07.11.07

WAVE WHAM 1/5000 DYRL SDF-1

Posted in 1/5000, Macross/Robotech TMS, SDF-1, Mac Quarter, Capital Ships, WAVE at 4:54 am by micronian

 

Review: More Acronymns than a Text Message 

 

Package & Extras: (4.5/5)
Well, if you’re not quick on your feet with the math and you just spent an arm and a leg buying an expensive toy you think will have a good size to it the box will immediately let you know you’re wrong.  There is no intentionally over-sized bloatedness here, just sleek and well-groomed packaging featuring glimpses from the film DYRL.  Old-school lives in the form of a Styrofoam inner-tray but everything else looks and feels decidedly modern.  The toy is protected by a sheath of plastic wrap as is the bonus stand that accompanies it.  There aren’t any tiny valkyries or launchable missiles like the old 1/3000 Takatoku toy had but I really doubt too many people will miss those.  Overall, great presentation, very secure, and more packaged with it than was absolutely necessary.

 

Charm & Collectibility: (3.5/5)
I suspect this toy will see a gradual rise in demand but at the moment it seems many are choosing to overlook it for its seemingly exorbitant price in proportion to its scale.  That said, the production run didn’t seem particularly huge, the toy does have diecast (not much) and perfect transformation, and there isn’t much competition in the SDF-1 market so the perfect storm is present to make this a true collector’s item.  There’s no guarantee though that WAVE won’t re-issue this toy at some point and one can never tell if another toy company won’t produce a superior SDF-1 toy at any moment (there always seems to be the rumor of one).  This toy saw its first release at the very end of January 2007 and still has a very small amount of availability without obtaining astronomical prices as of the middle of July 2007.

 

Sculpt, Detail, and Paint: (9/10)
This toy is beautiful in a lot of ways, just look at the detail in the ARMD above!  So many little detail pieces are present in both the mold and the paint work done with the toy itself.  This toy really blows all other SDF-1 toys ever attempted out of the water in this category.  It should be noted though that this toy is labeled as a completed model which would be a much tougher crowd to score well with in the detail category.  Since I don’t know anything about SDF-1 models though I’ll limit my discussion to the toys.  Check out the picture below to get a rough idea for how it fairs in size and detail against the Takatoku 1/6300 and 1/3000 toys (Note: I dropped the shoulders of the WAVE down to get all the toys in the same frame, they don’t normally look like that as evidenced in other pictures).

 

Design: (8/10)
On the good side it’s a perfect transformation toy that isn’t ridiculously complicated or difficult to transform.  On the downside it feels a little sloppy and can be difficult to situate perfectly.  There’s a lot going on in a relatively small package here and some may not find the transformation necessarily intiutive.  The display stand works but isn’t anything revolutionary.  For its size, this toy does a bit above average but it’s certainly not anything revolutionary.  There really isn’t a whole lot of diecast present here so don’t expect much in the way of heft.

 

Durability & Build: (7/10)
Once again the “completed model” disclaimer should be used here, what you’re buying will not be as sturdy as a toy even if it does use small bits of diecast in some of the joints (it certainly could have used more).  There are plenty of very small bits here you could crack off and the toy is far too small to feel remarkably sturdy in any position.  I’ve only heard of a few people having anything on the toy break just yet though so it’s possible they’re sturdier than they feel although it’s also possible people just know to handle it gently since it’s such a high price “model.”  More serious concerns include floppiness of any number of the joints, that seems to be the prevailing complaint when there’s any complaint to be made but again, it seems more people handle this as a model so there hasn’t been much in the way of stress testing.

 

Articulation: (7/10)
The problem with a transforming capital ship is that if it had life-like mobility you’d probably find that pretty ridiculous.  This toy has all the mobility you would probably hope for from an SDF-1.  No, you can’t pose it in ridiculous positions where it’s jumping while twisting to throw a massive ARMD uppercut or anything like that but you can certainly make it look nice in your display case.  If it were larger I’d love to see more moving turrets or that sort of thing but as it is so small I think it does as well as can be expected.

 

Total Score: (39/50)
I’ve made several remarks about how small this toy is but please, check my comparison picture and remember how huge that large SDF-1 is on the right.  This toy isn’t tiny by any means, it’s just small when you consider how mammoth the SDF-1 is scale-wise.  Can you imagine how cool a modern toy built in 1/3000 scale could be??  Anyway, this toy does a pretty remarkable job even if it does ride the gray line between toy-dom and model-dom.  If money is no object for you, this is a must-have (if you like the SDF-1 that is).  If you’re on the fence there’s plenty of competition in this price field (Heck, a Yamato 1/48 VF-1 costs about the same and is honestly a better toy).

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