02.02.10

Bandai DX Macross Quarter

Posted in Bandai, Macross Frontier, Oddball, SDF-1, Mac Quarter, Capital Ships at 4:55 am by micronian

Review: Less than 10% the cost of Yamato’s transforming capital ship toy

Packaging & Extras (4.5/5)
The box is impressively large (see picture for dimensions) but it does come packed with goodness. There were two things that kept this packaging from a perfect score. First, there’s no collector’s style flip-top lid. Truth-be-told, I’m not really holding that against the Quarter too much since the toy is so ginormous that if they were going to package it in a mode where it could be opened and viewed it would have required an even larger box. The true reason I’m knocking a half point off this box is because there are such big plastic trays within the box that the package is a bit squishy. I picked this up to pull it from its shipping container using one hand and the box immediately pinched in the middle where I was holding it. The plastic trays do not do enough to reinforce the box’s integrity making me long for the days of styrofoam trays. Yeah, there is one styrofoam tray but at least one more was clearly needed. Inside the box you get the full display stand, mini figures (Vajra, Koenig shuttle, Koenig Gerwalk, 4x valkyrie, and a Q-Rea/Rare), a set of somewhat articulated hands, a set of fixed posed hands, and an instruction manual.

Charm & Collectability (4/5)
This toy suffers only from not being a limited edition product and not being a transformable jet. Toy history tells us that the capital ships aren’t as popular as other toy lines although I don’t think we’ve had a ship like the Quarter before. On the plus side, this thing is huge, gimmicky, and features a fair amount of diecast giving it some real heft. This feels like an old school toy in the best ways.

Sculpt, Detail, & Paint (9/10)
You can definitely nitpick the warmth of the colors in Bandai’s choice and some small details but overall this toy is a stunning likeness to the CG Model. No decals are provided but you probably won’t mind since there’s so much pre-painted detail. There’s even some pre-painted detail on the tiny accessory figures. Are those figures perfectly in scale? No, but I doubt they were always perfectly in scale in the actual animation also.  I think the comparisons to the line art above offer some hint that maybe the gun ship and carrier did a bit of shrinking from one mode to the next in the cartoon as the toy looks pretty much spot on in cruiser mode but the arm accessories appear too large in attack mode.

Design (8.5/10)
Obviously I am super impressed with this toy but it does have a couple crucial flaws. The first flaw, and minor one in my book, is that the aircraft carrier can only be holstered in attack mode by using accessory parts. The second, and much more major problem, is that the weight of the giant gun and aircraft carrier are just a bit too much for the arms to handle in cruiser mode which makes the stand a necessity. It would have been nice if Bandai could have figured out some locking mechanism that would have kept the carrier and gun level in fortress mode when the toy was held by the mid-section. Sadly, this is a pretty big deal as I can’t possibly imagine anyone “whooshing” around with this in fortress mode which should be part of the toy’s fun. Instead fortress/cruiser mode just makes one hell of an impressive display piece on its stand. Otherwise, this thing is dreamy from the removeable storage areas on the carrier’s deck, the Cheyenne destroids (I’m guessing… you can’t tell what they are by looking at them) that pop out from the sides of the carrier, the gun that splays open, to all the individual gun turrets. I’m not a huge fan of the Quarter’s design (it looks like it transforms by standing up) but I can’t really fault this toy as it pulls off all the things it’s supposed to do. What are the odds Bandai will use the Macross Frontier license as an excuse to make SDF-4 (I think that’s what it was) that appeared in this show?  Hey, are you a fan of video reviews?  Well I’ve been getting pressure to do one for a long time so I finally broke down and tried… unfortunately this toy was so big I could not leave the camera on a stand as I was hoping so just consider this link a rough draft and hopefully future reviews will be a lot easier to watch -

Durability & Build (9/10)
I haven’t found a durability issue yet. The joints are all super stiff (which makes the toy ALMOST capable of pulling off cruiser mode without the stand). The paint applications on my sample were exceedingly well done. In fact, this toy was all set to score even higher here but there’s one issue plenty of people are bound to hate. Much of the small weaponry on the toy is made of the rubbery type of plastic that easily gets bent out of shape. Many of my cannons are ever so slightly curved. When not viewing from extreme close up range this is no big deal and it’s actually a benefit as these cannons are so small that they would almost certainly break under normal handling if they were made out of many other types of plastic. Heck, even if those cannons were made of metal I could imagine them being quickly bent or doing worse damage.

Articulation (9.5/10)
I contemplated giving this toy a perfect score but the hip articulation just isn’t quite where it ought to be for a perfect score. Otherwise, from the articulated cannons and hands to the ball jointed head, this toy kicks butt. Do note that the shoulders are incredibly stiff out of the box and need to be handled authoritatively at first.

Total Score (44.5/50)
This is easily one of my favorite toys I’ve purchased in the last 12 months. I know a lot of people should, and will, avoid buying it because they’re not at all fans of the idea of a giant transforming battleship. If it’s not your cup of tea that’s fine but it’s definitely the concept you’re rejecting and not this stellar toy. I can also imagine some people being very turned off by the inability to fix the carrier and gun in cruiser mode. If neither of those items are huge show-stoppers for you then you should buy this toy.

Permalink