Arcadia 1/60 YF-19 Toys

Review: Includes Regular Release and Premium Finish Versions

Packaging & Extras: (4.5/5)
True to Arcadia’s style, this toy comes packaged in a relatively ugly, non-descript box made of thin cardboard with a flip-top lid. The good stuff is bundled in plastic trays safely within. Included is all the weaponry from the cover of the This is Animation Macross Plus special. The first tray includes the toy and:
1) GU-15 Gun with removable magazine
2) 2x Isamu pilot figure (with/without helmet), head is articulated
3) 1x Yang Newman passenger figure, arms are articulated
4) 2x rear leg fillers
5) 1x passenger seat
6) 1x neck filler piece for fighter/Gerwalk modes
7) 2x display stand adapters
The second tray includes:
8) 4x pairs of AOM-8S mid-range missiles
9) 4x LPP-12 green beam weapons
10) 4x SPP-8 green micro-missile launchers
11) 2x pairs of reaction missiles
12) 4x HMM-111CS aerodynamic gun-looking things
13) 6x hard point connectors
14) Fast packs (2x leg armor, 2x calf armor, 2x shoulder armor)
15) 2x fold booster connector (Yamato fold booster sold separately)
Behind the cardboard tray you’ll also find:

16) Instructions

17) stickers (I’m not a sticker guy but I understand the stickers are so-so at best)
At some point, extras need to be weighed against affordability and the price for entry on this toy is staggeringly high. A better strategy would have been to sell an options set that included all the weaponry, the fast packs, Yang Newman figure, a fold drive, and a beige gun if it would have allowed Arcadia to drop the price of the core toy down to the 25,000¥ level. Then Bandai produced their DX YF-19, provided just about everything here and added a fold drive, a transformable arm cannon, pin-point barrier punch effect, and a display stand and charged less for it. Regardless of business strategy or pricing, there’s no arguing that this is an impressive assortment of included extras.

Don’t like stickers? Then you should consider purchasing Arcadia’s Premium Finish release. This toy comes in a brown shipper box containing an almost equally unremarkable all black retail box. This stripped down package does not have a flip-top lid like the regular release. Contents are unchanged from the regular release with the exceptions that stickers are no longer included since the ‘premium finish’ includes painted on details.

Charm & Collectability: (4/5) +1 for Premium Finish
Arcadia announced their YF-19 via a leaflet included in the Macross Plus blu-ray boxset released in June 2013. You may have noticed that this toy carries over a lot of characteristics from Yamato’s stellar line of VF-19 toys from their Macross7 license; this is no coincidence. Arcadia’s YF-19 began its life as a Yamato project before Yamato was shuttered. Arcadia purchased the plans along with a handful of Yamato’s molds just prior to, or during, Yamato’s liquidation. This toy comes in the popular 1/60 scale (23 cm tall in battroid, 34 cm long in fighter), is a stellar representation of a very popular mecha, was produced in small batches, is perfect transformation, and has some nice heft (448 grams!) and metal content giving it all the ingredients to potentially be a sought after product. The Premium Finish version ratchets up the rarity and could become quite difficult/expensive to find. The charm was diminished by Bandai’s competing cheaper, and argulably superior, offerings. Fortunately there are plenty of pros/cons between the Bandai and Arcadia toys leaving people with good reasons to own both or either. If you’re purchasing a Premium Finish toy and plan on handling it, check out the durability section for some helpful hints!

Sculpt, Detail, & Paint: (9/10)
Arcadia gives us the best Isamu yet, easily topping the ‘decent’ version included with the Bandai DX. The Yamato one looks like a painted marshmallow in comparsion. Arcadia also gives us the best gun of the three toys with both the Yamato and Bandai guns looking undersized. The original prototype had a brown gun that was switched to gray to some people’s relief and other’s scorn. The ‘full set’ weaponry is very similar between both Bandai and Arcadia. Arcadia has a little more detail to the HMM-111CS (look like glide bombs) while Bandai gave the AOM-8S (long skinny missile) an extra touch of paint.

Arcadia skimped big time on the tampo printing. The cream color is the perfect example of ‘be careful what you wish for.’ There seemed to be a lot of desire for a paler YF-19 since Yamato’s first 1/72. Arcadia gave us the palest one yet and it seems to have garnered a ‘meh’ response with most people preferring the more beige color of Bandai’s DX and Yamato’s 1/60 scale interpretations. While overall color, tampo painted details, and even sculpted details are inferior to Bandai’s DX 19 toys, the Arcadia mold is truer to the line art. There’s a bit of a caveat as the YF-19 is hand drawn whereas Bandai’s mold started with the CGI model for the VF-19Advance. There’s likely VF-19Advance line art out there that looks closer to the Bandai toy. If you want the vehicle from Macross Plus, than the Arcadia toy is the better visual approximation… especially if you’re speaking strictly of what was in the animation since the lack of tampo printing and finer details should bother you less. The curves of the Arcadia toy, particularly around the neck of fighter mode, are pretty striking. The fuselage gullet that marred the fighter mode of the Yamato 1/60 YF-19 has been eliminated (as it was on the Yamato Macross7 VF-19 toys). Negatives in fighter mode include extended knees, intakes which carry forward the erroneous shape/size from Yamato’s Macross7 VF-19 toys, the fat leading edge above the intakes, and the round pegs for the canards.

I’ve never met a YF-19 that I thought looked good in GERWALK mode but I prefer the Arcadia to Bandai or Yamato. Arcadia captured the contures of the fuselage with the thickness of the legs that making it stand out against its peers.

In battroid mode this toy trounces the Yamato YF-19 from many years ago capturing the stocky look of the line art. Arcadia retained the rather unsightly gap above the nosecone in battroid mode, Bandai did a better job minimizing that. Arcadia relies on leg fillers on the inner leg whereas the Bandai toy has some very clever engineering to avoid that.

Arcadia originally teased a Premium Finish that looked more like one of the old Yamato Weathering Editions but ultimately decided against it. What we got instead was the usual Premium Finish (details that were previously stickers being painted on) as well as a light wash that made the panel lines pop out. The Premium Finish cuts a nice balance of having plentiful markings without having quite so many as Bandai. While the pilot looks the same, the accessories like the gun, wing-mounted weapons, and FAST packs all receive the wash and some accessories have additional paint apps.

Design: (8.5/10)
Obviously this newest rendition comes with all the cool features that Yamato originally put in their 1/60 YF-19 offering many years ago. Those features include:
1) Opening canopy (split canopy opens front and back)
2) Removable intake cover to reveal intake fan detail
3) Integrated front landing gear with articulated tow bar
4) Integrated rear landing gears that pivot out and lock in position
5) Ability to stow the gun in fighter mode without interfering with landing gear
6) Fast packs that don’t require any part swapping

7) Removable face to reveal internal mechanics in battroid

8) Gun with removable magazine
9) Second seat in cockpit with removable cover
While you get those cool features from the original Yamato YF-19 there are a lot of issues that have been resolved. All modes of the Arcadia toy lock together firmly. Whereas GERWALK mode was a floppy mess and the chest wasn’t locked down in battroid mode on the Yamato toy, the Arcadia toy locks and tabs exactly as it should. The legs/hips are also superior in design to Yamato’s Macross7 VF-19 toys allowing for better GERWALK posing and less likelihood of damaging the hip joints trying to angle the legs further. Magnets are no longer integral to keeping the leg fast packs on which is good as the tabbing on the Arcadia toy is stronger. Arcadia also added more features:
10) Hard points on the wings

11) Integrated internally stored leg missile

12) In addition to the gun’s removable magazine, the gun also has a collapsing hand guard that allows a better fit in fighter (same as Yamato’s VF-19 Macross7 VF-19S/F/P)

13) High speed mode

14) Shield has trap door to conceal head laser slot and can now stow the gun in battroid/GERWALK
Not really a pro but an interesting note, this toy comes with anchor points for the VF-19Advance’s “advance packs”. This was an Easter Egg added by the designer T-Rex in anticipation of being able to offer limited quantities of Advance Packs at Wonder Festivals.
There are also some negatives:
1) While I’d consider it perfect transformation, sticklers will be turned off by the separate ‘neck cover’ piece for fighter and GERWALK modes and leg fillers for the cavities on the backs of the legs in battroid.
2) The implementation of the high speed mode was done so poorly as to render this gimmick a detriment. The swing bars the wings pivot on are too loose so the wings don’t stay in the proper position when handled, particularly when also using the included additional weaponry.
3) The integrated leg missile is not accessible when the fast packs are applied to the toy.

Durability & Build: (6.5/10) – 1 for Premium Finish
While I’ve already reduced the Design score due to the lousy implementation of high speed mode, that’s unfortunately not the only looseness that will drive you nuts. The ankles on this toy retained the flawed ankles of Yamato’s Macross7 VF-19. In fact, the Arcadia toys seem to be even more prone to loosening than was seen with the Yamato toys. These loose ankles will inhibit your fun in GERWALK and battroid mode and may cause your toy to take some nasty falls. On my toy the removable magazine also slides out too easily which can be an issue when handling the toy in fighter mode. The larger issue you’ll have in fighter mode (beyond the sloppy high speed joints) is how easily the weaponry falls off the included trees that then connect to the hard points. The hard point connection is fine but the connection of the weapon to the tree/rail is too loose and easily jostled. Usually, I wouldn’t drop a score so low here for something that doesn’t truly BREAK when being handled but the sloppiness of this toy just really sucks the joy out of handling it.

It appears that Arcadia achieved their panel lining effect on the Premium Finish toy by subjecting the parts to a wash (a process where parts are dipped in diluted paint that settles on the seams and the excess is then wiped off). This may have had the benefit of increasing the fit on some of the loose parts discussed above though the effect will probably be short-lived; a missile might fit better to its rail so long as you never remove it and reapply it. This wash may be the culprit behind what caused several broken arm joints, or it may have been over-tightening at the factory. Either way, there’s a small chance the toy you receive will be broken at the shoulder in the box and a larger chance that any handling will cause the shoulder to break. I highly encourage you to begin ownership of this toy by bringing the legs down and torso up to gain access to the screws that connect the arms to the torso. Remove the arms and then you can loosen the screws at the problematic joint. Follow Chronocidal’s post here for better instructions: https://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/topic/49066-arcadia-yf-19-re-issue-and-new-premium-finish/page/13/

Articulation: (9/10)
If it weren’t for the loose ankles battroid mode would be an absolute joy to pose. Nothing has really changed here from the Yamato VF-19 Macross7 toys save for a little better range of motion in the legs in GERWALK. There may be a few joints you wish had a greater range of motion but the only serious shortcomings I identified were the lack of a waist and the fact the head isn’t on a ball joint so it can’t tilt.

Total Score: (41.5/50)
A toy that is overall this good should be a lot more fun than the Arcadia YF-19 is. The looseness of fit and sloppy joints are really irritating, especially at this price point. It’s still a huge step up from the Yamato 1/60 YF-19, that toy should now be avoided as it’s vastly inferior. Still, Arcadia left the door open on this release to be one-upped by Bandai. Maybe some day we’ll get a reissue where they fix the issues that made this toy a lot less fun to handle but that seems unlikely with Bandai now releasing their own YF-19 toy in the same scale.

Original Post: October 30, 2015
Updated November 27, 2015, included HD transformation guide.
Updated December 23, 2018, included scanned instructions, scan of the stickers, improved resolution on numerous photos to 4K, added content and photos related to Bandai’s DX YF-19 offering, added more comparison photos, added 4K battroid to fighter transformation guide.