I first discovered the Macross saga when it debuted on American television as Robotech. I didn't know that the series was a mishmash of various storylines until later, but I didn't really care. I would hurry home from school and glue myself in front of the television for a half an hour. It was the first time I saw a serial storyline, where it actually mattered what order you saw the episodes in, and characters developed from one show to the next.

In many Japanese anime shows, one of the primary stars of the story are the mecha, and Macross is no exception. The Valkyrie transformable fighter is the mainstay of the U.N Spacy miltary force, with many other other robot machines filling out the rest. The designs have been so popular and pervasive that they were lifted by FASA for use in their Battletech wargame, and thus a whole new group of people were introduced to the designs.

A variety of companies have made kits of the Macross mecha over the years, with Bandai, Arii and Imai making most of the injection molded kits. The japanese garage industry covers some of the newer mecha designs, but most of these resin kits cost $100 or more. Most of the afforable plastic kits are based on 15-20 year old molds, and no new kits have been released in recent years.

Until Now.

When I first heard about this kit at the end of October, popping over to Hobbylink Japan and placing an order was a no-brainer. I have quite a few Hasegawa modern aircraft kits, so I knew the quality would be top notch.

Blah Blah Blah! What about the kit?

Okay, fine.

At first glance the kit looks pretty good. The recessed panel detail is sharp, although I feel it is almost TOO shallow.

These shots are from the Hasegawa website. I imagine they were painted silver for contrast purposes:

Forward fuselage on sprue
"Leg" on sprue
Mid Fuselage on sprue
Wing on sprue

These shots were taken by me:

"Leg" on sprue
Mid Fuselage dorsal on sprue
Mid Fuselage ventral on sprue
Overview of box contents

The kit comes with a full sheet of decals, with the option to model one of three VF-1A aircraft. All of the black detail is included as decals, even the canopy framing. This will make the painting phase of assembly a lot easier. The more specific markings for aircraft like those of Skull Squadron are NOT represented, as these have different battloid heads, which are not included. The VF-1J version (white and red) is coming out next, and I am guessing that the VF-1S version (black and yellow) will be out after that. Hasegawa has often come out with numerous kits that only vary in a few sprue trees and the decals, and this line of kits would appear to be no exception.

The decal sheet:

The instructions are all in Japanese, with the exception of the paint code. The illustrations are very explicit however, and I don't think anyone will have a problem figuring what goes where. The best part about the instructions is that the "marking and painting" pages are drawn out at 1/72 scale, which basically provides a scale template of the plane (see overview of contents above).

This is a great image from the Hasegawa site that shows the scale of the model next to a 1/72 F-14 Tomcat.

These are more images from the website which show various angles of a completed kit:

Overall I am really excited about the kit. I am a bit bummed that a pilot was not included, but I think I will live. The 1/72 scale elevation drawing were a treat, as was the kickin' box art. I hope this isn't a one off for Hasegawa, and that they keep putting out all the variations of this classic aircraft mecha.

When I get the VF-1J I will check back in and revise this page.

John Decker

johndecker@earthlink.net