Following on from our review of the 1/60 VF-19 Custom Fire Valkyrie, our good friends at HobbyLink Japan have also sent us the 1/60 Sound Booster for VF-19 Custom Fire Valkyrie from Macross 7. It’s important to clarify that the Sound Booster doesn’t come with the Fire Valkyrie, that has to be purchased separately. In addition, we’ve also included some game and animation footage at the end of the review.

A little over half way through Macross 7, Nekki Basara’s Fire Valkyrie got a bit of an upgrade (along with the other members of Sound Force). Developed by the passionate though tad deranged Dr. Chiba, the new Sound Booster unit attached to the Fire Valkyrie in Battroid mode and massively increased its sound energy potency. So much so in fact, that it could thwart the efforts of most Protodevlin.

As Macross add-ons go, the Sound Boosters are odd ones. Normally you have FAST packs that allow full transformation, along with Super packs (though the latter historically had problems operating within an atmosphere) and then you had armor packs that (normally) limited transformation out of battroid mode (up until Macross Frontier at least). In some sense then, the Sound Boosters were similar to the older armor packs. Except they did somewhat of the opposite; in that they increased mobility but with no real additional armor to speak of.

Whilst the Fire Valkyrie itself has had numerous kit and toy iterations over the years, the Sound Booster hasn’t. Admittedly the Hi-Metal Fire Valkyrie received a Sound Booster peripheral, but that was only a limited edition online purchase via Bandai’s premium web store. This new Yamato version, however, has been released en-masse.

It is, quite simply, fantastic.

Toy: 1/60 Sound Booster for VF-19 Custom Fire Valkyrie
Price: 8,820 yen
Size/Weight: 32.5 x 28.0 x 8.5 cm / 620g

The main purpose of this toy is to attach to the Fire Valkyrie in Battroid mode. The main point of contact is at the rear, in the form of retractable pins. These are engineered pretty cleverly too, as they practically disappear once stored. The big thing here though is that Yamato used a judicial amount of diecast at the rear, allowing for a very sturdy contact for the Sound Booster. What is strange here though is that the shoulder units have similarly retractable catches but don’t actually attach to anything. In some ways this is an improvement over the Hi-Metal version, as that locked in the Fire Valkyrie shoulders and that made posing the figure almost impossible. That aside, the Sound Booster can be fully opened or closed and the internal detailing as well as the sculpt is very nice indeed.

Whilst you can attach the Sound Booster in Battroid mode, Yamato also included an extra clip that can have it similarly attached in fighter mode as well (shown below).

Overall then this, like the host toy, is a beautifully crafted and engineered piece. There are nice amounts of diecast in the moving joints too and the general finish is to a very high standard. Despite the somewhat odd shoulder setup, the Sound Booster attaches very well and affords a greater array of poses than the Hi-Metal version released by Bandai. Admittedly the combined cost of both the Fire Valkyrie and Sound Booster is pretty high but this is pretty much the definitive toy of the design. As such, it comes recommended to the more ardent Macross 7 fan (or at least one with a sturdy bank balance).

[flash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5UxfeefXvY]

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