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YF-11 Unit 4 Zi Jing “Purple”

Comments

11 comments posted
Thanks Mod

Thanks Mod,

now I know there's no die-cast parts on this toy and that's a shame, but only for reasons you've stated that we can both agree. The bad news of lackable extra accessories such as the beam saber is also agreeable.

I would like to watch this show at some point. I wonder if the show's been fansubbed for English audiences yet.

Diakron's picture
Posted by Diakron on 3 November, 2010 - 23:28
Maybe I'm not as nice as you,

Maybe I'm not as nice as you, but I just can't be okay with this, whether the toy looks good or not. There's a difference between ripping off a giant robot series in the 70's and doing it today. I can't wait to see what original Chinese anime looks like, there's something coming soon from what I've heard, but I really don't want to see any more plagiarism.

Jesta's picture
Posted by Jesta on 4 November, 2010 - 14:15
Me, personally, I'm all about the plagiarism.

I applaud Leonardo for taking the moral high ground in this review. I'm sure China (and Korea) will have their revolutions in animation and intellectual property, and I'm sure that one day, they'll be great. Until then that happens though, I intend to laugh as hard as I can.
As far as the toy goes, I'm kind of disappointed with this. Because it's a perfectly functional toy. Beyond the crappy paint and the not quite perfect engineering, it's not in any way a monstrosity (I mean, beyond being a Valkyrie. Or having Hitagi Senjougahara piloting it). When it comes to toys of this nature, part of the excitement for me is watching the toy break out of the packaging, or collapse into its component parts, or start emitting fumes. For me, I guess that's one of my 'toy fetishes'...Honestly, I'd probably be all over Astro Plan bootlegs.

Oh, and I'm pretty sure that Leonardo was the one that pointed me to kotoys.com, which is the place to go for anyone that wants one of these, as well as a mecca for anyone with similar, er, tastes, to my own.

Edit: Haha, well, kotoys is sold out of all their astroplan stuff apparently.

SpaceRunaway's picture
Posted by SpaceRunaway on 4 November, 2010 - 20:42
"doing more with the Robotech brand"?

Yeah, well I guess if you ignore niceties like licensing and copyright, then you can do quite a bit!

Let's not forget xenophobia. They'd rather watch this than Macross Frontier, even though MacF is better on just about every level, because this is CHINESE and not some dirty stinky foreign junk.

RobotBastard's picture
Posted by RobotBastard on 4 November, 2010 - 16:31
Pilots

It just seems to me Harmony Gold likes putting out a pilot every 10 years (the Sentinals, Robotech 2000, Shadow Chronicles) with a promise of a "great new Robotech series" that never gets made. At least make some effort to complete something for once. As schmalzy as Space Adventures is at least they finished it! LOL

Showapop's picture
Posted by Showapop on 4 November, 2010 - 16:38
Beware of bootlegs!

I can't fathom the irony...

magicsp00n's picture
Posted by magicsp00n on 4 November, 2010 - 18:56
Definetly not as nice as you are...

I'm Chinese but not born in China, I've been collecting since I've discovered ebay in 1999.

My beloved series is Robotech / Macross, then everything else. Its one thing to take aspects of shows and craft a story around it (ie Robotech), its another just to take popular aspects - mix into a bowl and hope it comes out a
money maker.

Thats what this is, China takes reverse engineering to a new level with this crap.

I'm not bashing China, remember the bulk of all our beloved robot or figures come from a Chinese factory (not to mention most of the worlds items), but with strict guidelines and quality controls set by the company who owns
the licenses.

The only reason why we have bootlegs is when China decides to keep the molds and use cheaper materials
and release them locally for an extra few bucks just without licensing by changing a few things here and there.

I don' t mind bootlegs, but when its so obvious that they are stealing not only the toy molds from what macross, transformer and gundam series but now are stealing the story lines by only slightly changing them, its pointless?
For crying out loud the theme song music on the youtube clip above is obviously from macross frontier albeit in
Mandarin now.

I mean they even freakin stole the autobot / decepticon logos!! lol!!!

The human characters in the animation looks like it was made for 7 year olds.

I get your garage band metaphor, but even garage bands have something that differentiate themselves
from those who've come before them - otherwise they disappear into obscurity. Disturbed and Slipknot
sound relatively the same but don' t tell their fans that, like if a non collector thinks oh robotech / transformers
they're all the same - tis not true.

Its one thing if they really put some effort into the animation and story, plus perhaps used different colors
for the robots than just copying them from the original - then I might have given them the benefit of the doubt.

When binaltech tfs came out they made bootlegs, but with different car molds, faces and colors -- and that
was great cause eventhough it was a bootleg and it looked like it could belong in the binaltech line, it was
different plain and simple.

blade-edge's picture
Posted by blade-edge on 8 November, 2010 - 17:58
Astro Plan Reply

Thanks for the comments.

There were really two issues with doing this review.

One, I wanted to do an unbiased review of the figure itself regardless of its relation to Astro Pla, Robotech, Macross et al. I have read the many forums on the Hyperwiz Space Adventures toys and the number one question people asked was "What is the Quality of the toy?" I hoped to answer that with this review without my opinion being swayed about how I or other people feel about the baggage associated with the release. Regardless of how I feel pro or con about the series, its a well made toy. Not Perfect but far from a "crap" bootleg quality toy. The molds of this figure is entirely brand new, not from a previously made toy, only the transforming sequence is lifted from the old 1/55 Valkyrie toys.

Second, is to discuss Space Adventures itself. Its not that I'm "nice", it might be just my criticisms might not come out up front like most people like. Lifting the Macross Kite logo, mecha designs, Character designs and absorbing them into your product and cartoon is just not acceptable business plan in the long or short run. When Yamaha started making motorcycles they basically just made a bolt by bolt reproduction of German motorcycles from the 1940's. It was not until the 1960's they finally made their original designs. It took them nearly 20 years to get to that point. Again I just see this whole Space Adventures racket as a step to their own original cartoon series and tied in toy products. The makers of Astro Plan and Hyperwiz are in reach to step up to the plate and produce their own original cartoon and toy line instead of just copying somebody's else series bolt by bolt. Its really up to them which direction they want to go in. And we'll respect it or criticize accordingly.

Also you must of missed the line I wrote about the Fan Video of Astro Plan. The original theme song (Which I actually like) is brand new for the series. The Macross song is nowhere featured in the series itself or any of its official promo videos. The Chinese version Macross song used in the video is just some editor being cute!

Thanks again for the comment and visiting CDX!

Leonardo

Showapop's picture
Posted by Showapop on 8 November, 2010 - 19:22
Astro Plan

About time someone did a review of this toy series. I picked up the YF-10 Unit 3 Jin Gang "Gray" unit back in April and I'm actually impressed by the quality. If only Toynami put in the same effort on their Robotech Masterpiece Collection.

BTW, will there be a video review of this toy soon? Also, here's the "Lion" parody video with English subtitles:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3_XmHYNHL4

areasevenpro's picture
Posted by areasevenpro on 22 November, 2010 - 22:17
this thing is quite amazing.

I am actually wanting to get one of these now....
i always liked the VF-25 design...but none of the toys are good...
although the DX is way too huge for me, I might end up getting one of these guys that is closer to 1/100 scale(I AM a 1/100 scale collector)
although i hope someone can provide some information on these guys...I dont know any place to pick these guys up..

danielting2's picture
Posted by danielting2 on 27 December, 2010 - 17:02
Astro Plan Sizes

Actually these are the DX sized which is bigger than the old Takatoku 1/55 scale.

...but there are 4 sizes all together. Although I haven't seen them yet the size below this look 1/100 scale to me. I think the model kits might be 1/100 as well. kotoys.com in China is the only online dealer I know of that carries these items. I had no problem getting this item from him as the item arrived promptly and in great condition but other people, according to online reviews of his business, haven't been so lucky if its to be believed. Caveat Emptor!

Good luck and cheers!

Leonardo

Showapop's picture
Posted by Showapop on 27 December, 2010 - 17:18