While I haven't paid much attention to their “DX Chogokin” line (back in the early days of the gokin-renaissance, Bandai reserved this label for reissues of classic molds and kept the new designs under the “Soul of Cogokin” label). Now they've seemingly given the DX line an anachronistic slant by slapping it all over their newest models as well.The Macross Quarter is the “mini” super-dimensional fortress that appears in the Macross Frontier series. Quarter is, like most other known Macross ships, a transformable cruiser that assumes a humanoid shape when it enters close-combat. According to the established mythology Macross Quarter is one of the smaller ships in the Frontier fleet and serves as a fleet escort and as the carrier for the local private military contractor, SMS.
My initial reaction to openning the packaging was a mixture of awe and disappointment. The contents are housed in a combination of stacked styrofoam for the main die-cast body and everything else in a series of plastic trays. It's amazing just how much stuff there is at first glance. My second reaction was “wow, my first reaction was a bit pre-mature.”
The fact is, after leafing through the manual, the toy is actually rather simple. There are only a few additional parts to snap on to the ball-joints (thankfully Bandai harnessed their experience as master kit-designers and gave us easily swappable parts as necessary): the head, the classic “Macross booms,” a comm antennae, and a couple of hands. The other bits are the “battleships” docked onto Macross Quarter like on the classic SDF-1.
In fact, the overall design of Macross Quarter is so simple it made me post on Robot Japan the following comment:
I never noticed while watching the show how amazingly gobot-like this Macross was. [It] is pretty much a humanoid in a "Superman-pose." Given it's design, no wonder it's floppy - there's not actually anything for the arms to "lock" into.The toy is everything I expected: the cruiser mode is simply so long that it's unrelistic to expect to hold its shape under any sort of gravity. It's existence as a ship floating in space is the only way this thing could support itself. I guess that's why Bandai saw fit to supply an immense number of optional parts for building a display stand.
Since there are abundant photo-reviews of Macross Quarter already online, I will take a moment to point out some observations of my own.
Firstly, the whole gravity issue is address by the extra stand bits included. It can be set to a variety of heights depending on the configuration (yes, it can be positioned in the traditional Macross “GERWALK” mode).
Bandai uses a neat trick to open and close the bow ports. These ports lift open by pushing back that little module at the front. It take a good hard push the first time but no worries, the thing comes off and pops back on easily and the lever itself is pretty tough and will stand up to the movement.
The figure originally comes packed in a “shrunken” position. Here's a look at the aft sections. Those "knees" are double-jointed and while both are bent, the one bend more should be the lower one closer to engine.
The shoulders ironically do hold the “battleships” up when the shoulders are not positioned properly. The shoulder joint does indeed rotate so there is a minimum range of motion for the upper arms while turned up. Doesn't quite look right, but it does keep the arms horizontal. The easiest way to turn these insanely tight joints is to bring the shoulders back down the U-joint and turn from there (while still in cruiser-mode).
Lastly, the show cheats the toy designers a bit by using a bit of “anime magic.” This annoys me because it's no secret a lot of mecha designs are done with selling toys in mind, so why is it from time to time an “impossible” design choice is thrown in? In the show, the Macross Quarter appears to stow the port-side carrier on its back to free its left hand to brace the main cannon. The problem is that there is nowhere for this carrier to attach on the back of the Macross Quarter. Bandai works around this by including this attachment. It's functional, but generously ugly when set up.
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