DX Chogokin VF-17S

[MacrossJunkie]

2 hours ago, strikevalk said:

ah man.... this is kinda Unaccpetable..... 

Yeah, just look at the Yamato 17's in comparison. I think they struck a great balance in the proportions for all three modes.

With the FAST packs, it's even better. 

Bandai couldn't even bother remolding more of the parts to be accurate to the VF-17, skinniness aside.

The only thing the Bandai beats it in is availability, which I guess is the most important factor for those who don't have the Yamato.

[davidwhangchoi]

Like the Isamu YF-29 Durandal Custom,

they should've marketed this as a 171 in M7  Diamond Force custom color. 

[Graham]

 

1 hour ago, MacrossJunkie said:

Yeah, just look at the Yamato 17's in comparison. I think they struck a great balance in the proportions for all three modes.

With the FAST packs, it's even better. 

Bandai couldn't even bother remolding more of the parts to be accurate to the VF-17, skinniness aside.

The only thing the Bandai beats it in is availability, which I guess is the most important factor for those who don't have the Yamato.

It's shocking how much better proprtioned the Yamato looks, especially in Battroid and Gerwalk modes.

I was originally thinking to order 2pcs of the Bandai DX VF-17S, but now I think I'll just get1pc and keep it in fighter mode. Unless Bandai significantly reworks the sculpt between now and release.

[Graham]

I hope Bandai get enough complaints about this that they consider changes. Honestly, I can't believe they are being this lazy.

[Lolicon]

I might get one, but it's staying permanently in fighter mode. That battroid is fugly. 

Just like with the upcoming VF-19, this ain't replacing my Yamatos. 

[VF8000G]

10 minutes ago, Graham said:

I hope Bandai get enough complaints about this that they consider changes. Honestly, I can't believe they are being this lazy.

I wish, but the 17 has always been a more niche design among the Valkyries, being a grunt and all.  Not even Arcadia wants to reissue the Yamato version. 

[Scyla]

1 hour ago, MacrossJunkie said:

Yeah, just look at the Yamato 17's in comparison. I think they struck a great balance in the proportions for all three modes.

With the FAST packs, it's even better. 

Bandai couldn't even bother remolding more of the parts to be accurate to the VF-17, skinniness aside.

The only thing the Bandai beats it in is availability, which I guess is the most important factor for those who don't have the Yamato.

Yamato obviously had other priorities but the fighter mode is much too thick. Especially when you look at it from the side and below. 

[PointBlankSniper]

Definitely a repainted 171. Heppoko Samurai missed the wings though. Those have to be new too, because the 171 has a different shape towards the inside.

Black paint somehow makes the legs even skinnier lol. The gunpod definitely isn't stowing in the leg or changing ammo type. Doesn't look like they have plans for super pack, since there's no way to mount the back pack, even if they figure out how to hack the leg parts on with existing armor pack connections.

Honestly, though, the revival's triangles are rock solid. I've already said in that thread, but those things seem unbreakable now. I accidentally used them as a load bearing perch for my hand to wrangle other parts, and also crushed by swinging shoulder parts around in the wrong order and angles. They just returned to form like nothing happened. Can't guarantee that with the new colored plastic, but I'd like to think bandai at least permanently learned that one lesson if nothing else

Disappointing that bandai didn't even try to make the finer gimmicks that are different from the 171 work in any way, other than the elbow guns.

[BlueMax]

The S-type head shown on the frame doesn't do it for me, though I believe the D-head will certainly do better since it is pretty similar to the 171.

The one thing the 17 has going for it is that it is pretty much immune to yellowing....

[Chronocidal]

6 hours ago, davidwhangchoi said:

Like the Isamu YF-29 Durandal Custom,

they should've marketed this as a 171 in M7  Diamond Force custom color. 

Which, funny enough, I think I would have been more on-board with?   They could have marketed it under the Macross 30 game license, since it included a bunch of alternate color 171s I would have loved.

On that note though, this might give us the red Millia 17S I always wanted, but Yamato never did.  I'll definitely bite on that one, if it happens.

All things considered though, I might still grab one or two of these down the road.  They won't replace the Yammies, but I'll be very curious to see how it sells, and whether it winds up in the Amazon bargain bin (where it really belongs). They'll stay in fighter forever, but I can't say the design is terrible in that mode anyhow.

At the very least it'll be a nice source of spare parts to repair more of my 171 junk pile.

[enphily]

5 hours ago, Graham said:

I hope Bandai get enough complaints about this that they consider changes. Honestly, I can't believe they are being this lazy.

I'm 100% sure they not. Why would they do that if macross fans will buy multiple copies anyway?

[Mog]

The YF-21 is another example of Bandai’s stubbornness in the face of multiple complaints.

They had literal years to change or improve that design, and they never did.

[rsvictor1976]

13 hours ago, Graham said:

But, to be fair, so far the revival VF-171EX is holding up OK, with no issues.

This!

[davidwhangchoi]

9 hours ago, Chronocidal said:

Which, funny enough, I think I would have been more on-board with?   They could have marketed it under the Macross 30 game license, since it included a bunch of alternate color 171s I would have loved.

On that note though, this might give us the red Millia 17S I always wanted, but Yamato never did.  I'll definitely bite on that one, if it happens.

All things considered though, I might still grab one or two of these down the road.  They won't replace the Yammies, but I'll be very curious to see how it sells, and whether it winds up in the Amazon bargain bin (where it really belongs). They'll stay in fighter forever, but I can't say the design is terrible in that mode anyhow.

At the very least it'll be a nice source of spare parts to repair more of my 171 junk pile.

yes, i will wait for Amazon clearance for this one... 

Bandai with Frontier and Delta series had good original toys designs that were created together alongside the new show from ground up to market. Good or bad, those designs were original as they were created with the anime.

-designing toys retroactively for past anime, Bandai steals the majority of the designs improvements of the VF-19 and VF-1 off Arcadia's engineering revisions.

-(19's sweep wings, everything off the VF-1 ver. 2 ) VF-0D's hi-metals. Bandai seems decent at copying and making it a bit better.

-the Dx YF-21 didn't really have a revision to steal from and came out a mixed bag.  I guarantee Arcadia, if they are still alive and had a budget, would do a much better revision of the YF-21.   

M7 is pretty much looks like a Redeco line up. TF generation 2 toys.

Minor alterations to the 19 to make a fire valk.

and the laziest Redeco, slap on a new head and some arms on a 171. WTF Bandai... this is a frontier valk. At least the isamu YF-19 was a closer cousin to the VF-19.

the 171 is not even close to a VF- 17.

 

Bandai should make a DX SDF-1 out of the Macross Quarter

[Mog]

6 minutes ago, davidwhangchoi said:

Bandai should make a DX SDF-1 out of the Macross Quarter

Don’t put that evil on us!

Especially when there’s a perfectly promising TV style prototype just collecting dust somewhere.

[PointBlankSniper]

2 hours ago, davidwhangchoi said:

 At least the isamu YF-19 was a closer cousin to the VF-19.

the 171 is not even close to a VF- 17.

I think it's the other way around. Only the thruster spines are actually common between the two 19s. Maybe the forearms, canards, roll pins, and some die cast bits that aren't too visible, but I can't even be sure. Everything else most definitely looks different and needs to be a new mold.

The 171 is technically mostly just the 17, but in CG style... In lore, aside from the appendages bandai already did change, they put the gunpod outside the 171 and used the space to fit larger engines in the old legs. So bandai has lore justification for recycling 171 leg proportions on this. Of course, that doesn't mean they shouldn't have just gone with old animation proportionis over the 171 CG, and skimped out on the gunpod storage gimmick. Now it's a partsformer where the gun gets tossed out.

Edited September 26 by PointBlankSniper

[Chronocidal]

20 minutes ago, PointBlankSniper said:

I think it's the other way around. Only the thruster spines are actually common between the two 19s. Maybe the forearms, canards, roll pins, and some die cast bits that aren't too visible, but I can't even be sure. Everything else most definitely looks different and needs to be a new mold.

The 171 is technically mostly just the 17, but in CG style... In lore, aside from the appendages bandai already did change, they put the gunpod outside the 171 and used the space to fit larger engines in the old legs. So bandai has lore justification for recycling 171 leg proportions on this. Of course, that doesn't mean they shouldn't have just gone with old animation proportionis over the 171 CG, and skimped out on the gunpod storage gimmick. Now it's a partsformer where the gun gets tossed out.

I think the topic here is much more about the proportions of the jet itself than the individual parts.  For all of the changes between them, the YF-19 and VF-19 are still fundamentally the same aircraft design, with the same layout and overall proportions of components relative to each other.

That really can't be said about the 17 and 171, because their proportions are really nothing alike in battroid mode.  Obviously moving to CG animation changed the magical proportion shifts present in Macross 7, but that didn't stop Yamato from making a massively chonky brute of a VF-17, and getting it to transform into a solid fighter mode.

Bandai made an accurate VF-171, sure.  But it looks nothing like what the VF-17 ever has, in any medium.

They may as well be trying to upsell an F-18C as a Super Hornet.  The designs are at least that different.

[nightmareB4macross]

36 minutes ago, Chronocidal said:

I think the topic here is much more about the proportions of the jet itself than the individual parts.  For all of the changes between them, the YF-19 and VF-19 are still fundamentally the same aircraft design, with the same layout and overall proportions of components relative to each other.

That really can't be said about the 17 and 171, because their proportions are really nothing alike in battroid mode.  Obviously moving to CG animation changed the magical proportion shifts present in Macross 7, but that didn't stop Yamato from making a massively chonky brute of a VF-17, and getting it to transform into a solid fighter mode.

Bandai made an accurate VF-171, sure.  But it looks nothing like what the VF-17 ever has, in any medium.

They may as well be trying to upsell an F-18C as a Super Hornet.  The designs are at least that different.

Well said. And so very true.

I think I found the original sketch used to develop this new DX. Not much really changed.

Thanks for nothing Bandai.

 

[PointBlankSniper]

2 hours ago, Chronocidal said:

I think the topic here is much more about the proportions of the jet itself than the individual parts.  For all of the changes between them, the YF-19 and VF-19 are still fundamentally the same aircraft design, with the same layout and overall proportions of components relative to each other.

That really can't be said about the 17 and 171, because their proportions are really nothing alike in battroid mode.  Obviously moving to CG animation changed the magical proportion shifts present in Macross 7, but that didn't stop Yamato from making a massively chonky brute of a VF-17, and getting it to transform into a solid fighter mode.

Bandai made an accurate VF-171, sure.  But it looks nothing like what the VF-17 ever has, in any medium.

They may as well be trying to upsell an F-18C as a Super Hornet.  The designs are at least that different.

I missed a line in the quote I was responding to, but half of what I said was responding to "Minor alterations to the 19 to make a fire valk." Fundamentally in lore, they are the same, but in terms of toy production, other than following most of the same contortions to transform, they are almost unrelated.

The 19s really don't even share the same battroid proportions either. Wasn't it you, or maybe it was someone else, that told me on the other thread that the 19kai has that nasty gap in the leg because it has to retract for battroid and extend for fighter, where the YF doesn't have such proportion issues? Their legs are of completely different design, so bandai couldn't even recycle those parts even if they wanted to.

Meanwhile it's in lore that 171 stuffs a larger engine in the same old 17 leg. So like I said, Bandai has their lore excuse to prove that it's a matter of artistic depiction.

But I've alreardy said they shouldn't have done that and should have followed the original fat proportions as depicted. I don't disagree that it looks wrong from every depiction ever, so I'm not sure what part of the topic I'm missing.

To put it differently, if 171 was drawn in M7 style, it would be just as chonky as 17. But if YF-19 was drawn in M7 style, it would still have different legs, shoulders, nose cone, canopy, lower chest turrets, shield, head, etc from the VF-19kai. One gives them justification to cheat the toy design while the other doesn't. Not that they should have cheated at all

[davidwhangchoi]

5 hours ago, Mog said:

Don’t put that evil on us!

Especially when there’s a perfectly promising TV style prototype just collecting dust somewhere.

 

2 hours ago, Chronocidal said:

I think the topic here is much more about the proportions of the jet itself than the individual parts.  For all of the changes between them, the YF-19 and VF-19 are still fundamentally the same aircraft design, with the same layout and overall proportions of components relative to each other.

That really can't be said about the 17 and 171, because their proportions are really nothing alike in battroid mode.  Obviously moving to CG animation changed the magical proportion shifts present in Macross 7, but that didn't stop Yamato from making a massively chonky brute of a VF-17, and getting it to transform into a solid fighter mode.

Bandai made an accurate VF-171, sure.  But it looks nothing like what the VF-17 ever has, in any medium.

They may as well be trying to upsell an F-18C as a Super Hornet.  The designs are at least that different.

100%

2 hours ago, nightmareB4macross said:

Well said. And so very true.

I think I found the original sketch used to develop this new DX. Not much really changed.

Thanks for nothing Bandai.

ahahaha, that drawing...

This site is the best 

[Mommar]

Leave it to Bandai to be 0 for 3 on getting a decent looking mode.  It's totally a 171 with an oversized head.  Looks terrible.

[seti88]

2 hours ago, nightmareB4macross said:

Well said. And so very true.

I think I found the original sketch used to develop this new DX. Not much really changed.

Thanks for nothing Bandai.

 

i hereby christen thee...the picasso valk!

[MKT]

I gotta agree that billing it as a 171 in fantasy or what-if M7 colors would be more palatable. I guess if I am getting this, I would pretend it to be so and lump it together with the Anniversary schemes in the shelf.

 

2 hours ago, nightmareB4macross said:

Well said. And so very true.

I think I found the original sketch used to develop this new DX. Not much really changed.

Thanks for nothing Bandai.

 

Haha this is gold! 

 

23 hours ago, MacrossJunkie said:

Yeah, just look at the Yamato 17's in comparison. I think they struck a great balance in the proportions for all three modes.

With the FAST packs, it's even better. 

Bandai couldn't even bother remolding more of the parts to be accurate to the VF-17, skinniness aside.

The only thing the Bandai beats it in is availability, which I guess is the most important factor for those who don't have the Yamato.

I'm actually a bit meh on Yamato's 17 Battroid mode, perhaps too slim or scrawny in some areas, but I recognize they have done quite an effort to balance all modes in light of the heavy anime magic going on. At minimum, they acknowledge a key aspect of the 17 being a bulky boy.

That said, I have your 17 pics saved to my phone for longest time, and I love how the angle plus black background of your shots effectively masks the shortcomings of Yamato's sculpt and giving it a full brute appearance. 

[wmkjr]

If it's gonna be based on the 171 here is a comparison with the Yamato. Photo's courtesy of @bat1911. Bandai should've made the Delta tan version too.

[kajnrig]

The moment I heard of this, I assumed it would be basically a reuse of the 171, and sure enough... I'm not a big fan of the 17, much prefer the 171, but even so I gagged a bit at the pics.

[PsYcHoDyNaMiX]

Would it be better just to go onto Bandai's or Kawamori's X post/social media and just have everyone comment about the too thin/too skinny proportions? Maybe with enough public outcry directly would get them to reconsider? 

[Chronocidal]

3 hours ago, PointBlankSniper said:

I missed a line in the quote I was responding to, but half of what I said was responding to "Minor alterations to the 19 to make a fire valk." Fundamentally in lore, they are the same, but in terms of toy production, other than following most of the same contortions to transform, they are almost unrelated.

The 19s really don't even share the same battroid proportions either. Wasn't it you, or maybe it was someone else, that told me on the other thread that the 19kai has that nasty gap in the leg because it has to retract for battroid and extend for fighter, where the YF doesn't have such proportion issues? Their legs are of completely different design, so bandai couldn't even recycle those parts even if they wanted to.

Meanwhile it's in lore that 171 stuffs a larger engine in the same old 17 leg. So like I said, Bandai has their lore excuse to prove that it's a matter of artistic depiction.

But I've alreardy said they shouldn't have done that and should have followed the original fat proportions as depicted. I don't disagree that it looks wrong from every depiction ever, so I'm not sure what part of the topic I'm missing.

To put it differently, if 171 was drawn in M7 style, it would be just as chonky as 17. But if YF-19 was drawn in M7 style, it would still have different legs, shoulders, nose cone, canopy, lower chest turrets, shield, head, etc from the VF-19kai. One gives them justification to cheat the toy design while the other doesn't. Not that they should have cheated at all

Yeah, that might have been me explaining the knees, but my point here was something a little different.

If you look at the original battroid art, the YF-19 and VF-19 absolutely share the same proportions.  They're fundamentally the same skeleton with different body panels.  If they were cars, they'd be the same chassis with different body kits.

From the toy manufacturing side, what I'm talking about is the internal skeleton that the valks transform on, independently of what any exterior panel is molded to look like.  Whatever the exterior looks like, you can probably draw a very similar stick figure between every one of the major transformation joints, and the mechanisms involved will be mostly identical, with the same measurements between them.

The big differences come from the way Bandai and Yamato/Arcadia approached their own designs.

The Yamato and Arcadia YF-19 and VF-19 both compromised the length of the legs to make the battroids stockier, so they both have to extend the legs for fighter mode, leaving those knee gaps.  But the fundamental proportions of the designs, the "skeletons," are the same between them.

On the Bandai side, they made the conscious decision to model their YF-19 (and the VF-19 Advance) on the updated animation style without any mass shifting.  The legs are proportionally longer and skinnier, so they were able to avoid the knee gap.  Some people didn't like the changes, but it helped Bandai pull of a very slick fighter mode.

While we don't have the DX Fire Valk yet, we can make some general assumptions, and it's very likely that it will share the same "skeleton" proportions with the DX YF-19.  Once you figure out a working set of those measurements and mechanisms, it helps a ton to be able to re-use them, which is why they're doing the same for the VF-17 now, rather than re-designing it to match the original animation.  It's just a lot less work.

Far as the animation goes though... eh.  On the off chance that we did get a modern animated version of the VF-17, I feel like it would be cutting way too many corners to just tweak the model like Bandai has done here.  It's practically unrecognizable as the same valk.

For the VF-19 and YF-19 though?  The YF-19 was drawn in the M7 style, almost literally.  Macross Plus and Macross 7 came out concurrently in 1994.  The animation styles of the two were a little different, but the line art was all drawn around the same time, and is very similar.

Also, something to keep in mind with the animation... Bandai can write whatever lore it wants about how the VF-171 is supposed to use the same components as the VF-17.  Truth is though, trying to reconcile those designs between the two shows is just flat out impossible.  The sizes of the valks in M7 were insane, and no amount of lore manipulation can make that make a lick of sense.  

Like, just for comparison.  The 171 looks like its wings/waterline are about 6 feet off the ground.  The VF-17 was animated to look absolutely gargantuan by comparison.  The only way we know what size the valks in M7 were supposed to be is Kawamori's official notes, because M7's art scaling was not at all grounded in realistic sizes for any of the fighters.  It really didn't try to make anything look as realistic as the other series did.

Edited September 26 by Chronocidal

[Lolicon]

I'll forgive the janky VF-17 if Bandai gives us a red Miria version! (Staying in fighter mode, of course.)

[PointBlankSniper]

4 hours ago, Chronocidal said:

While we don't have the DX Fire Valk yet, we can make some general assumptions, and it's very likely that it will share the same "skeleton" proportions with the DX YF-19.

The YF-19 was drawn in the M7 style, almost literally.

The thing is, I don't think these toys have much of a skeleton to speak of. A lot of mechanism and structure is already molded into the underside of the outer shells. They do have some separate pieces of internal braces, tracks, ratchets etc, but even those must be tabbed in or glued to the outer shell, so they mostly have to be new parts to conform to the new shell. And those really only make up a minor fraction of the total parts, compared to the externally visible parts, including exposed undersides, insides, and extensions etc. Even identical looking parts to the old ones need to be new parts accomodate the changes caused by the other new parts. Otherwise, the parts are just hollow appendages.

Take for example, the VF-19's chest. The lack of chest cannons means that whole shell needs to be a new piece just to fill the hole, despite having identical details to the YF. All the associated swinging and sliding mechanism would then be deleted for the new chest because they serve no purpose. Then theres the head change, and the way the head needs to conceal without the old shields fancy features, you basically have nothing left of the old torso, other than the spine thrusters and the pilot egress hatch.

Sure they save on a lot of guess work with transformation, but they need to mostly make new parts nonetheless, especially when everything from hips down/backward of intakes were intended to look different regardless of proportions.

As for art style between M+ and M7, I see the latter as generally much more melted lol.

If you were to challenge the size and scaling across series, what would it mean for the VF-22 that appears in both M7 and Delta, which features 171? Or going the other way and comparing those to the 21 and various 19s, all the way to the 19 Advanced, which fought alongside 171s. Should the 17 show up there and tower over its former co-stars that have their size and scaling made clear against the later CG valks?

[kajnrig]

1 hour ago, PointBlankSniper said:

Should the 17 show up there and tower over its former co-stars that have their size and scaling made clear against the later CG valks?

Isn't the 171 explicitly an almost ground-up redesign that only superficially resembles the 17 and is canonically smaller and slimmer? Like the real world Hornet to Super Hornet but in reverse.

[Bolt]

This is quite a surprise. I'm glad Bandai is rolling forward with more M7. But this version, once again, makes me miss Yamato. 
Easy pass.

[HardlyNever]

Ehh, probably a pass for me unless it hits the bargain bin.  I'm surprised and disappointed we're getting this instead of a VF-11 first.  I'd love a new vf-11 in chogokin or HMR.

[Tking22]

Damn, this thing has got some chicken legs! Easy pass for me, I still have a Yamato 17D in storage somewhere, that thing is gorgeous, and proportioned way better IMO. 

[derex3592]

#YamatoDidItBetter. I'm out. I'll keep my 17D

[505thAirborne]

27 minutes ago, HardlyNever said:

Ehh, probably a pass for me unless it hits the bargain bin.  I'm surprised and disappointed we're getting this instead of a VF-11 first.  I'd love a new vf-11 in chogokin or HMR.

By recycling the parts/molds of the 171 to use with this VF-17 release, that makes it way more cost-effective vs a team to design & engineer a completely new mold like a properly proportioned VF-17 or a VF-11B/C.

Frankly, I would be way more excited to see a DX VF-2SS+SAP or an HMR VF-2JA, but that's just me.