01.19.10
Yamato GNU YF-21 Upgrade Parts
Observations & Critique: Good but over-priced is now better and more expensive
As mentioned in my glance at the 11B parts, Yamato slipped out their upgrades to the Macross Plus GNU toys in such a way that they largely went un-noticed. The parts were all sold in the same boxes differentiated by a sticker. The 21 kit comes with a new torso, back, waist, and the super parts. What you don’t get is a stand which is a big let down since Yamato has a stand that seems designed for these toys and looks like it can’t cost much more than a couple bucks for them to make. If Yamato’s goal was to compete with Kaiyodo’s Revoltech YF-21 then the stand really ought to have been there.
The GNU series didn’t seem to be an instant hit (due largely to the more poseable and cheaper Kaiyodo Revoltech offerings). With this kit Yamato answered many of the complaints regarding the poseability of the toy but they did so by heaping on more to the price. Potential consumers already balked at the price of the entry level YF-21, now they’re certain to balk at the price of the upgrade. The good news is that by now most people can find the original 21 dirt cheap so the cost of that toy plus these upgrade parts isn’t nearly as bad to swallow as the MSRP on both. Will these parts ever be a collector’s item? My Magic 8 Ball says “Not bloody likely.”
This is my first review to feature a bit of an experiment. I have stolen some line art from the Macross Mecha Manual. I’m hoping the guys over there will be okay with the idea of future reviews doing a direct comparison to a piece of line art. This piece of line art doesn’t touch much on my primary concerns with the GNU. The guns of the super parts raise some questions. GNU Mac+ toys came with rather large guns to begin with so to then see TINY guns on the hip armors is a little awkward next to the hulking gun in the toy’s hand. Other than that the base GNU continues to be an awesome representation of the battroid line art.
Compared to the other upgrade parts available for the 19 and 11B toys, the YF-21 may represent the most significant upgrade. A waist swivel has been added and the back plate on the toy can now move which gives a larger range of motion to the bottom half of the toy. Everything comes apart and is very easy to put back together again, no tools necessary.
The GNU toys are made of quality materials but they do have an annoying tendency of popping apart (they can be easily put back together and if this problem were too annoying a spot of glue would solve everything). I saw no real danger to the toy in taking it apart and adding these parts. These are action figures built well enough so you can handle them accordingly.
Yes, the 21 is now more poseable with a better range of motion. The upgrades made here are so obvious they made me feel a bit more let-down about the range of motion on the original toy. Still, I can imagine even more articulation. This is a toy that doesn’t need to transform, it should be able to do some pretty crazy poses and while this upgraded version can do almost everything you can imagine… it’s still not perfect.
My chief complaint amongst all the upgrade parts is that once you’ve upgraded the toy you can’t put it anywhere. The toy becomes too big to fit in its original plastic tray. What you’ll have to do to solve this is take some parts off and toss them in the back of the box and just reapply them any time you take the toy out. You will also be left with some completely useless old parts which you might as well just thow immediately in the rubbish receptacle. Is my 21 better? Without question. Was it worth full MSRP of both the parts and the original toy. Absolutely not. If you like the 21 I’d highly suggest you keep an eye out for sales as, for the right price, this is a heck of a toy. The picture above shows the 1/18 scale CMs riding figures (10cm tall) wrestling the Gnu (15cm tall).
