Does the VF-4 actually transform? Was it designed to be transformable? Right now I'm not sure about anything, but I'll share with you my impressions. Kawamori states clearly that both the VF-X-4 and VF-4 were "thought" as transformable fighters, but there is no official battroid or GERWALK design for the VF-4 until Macross Digital Mission VF-X, where the plane is re-named VF-4G Lighting III. There is however a GERWALK design for the VF-X-4 only.

In Flashback the VF-4 is not shown in its transformation, but that doesn't imply that it can't transform. Again it does not mean that it can transform however: the fact that a plane is called VF (variable fighter) is commonly related to both the variable geometry wings implemented in every VF design and the fact that it can switch from Fighter to GERWALK to Battroid, but my impression was that the VF-4 in Flashback was a non transformable mass-production version of the VF-X-4.

The point here is that there not a single bit of GERWALK or Battroid design for the VF-4 before the advent of VF-X, there are no modelkits, no scratchbuilds, no illustrations, so even if in the pen and mind of Kawamori it was transformable, how is one supposed to know how it actually transformed? My question is: is the VF-4G battroid mode consistent with the original Kawamori idea? And why Kawamori wasn't able to push a transformable fighter in Flashback? Production shortages?

Ok, after all this pointless speculation I'll put here my final opinion: VF-4 in GERWALK mode and Battroid mode are quite sad if compared to the absolute beauty of the VF-4 in fighter mode :-D