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Original Macross Valkyrie Toy Revived in 2026 With More Joints

Bandai revealed at its Tamashii Nation 2025 event on Thursday that it will re-release the very first toy from The Super Dimension Fortress Macross anime, the 1/55-scale VF-1J Valkyrie, in 2026 to celebrate the toy and the anime's 45th anniversary. (Strictly speaking, the 45th anniversary will be in 2027.)

The "Origin of Valkyrie: VF-1J Valkyrie 45th Anniv." re-release adds a few new joints (notably thigh swivel joints) that "builds on playability without compromising the design of the original" — although it is apparently not quite as posable as Transformers' recent Missing Link toys. The new 1/55 Valkyrie also features more printed markings instead of stickers, as some of the previous releases did.

Takatoku Toys released the original VF-1J Valkyrie toy in November 1982, just one month after the anime itself premiered. Other variants from the anime arrived over the following year. 

Bandai took over the manufacturing molds and released more variants of the toy under its Hi-Metal line in 1984, and again in 2001. (The molds also famously went into the Transformers line as Jetfire.) Bandai launched the "Origin of Valkyrie" line in 2008 to re-release the 1/55 toys, beginning with VF-1J (Hikaru) and VF-1S (Roy Focker) variants in July 2008, and two VF-1A Super Valkyrie variants (Hikaru and Max) in August 2008. (Not pictured is the 1990 reissue with its own unique head design and clip-on canopy cover.)

Source: Tamashii Nation 2025