1/60 VF-2SS Valkyrie II Silvie Gena Custom – Available From HobbyLink Japan
By Cacophanus from Mecha Damashii
In a rare move for Evolution Toy, they have branched out into the world of high-end transforming mecha, with their first entry being the VF-2SS from Macross II. The design is a sleek one and I’d heard that as a first attempt it had issues but I was pleasantly surprised when I finally got to play with it.
Macross II as a series is very non-canon. Set in an alternate 2092, eighty years after the events in the original series, it depicts an invasion by the Marduk and it’s made clear from the outset that this is a very different type of enemy.
This is because the Marduk are a slaver race and control helpless Zentraedi and Meltrandi soldiers via siren-like singers called Emulators. These Emulators are so potent that they can even force these slave races to fight until they kill themselves.
Facing this new threat is a somewhat complacent U.N. Spacy equipped with the VF-2SS and a slew of other craft. While the initial forces are wiped out, the VF-2SS does come into its own later in the series.
The design itself was also a contentious one. Originally conceived by Kazumi Fujita of Zeta Gundam fame, this design was later updated by Koichi Ohata. The contentious part is that at no point did Shoji Kawamori work on it, nor the series as a whole.
This is the reason it is considered non-canon and while the series was meant to celebrate the then 10th anniversary of Macross in 1992, it was very much superseded by Macross Plus a few years later in 1994.
The other point about the VF-2SS is that it is essentially an updated VF-1S in terms of broad design and its transformation sequence.
Up until now, we’ve not really had any toys to speak of the VF-2SS and bar a very nice 1/100 scale kit by Bandai back in the ’90s this is the first time anyone has tried to bring the design to life in toy form.
This toy is a mixed bag, but it definitely has a future ahead of it, as a SAP armor pack is planned along with other variants as well.
This is actually quite an interesting toy, so keep an eye out for the review when that goes up!
Yatta
Nice model, Macross series is huge.