Just saw the 30th Anniversary Edition of the VF-1J from Arcadia on Hobby Link Japan’s site, available for pre-order, to be released in August:
http://www.hlj.com/product/ACA82001/Sci
The mold definitely looks like Yamato’s VF-1J mold. However, I’m not getting it. I would never paint my valkyries in a way that they don’t resemble something from the movie or TV series..
I have been wondering why yamato-toys.com leads to a “page not found” error. I just found this blog post about Yamato Toys shutting down very quietly:
http://quentinlau.blogspot.com/2013/03/yamato-closed-down.html
I sure hope the toy designers from Yamato found jobs at Arcadia, the company that hopefully will acquire the rights to continue making Macross toys. However, I’m not sure it will happen, because Yamato already made the most popular valkyries already, and tried to re-sell updates by including the pilot seats. I thought about getting one of the updates (“with option parts”), but decided not to because I couldn’t see myself playing that much with the pilot seats.
I am really glad Yamato released the VF-4, though. That toy was a completely new design, and must have been quite an investment to make.
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As published on Robotech.com’s Facebook news feed today, there’s an awesome opinion piece on the Rick-Minmei-Lisa love story on io9.com:
http://io9.com/5971053/why-robotech-is-the-greatest-love-story-of-the-20th-century
After a long wait, I finally received Yamato’s 1/60th-scale VF4-G Lightning III! After playing with it, I realize why it took so long to make. There are so many intricate parts, and the transformation is quite complicated, too.
Front of the box
Back of the box
Now, opening the box…
The top is protected by two layers of plastic
The VF4-G, two stand parts, two articulated hands, and a pilot. Wait, where’s the gunpod??
Bottom of the inside of the box. Nice labeling..
Instruction manual and sticker sheet
Fighter mode. Ah, looks just like it does in Flashback 2012, except this is a gray color scheme, not the white color scheme..
Close-up of the pilot
Close-up of the left engine booster. Looks like the booster on the VF-1 Fast pack.
Close-up of cannon on the right engine
Onto gerwalk mode!
The VF-4 is slightly difficult to stand up in gerwalk mode, because of the long nose.
And finally, battroid mode. It took a long time to transform from gerwalk mode!
Someone please tell me this is some booster/thruster, and not a speaker!
The build quality is superb: the VF-4 is heavier than the VF-1′s because there’s more die-cast metal. The shoulders, elbows, neck, and leg joints are all made of metal. A must for Macross fans!
Just saw this post on yamato-toys.com about the progress on the VF-4G Lightning III from Macross Flashback 2012. It looks simply awesome! I especially like the gerwalk mode. It reminds me of the shuttle Tydirium.
http://www.yamato-toys.com/dev/release_115/index.html
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Now that the A&E Robotech DVD collection is available, I bought it, and started watching the extras. In the “Making of Robotech” documentary, we see several voice actors.
Tony Oliver, voice of Rick Hunter
Richard Epcar. He looks like Ben Dixon, Grel, and Lunk!
Reba West, voice of Minmay
Michael, McConnohie, voice of General Emerson
Melanie Macqueen, voice of Lisa Hayes and Musica. She even has red hair like Lisa's!
Greg Finley, voice of Captain Gloval. I would have never suspected what Greg really looks like, because he does Gloval's accent so well!
Frank Catalano, voice of Rand. He totally sounds like Rand while speaking normally!
Ellyn Stern, voice of "additional characters"
Dan Woren, the voice of Roy Focker!! Great how he's wearing a SDF-1 cap!
Melodee Spevack, voice of Mission Control... all those voiceovers!
Cam Clarke, voice for Max and Lancer. He seems like a really cool guy!
Barbara Goodson, voice of Marie Crystal and Sera. I really like her strong voice!
Alexandra Kenworthy, the voice of Azonia and the Regess
Haven’t seen the voice actor for Khyron yet! I’m curious what he looks like.
Coming on October 18th, Robotech on DVD again, now with a bunch of extras! Read all about it on Robotech.com:
http://www.robotech.com/news/viewarticle.php?id=443
