VF-17 Review and Photoshoot

[Yuyuyami]

The VF-17 Nightmare is from Macross Seven and was designed by Kawamori Shoji in the early 1990's and released in 1995 and later re-released in the early 2000's. It is a stealth bomber with heavy design influences from the F-117 Stealth Bomber, although the middle fuselage area and tail section are quite different to accommodate the Valkyrie design. I know very little about how the VF-17 was used in Macross Seven as I have seen very little of the show, but from what I can tell the robot mode is quite accurate, despite the fighter mode being a little on the chubby side. Today I am reviewing the reissue.

 

The VF-17 comes packaged in Fighter mode, so I'll start there:

 

 

Fighter Mode:

 

 

 

The VF-17 is a well proportioned jet from the top, though it's a little too thick for its type of design. Considering how small the wings really are in comparison, a jet like this would need to take advantage of every part of it that can help it stay aloft, which is why jets like the F-117 are flat-ish and have flush bottoms to allow the jet to ride on the air as much as possible. Coincidentally, the slim profile and flush bottom also help the F-117 hide from radar detection. But this is just nit picking, overall it's a good looking jet aside from the massive amounts of screw holes left uncovered. The figure does come with a sticker sheet to cover two of the holes, and the stickers do help quite bit, but I unfortunately messed up mine when tinkering with this figure. Don't worry, it was complete and utter user error, the stickers are quite nice and stay on well, but, a warning, this figure does require some tinkering. I'll talk about that more when I get to robot mode.

 

The camera didn't quite catch this, but one of the things that makes this figure visually pleasing for me is how much of a reflective sheen the plastic has. This figure is more sturdy than most new figures released by Hasbro these days, but you'll still want to be careful with it to prevent the plastic from getting scuffed, though I imagine a dremel with a buffing bit could polish any blemishes away.

 

As a simple jet mode, this thing is interesting to look at and proportioned quite well, though not perfectly. However, it is a Macross toy and Macross is known for having stylized jets with interesting designs. How well does it stand up to other Macross figures? Well, I've only got two others, both of which are VF-1s, so my opinion on this isn't as educated as I would like it to be, but I feel that, from certain angles, this figure catches the spirit of Macross jets immaculately, while simply being passable from most others.

 

This jet mode is chunky monkey fun. It's not as elegant as the Takatoku VF-1's fighter mode design and it has no diecast metal in it, but it holds its shape extremely well and all parts are secured, unlike the VF-1. If you're a fan of Takatoku's offering, you'll quite like this jet mode. I give this mode a 9.5/10, with half a point knocked off because the nose could have easily been molded into a sleeker shape without messing up any of the internal mechanisms and I feel this would alleviate some of the chunkiness.

 

 

Transformation from Fighter Mode to Gerwalk:

 

You split the legs, rotate them down to give it an "A" stance. Then you pull out the arms if you wish and you're done. You're basically doing a third of the transformation from fighter mode to robot mode. It's not satisfying and it feels cheap. I'm not going to even bother giving this or the Gerwalk mode itself a score because the Gerwalk mode is pretty worthless on this figure, which is a shame because Gerwalk is really fun to watch in the anime. I've said it before, though, the only competent looking Gerwalk mode is on the VF-1.

 

 

Gerwalk:

 

 

The VTOL version of the Gerwalk looks best because it doesn't leave the wing assembly hanging in midair with gaps abound. When you move the arms out the Gerwalk mode really suffers. My advice: If you're going to get this figure, don't get it for the Gerwalk.

 

Transformation from Fighter Mode to Robot Mode:

 

The FULL transformation is quite satisfying and, while it's fairly simple, it's extremely effective. The robot mode looks almost nothing like the jet. My favorite part of the transformation is the chest, which avoids the "cockpit and nose torso"-look by folding the cockpit inside of the figure's upper chest area, which folds out. It's a simple mechanism, yet it makes the figure look quite striking and it's extremely well done. The transformation gets an 8/10, I knocked off two points because this figure is kind of a yoga former (where the transformation is a matter of placing limbs in the right place, rather than reforming the entire body structure).

 

 

Robot Mode:

 

 

 

 

The robot mode looks incredibly cool. Unfortunately, out of the box, the robot mode HAS NO NORMAL WORKING KNEE JOINT. In its place is a backwards Gerwalk knee joint. Basically, this figure was designed to have a stoic pose, like this:

 

 

And nothing else. It looks cool, but it's such a frustrating waste for the design to default to this kind of bullshit.

 

It's easy to give this guy a proper knee joint, there's only a little bit of plastic that's easily cut away preventing his leg from bending normally, but it's a shame that this was accepted when this was designed. But, y'know, this isn't the only time Kawamori has made a stupid design decision on a figure. In fact, he does that a lot. The man has a mind for making cool designs, but he sucks at keeping his figures from having at least one horribly debilitating flaw. The MP Seeker mold can barely stand without the stand and has those ugly runners, this guy has no proper knees, Hybrid Style Convoy has a shitty looking truck mode, etc. The man is a menace to his own wonderful designs, and I wish he would stop being so cruel to them.

 

Anyway, sorry about the rant, Kawamori just drives me up the wall with his simultaneous awesomeness and complete and utter failness. Back to the knees: It's easy to fix the knees, but it's quite obvious that this figure's legs were never designed to be poseable in robot mode in the first place. The lack of normal knees wasn't an oversight. How do I know? The hips are extremely weak out of the box. They are connected to the chassis by a traditional plastic dowel with a disc in the middle being sandwiched between two plastic shells, but the disc has almost no friction inside of hip joint. Instead, the figure relies on friction between the hip piece and the nose piece. This wouldn't be a problem, except it means you can't tighten the hips by tightening a screw and the nose is rounded and thus does not offer uniform friction to every part of the hip. In some places the hip is so loose that if you let it go and swing to the ground it will build up so much momentum that it will almost knee itself in the chest. That is bullshit. The solution is to take the nose apart (easily done, only two screws) and put down some super glue on the surface of the hip joint that touches the nose when assembled. The unfortunate thing for me is that I applied my stickers out of the box and I ruined the two that cover some of the screw holes on the thighs when I was doing this.

 

After fixing the legs, however, this figure is extremely nice. The arms are EXTREMELY poseable and the head/torso section looks awesome. The only thing really missing from it at that point is an outward swinging joint for the legs, which I can forgive.

 

Post modification this robot mode gets a 10/10 for sheer awesomeness, but I give it, out of the box, a 5/10 for its shitty legs.

 

Conclusion:

 

I knew before I bought this figure that I would need to modify the legs, so I went in prepared. If you're not willing to modify this figure, should you get it, keep in mind that the robot mode's score is 5/10. If you're willing to put some effort into fixing this figure, however, you'll find that it's really a gem. Overall this figure gets a 9/10 for sheer awesomeness.

[Superior Grilled Cheese]

um, post! i want to see more of this

[Yuyuyami]

Here's the full photoshoot of this figure:

 

Enjoy:

 

[bigkid24]

Don't the wings go all the way together in battroid?

[Yuyuyami]

^ They do, but because of how darkly colored the figure is, doing that drowns out a lot of the detail in the torso and makes the figure look a lot less sleek than it really is. Also, I think the "wing cape" aesthetic looks much more dynamic and it works for this Valkyrie because the wings don't just stick way out to the side like they would on others.

 

 

And continuing the photo shoot, the final picture of the fighter mode and the weak as hell Gerwalk. The first picture of the Gerwalk is the strongest, since it's just a VTOL mode. The second is the weakest because it has none of the benefits of the arms. I only included it because it's in the instructions. The third is the more traditional Gerwalk mode that leaves the wings hanging at the back with no support and a bunch of gaps.

 

[Yuyuyami]

EDIT: Stupid double post.