Anasazi37

My observation is that this community generally puts a store into one of four groups, based on our experiences with them: reliable with great customer service, reliable with "okay" or limited customer service because they are probably pretty small operations, reliable but more than willing to jack up prices on collectors (at which point I don't care about your customer service), and unreliable. MyKombini is in the second group, as far as I know. There's an entire section of this site dedicated to where you can buy Macross stuff and sharing those experiences, which is really useful: https://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/forum/13-where-to-buy-macross-auctions-amp-dealers-specials/ You can also check out the Blacklist in the For Sale forum:

Yep, the Yamato 1/48 is a joy to disassemble and reassemble. No glued-together parts like you see on the Bandai DX line. Taking it apart definitely makes you appreciate the ingenuity and engineering involved. Same goes for the 1/55, BTW. The verniers that hide the screws on the legs fool everyone (myself included) the first time around. You'll also want to check the tolerances between parts that move past each other during posing or transformation. They are generally tight enough that paint scrape will happen if you're not careful. It's been many years since I've customized a Yamato 1/48, but I remember having to use a Dremel to thin out some parts. Normally you just don't fully tighten screws during reassembly, but that can cause problems of its own and doesn't always put sufficient space between things.

Amazon Japan sold out within a few minutes, as did most other sites, so demand for this release has been very high and I'm sure there are a lot of collectors out there watching all the usual sites, all the time. And if our favorite people (scalpers) are running monitoring and/or purchasing bots against AmiAmi, which is likely, they probably knew within seconds that stock was available and wiped it out.

Scanning and upsizing might be a lot more trouble than it's worth, depending on which markings you're after. The proportions between the two kits, even after accounting for the different scales, will be different, meaning that decals covering larger areas (kites, stripes, etc.) likely won't fit correctly. What decals do you need? As I mentioned earlier, I made a decal set for the two 1/20 Super/Strike kits. I haven't extended it to the Fighter kit yet, but I don't think that will be too difficult. The only new stuff will be the vertical stabilizers plus some modex numbers, I think.

The real nut punch is that even the $60 DX decal set doesn't contain everything on the sticker sheet. Plus, those decals were designed for the Super/Strike kits. Everything *should* fit the standalone Fighter kit, but I'm not sure. You also don't get items like the big black and red markings for the vertical stabilizers. Extremely frustrating.

Took pictures the stickers that come with all three valks and the decals that come with the Armament set. In order: Super/Strike Gerwalk, Super/Strike Fighter, Fighter, Armaments. I keep forgetting how crappy the stickers are. The film is pulling away from the backing and wrinkling in many places. I will never use them.

I know that the Strike Gerwalk and Strike Fighter kits only come with stickers. I haven't checked my Fighter kit, but I'm assuming it's the same. The Armament set comes with decals, but not stickers, however you need to purchase *two* Armament sets if you want to add anything other than two UUM-7 and four RMS-1 armaments to your valk. You only get two AMM-1 clusters per set, which is really dumb, but since I have two sets, I have enough armaments to cover all three of my valks (AMM-1s will go on the Fighter). I made the decals you're thinking of. Did both a "full" set that covers everything on the sticker sheet and a "lite" set that is only the essential markings. Not long after I finished designing those sets, Max Factory announced their add-on decal sets, which also came in full and lite versions. Because when you pay $350 for a 1/20 kit, you should have to pay another $30-60 for decals that make it look more like the high-end model it's supposed to be, but even their full set doesn't contain everything on the sticker sheet. Here are links to the those sets: https://www.goodsmile.info/en/product/8278/minimum+factory+VF+1+Decals+Normal+Ver.html https://www.goodsmile.info/en/product/8277/minimum+factory+VF+1+Decals+DX+Ver.html Due to what it costs to print my sets, I wasn't able to offer them for a lot less than the sets sold by Max Factory, but my point is that I shouldn't have had to print them at all. At that price point, they should have just included decals with the kits.

And HLJ even found some extra stock a few weeks after release...somewhere...and sold it at MSRP.

To my knowledge, no. I've received a small number of requests to do one, but given the amount of time involved in making a new set, it's hard for me to justify right now.

MyKombini finally listed the combo set and it sold out right away: https://mykombini.com/en/september-2021/22574-dx-chogokin-vf-1j-armored-valkyrie-the-super-dimension-fortress-macross-bandai-spirits-4573102614513.html It was listed for less than MSRP, too....

Still looking good!

Yeah, I was really surprised by how fast it sold out. I snagged mine in the first 10 seconds and when I checked back a few minutes later, it was sold out. I think that's a new record. You can, but when you add up the service fees and shipping fees, it's not too different from having AJ ship directly to Tenso and then have Tenso ship to you. You become your own proxy, in effect. And Tenso will hold your stuff for a bit, so you can combine things for shipping. They do make their money on shipping. It's not terrible, but you do notice the higher price.

This is the complete set: https://sites.google.com/site/tridentdesignworksdecals/yamato/1-48/gbp-1s-leg-art Back in the day, folks would just tell me which ones they wanted (usually just a few). I finished a print run recently, which I don't do very often anymore because my printer is slowly dying, but let me know what you're looking for.

I picked mine up from them. It was selling at the MSRP of ¥33,000 (including tax) with free shipping to my Tenso address.

Looks like it's available at AE right now. Go go go. Darn it. AE's new website is terrible. You don't see that it's sold out until you actually click on the listing. I forgot about that.

Snagged one through Amazon Japan, shipping to my Tenso address. Sold out almost instantly. Roy was available for about ten minutes.

I'm not getting my hopes up too high. I think we'll be very fortunate if Bandai releases more than one toy or toy+accessory combo.

It's back up for sale on P-Bandai. Go go go.

Just checked the Tamashii Nations site and the armor set is sold out. That was fast. Maybe Bandai will do a second run of the set, but this doesn't bode well for the amount of competition we're probably going to face for the combo set during PO Madness. I'm hoping for Roy-like availability after release, but who knows.

Yes. I purchased an item during their recent "we found some old stuff in our warehouse!" sale and had it sent to my Tenso address. Worked perfectly.

The normal pattern is that there is at least a week between a formal item announcement and the PO, During that waiting period, it shows up in the Macross section of the Tamashii Nations site as a full entry, not just as a teaser picture: https://tamashii.jp/item_character/macross_series/ The one major exception has been the TV Super Parts, where we only got about a day to prepare. I really hope Bandai doesn't do that again.

@Saburo's enabling pics led me to buy an Arcadia VF-0S...and then the Reactive Armor to go with it. Those pics are dangerous.

Arcadia: "If you thought the YF-19 Premium Finish was a wallet-buster, just wait until this one goes up for PO"