CollectionDX Episode 18 - Buyers Remorse

Nice shirt Josh.

Josh loves bacon should have been the title for this ep.

Welcome to the year of Macross: Flashback 2012. Yes this is indeed the 30th anniversary of the original show which started airing on October 3rd, 1982.

There is already information leaking out about the 30th anniversary production. For each major anniversary there has been some kind of animation production in addition to toys and models both new and old.

I can only speculate why the VF-4 is a web exclusive, although I do have some facts from the past. Believe it or not but some of the toys released mass retail like the VF-22S trio I love so much were in fact limited run. Yamato kept the production of each type to about 1000 initially so there wouldn't be too much extra stock in retailers for a more obscure variant. As of now, the three VF-22S toys (Gamlin, Max, and Milia types) are still hanging around retailers at major discounts. And also the two VF-11 toys were very poor sellers. So even with the VF-4's infamy among the fans, I think they're going with the web shop exclusive route just to confirm the number of toys they need to produce.

I'm going to get one (obviously) but I can see why they're limiting its release. It's it unlike the venerable VF-1 in that it has multiple different variants to spread the cost. There's only been one animated appearance of it thus far so there is realistically only one color scheme that will be produced. There were other color variations from various video games but despite what some may say, the general buying group for these toys isn't huge into the video game variants.

Well I guess it showed up as a model kit in one scene in DYRL too as a nod to the model makers of the time. Oddly enough, Leonardo can tell you the VF-4 is very popular with Garage Kit makers. There's even two fully transformable resin kits of the design.

The VF-4 itself is interesting in that its transformation was never fully realized until the game Macross Digital Mission VF-X came out in 1997. Previously there was only a vague idea of how its legs and arms might transform with no real idea of how the torso comes together. Before Shoji Kawamori finalized the design around 95-96, there was an older NEC Personal Computer game that had its own interpretation of the how the design transformed.

In the end, I'm exited to see what happens with Macross this year. It's been a mega road to the future for the franchise that isn't Gundam and I think it still has a lot of life left.