IgloONotes

*I haven't been able to add any pics for some reason, so those will be up as I figure it out**

I am a Nerd, so my girlfriend tells me. Here are her reasons: I like anime, manga, GIANT ROBOTS, apologetics, cars and cooking. I really get into these things and talking about them really excites me. I can talk about those things at any time, and for hours on end. And the best thing about it is that my girlfriend thinks it’s awesome (talk about a really blessed guy!). One of my recent “Nerd-isms” is the new Macross series (called Macross Frontier). If you don’t know what this, you’re missing out. 

There are three things that describe this Japanese series, and that’s Singing (it’s a bit odd how it fits in the story, but some of the songs are pretty catchy), love triangles (for added drama), and GIANT ROBOTS (actually, they’re plane/space ships that transform into giant robots). So that’s pretty all you need to know about the series. So of course, after watching so many different Macross Series, I finally had to get something that would step up my nerd level, time for some toys!

The two toys here are from the Revoltech line of toys. It’s a really sweet series of toys from different anime series, and are super posable. The real gem are the sweet Revoltech joints (more about those later). Note that these toys are the Battleroid versions, and do not transform. The two toys reviewed here are from two different series.

The YF-19 is from the OVA Macross Plus, and the VF-1S is from the original Super Dimensional Fortress Macross movie Do You Remember Love. I ordered them from http://www.hlj.com/, a really good company based in Japan, with original prices (In Japanese Yen, but that’s fine since the Canadian Dollar is higher, YAY!) and cheap shipping (the shipping was about 2 weeks, but it was $8 for both the figures, which was awesome!). Of the two toys, the VF-1S came out a last year, the YF-19 was released just last month, so there are some differences between the two. 

Now, some people would start of reviewing the box, that’s fine if you’re collecting, but frankly, I like playing with my toys, so as long as it keeps my toy safe I’m not one to bother. 

Design:

Now, what makes Revoltech toys so awesome is the poseability of the toy. And both figures really pull if off well. They achieve their posability with special revoltech joints. These joints are basically clicky joints that click into place, they look like a ball joint, but don’t be fooled, it’s just 1 degree of freedom here. The thing that really amazed me is how they joints are used.

Even tho the revoltech joints only move in one direction, they way they are placed in the toy allow the parts to have more than just one direction of movement! One example is the ankle, the revoltech joint rotates back and forth, but the way it’s placed allows the foot to be tilted. It’s the little touches like this that really make the toy shine. Both figures are really posable and can be placed in a variety of really cool and amusing poses, such as:

To be completely honest, posing them takes a bit of work. It’s mainly because the joints are not really placed conventionally, however if there’s a pose you want, chances are that you should be able to pull off, you just need a bit of work to do it. The VF-1S and YF-19 have the same articulation, however on the VF-1S, the head, has these pointy parts (if you’ve seen Macross, you’d know that they’re lasers), that rotate. It’s a nice detail. 

Sculpting and Paint:

Both sculpts are amazing, and are anime accurate. Which is great, I mean that’s what they’re based off of! The paint isn’t too bad, I’m not really picky, about the paint being all perfect and all, there’s a bit of spray-over, and there’s some paint damage on the right forearm, but it’s still good. Both figures have nice paint details such as the skull on the front of the VF-1S. The toy was $20, so it’s really hard to make complaints like this for something so cheap.

Both toys also had a lot of nice panel lines, and being a Gundam fan too, I busted out my Gundam marker and started filling in those panel lines. It made a world of difference. I’ve included some before and after pictures of the VF-1S for your viewing pleasure and my bragging rights. *note* I didn’t take pictures of the before, they’re from the website www.collectiondx.com (really cool website by the way), because I didn’t bother taking any pics till I was done. 

Build Quality: 

These toys are pretty tough, but due to the nature of the soft plastic (I think it’s vinyl), your wrist joints will come loose over time. That said, when I first got my VF-1S, the right leg came off after 10 minutes of posing. At first I freaked out, but after closer inspection, it was just the hard plastic thigh peg that came off. It wasn’t glued properly, but a glob of contact cement fixed the problem. Another Issue was with one Revoltech on the YF-19. For some reason the Revoltech joint on the left elbow kept on falling apart, it was easy to put it together, but it was still alarming. Luckily, the elbow joint is the same joint that’s on the shield, so they were just swapped. Other than that, these are really sweet toys! 

Accessories:

Being a guy, More=better, and the first thing that blew me away was the sheer number of parts and accessories that the VF-1S had compared to the YF-19. The VF-1S came with the full blown super pack, which contain missile packs, jet packs, missile pods, mega cannon and arm launchers. Compared to the YF-19’s fast pack, which only had two leg and shoulder packs and some “shield” pieces. 

The difference was staggering, and quite frankly the YF-19 was a bit of a disappointment in this area. The shield pieces on the YF-19 are these little green bits that give the effect that its shield is working, and that it has special shield punch (pin-point barrier, other than that, it’s got nothing on the VF-1S. Both of the figures come with their respective gun pods, and with the right hands, both of them can dual-weild both guns for a cool pose! 

The YF-19’s gunpod is moulded in one piece, however the VF-1S’s gunpod has an extra gimmick. In the show, the gunpod can fold up and be placed on the forearm to store away. Revoltech faithfully depicts this by using a small peg that replaces the handle. This was unnecessary as it’s another part to lose, but it makes this toy even cooler and accurate. Both figures come with swappable hands, they are: 2 fists, 2 open palms and 2 gun-holding hands (for the VF-1S, it comes with an extra salute hand, which makes it even more awesome as you can use it to mimic a karate chop). The hands are where the YF-19 shows improvements. The hands plug into the arm with a small peg on the hand, and on the VF-1S, the peg is made of the same soft plastic as the hand and arm. This is a problem as the joint gets loose as you swap them, and is prone to falling off. Revoltech has improved them by using the same hard plastic pegs they use for the thighs and pelvis of the toy. These joints no longer suffer from the same wear issue and are tighter when rotating them. 

Lastly, both toys come with the Revoltech stand. Basically, it’s a plastic stand and platform with a large Revoltech joint on the end. The joint fits in a peg hole on the bottom of the figures and allows you to do some really cool flying poses. The VF-1S trumps the YF-19 again in this area as it comes with an extra stand piece for other flying poses. It’s a small extra, but it adds to the experience. 

All in all, both figures are great, the YF-19 is solid and despite having less accessories, it’s still a good toy. If you like accessories, you'll love the VF-1S with lots of sweet extras and parts  

Tags: Do you remember love, Macross, Macross Plus, Review, revoltech, VF-1S, YF-19