Anasazi37

I've now done enough custom decal work for complex 3D printed projects (not Macross) designed by others to know what this would require. It wouldn't be a fast process or a simple one, if you want it done well. Ideally I'd want to work with the STLs to get all of the surface measurements right, both digitally and after printing the parts and applying test prints of the decals to make sure everything fits correctly. I've refined the technique over the past few years. This is assuming that I would have the free time to work on it and that is not guaranteed. My personal model and custom project backlog is massive and every time I take on a custom decal project like this that backlog gets bigger.

A quick online search resulted in this short bio, but I'm sure there are better ones out there: https://fancons.com/guests/bio/5442/makoto-max-watanabe He's a legend. If you've not seen any of the Macross kits that Max Factory produces under the Good Smile company banner, you're missing out. He's responsible for things like the massive 1/20 Gerwalk and Fighter kits as well as the new 1/72 Battroid kits: https://www.goodsmile.info/en/product/7226/PLAMAX+MF+25+minimum+factory+VF+1+Super+Strike+Gerwalk+Valkyrie.html https://www.goodsmile.com/ja/product/36432/PLAMAX+PX09+1+72+VF-1D+バトロイドバルキリー

That became apparent when I looked at this HJ Web report for all of the booths, dated today: https://hjweb.jp/article/1512150/ No mention of Fujimi. Guess we now have to wait until July for more information?

Looking forward to the YF-19 release in August!

Sorry for not replying to your PM yet. I've been traveling. Will reply by tomorrow.

We now have a release date for the VF-1J Battroid kit: 13 May! https://www.goodsmile.com/ja/news/5858 (I made sure to double-check that the update was for the Battroid kit before posting) As with past updates, if you switch from the Japanese version of the page to the English one, the VF-1J entry disappears. I just noticed that the kit isn't offered on the US Good Smile site, so maybe it's a licensing thing? Why bother to provide an English update on a kit that won't be available outside of Japan?

Yes, very cool. Is it worth taking some detailed measurements and pictures of all the parts and scanning the decals so the kit could be reconstituted by interested parties? I'm guessing the mold is long gone and I know that JBot went out of business years ago. Wouldn't be too difficult to design a printable version of the kit.

I stand corrected. I forgot that the Fighter kit was also originally scheduled to release next month. We've seen the Battroid kit delayed enough times that I just assumed it was for that one. Good catch. Will it be delayed again? I hope not. I discovered a while back that when you switch the language from Japanese to English on their site, it's not necessarily doing the machine translation you think it is. For at least the sections related to news and shipping updates, there seem to be separate Japanese and English versions of the text, with the Japanese version being more complete (probably because it was written first). I just focus on the Japanese version and let my browser auto-translate the pages.

VF-1J Battroid release date is delayed again. Moving from May to June: https://www.goodsmile.com/ja/news/5853

I think it's safe to assume that only domestic shipping is included. For something the size of a DX valk, that's usually pretty inexpensive. Buyee is a proxy service owned by Tenso, which is a well-known and reliable package forwarding service. There are other equally reliable proxy services like FromJapan (you can shop at multiple sites like Yahoo! Japan and Mercari through their site), but the fees among all of them are roughly the same. Proxy buys the item on your behalf (you pay up front), seller ships your item domestically to the proxy, then the proxy ships it internationally to you. You should be offered several shipping options (FedEx, DHL, EMS, Surface, etc.). Expect to pay a markup on the shipping plus one or more small fees for acquiring and processing the item. Those businesses are focused on acquiring and shipping things for international customers, so that is where they make their money. A few proxies have ridiculously high shipping prices (like Big In Japan), so avoid those, but the vast majority are "reasonable" when you factor in the reality that there's no other way to obtain the item you want. The web sites for the various proxies tend to be transparent about processing fees and shipping costs. Some even have shipping calculators.

I caved and PO'd the 1D. It just looks too darn good in the painted sample pics.

After firing up my VPN, I was able to get to the actual sales page: https://p-bandai.jp/tns-online/?_ga=2.203155601.1429073089.1713525726-751954702.1713525726#event01 There are different purchasing links that you use at different times, depending on your membership level in Club Tamashii. Higher-level members get two opportunities to purchase directly, all other members get to enter two lotteries. I think this has been confusing because the 50th Anniversary celebration is being physically hosted by the Tamashii Nations store in Tokyo, which is in turn selling these commemorative items online through the Premium Bandai site, but not in the normal way. You have to go to the special event page to find the links.

I remember seeing that message on Dengeki Hobby Web, but it's not on the official Tamashii Nations product page, which doesn't include a sales link: https://hobby.dengeki.com/news/2304751/ Okay, I found something more official that has the dates you mention and also says no sales or deliveries take place at the Tamashii stores: https://tamashiiweb.com/store/tokyo/event/detail/202405.html This is really confusing. Now digging a bit deeper I found this product page with a link to a more general sales site that Bandai makes difficult to access from outside Japan: https://tamashiiweb.com/store/tokyo/items/detail/14921.html Bandai is not making this easy to figure out, probably by design. So what I think we know now: Japan only Four online sales periods that are a combination of first-come/first-served and lottery, starting today and continuing through 02 July You have to be a Club Tamashii Member to buy one

A fair point. If the model was successfully trained on a long series of weird/bad/random decisions by Bandai, that's what it will produce. Yes, this. Long overdue.

I just checked the page and Bandai changed the sales region to just Japan (Asia and US were removed as options) and it looks like you can only buy it in person at the Tamashii stores in Tokyo and Osaka.

WHY, BANDAI? WHY??? No one asked for this and the secondary market has plenty of the past releases available NIB at MSRP or below. I agree that they should have included the sound booster to at least make it a complete set...and maybe a little more interesting. I'm treating this as further evidence to support my hypothesis that Bandai is using some kind of poorly-trained AI model to make their Macross release decisions, because they can't be bothered to put any real human thought into the process. An executive clicks a button and the program spits out the next ten release ideas automatically. Job done. Fourth release of the same valk? Perfect! Another non-canon valk with dubious links to another product line's 50th anniversary that uses a strange combination of colors and finishes on parts? Great! Using a random decision generator program would give us more variety in releases than whatever Bandai is doing right now.

That's mainly what I was referring to. Like the non-canon Angel Birds logo stamped all over that valk. As soon as I saw it, the valk went from must-buy to no-buy.

Bandai just proved to us that they are very much capable of not destroying a beautiful valk with excessive tampo, but they choose to do it anyway (Angel Birds, YF-21, etc.).

Wow, a 69% markup over the published price (¥33,000 with tax included). That's very high, even for Luna Park...which based on the experiences of other MW members seems to mark up Macross items quite a bit compared to other stores. And they have it listed as being exclusive to Japan, but the Tamashii Nations website indicates that it will be available in Japan, Asia more broadly, and the US. The VF-1S Strike Mechanic Edition is currently selling on Yahoo Japan for roughly the same price. I'll be interested to see if other stores offer this for less. Another option would be to wait until release and pick one up on the secondary market. I'm having a difficult time believing it will cost more than ¥55,800 to get one that way, but maybe the "Tamashii Store Event" nature of it will make it really difficult to obtain?

Agreed, full Iron Type would have been an insta-buy for me. This one...not so much. I can appreciate the creativity that went into producing it, but it's just not my thing. I have my fingers crossed that all who want it can get their hands on it, though. Especially if it will be available at the Tamashii Nations store in New York.

That's a good point. I know that as a community we perpetually complain about canon stuff that Bandai teases and never releases. or just completely ignores in favor of non-canon releases like this one. It seems like every time there's an HMR release, a member posts the "bingo card" from the initial HMR announcement and we look to see if we can cross any of the remaining unreleased items off the list. Usually we can't. Where's my HMR Regult Scout? Another good point. I do feel that Yamato (putting aside their failed business model) did a great job of building up street cred in the community by not ignoring canon stuff, so when they did non-canon repaints, our reaction was "cool, those are interesting, I'll buy them" instead of "why are they selling non-canon variants when they still haven't made the Max and Miria 1Js, the CF 1A, the Hayao TV 1A, etc." Yamato's approach was logical and they seemed to do a good job of interacting with, and listening to, this community--because they were fans themselves. I don't think any of us truly understand what Bandai is doing with these releases, but as long as they keep making Macross stuff, I'm cautiously optimistic that we'll eventually get all of the canon stuff. I don't know if any true fans are in charge of anything within Bandai. For all we know, there's some generative AI bot deciding what gets released. Maybe that's why this 50th anniversary VF-1J looks the way that it does.

This could have been a production run of the long-overdue VF-1A Hayao TV, to complete the squadron. But no, we're getting something...unique instead.

It's like Howl's Moving Castle and Voltron had a child

I think it's super weird as well. Hard pass for me (not my thing), but good hunting to those trying to snag one.

The VF-19 is starting to show up for PO in the US. Price range looks to be $120-140, or a 40-65% markup. Looks like I won't have to eat my hat, but I hope the prices for WWM start to come down.