Anasazi37

I'm working on some. I bought a bunch of Archi Stands for my 1/55 customs a while back and what's missing are adapters for them. It's not going to be a fast design process, though, since the basic 1/55 adapter would be different than the one for Super/Strike, the one for the Elint, and the one for the Ostrich. And that's just Fighter mode. I think I can get away with one for Battroid mode (except for GBP) and one for Gerwalk mode. So...at least six different adapters have to be designed.

I remember when you posted those pics. It's nice to see printed adapters out in the wild. I really like how the filament color blends in with the low-vis paint scheme. I print mine using clear filament (personal preference). I designed them so that they could be printed in PLA, which offers a wide range of color options, to include some decent clear ones. You can see an example of it on the Cults 3D page. It's a pretty close match to the Archi Stand adapter, which is also 3D printed. I've tried printing the adapters in clear PETG, which is much stronger, but I think it's overkill, it takes more effort to clean up the parts, and they don't look quite as nice. And "clear" is relative here. You can't print crystal clear parts with a filament (FDM) printer. They turn out something closer to translucent white. It's possible to get crystal clear parts with a resin printer, but you'd have to use ABS-like resin (to support the weight of the valk), have your printer dialed in to the point where no air bubbles get trapped inside the parts, and avoid marking up surfaces during cleaning and curing (unless you want to do a lot of sanding afterwards). Much easier said than done. I spent a lot of time, and went through a lot of resin, figuring out how to do it for relatively small canopies for starship models. The adapters are a lot more complex.

When I first designed the Yamato 1/48 VF-1 adapters for Archi Stands, because Yeti Stands and adapters were no longer available, I approached Eugene about the possibility of him selling prints through his store. They would be relatively low-volume items, compared to everything else he offers, and he explained that he has limited free time to maintain the store and process orders (totally understandable). It didn't make sense to either of us to go that direction. He kindly offered to post a link to the digital files on Cults 3D so folks would at least know about them when they purchased stands. The downside of this approach is that you either have to print the adapters yourself (moderate level of experience required for them to turn out right) or go through a third party print service (which can increase the cost quite a bit and you don't know what you're going to get). I'm in a similar situation to Eugene, where I don't have a lot of free time, so it's not practical for me to offer prints for sale. I learned the hard way from offering custom waterslide decals to this community for more than 23 years that fulfilling orders takes a lot of time. With that said, I'm willing to consider doing a print run for a small number of people. Send me a PM with what you want.

Thanks for putting together such an awesome video, @jenius! My entire goal was to help collectors who had been burned by Bandai's poor packaging decisions, quality control, and customer service. I was very disappointed when I opened up my box--after waiting so many years for this release--and found...a very bent antenna. HLJ said there were no replacements available from Bandai, which just increased my disappointment. The damage was in such a visually obvious location that I had to do something about it or I would never display the valk, so I quickly got to work on designing a durable replacement that would be easy and inexpensive for people to print and finish themselves (no painting required). Most importantly, I wanted the design to be free. We'd already spent enough money on this toy.

That is not what I'm saying. You missed my point...again. It's not sensationalist and minimizing the comments of others, and the larger price discrepancy situation, is not helpful. Please stop. As I suggested in my last post, I think it's a good idea to be able to point people to a resource that breaks down the cost considerations for each purchasing option, in specific terms, so they can make the best decision for themselves. I offered a table that does so, which could use some community feedback for improvement so it covers everything we care about (like possible future discounts, as @Radioguy pointed out). What do you think we can offer the community that will help? Those are great points. We've seen places like Amazon offer WWM items at discounts and both this community and the big FB groups are good about spreading the news when the discounts show up. The discounts absolutely help. It's a double-edged sword, though. The discounts often happen because stores have too much stock and they'd rather take a hit on a sale than let the toys continue to take up space in a warehouse. The more that happens with Macross items, the less stock the stores might order, which Bandai could interpret as low interest and reconsider their WWM initiative. It's a tough situation because to encourage Bandai to keep distributing globally, so it is less risky for collectors to gamble on something being available later at an affordable price, means that we should all be buying from our local stores, but that requires paying much higher prices and waiting a lot longer for items. If Bandai stops distributing globally, we're back to PO Madness, with limited stock and lots of unhappy collectors. If we did all switch to buying locally at the current prices and wait times, the discounts might become less common and affordability declines as a result. Makes your head hurt to think about it. I'm not sure what the happy medium here is, beyond sometimes, but not always, seeing discounts on items. Would love to hear from someone with an economics background (not my area of expertise).

Agreed. Having more purchasing options beyond PO Madness is a good thing.

It is a large markup, but its final size depends on the choices you make. Your key assumption is that most people are chasing the lowest possible price. That is not always true. I would rather pay a bit more to work with a very stable, very reputable store or proxy (in Japan or the US) than trust a small operation that might fold at any moment and take my money with them--just to save $25-50 on an item that may never be released again. But that's how I feel about the risk. Others might feel differently. You can keep shipping cost from Japan to a low number by utilizing slower options, consolidating shipments, etc. It also does not cost Bandai more than a few dollars per unit to put these toys in a cargo container and move them to the US, so there is a very large price discrepancy between what they sell for in Japan and what they sell for here that needs to be recognized. I know we joke about the "old collector tax," but it's real. The marked up prices in the US are about convenience and how much we're willing to pay for it. I point out the difference between Japan MSRP and US prices so that we, as a community, can have a conversational starting point about that convenience cost and make the best purchasing decisions for ourselves. Your comments, mine, and those from other MW members are all helpful in getting us where we want to go. At this point I think we need a pinned answer to the question of what costs to consider for all four options (Retail from Japan, TWE from Japan, Retail from Overseas, TWE from Overseas). It could be a small table, something like this: Retail from Japan generally doesn't include taxes, but it depends on the store. TWE from Japan does include taxes on top of proxy fees. Then there is shipping from Japan, with a range of prices and waiting times. US retail involves taxes (or should in almost all cases), shipping, and a long wait time--on top of an undisputable markup from Bandai for the convenience of not having to deal with PO Madness and overseas shipping. How you view that markup depends on where you shop and the choices you make.

There are a lot of weird and confusing things about this release. For example, will BBTS really let you buy 24 copies if they are acting as a secondary proxy? Maybe they are only getting 24 and one person can purchase them all? When I looked at the TWE ordering page, individuals were limited to 2. For the Super Ostrich, they were limited to 6. I would love some clarity from BBTS or another stateside store. Worst case, we can keep an eye on Amazon US. If this doesn't show up, or does, we'll know for sure. They definitely aren't handling anything beyond regular Retail.

HLJ says 06/28, AJ says 06/29.

Yes, this is a weird situation. Bandai could easily clear things up by adding a sentence to the item listing on the Tamashii site, but it's Bandai, so we're left to speculate on what they're planning.

MSRP = ¥33,000, roughly $210.00 right now BBTS Price = $350.00 350.00 - 210.00 = 140.00 140.00 / 210.00 = 0.66 Sadly, it really is a 66% markup over MSRP. A 33% markup would only be $280.00. If you plug $210 and 66% into any online price markup calculator, like this one, you'll get the same answer: https://www.omnicalculator.com/finance/markup As we've discussed many, many times before in this thread, I agree that full price comparisons should factor in shipping costs, etc., but these two numbers (MSRP in Japan vs. price in the US) are the only ones that are fixed and they represent the best place to start a conversation. From here we as collectors can start making individual choices about whether it's worth dealing with PO madness and paying $25-$50 to have it shipped from Japan (slow vs. fast). Even with expensive shipping, you're still looking at a roughly 35% markup to get it through a US store, plus the longer wait time. Unless you choose slow shipping from Japan, which makes that first option more affordable. The best option is the one that makes sense for you. I also see the same patterns you do with respect to pricing set by other companies like ThreeZero and Good Smile. It costs roughly as much to buy items no matter where you are. It's rare to see large markups for international customers. Bandai is making a consistent business decision to mark up items across multiple lines, not just Macross (but this is MW so we can focus on complaining about it ). Why are they doing this? I know we've speculated before. Small production runs that cost a lot? Old fashioned corporate greed? Part of me thinks they are charging what they think the market can bear and will adjust prices (or just stop making Macross stuff) if we stop buying. We've seen them cancel lines before....

Same for me, about $100 markup over my proxy purchase. Compared to what I paid for the renewal valk and armor on the secondary market, even BBTS is a bargain!

That's because Bandai has never done something like this for Macross valks (TWE domestic release, Retail international release) and there was no communication from Bandai about what they were going to do for this release apart from TWE in Japan. Odds were good that it was just a mistake on their website. Very glad to see that it will be more broadly available, but the 66% markup over Japan retail price is definitely high.

And at $350 it's a 66% markup over Japan retail price. Yikes. Works out to $100 more than I spent at my proxy, but you're paying for convenience. If you click on the quantity dropdown you can order up to 24 copies. I wonder if that's a mistake. Otherwise someone is going to build a large squadron....

This is now the second PO offering we've seen with a delivery date in January/February instead of November, and the prices are consistent with the usual 55% markup over Japan retail, so...hopefully? It's possible that the stores are just offering the TWE version and shipping it slowly to the US, but I hope it's going to be a normal release outside of Japan.