Kit Review
Straight build + light panel lining + seals
Battroid / Fighter mode size comparison with a cigarette pack
Starting the review with Fighter mode..
Detail shots.
First off, the proportions as a fighter jet are far better than expected.
A really clean look at the underside
The front landing gear gimmick.
Even the covers are fully articulated — nice touch.
On top of the transformation gimmick, it's impressive that they also included a landing gear retraction gimmick.
The rear landing gear gimmick.
Once the covers are closed, it looks really clean.
There's even detail inside the rear landing gear gimmick.
The underside with all landing gear retracted.
The landing gear gimmick alone honestly deserves a perfect 100 out of 100.
The large head is neatly tucked in.
The reason it has such a notably big head seems to be so the underside doesn't look empty in Fighter mode.
Also, since the hands are stored inside the forearms,
the rear of the craft looks really clean.
The arms and legs neatly and compactly arranged under the fuselage
There's a small peg on the lower back that fits into a hole in the rear legs
to lock the legs in place —
but the peg is so small that it doesn't feel all that secure.
If you look closely at where the arms and legs meet,
you'll notice the inner leg armor is slightly recessed inward to bring the limbs closer together.
It really shows the designer's craftsmanship — squeezing out every last 0.5mm of space.
The section that secures the rifle under the fuselage.
It slots into a screw-head-shaped groove between the two arms, so it holds pretty firmly.
The cockpit detail is great too.
The small, intricate seals used in the cockpit really bring the whole thing to life.
Three joint parts for the stand are included — from left to right, for Fighter, Gerwalk, and Battroid modes.
Mounted on the stand using the joint parts
Fighter mode from various angles.
The proportions are great, as expected..
The one issue is that when you put it on the stand, the locking gimmick between the legs and the body is pretty weak,
so the legs can just swing down like that if you're not careful T_T
There's not much in the way of an inner frame due to the transformation gimmick,
but the legs do have some frame detail inside.
Also, throughout the body there are clear parts with silver seals behind them to create a reflective effect —
but then you end up covering them with opaque stickers on the outside, so they get hidden anyway..
If you really want to do it properly, you'd have to paint each clear part individually with clear paint.
Also, just like with the Macross Frontier kit, there are seals to represent navigation lights at the wingtips —
but because of the curved surface, they don't stick well and tend to peel up like that.
If that bothers you, painting is really the only way to go.. T_T
There are two square holes in the middle of each wing,
and you choose between a flat standard wing part or a parts-with-holes weapon-mount part to plug in.
The parts with holes are presumably for attaching Strike weapon packs and the like down the line.
The four wing panel parts are each slightly different in shape —
but helpfully, different symbols are engraved in the corners of each part so you don't mix up the positions.
Kotobukiya kits do this kind of thing a lot, but it's pretty rare to see it from Bandai.
Transformation to Gerwork Mode
To transform into Gerwalk, you first need to fold both vertical tail fins inward —
there's a gimmick where you fold the fins and then push the hinge inward to narrow them together.
One side simply slides inward,
while the other rotates up in a U-shape and then gets pushed inward —
so the two fins naturally stack horizontally in layers.
Looking at the internal gimmick, it works like this...
The folding positions of the two fins are offset in layers so they fold flat and neatly.
Rotate the folded vertical tail section 180 degrees around to the back of the fuselage, then...
open up the cover that was hiding the verniers.
Now spread the legs out wide to extend them...
The connection point on the panel linked to the legs is pretty impressive.
It combines a two-stage folding hinge structure with a cylinder slide gimmick.
Gently pull the two locking pins on the front of the legs forward, and...
you can pull out and extend the feet and knee sections like this.
Looking at the inside of the knee extension gimmick, the connection extends in a tube-within-tube fashion.
The internal gimmick of the ankle and landing gear sections looks like this,
The two locking pins on the front of the legs,
lock the ankle and knee joint positions in place when closed.
And even when the ankles and knees are extended, closing the locking pins again
locks them in that position as well —
so the pins are cleverly designed to work as locks for both extended and retracted states simultaneously.
When you open up the feet, the nozzles inside are depicted in pretty good detail.
The one issue is that the foot cover parts tend to fall off easily —
it's probably best to just glue the attachment points if you can. (It won't affect articulation.)
Then you bend the extended knee joints forward into a reverse-joint configuration.
Gerwalk mode with the arms still stowed.
Not sure about everything else, but the proportions with the legs spread out look pretty solid.
Mounted on the stand.
Now to get the arms out — first, detach the gun pod from the arm.
Slide the front and rear of the fuselage apart slightly,
then swing the legs all the way forward to get them out of the way for pulling out the arms.
Lift the head up slightly and pull it out downward, then...
Looking at the arms that were locked in the center underside of the fuselage,
you can see there's a part on the body side that grips them firmly.
Detach the locking pin that was holding the two arms together, then...
rotate the connection point to the fuselage 180 degrees and pull the arm out to the side.
The arm extraction gimmick is way easier than on the VF-25.
With the arm removed, you can clearly see the guide that positions the arm —
and thanks to that ridiculously large guide, the arm locks into place really solidly in Fighter mode.
Once both arms are out, push the fuselage back together.
As you can see, in Fighter mode there are no hands visible —
Open the inner cover and you can rotate and pull out the hand that was stored inside.
Close the cover and the hand is perfectly extended.
Just like the landing gear, it's a surprisingly nice bonus gimmick.
Then pull the shoulder out slightly and raise it up,
and pull the forearm down a bit as well.
If you look closely at the shoulder locking pins, they move slightly up and down as shown above —
keeping things as compact as possible in Fighter mode,
while adding a bit more volume in the other modes.
The elbow area has a similar gimmick too..
By pulling out the hand and extending the elbow at the same time,
it gives the forearm a slightly wider range of motion.
The transformation gimmicks really do pay attention to even the smallest details.
For the gun pod, extend it to full length,
then attach the separate grip and the soft string parts.
The stored hand parts are articulated hands divided into thumb, index finger, and three fingers as shown above, but..
the durability is extremely poor. -_-
The fingers pop off so easily it's a real headache..
Pay special attention to the small nub next to the three fingers during assembly.
If you mistake it for a gate mark and trim it off, the index finger won't stay in place at all and will just fall out.
It seems quite a few people made this mistake early on, so definitely watch out when building.
If you do trim it off with a knife... you'll just have to glue the index finger in place;;;;;;;;;;
The way the gun pod grip connects to the peg on the palm works well enough,
so fortunately once it's in the hand, it doesn't come out easily.
In addition, a pair of flat fixed hands are also included.
Gerwalk mode complete!
Whatever else you might say, the spread-leg stance in Gerwalk mode is definitely worth praising.
The upper leg joints are designed to splay out slightly to each side,
so when you set it down on a surface you can get that natural-looking pose.
You can attach the Gerwalk mode joint parts to the back of the body and mount it on the stand.
Mounted on the stand.
However, when mounted on the stand the legs can't be spread apart,
so you don't get that nice-looking leg stance like when it's placed on the ground~
Transformation to battroid Mode
To convert to Battroid mode, you first need to fold the wings,
and there's a gimmick that tucks them further inward once folded.
As shown above, the wing connection points are designed with a slide mechanism,
so once the wings are folded you can push them in one more time to make everything more compact.
Next, separate the center body section.
Fully detach the legs and move the connector plate out of the way.
The legs use a detach-and-reattach method like this,
which leaves me a little disappointed when it comes to calling this a truly complete transformation..
The nose section can be rotated downward and pushed further inward..
As shown, the nose-to-body connection point is rotated 180 degrees,
which effectively causes the nose to retract into the body.
As the nose section is rotated inward like this,
the red cockpit cover that was hidden beneath the chest plate can be slid out.
Push the nose fully inward, slide the red cover all the way out to cover it, and the body transformation is complete.
The gimmick where the nose shortens and the cover comes down is pretty cleverly designed.
Rotate the head 180 degrees, then swing it through the body gap and pull it forward.
Honestly, the head is way too big to actually rotate it through that gap...
it's much easier to just fully separate the body halves, rotate the head, and then put it back together. ㅡ,.ㅡ
Next up, the problematic part..
where does the plate that connected the legs go?
After folding the front and rear body panels 180 degrees, the leg connector plate
is supposed to just rest on top of the leg fixing pins on the back.
The problem is there's no actual locking mechanism — it just sits there — so the body ends up being extremely poorly secured.
This is the only gimmick meant to hold the body angle after folding, and it barely does its job..
Opening the front landing gear cover on the underside of the nose lets you pull the nose tip out slightly.
Next, remove one of the parts from inside the nose,
and this is where the legs will be attached..
Inside the leg there's a fixing pin that was pushed all the way in —
pull it out as far as it'll go and insert it into the empty slot inside the nose as shown above.
Insert the pulled-out hip fixing pin into the center of the nose, close the cover, and the hip joint is done... or so they say, but
the connection is so flimsy that the legs pop off constantly during posing T_T
Open the knee locking plate slightly and shorten the knee length again, and the transformation is complete, but..
It would be great if the body could lock in at exactly the right folded angle like that.
In reality, there's nothing to set and hold the angle,
so the back panel droops down easily just like in the photo above T_T
After much deliberation, here's the solution I came up with...
When resting the leg connector plate on the back, use double-sided tape to firmly secure it to the back panel,
and the body angle will hold reasonably well.
Without doing something like this, action poses are nearly impossible..
It's hard enough just to get it standing, let alone posing.
Battroid mode, finally transformed after all that struggle.
Compared to Fighter/Gerwalk mode... the proportions feel a bit off T_T
Detail shots.
Both the Type A and Type S heads are included,
but annoyingly they share the same dumbbell-shaped neck joint in the middle, which makes swapping them a hassle.
It's really tight to pull on and off... it's not even a special part, so why not just include two of them? Pretty stingy if you ask me.
Type S and Type A heads.
The Type A head antenna moves like this during transformation.
The whole business of detaching the legs and forcefully reattaching them to the nose section is a bit awkward...
But the overall look after transformation is actually pretty clean.
As a bonus, a figure of our beloved Lynn Minmay is included.
The figure detail is quite impressive for its size.
Articulation is not bad at all for a transforming kit.
In particular, there's a waist rotation gimmick built into the nose section,
which is a pretty fresh surprise.
The waist can also tilt slightly forward and backward. (Just a tiny bit though...)
There's a gimmick where the upper legs spread apart,
so it can actually stand with its legs spread out.
The inner ankle armor can also be pulled slightly forward and bent,
creating room for the foot to tilt inward.
An action pose shot.
Shooting pose with the Type A head.
Insert a joint part into the middle of the wing and you can mount it on a stand.
Aerial firing pose.
Doesn't look all that cool, honestly.
On top of that, the weak hip joints keep making the legs fall off... posing this thing is an absolute nightmare T_T
Together with the VF-25 from Macross Frontier.
Quite a size difference between them.
It's almost exactly the same size as a typical MG Gundam kit.
Battroid mode straight build shots.
Gerwalk mode straight build shots.
Fighter mode straight build shots.
After the Macross Frontier Valkyries were released as impressive transforming kits, I'm sure many of you were hoping Bandai would give the original VF-1 a proper renewal. As an old-school fan with a deep love for the 80s Macross, I too had been waiting for a fully transforming VF-1 built with modern technology, once all those complicated licensing issues were sorted out.
As if answering the long wait of fans everywhere, the VF-1 has finally been released as a completely new kit, with the active involvement of Shoji Kawamori himself — the father of the Valkyrie. And from the moment it hit shelves, it's been generating all kinds of buzz. (For better or worse...)
A VF-1 Valkyrie built with Bandai's engineering at its current peak naturally comes with sky-high expectations. I was hoping for a true full transformation, of course, along with solid proportions and stability in each mode... but to cut straight to the conclusion, "Too much of a good thing"— that's exactly what this kit turned out to be. T_T
First of all, the Fighter-Gerwalk-Battroid transformation gimmick — the very heart of the Valkyrie — is an absolute showcase of dazzling engineering. It feels like they benchmarked every problem from all similar transforming kits that came before, and even covered details you wouldn't have expected. Since this kit has very clear strengths and weaknesses, I'll break the review down into pros and cons.
Pros