Yamato, the name gives you mixed feelings when dealing with anime figures and well Macross mechs.

 

Why the heck can they design engineering feats in the form of Valkyries and most often than not shoot themselves in the foot?

 

Anyway here's my first Yamato product review focusing on the kick @ss GBP Armor for their 1/60 version 2 Valkyrie.

 

Please Note: Used the VF1-S Hikaru as the center mech (which never saw the light of day whatsoever in the animated series or the DYRL Movie. In fact, not counting episode 9 of Ms Macross, the armor was just shown for about 10 seconds in the DYRL movie.

 

And yet it's been such an iconic upgrade that Yamato even made a stand alone set for their Valkyries.

 

Contents:

 

 

Chest Armor

 

 

Shoulder and Forearms armor (4 pieces) x 2

 

 

Loin/Groin Armor (6 pieces)

 

 

Scram jet/booster pack rear thrusters are adjustable)

 

 

Shin guard/armor

 

 

Elevator shoes kidding, additional foot armor to make it look more proportional

 

 

Close up full armor

 

 

Ready to fire (btw, I did not include the additional launch effect flower of doom blooming effects)

 

 

 

The Rant:

 

My first exposure to this product was the 1/48 set up. First time I beheld it I was :o!

 

It was like a monster, bristling with weaponry and all those beer can missiles......wow! But the price was waaaaaaay out of my league.

 

Then Yamato came up with a smaller 1/60 which was all but sold out every time it was released locally(that must have been ver 1)

 

Then came the complaints of the "imperfect" transformation issue which all the more turned me off from getting one. Later, ver 2 came out and I said....ALRIGHT! But it came packed with the VF1-J which, for all intent and purpose was THE Valkyrie for the armor(animation wise too) but for some reason........I wanted "Skull Leader" to get the honor of wearing it.

 

So waited I did and got a DYRL VF1-S Hikaru sans armor..........plus another issue with the broken shoulder hinge made me avoid the VF1-J like a plague.

 

Well it seemed that I was condemned to just own an emaciated Skull Leader when lo and behold, a stand alone armor set was recently released......lucky or what?!

 

Issues!

 

Plus and Minus

 

Minus first.

 

1. Missiles are no longer removable (good and bad in as such you won't be worrying about loosing them)

 

2. Chest chamber launching effect extension gutted out in the 1/60 version.

 

3. A pain to "lock" in the shoulder and chest armor

 

4. Marshmallow hands(sure it is anime accurate but I wish it was more gundamesque........okay then maybe it's just taste preference)

 

5. Less detailed decals unlike the 1/48

 

6. Flower of doom launching effect for the missiles (too white, maybe the smoke effect could have been made a bit gray)

 

7. Supposedly won't fit other versions of 1/60 VFs

 

Plus

 

1. Makes the Valkyrie look more macho

 

2 Extra armor attachments on the "open areas" of the Valkyrie battroid mode gives it a more "seal" protected armor effect.

 

3. Ver 2 looks more refined in design than ver 1

 

4. Adjustable thrusters for the scram jet booster

 

5. Missiles are no longer prone to being lost

 

6. OT flower of doom bloom launch effect for the missiles............anime accurate alright

 

7.Extra foot armor stabilizes the mech when standing.

 

So the plus and minus are a tie. Did I mention already that it also makes the Valkyrie look more menacing?

 

One negative I failed to include is that the armor is not use able in jet mode. Whether or not that was Shoji Kawamori's intent I do not know, and well it was in the early 1980's so technologically it might not have been realistically feasible.

 

Anyway as a whole I am really satisfied that at least I have fulfilled some of my Macross high school mech fantasy of owning a Skull leader and getting him dressed up in such kick@ss augmentation gear.

 

I give it a 4.9 out of 5.

Looks like a must have for anyone's collection.

 

The Rant:

 

My first exposure to this product was the 1/48 set up. First time I beheld it I was :o!

 

It was like a monster, bristling with weaponry and all those beer can missiles......wow! But the price was waaaaaaay out of my league.

 

Then Yamato came up with a smaller 1/60 which was all but sold out every time it was released locally(that must have been ver 1)

 

Then came the complaints of the "imperfect" transformation issue which all the more turned me off from getting one. Later, ver 2 came out and I said....ALRIGHT! But it came packed with the VF1-J which, for all intent and purpose was THE Valkyrie for the armor(animation wise too) but for some reason........I wanted "Skull Leader" to get the honor of wearing it.

 

 

Issues!

 

Plus and Minus

 

Minus first.

 

1. Missiles are no longer removable (good and bad in as such you won't be worrying about loosing them)

 

2. Chest chamber launching effect extension gutted out in the 1/60 version.

 

3. A pain to "lock" in the shoulder and chest armor

 

4. Marshmallow hands(sure it is anime accurate but I wish it was more gundamesque........okay then maybe it's just taste preference)

 

5. Less detailed decals unlike the 1/48

 

6. Flower of doom launching effect for the missiles (too white, maybe the smoke effect could have been made a bit gray)

 

7. Supposedly won't fit other versions of 1/60 VFs

 

Plus

 

1. Makes the Valkyrie look more macho

 

2 Extra armor attachments on the "open areas" of the Valkyrie battroid mode gives it a more "seal" protected armor effect.

 

3. Ver 2 looks more refined in design than ver 1

 

4. Adjustable thrusters for the scram jet booster

 

5. Missiles are no longer prone to being lost

 

6. OT flower of doom bloom launch effect for the missiles............anime accurate alright

 

7.Extra foot armor stabilizes the mech when standing.

 

So the plus and minus are a tie. Did I mention already that it also makes the Valkyrie look more menacing?

 

One negative I failed to include is that the armor is not use able in jet mode. Whether or not that was Shoji Kawamori's intent I do not know, and well it was in the early 1980's so technologically it might not have been realistically feasible.

 

Anyway as a whole I am really satisfied that at least I have fulfilled some of my Macross high school mech fantasy of owning a Skull leader and getting him dressed up in such kick@ss augmentation gear.

 

I give it a 4.9 out of 5.

 

 

Your timeline of the valkyries is a little off. The version 1 1/60s came first with their detaching legs transformation. Then the 1/48s came along. They were supposed to release a few of them at the larger scale and higher price point but they sold well enough that they kept going. The version 2 1/60s came after they had pretty much exhausted the line up in 1/48 scale. The v2 are basically smaller 1/48s in terms of the transformation techniques.

 

The GBP wasn't intended to be used in fighter or gerwalk mode.

 

And while the stand alone armor is available it's an exclusive and its fairly expensive I think compared to the bundle pack.

My review is based on my encounters with the Yamato production of this type.(My one and only Yamato product). Which comes first, the chicken or the egg I care not what time line they were released......they kicked @ss.

 

It was my opinion that it would have been nice that the armor would have been useable in both Gerwalk and fighter forms (which Bandai corrected with their Macross Frontier Valkyries.Why it wasn't implemented back in the 80's I "surmised" would have been due to the engineering and technology of the era.

 

And yes, it is quite expensive but I been loving it every minute........lucky me, I didn't realize it was a limited ed...............thanks for pointing it out.

My review is based on my encounters with the Yamato production of this type.(My one and only Yamato product). Which comes first, the chicken or the egg I care not what time line they were released......they kicked @ss.

 

It was my opinion that it would have been nice that the armor would have been useable in both Gerwalk and fighter forms (which Bandai corrected with their Macross Frontier Valkyries.Why it wasn't implemented back in the 80's I "surmised" would have been due to the engineering and technology of the era.

 

 

 

Okay, you just made it sound like that was the release order so for anyone that wasn't aware I figured I'd mention it.

 

And since Shoji Kawamori designed the original SDF: Macross GBP and the Macross Frontier messiah armor, it wasn't that Bandai corrected it, it's that they were designed differently. The original GBP was just for battroid mode. The new Frontier armor is is more versatile.

Versatile? Or did Kawamori san listen to all the feed back on why the armor wasn't usable in all three modes? Well beyond that we'll never know right?(Or did Kawamori san actually state it wasn't his intention to make the armor "transformable"?)

 

And from how I constructed my intro to the review, it was more of personal experience and not a "matter of fact" this is "the" Yamato chronology presentation. Heck I'm not wikipedia but just a giddy "first time" Yamato VF 1S DYRL 1/60 owner who just happens to own a Limited edition GBP armor.

 

Those darn things (the ver 1) sold out like hotcakes and the 1/48 super expensive, that's much accurate right? How and when each version came out was never ever the purpose of the review.In fact the title is GBP Armor only........ quite hard for anyone reading to mistake it as such.