Anasazi37

Mich appreciated. I should have checked the early pages of the thread....

US versions. Intriguing idea. Bandai would definitely get more mileage out of their molds that way.

Found it! Tamashii Nations event in 2021. VF-1S Hikaru, no armor parts, but I can see a tiny Minmay in the upper left corner.

Yes! I forgot about that one. A VF-1S Hikaru (Strike?) with Minmay, I think. There is like one image of it from some random Bandai event several years ago, maybe standing next to the first VF-25 valks announced as part of the line? Hopefully someone here has the image. And agreed, would love to see VF-1 variants in this adorable line. Every single standard one from SDFM and DYRL, at the very least. And enemy mecha! The fact that Klan's Q-Rau exists as a prototype is encouraging.

As far as I know, these are the ones that have been teased at Bandai events but are not yet available for PO: Queadluun-Rau Klan YF-29 Durandal Alto VF-25S Ozma YF-29 Max VF-31AX Hayate You can see all of them here: https://hobby.dengeki.com/event/1741260/

This thread continues to surprise and delight. Keep the finds coming!

If true, starting with a 50% markup is pretty bold. They'd be working under the assumption that international collectors are willing to pay a large premium, even above the total cost of getting a PO in Japan and having the item shipped priority international. That may be true, but the number of times I've seen WWM items eventually marked down is not a positive sign. I'm sure some business people at Bandai crunched the numbers, like we've been doing in this thread for the past few days, and came up with a markup percentage that they thought would work. If it is a market study, maybe as Bandai watches the international sales figures they'll drop the markup a bit to boost interest. If the total cost for WWM items came in under what we currently pay door-to-door for a Japan PO, I'd be willing to shift my purchasing stateside and wait the 3-4 extra months for items to arrive. It's a tough business decision: keep the higher markups at the risk of decreased demand because you think it's about convenience for international collectors, lower the markups at the risk of decreased profit because you think it's about value for international collectors, or just stop international distribution altogether because it's not worth the extra work. Based on the experiences of other MW members who collect figures from those lines, the markup is pretty consistent (45-55%). Like you, that was my first thought: is this specific to Macross or a more general thing? Seems to be more general. You'd think the markup on massive lines like Gundam would be lower, but apparently not. (Others with better information, please correct me if I'm wrong)

I've wondered how much of the markup is Bandai on its own vs. some licensing thing tied to the deal between BW and HG, or maybe a bit of both. Then it makes my head hurt and I stop wondering.

I do hope we get to price parity at some point, so then it's only about how long you're willing to wait (and not have to deal with PO Madness in the middle of the night). I'll point to the recent YF-21 PO as an example of the hefty markups that unfortunately still exist: ¥35000 in Japan ($230) vs. $350 in the US. That's a 52% markup, which is not uncommon. We usually see Bandai international markups in the range of 45-55% and that seems to extend beyond Macross to other franchises like Gundam (discussed in another thread a few months ago). Another recent example is the HMR VF-0A PO: ¥16000 in Japan ($105), $160 in the US, which is also a 52% markup. I cynically expect the HMR VF-19 to show up in the US for $125-ish, regardless of retailer, but will gladly eat my hat if it shows up closer to the Japanese MSRP of ¥13000 ($85) because that will be a win for everyone. Granted, if you're patient and wait until US retailers start marking down prices for WWM items, you can sometimes get all the way down to Japan MSRP, but it could become a situation where those retailers stop carrying Macross items because they have to sell them at a loss...and then we're right back to PO Madness for everything.

This is why I still prefer to deal with PO Madness, plus I get items 3-4 months sooner. But now when I'm dealing with the Madness, I'm always thinking, "if I can't get it tonight, I know I can get it through [insert domestic store of choice here] with a convenience markup." At some point I will stop dealing with the Madness and just throw money at the situation so I can have a good night's sleep.

For a premium version, probably, unless they do a really small production run of the regular version. That could be costly, too.

HMR VF-19 and Tiny Session YF-19 are both still available at HLJ

Agreed, which is why I ordered mine from Japan. The WWM system isn't perfect, but you're right, it does give collectors more options, so I'm glad it exists. PO Madness hasn't been completely eliminated (still required for SDFM, DYRL, and TWE items), but it's not as bad as it used to be. I just wish Bandai maintained price parity instead of adding a huge markup. Other companies like Good Smile try to keep prices the same between their Japan and US online stores.

I'm pretty sure it's Bandai jacking up the price and putting them on the slow boat. That's pretty much the same price as BBTS and most US stores carrying the preorder. $9 less than BBTS, actually. Amazon generally tries to undercut competitors, not send business to them....

Max has only been CEO for three days. I'm willing to give him a full week to settle into the job before I start expecting new Macross kit announcements.

I don't regret having all three kits (Fighter, Strike Fighter, Strike Gerwalk), but they do indeed take up a lot of space. Their boxes are hogging three shelves worth of prime display real estate right now. That does make sense. Finding these kits is hard enough, but then if you go looking for the Armament Set, that is even more difficult to find. Especially since you might need two copies to achieve certain loadouts. For some reason I preordered two, and I'm glad that I did.

I keep forgetting that the fiscal year begins on 01 April in Japan. I'm so used to 01 October for my work. I'm excited to see what this partnership/collaboration with WAVE turns into. Hopefully more great Macross kits. I've maybe seen three of the 1/20 kits show up on Mandarake over the years, so yeah, they seem to be extremely rare out in the wild. Limited production runs is definitely one possible reason why. They were expensive to buy, expensive to ship (even domestically), and Macross is a bit more niche than other franchises. I'm in the "someday I'll actually build the damn things because they are way too awesome to ever let go of" camp myself, and I can't be alone. That has to explain at least a little bit of the scarcity. At least that is what I'll keep telling myself.

Saw some chatter about this on FB. It seems legit, but you never know when it comes to news on April 1st. If legit, I wonder what impact this will have on his ability to design and produce high quality Macross kits. He seems to be keeping his Max Factory contact information and his profile says that he's still working at Good Smile, which is interesting. He might be spreading himself too thin. I hope not. I'd like to see more high quality kits. You know, like the 1/20 Strike Battroid VF-1S we've all been waiting for....

I've seen more than a few people use regular 3D printer resin as a way to fill small gaps and smooth out PLA (filament) prints. Brush it on, apply a UV light to cure it on the spot, then do some light sanding. Haven't tried it myself yet, but plan to for a few large kits. Seems to take a lot less effort than putty filling and sanding down the PLA parts. Should also work to fill bubbles in traditional resin-cast parts.

This is a hard pass for me (not a Basara fan), but I'm happy to see that Bandai is giving some HMR love to valks that don't show up in SDFM, DYRL, Frontier, or Delta. I haven't given up hope that we'll get the rest of the Destroids and the Scout. At least the Macross HMR line is still alive....

I managed to transform my 171 to Battroid mode this weekend. It was a very stressful experience, made worse by unclear printed instructions and a lack of decent quality videos online. I found several that detailed the transformation from Battroid to Fighter, but not the other way. There was one from about ten years ago that was...okay, but the lighting was terrible, the person didn't know how to adequately describe what they were doing, and the resolution was bad. Had to replay sections of it multiple times. Getting the torso, chest, and head properly aligned and locked in was the worst part. The tolerances on this toy are very tight and pretty much all of the joints and hinges are very stiff, so I constantly felt like something was going to break while I was trying to move things around. I had to apply a bit more force than usual. I am never transforming this toy again. Much like my 171 CF is permanently in Fighter mode.

That's why I was thinking that it might be standard language that Bandai adds to all TWE listings now. We've seen additional batches when first batches sell out quickly, but it's unpredictable and I haven't yet seen one happen this late in the preorder window.

Yes, that looks to be the case, based on the additional information you just shared (I hadn't gone to look at the listing). I wouldn't be surprised if Bandai included that language on all TWE items now, to give themselves the option to make additional batches based on demand. If they opened up a second VT-1 batch, that would be great news for collectors who missed out on the initial batch and would (hopefully) encourage Bandai to make the VE-1 because I think there would be enough demand for it.

Courtesy of Google Translate: preorders close on 31 March and it releases sometime in July. I'm fairly certain that all direct proxies used up their allocations almost immediately and the stores like Anime Export that act like proxies are largely sold out now, too. Folks in Japan still have a week to place orders; everyone else is probably out of luck at this point--until they start to show up on the secondary market (Yahoo Japan, Mandarake, etc.). I hope it does really well with respect to sales, because I'd like to also own a VE-1 and Bandai is 75% of the way there with the VT-1 mold.

I decided to open up my 171 last night, just to see how bad it might look in Fighter mode. Both head lasers are laughably, ridiculously warped. Thank goodness for the second set of hard plastic ones. Paint seems fine so far. I plan to carefully transform it to Battroid mode this weekend. I'm prepared for more disappointment.