nature so much and making all the space whales extinct and fiddling with the floating rocks which only brought about man's obsession with power to make himself god.

The lesson is humans are "satan's dolls" just like the zentradi only smarter and more dangerous and sophisticated after they are able to use the protodevlin and enslave and control them. Humans have conquered too much and the other alien races are jealous of their powers which causes space war II to limit their expansion which intrudes on the culture and beliefs of other aliens who do not want war but must fight to defend their own lands using technology that the PC left behind for them to balance out the human's discovery of PC tech which was prophecised to result in great wars if they became too cocky..Max is divorced and milia finds a new zentradi husband to mate with after she realises max cheated on her and Mylene becomes a environmentalist working for a greenpeace like organisation as she sings songs to plants and animals which heals them.

Then start a new space opera with transforming mechs under a different name. Harmony Gold has stunted macross too long.

Edited by 1/1 LowViz Lurker
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Yeah, after reading all the conjecture here I still don't buy it that there's any serious ill will between Kawamori and Macross II. In the end, if Macross II made money, we'll be seeing toys.

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Or some creative person outside of Japan can be inspired by Macross and write their own mecha series with heavy metal and awesome transformable jets, some of which homage the VF series.

I can think of at least one company that could have done that many times and failed repeatedly to do anything but reuse or slightly update old designs. . . ..

You definitely have a copious outpouring of ideas - there are a lot of gifted modellers, artists, designers, and writers on this site. One of these days we're going to have to sit down at a round table and see what we can come up with.

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Personally I think SK should reboot macross under a different name so people outside japan ca finally get all the toys easily.

Have the final show of macross be about the end of the universe as protodevlin return to fight against basaras son who is a heavy metal fan and becomes possessed with the souls of dead pilots like roy fokker, kakizaki, shin, and hikaru and he becomes a newtype and kills alll the demons single-handedly with his angry music that fills the protodevlin with so much energy they can't contain it and explode like a bomb. (fist of the north-star style)

For the first time in macross,, music is used to kill the space demons by overfeeding them and using conventional weapons to fight their genetically modifed space monsters with nukes. Everyone dies in it just like in the end of gundam zeta and Basara's son goes batshit insane at the end of it all and humans evolve and become the new protoculture that destroyed itself thanks to meddling with nature so much and making all the space whales extinct and fiddling with the floating rocks which only brought about man's obsession with power.

Then start a new space opera with transforming mechs under a different name.

Then it wouldn't be Macross and I wouldn't have anything to do with it unless it had some really kickass airplanes with arms...but then IT WOULD BE MACROSS! ;)

Or some creative person outside of Japan can be inspired by Macross and write their own mecha series with heavy metal and awesome transformable jets, some of which homage the VF series.

The Chinese did this and it was pretty much a knock-off of Macross. I thought it looked horrible.

Edit: See Astroplan. It's an abortion of a show and the toys are equally as horrendous :)

Edited by xrentonx
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Yeah, after reading all the conjecture here I still don't buy it that there's any serious ill will between Kawamori and Macross II. In the end, if Macross II made money, we'll be seeing toys.

I would be surprised if there's ill will but Kawamori's designs are Yamato's meal ticket so it's better to play it safe. The air Kawamori previously put on toward MacII was always one of ambivalence. There is HIS version of Macross with the shows he's worked on and within that there's even some ambiguity over what truly did happen and what is interpretation. MacII isn't part of HIS Macross so he just doesn't care about it one way or another, it might as well be some spin off Gundam show. Still, it's easy to have that attitude when MacII has nicely faded into obscurity. If Yamato and Bandai tried to dust it off and make money off it he might have more reason to take notice.

Personally, I'm not a big fan of the MacII valks (although I might have liked the destroids, I remember there was definitely some designs I liked but it's been too long since I've seen it). I would rather have a Phalanx, regult, glaug, 1/48 V2 VF-1, 1/60 V2 YF-19, etc.

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Yeah but what I mean is SK just creates a whole new series which is really more appealing to an older audience with characters that don't copy the original macross ones.

I mean yeah they fly in space with angelic themed names and shoot things with their machines just as pilots in gundam, but not preteen kids who are so inexperienced that they are sloppy at knowing how to control the basic functions of the robot..

One thing I noticed is that many people here are much more fans of the original macross than later series.

The original with minmay in it and hikaru. Hikaru wants the girls ass and tries to impress her by joining the military. he gets bossed around by a woman who hates show-off stunts, and within that series is many funny situations that gives it a soap opera like feel to the whole thing.

Recreate that humor and make the series more appealing to an international audience too. People who would watch cowboy bebop or play music could watch the show and not just mecha show fans.Zero's problem I think was there wasn't enough pop music in it. Macross II had a good start (I like the war journalist character trying to expose the government cover up of what's happening) but it didn't end very well.

Frontier was good but the bugs didn't get a chance to say or communicate anything so they seem like background 'characters' unlike the inbit in mospeda which actually used psychic communication of some sort. You actually got to hear what they were planning. If it was 52 eps they probably could have fleshed out the bad guys and made them a bit deeper. Perhaps they needed to feed on others because they were running from something more scary than themselves? Add a bit more mystery so that we could relate to them. Perhaps as refugees fleeing their hive world because of stronger and scarier threats?

Edited by 1/1 LowViz Lurker
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I would be surprised if there's ill will but Kawamori's designs are Yamato's meal ticket so it's better to play it safe. The air Kawamori previously put on toward MacII was always one of ambivalence. There is HIS version of Macross with the shows he's worked on and within that there's even some ambiguity over what truly did happen and what is interpretation. MacII isn't part of HIS Macross so he just doesn't care about it one way or another, it might as well be some spin off Gundam show. Still, it's easy to have that attitude when MacII has nicely faded into obscurity. If Yamato and Bandai tried to dust it off and make money off it he might have more reason to take notice.

Personally, I'm not a big fan of the MacII valks (although I might have liked the destroids, I remember there was definitely some designs I liked but it's been too long since I've seen it). I would rather have a Phalanx, regult, glaug, 1/48 V2 VF-1, 1/60 V2 YF-19, etc.

Granted Macross is a big part of what Yamato does but they make other toys and products that Kawamori has absolutely no say in at all. Personally, I think the perceived opinion that "Kawamori would be upset" plays much less of a role in the whole thing than money does.

Edit: I guess what really gets me is that there are plenty of lesser and obsure IPs that get the toy treatment (see a lot of the Chogokin stuff you see out there) but Macross II gets nothing except a model kit that was released many years ago. It can all seem so arbitrary sometimes...

Edited by xrentonx
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please noo!!, vf-2 = crap

Why "please no"? Sure, you think it's crap (opinions are like "voids surrounded by sphyncter muscles", everybody has one), but how would a company producing something that you would not buy affect you in any way for you to wish that the product weren't produced at all, thereby affecting everyone else who do want the opportunity to purchase a 1/60 rendition of the Valkyrie II? Or would you feel somehow obligated to buy such a personally hated thing just because it exists?

Bandai or Yamato makes a VF-2 toy = everyone who'd want one could buy one, or many. Those who don't want anything to do with the design or M2 can just sit it out and save the cash for something else... Everybody wins.

A VF-2 never gets made = everyone who'd want one is left in the lurch. And some of those who dislike (judging from your very post) the mecha from M2 and/or M2 itself get to experience a bit of schadenfreude... Nobody wins, but some think they did.

Edited by mechaninac
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Bandai or Yamato makes a VF-2 toy = everyone who'd want one could buy one, or many. Those who don't want anything to do with the design or M2 can just sit it out and save the cash for something else... Everybody wins.

Yes but WILLLLLLLLLLLLLL people buy them? We had this same problem with toys like the VF-11 and Destroids. The YamaBanadai Dream Factory gets irate when people whine about wanting something but never spend the cash.

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That's beside the point to my statement. I'm strictly talking from the stantpoint of the consumer, and have not made any assumptions regarding the viability of such a product from the standpoint of the manufacturer. Whether a company should or shouldn't pursue any particular venture is something for the CEOs and CFOs to decide, and I'll readly agree that now would not be the appropriate time due to worldwide economic conditions; but such decisions on the part of toy companies are completely divorced from some people's desire to never have a 1/60 VF-2SS made at all because of personal, and entirely arbitrary, reasons.

The VF-11 and Destroids languished on shelves due, in part, to their price points... they sold well enough once they went on sale; so it's not that fans didn't want them, but that many didn't think they were getting enough value for the money (I feel that way about the VF-19s and VF-17s and have not bought any, but that does not mean I wish they had never been made). It's all a balancing act for manufacturers: bet right and you make a mint; bet wrong and you loose your shirt; bet wrong often enough and you go out of business.

Edit: If Bandai or Yamato made a VF-2SS I'd certainly buy a Sylvie and a Nexx, and maybe a third. And I'd buy at least one VF-2JA. But that's me, personally; I can't speak for anyone else, and wouldn't want to speculate if anyone else would.

Edited by mechaninac
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People spend enough time on a forum or forums and suddenly they're the expert on what is viable enough to go into production. And they make up the reasons to say they're right because chances are these things will never get made and they'll never get proved wrong. But I've brought this up time and again. Yamato said they'd never make the Macross, and they did. They said that it probably would never make the VF-4 because it such a niche valkyrie. A version 2 of the 1/60 VF-1 line? who would buy that after people already spent good money on v.1 and a 1/48 line? All of Kawamori's politics aside what makes a VF-2SS less viable when it has more screen time and was officially released in a wider market than the VF-4. And the over use of intakes? More holes... less material! :p

I actually respect the "it's crap" statement more. It's his honest opinion and he's entitled to that in a thread full of people saying "I want!"

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I actually respect the "it's crap" statement more. It's his honest opinion and he's entitled to that in a thread full of people saying "I want!"

To me it's the equivalent of someone coming in, typing "Meh," and then leaving the thread. I don't really care but I don't find any value in reading it either.

Edited by xrentonx
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One thing I have noticed though is how some say they would buy something but then they will say "I don't have the money to afford it unless I wait for it to go on sale".

I want another ozuma vf-25s (grey planes are the best) but not at ebay prices.

The more people that say they hate it the less chance this would get made at all. If you hate it, tell the companies that you would not buy it. If you like it, tell them you'd buy it but indicate what kind of price you'd pay.

Personally I think a 1/100 PT like the bandai vf-1 and vf-19 should be attempted first. Then if people buy it, maybe they can do a 1/60 later? (release in that order so people who bought a smaller version would be tempted to upgrade to the big one - ie double dip)

You got to remmeber that what sells is based on whatever else is out. So if say there is a 1/60 VF-19 coming out and bandai release the 1/100 vf-19 they might not get as many sales as they did from people who are into a bigger scale) This is what happened, and now people claim the HMetal Line isn't worth continuing. Nonsense. It was because they had an alternative, and it only gave the impression that HiMetal sucks due to people preferring the bigger scale yamato toy which is in scale to many other toys they own at 1/60.

Which is why I think if yamato were to make the mospeada stuff now, it would be ok since no other toy companiy is currently touching it. (last time you had several scales of the same thing for ridearmor toys and by the time the beagle ride armor came out, nobody had any money left)

They have milked the vf-1. they are doing vf-4, now the future is Mspeada legious and tread (unpopular to the masses but loved by fans of the show) and the ridearmor (skipped by many because they bought up megahouse and CMs) that were done by beagle which is the best toy of that bike ever done.

Edited by 1/1 LowViz Lurker
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To the point of who would buy one: I fall in with those that argue it has had more screen time than the vf-4. The fact that there was a movie with this as the central valk means there are more people who would recognize or be fans of this toy when compared to the number of us hardcore fans who saw rick play with a toy of a vf-4 once for literally 1 second and saw it for a few seconds in a music video or unlocked it in a fairly obscure video game.

I would buy one for sure, but as someone else pointed out its about price as well. For example, look at the vf-4. If the vf-4 comes out and is 400+ bucks... sorry can't justify that. Not sure I could pull the trigger at 300, and I'm certainly not hurting like a lot of other people are in this economy. I bought a vf-11c and I love it, but Im not really seeing where the 100 extra bucks went into it compared to a vf-1 v2, so I can sympathize with people who didn't pick one up because of the price point. I justified buying it actually because of free shipping. The point I guess is that as much as I love the vf-2ss design, if it's going to be crazy like 400+, not sure I could buy one. Doesn't mean I don't want the toy any less, and maybe because I am such a fan I would go ahead and buy it, but you want a toy to "fail" like the 11b or c then price it wrong.

Anyway, I hope we do see one for those of us who love this design, sorry people who get uggg at the thought of it. I can't stand the vf-19 kai clown version, but I don't begrudge it's existence, I'm happy people who like it got a chance to have a killer toy of it!

Edited by auberondreaming
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