Right, its New Years Day, so its time for a special article. Today’s subject is very close to my heart, and I spent a bit of time on it. So.. probably no-one will read it… but I’m doing it anyway.
The VF-1J in Battloid Mode
So, dear reader, I feel I need to stress some fundamental truths to you about the anime industry and the merchandising it feeds. All anime, but especially TV anime, is on some level about selling merchandise. Yes, all of it, including your absolute fave you feel is truly art and above such things. Including Cowboy Bebop. Where shows differ is the extent to which they are overt about this, and how well they judge their audience. Mecha animes tend to be very much about this, for reasons that are so self-evident I feel that it would be an insult to you to list them here. There is however a catch. Mecha merch is not necessarily about getting a flawless representation in miniature. That was something that Gundam and gunpla largely did, but it's not a universal rule. Rather they want to sell you something that more represents the idea of the giant robot or its pilot. Something you can get from a gatchapon machine and hang from a key chain. Think Funko Pops. Or possibly a hugging pillow if you have no self-respect. I can imagine a more serious -minded collector being repelled by what I just wrote, but it's how it is. There is a market for high end collectables, there most definitely is, but that's not THE market, it's merely A market. With transforming robots though, they kinda hit a catch 22. The idea of such a thing is that it changes shape, which presents design challenges. And what can happen, especially in the 80's, is that they take a toy and make it look rather better on screen than it is in plastic, or you end up with something that absolutely was not created with plastic in mind and there's some designer somewhere openly weeping into their coffee as they try to figure it out. It's something that can cause problems even today, and it's often easy to tell when a company is new to that whole transforming robot thing. It's also why you see collectables that advertise "perfect transformation" that cost serious money, or less commonly "simple change" that cost less and are an implicit admission how difficult such things are to make. However, in 1982, Takutoku went and made something that was ahead of its time. A toy that was, as near as it made no difference, an ideal representation of its source material: the 1:55 scale Valkyrie from the seminal series Super Dimension Fortress Macross. The gold standard of transforming jet toys from the 80’s. Arguably unmatched until the 90's. Still keeping pace with toys even now. Bootlegged to hell and back. The big chunky monkey. Known to Transformers fans as “That awesome toy that became Jetfire.”. Known to, <sigh> Robotech fans as the Veritech. The goddamn 1:55 scale VF-1 Valkyrie.
Now, a lot of the credit for that probably goes to mecha designer extraordinaire Shoji Kamamori, the main creative talent behind Macross. He was/is quite prolific in his field, working in toys as well as animation. Notably, he had a hand in Diaclone, working on a fair number of the cars that would become the Autobots. One thing he did not work on though was the F-14 jet toy that would become Starscream. The way I've heard it told, (Hi Karl,) he took a look at that and felt he could do better. This could easily be viewed as youthful hubris, or possibly a fandom legend. Except, as the rest of this article will demonstrate, he absolutely did. Kamamori is a massive aircraft nerd that likes to use papercraft and lego to perfect a transformation. As a result, the difference between the chunky monkey, Starscream, and the vast majority of contemporary Transformers toys is night and day. In fairness, it's a much larger thing than your average Transformers G1 toy, and it's size was probably dictated by the materials technology of the time, but, yeah. Today's article is going to feature two different versions of the mould, specifically the VF-11J (TV version, two head lasers, greyish) and the VF-1A (Do You Remember Love? version, one head laser, brighter white). These are later reissues by Bandai, circa 2001, bloody hell, these now count as retro themselves, whom had picked up the rights after Takutoku folded. While obviously not as ideal as an original, with some minor pieces missing, collecting Valkyries is not a task for the faint of heart or light of wallet, so I'm going to work with what I have. By coincidence, I obtained these within months of each other, both are the personal birds of the lead character Hikaru Ichijyo and both lack the clip for stowing the gun on one arm. I've declined to apply all of the stickers on the TV version, and I'm missing the swappable heatshield on the DYRL version. I have the missiles on their sprues however.
The toys in Fighter Mode, Top: VF-1J, Bottom VF-1A
Let's start by talking about the Fighter mode, possibly the form which has aged best. There's lots of good planey detail going on, definitely pushing into scale modelling territory. It's an 80's fighter jet made in the 80's and it's fulfilling the brief nicely. The cockpit bubble is translucent, there's folding landing gear with some serious springs in them, the wings move, with either stickers or decals picking out details and markings. Aside from colours, the main difference between our two subjects is the Battloid head, which pokes out on the underside. This is maybe a little undignified, a big deviation from the lineart, but this isn't a Transformer with an expectation of disguise, rather it's a weapon of war, and having some lasers is arguably justifiable. The other deviation is the presence of big diecast swingbars to facilitate transformation, but that's somewhat more forgivable as more recent attempts have also struggled with that area. These have signifcant amounts of metal in them, with thick plastic, and the transformation is not based on tabbing together so much as big eff-off ratchets remaining tight. This means that these toys can suffer if a joint starts wearing out, but otherwise you'd have to seriously try to actually break something on one of these. Generally, the Fighter mode is pretty good today, and was all-but-ideal back in the 80's, but there is one missed opportunity: weapon storage. The Gunpod can't store on the underside, and the landing gear lacks the nessecary ground clearance even if it could.
The toys in GERWALK Mode, Top: VF-1J, Bottom VF-1A
The Gerwalk mode is probably the most iconic of the three, a transitional step between the Fighter and Battloid forms. This makes the Valkyrie function a bit like an attack helicopter with arms, and if that doesn't sell it to you? Well, watch the first ever episode. This mode is maybe a touch awkward to achieve, you have to fudge the shoulder joints into a position that feels less than natural. Once there, we start to see features I'd more usually talk about in the robot mode section, I.e. articulation. The legs are jointed at the hips and knees, with simple but heavy duty ratchets for a total of 4 points. You aren't gonna get anything especially dynamic out of them in this or Battloid mode, but that's already more useful posability than entire Transformers toys of similar vintage. Starscream could only move his arms up and down, for smegsake. Speaking of arms, the arms on this do better. These are still big ratchets and swivels, but there's four points in each arm, and honestly that would be quite acceptable by modern standards, if unremarkable. A wrist swivel would have made it great, but, again, this is more useful articulation in one limb than ENTIRE G1 toys. There are some quirks relating to the Gunpod mind you. The hands are moulded with a distinct trigger grip for the right, but a closed fist for the left, which is a touch limiting. The Gunpod has a missile launching gimmick, the most obvious sign this was an actual toy as that's not how it worked on the show, but at least they disguised the trigger as a scoped sight. Also, as mentioned, I'm missing the clip that allows you to stow the gun on one arm. All in all though, you have the visual appeal of the Fighter mode, but with functional articulation, and a firing missile.
The toys in Battloid Mode, Top: VF-1J, Bottom VF-1A
The Battloid mode, AKA battle-android, AKA robot form is also very good. It carries over the positives of the previous two forms, while still having its own character. A lot of that is to do with the head and how the top of the fuselage forms a chestplate. It's got a heroic build, perhaps more so than the source lineart, but basically no jet kibble. If you have a later reissue with an optional heatshield, another bit I'm sadly missing, you can conceal the cockpit bubble and push the effect further. Valkyries such as this edge ever-so slightly into that zone where the robot form is so convincing that the uninitiated might honestly not realise it transforms into something. Yes, there is the frontend of a jet there, but do you really want me to make another Transformers comparison? Kindly scroll back up to that stock image of Starscream again. See? Don't make me post a picture of Ironhide or something. On top of that, you get decent posability in the arms, a neck joint, with the lower body being limited, but joints are there. They did all this in 1982. I mean, 1982!
NINETEEN.
EIGHTY.
TWO.
Conclusion
There is probably a better timeline where the Macross franchise isn't in a legal quagmire, and wasn't imported piecemeal into the West, to be used in other franchises. Maybe we got these as actual, proper, Macross toys. Maybe Harmony Gold imploded. It couldn’t happen to people more deserving. It seems a tragedy that this wasn't better known and more widespread, even with its acknowledged status as a classic. When it comes to likeness and posability, these toys and their basic design outperform the majority of their contemporaries, and while transforming with the most minor of cheating. While obviously showing its age, it has aged gracefully, like some kind of metallic George Clooney or Carol Vorderman. If you like giant robots and/or 80's toys, consider tracking one down.
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