Modern Macross Merchandising

A few years ago, around the time of Macross' 20th anniversary, merchandising for the series was piling up to absurd levels. Wheras for the longest time VF-1 Valkyrie toys were just out of the reach of most people, short of Korean bootlegs like those manufactured by Joon's, suddenly you had all sorts to choose from -- Yamato's modern 1/60 and 1/48 versions, Bandai's chunky classic rereleases of the 1/55 scale line from the 1980's, and Toynami's similarly scaled and immaculately boxed Masterpiece Collection version. On top of that, Yamato kept on cranking out toys of more modern Valkyrie variants from the Macross sequels, like the FAST pack-equipped YF-21 from Macross Plus and the VB-6 Konig Monster from the Macross VF-X 2 video game (both of which are on my big list of things I want but really can't afford right now).

Recently the franchise has gone back into a sort of merchandising hibernation, but there's a couple of recent goodies that I thought you might want to be alerted to. For instance, right now there's this nifty series of blind-boxed character figures:


This is the third series of character figures that CM's Corporation has put out, and it includes Max Jenius in Meltrandi gear (from the end of Macross: Do You Remember Love -- this is actually for use with Yamato's blue repaint Queadluun-Rau powered armor), Lynn Minmay (1st concert dress from DYRL), Sammy Milliome (DYRL version), the flower girl (Basara's most adoring fan, from Macross 7), Isamu Dyson (Macross Plus, duh), and a cool cutaway cockpit of Roy Focker's VF-1S Skull One.

Series 2 had all the standouts to me -- Focker, Misa, Macross 7's Basara -- but what sorely tempts me in this set is the Isamu, holding his hand to the sky as a soaring plane. I've already got a Hikaru cutaway cockpit and the other four are pretty meh to me; the DYRL versions of the classic cast really don't excite me and the flower girl only seems to be there to reach the "cute girl" quota -- someone like Gamlin or Miria from Macross 7 would have been more interesting choices from that series. I guess Sammy's alright, but the DYRL versions of the bridge bunnies always seemed somewhat off to me.

Anyway, a case of these at Hobby Link Japan, where I swiped the pic from, will set you back 6,960 yen, or just shy of $59 as of this writing. I'm pretty sure a case guarantees you the whole lot of these figures, plus most of the variants (if they're doing the variants the way they did last time, they'll have clear plastic hair) and probably the secret figure, though I'm not sure if this set has one of those ...

Now, this is a definite on my want list ...


This is Roy Focker's VF-0S from Macross Zero, 1/60 scale, from Yamato. It comes out in April, just in time for my birthday. Unfortunately, it's also 16,800 yen, which is nearly $142 right now. Exchange rates being as volitile as they are, by the time April comes, we could find ourselves closer to 100 yen to the dollar, which is always a bummer.

Still, that is one darned slick lookin' machine -- very modern, yet classic. A shame the price stings.

Now, if only Harmony Gold and their friends at Toynami had anything new to report ...