In the Macross: Do You Remember Love? movie, we get a 3-second glimpse of a rather strange veritech fighter, starting at 12 minutes and 35 seconds.
Yes! It’s the VE-1 Elint Seeker (Elint = Electronic Signals Intelligence). Yamato finally re-released the VE-1 in the second 1/60 generation of veritechs, and she’s a beauty!
Here’s a view from the side:
And here’s a view from the back of the fighter:
Eye-Catching Box and Great Packaging!
The VE-1 comes in a large box, but it doesn’t have the cover flap like a lot of other Yamato veritechs!
The box has the same thickness as the other VF-1S/J’s that come with Super Parts, but is thinner than the normal VF-1A box.
The VE-1 comes in two plastic trays, one that holds the fighter and accessories, and a second tray that holds the armor and the radar dome.
Of course, there’s an instruction manual (20 pages, with black-and-white pictures of a VE-1 with an incomplete paint scheme) and a sticker sheet. The only stickers I applied were the eye-looking ones on the sides of the boosters.
The Neat Stuff about the VE-1
The mold looks very similar to the VT-1 Super Ostrich: the VE-1 has a similar backpack (tail fins do not fold over each other, but instead, the entire backpack just flips over), the cockpit is a two-person-seater, and the boosters are short and stubby.
Here’s a closeup of the two pilot figures:
Now here are some really neat items on the VE-1.
Be Careful with Handling!
The VE-1 is quite bulky with all these neat accessories. Make sure you’re careful handling the VE-1 because the right-arm-mounted antennae is a piece of thin plastic, and the left-arm-mounted communications relay co-antennae has four little plastic rods sticking out on each end, and on the bottom, there are two thin, long plastic rods. Finally, because the relay co-antennae on the left arm hangs downward, I think you really need a Macross display stand to prop the VE-1 up.
Since the VE-1 in the Macross movie is in fighter mode, I’m leaving mine in fighter mode. If you’d like to see what the VE-1 looks like in Gerwalk and Battloid mode, check it out at Hobby Link Japan: http://www.hlj.com/product/YMT00127
For more information on the VE-1’s equipment, see the Macross Mecha Manual.