MikeRoz

Right, but did you poke them first or did they poke you first? I haven't heard of them poking first yet.

Oh cool, rearward-firing missile packs! New innovation for VF-1s, I believe. Complete radio silence for me. I'm a bit more curious how they're going to handle this than I am anxious to get my toy, so I'll see how long after Golden Week I can wait to poke them first.

They can't even be bothered to release supers for the later -31 releases. And they were dragging their feet on this long before COVID was a thing. And they're already TWE to begin with, so there's no risk of shelf warmers to be had. It's hard to imagine a world where they'll release obscure destroids but not supers for valks piloted by named characters.

Good to know on when P-Bandai will ship - thanks for the information. I placed my order the day the pre-order opened, so hopefully I'll be spared the worst of the N-Y part of that lag. They weren't too bad with my VF-1S from the night of that pre-order.

They wish... Despite being a payments company, they haven't even come out with PCoin yet. Let alone the PayPal branded PCs and phones, the PayPal bank branches, the PayPal mortgage loans, etc. Just so this entire post isn't entirely devoted to another show - no movement yet on my order of two (why two? I wish I knew...) SSPs with N-Y. I'm sure it will be fulfilled any second now. Any second now... EDIT: It's an EMS order, so if I understand that other thread correctly it shouldn't be subject to shipping restriction.

You have to admit it'd be hilarious if a Kakizaki valkyrie, of all things, became the next Kairos.

That's silly - what would you pay for a -31A if the three you have ran away from home? It's easy to balk on a price when you're sitting on three.

Remind me why Bandai felt the need to supersize the nose kite?

WHAAAAT

Got a N-Y shipping notification for one of my two orders. Second order was only ~110 or so further down the line.

I may have just said the words 'past results do not guarantee future performance', but I think secondary market prices were much, much higher for the -31A launch than they are for the -1S right now. I can see BIN for the -1S prices for less than 30k on Yahoo Japan right now. During the -31A debacle, secondary market prices were easily twice that. This means that if N-Y was buying at or below MSRP, they had a huge financial incentive to cut their pre-orders loose and sell at market price. If they were buying at secondary market prices, they also had a huge financial incentive to shrug and say "Sorry, couldn't find one!" rather than pay 2x or 3x what the customer paid to pre-order it. Sure, N-Y could start screwing people over en-masse at any point as a result of any number of internal factors. But from what I can tell, pressure to not deliver was much, much higher for the -31A release. EDIT: I can see that Slave IV already beat me to the punch here, but I'll let my reply stand.

This. Some people here have zero chill. Personally I'd rather deal with a retailer like N-Y, rather than one that cancels my pre-order just before the release because Bandai shorted them. There are no parts of my life that will fall apart if I get the item a week, or even a month, later than it's available on Japanese store shelves or other users here are posting their pictures. I can be patient. I also appreciate the option to buy at a markup when my other options are either to get super lucky between PO madness night and release date, or spin the release date availability roulette wheel. Past release day availability results (Max -1A) are not a guarantee of future performance (Hikaru -1S). Your other option, if you don't want to spend money on a markup, is to spend time refreshing this thread or individual retailers. I feel the markup option works out better for me.

Fortunately, I'm not in a situation where I'm in danger of the package being lost/stolen, just one where I might not being able to see it until next year. Does anyone know if the "Premium Forwarding Service Residential" applies to EMS packages in the US?

Sorry if this is more of a N-Y question than a 1/48 DX VF-1 question, but I know I'm not going to be at the address where my VF-1S and the duplicate order are being sent. Assuming N-Y never responds to my ticket about changing the address, has anyone had any luck re-routing an EMS package? Would a temporary change of address accomplish this?

I have an order in at N-Y placed at 2019-06-07 09:37:32 (their time) for two strike packs. I'll be at a different address near the end of the year but back at my regular address next year. What are the chances my order will be delivered as part of the December batch as opposed to the April batch, let alone be delivered before the end of the year? The design for the DX strike pack, or the design for the original one they drew in the 80s? If the former, did they say why it was hollow with no engine detail?

Is it me or is the wing on the VF-25 behind him either missing or broken?

Isn't it kind of a bad sign that nothing was announced when the new YF-21 was announced?

These additional pictures are clearing up a lot of my concerns about fighter mode. Wish we had a front-end fighter profile picture, though.

Why would you want to sleep away two years of your life?

I tentatively agree fighter might have some issues, but didn't that tweet two pages back say prototyping would continue? Why is everyone reacting like this is the final product?

Aren't the laws in most countries on the side of the consumer here? IE, I buy something from someone online, it's their responsibility to successfully ship it to me, not mine to pay extra for insurance and fight the shipper for reimbursement? Domestically, in my experience, paying for insurance has only ever been an option at smaller operations with questionable customer service.

Just want to be clear here, in case some people may be getting the wrong impression - the mistakes were mine. All of these items were left in positions that received direct sunlight for a small portion of the morning (before my usual wake-up) or were near enough to a window to soak up a bunch of ambient sunlight. The VF-25 that was in a sealed box is fine, as you can see in the pictures above. I haven't experienced any inexplicable spontaneous yellowing. I've since moved my collectibles far from the windows in my home. Lesson learned. I will probably try to use the peroxide recovery method on the damaged items at some point in the coming weeks.

My lights are kind of yellow, that was taken with a cell phone, I'm not the best photographer, and I didn't have a pristine YF-30 to compare it to like I did my VF-25. All this to say, the wings have yellowed very, very slightly, if at all - the main thing to see in that picture is the nose yellowing on the right side of the picture. I took the picture from above so you could more easily see the contrast between the good side of the nose and the bad side of the nose. Also, I'd like to point out that that set of pictures was captioned with "Mistakes were made" - and the implication was supposed to be mistakes I made, not mistakes Bandai made. The Valkyrie was left in a place that gets direct sunlight, but only super, super early in the morning at a crazy angle, so I, not being a morning person, didn't realize until I happened to be up one day and saw it. I do not expect that an unopened YF-30 would have a yellowing problem.

I'm kind of in a bind with the VF-31. Of the schemes from the Delta squad, none really appealed to me. I'm a fan of the DYRL!Hikaru/Alto red, black, and white scheme. The protagonist's scheme is too blue, and I'm not a fan of the -1A-style head. Mirage's scheme is close, not as pink as it could have been, but ultimately too purple. Red like Millia I probably would have gone for. No thanks on the orange one. Squadron leader is flying an Angel Bird with a dragon tramp stamp - pass. Why couldn't they have just done a Siegfried with a YF-30 scheme? So I went with Messer. Seemed like the best option at the time. Black and white is 2/3 of my preference, at least. Then the -31J Kai flits by and is super tempting, but I've already got my -31F, it's still too much blue and not enough red, and at a significant markup on top of that. I guess the only way to out-madness preorder madness is with event-exclusive lottery madness. There's also the Kairos, but I pass because it is like a YF-30, but a better toy, but with a more boring color scheme. I feel like I missed out on a super fun community bonding experience by not being a part of that dumpster fire of a pre-order, but I guess I will have to make do with merely normal pre-order madness. Then the armor gets announced - except they're only making it for Arad. Except it's orange, which doesn't really go with any of them, including, ironically, the orange Valkyrie. Well, if it doesn't go with any of them, I might as well get it for my -31F. There's this illustration on the Delta movie cover with all the Delta crew sporting super color-coordinated armor sets - except Arad, because his unfortunate color choice is an irrevocable part of canon now, apparently. But those nice looking schemes are a nice thing, and Bandai never, ever lets us have nice things that aren't officially canon and shown on screen. (After being so judicious and careful about which squadron members do and don't reaction missiles, what will they do if they're all shown with nukes, sans super parts, in the next movie? Re-release the entire line?) So, aside from the occasional temptation to pick up a -31S that goes with but doesn't go with the armor, I'm committed to my plan. Except now there are pictures of this "Silpheed Armor" color-coordinated for Hayate's -31J. The white with a slight accent of blue looks really nice in a way the actual plane doesn't. It hasn't been seen in any movie or TV episode, but it's real, and there are pictures of it. What do I do now? Run out and get a -31J or a -31J Kai, hoping this isn't just a cruel tease? Hope that they work their way down the squadron until my -31F is blessed with a set? The Delta line is frustrating. Delta as a show was frustrating. If it wasn't for the fact that the DX VF-31 is such a well-engineered toy, I'd probably have skipped it altogether.

Plus I don't think any of the recent -19 DX releases have been TWE - general release all the way. No reason they couldn't reissue whatever they like.