Keiichi

My Hikaru arrived over the weekend and I absolutely love it! The new head sculpt looks wonderful and is a massive improvement over the old Hi-Metal VF-1S (though it is a bit of a shame that the visor no longer fully tucks away in fighter mode, worth it for the vastly superior look in battroid though). I always thought the whole swappable wings thing Bandai likes to do was silly, but the anime-style small wings for battroid mode are a brilliant usage of that feature. The grey they used for the body looks great (it is a shade darker than the VF-1J GBP's grey) and the added tampo detail is so nice to see. Extremely happy they included saluting hands, as that's always been one of my all time scenes from DYRL. Best of all, the joints are so much tighter than the old 1S' ever were. And man, that box art by Tenjin is so dang sweet. I was kinda iffy about forking over nearly $100 for the new Hi-Metal VF-1S Roy preorder, but I'm now so glad I did after seeing in-hand how vastly improved this VF-1S is. Cannot wait for the Regult and Glaug to arrive! With his big brother.

To buy or not to buy... the whole reason I got a 0D was so I could better justify skipping the 0A, but that grey color scheme is calling to me, "buy meee.... I'll look so good with your Low-Vis VF-1A...."

Just a heads up, but HLJ won't charge you until the item comes in-stock so you can't use the current conversion rate to determine your cost. Some sites will allow you to pay ahead of time, though only Nippon-Yasan comes to mind at the moment. If you're waiting for it from Arcadia, you may end up having to put that on your tombstone. I'd love/want to see one from Arcadia, but I'm pretty skeptical about its chances.

Ugh, that's almost as bad because now you have to rely on NY's customer service, which in my experience is less than great. My wayward package arrived at and then departed another Cincinnati post office, so I'm optimistic it's working its way back west. Hope things work out for you though, and at no additional cost to you either. Stay warm!

Did it actually get marked as delivered to Utah? If so, that seriously stinks. I'm in Vegas too, and I've got a package from Mandarake (contains the super parts for Alto's VF-171) that went from customs in Los Angeles all the way to Cincinnati. Tracking just updated last night to show it leaving Cincinnati. I've had this kind of mix up happen before and things eventually got sorted on their own, so I'm trying not to worry about it, but still... Maybe you and I just got the wrong tracking numbers for our items? Or someone in Los Angeles customs hates Las Vegans?

My Hikaru VF-1S is shipping with Ronin Boba too! Good to hear Boba is awesome, as I've really been looking forward to it. Anyways, how does Hikaru hold together in fighter mode with the Strike parts attached? My old Roy VF-1S never really held together that great while in fighter with the Strike armor attached.

On my old VF-1S Roy, the hip joints have gotten pretty loose. Even when Roy was brand-new the hips were a bit loose, but they've definitely gotten worse over time. My Roy also has a knee cover that likes to fall down at the slightest touch in battroid. The Hi-Metal R GBP I've got is much, much tighter than my Roy ever was pretty much across the board. Still waiting for AmiAmi to ship my Hikaru 1S. I've asked them about it, and they're waiting for one more Figuart I've preordered to come in-stock, but I've seen that Figuart come in and out of stock a couple times now so I don't get the hold up is.

2010, hard to believe it's been that long, haha.

To their credit, humans seem to do a great job of producing problems that are 100% consistent (early Yamato 1/60 v2s shoulders, Bandai's CF VF-171 triangles)!

Yup, there certainly was. I dug up my invoice for it earlier in the thread and Roy's Strike 1S cost 4,710JPY from AmiAmi back then, though of course the yen was way stronger back then as well.

Wow, I had a hard time believing that ANN article, but if you look on the right of this photo that's totally a Hi-Metal sized FB2012 VF-4! And in my excitement for the FB2012 VF-4, I totally overlooked the Hi-Metal VF-2SS w/SAP on the left and what must be the tail end of the Hi-Metal VF-0A behind the foreground displays.

Yeah, good example of that is their VF-31 pictures. In the group shot of all three modes the blue trim looks like a dark blue, while the individual shot of each mode it looks light blue. Just the lightning or the camera flash (or lack thereof) making things look different. Good eye noticing that it's a v1, Lolicon.

Just the DX Chogokin Brera VF-27, ain't it? Like how the Renewal VF-25F is behind Ranka.

You've got Love Live in my Macross!

Dangit, I knew they were going to re-visit Roy's VF-1S in the Hi-Metal R line (as did everyone else), but I had told myself that I was going to skip it since I already had the previous Hi-Metal 1S. I'll just get Hikaru's 1S to enjoy the improvements, I said. Unfortunately my conviction could not resist the one two combo of actually seeing a new Roy 1S and the spiffy exclusive stand (which I know is just a smoke grey Act 5 Stage with a simple jolly roger tampo, but it looks cool!). Preordered, good job me. I will say though, one thing that really struck me about the 1J GBP was how tight all the joints were, much tighter than the old Roy 1S ever was. It'll be nice to have that improvement on a new Roy 1S. Yeah, no discounts on web exclusives. In fact this is more than twice as expensive as the previous Hi-Metal Roy 1S was! I just checked my AmiAmi shipment email from 2010 and Roy's 1S cost just 4,710JPY. Of course the yen was a heck of a lot stronger back in 2010, but still, it's quite a difference.

Whoa, great find Spacy, thanks for sharing. Not really liking what I'm seeing thus far so I'm gonna cancel my preorder, maybe the design simply doesn't appeal to me as much as I thought it did when this was first announced. If this valk turns out to be awesome on release, I'll happily eat crow and scramble to secure one for myself, but I'm pretty skeptical at this point. Haha, what a glowing commendation! Agreed, it's such a glaring eyesore that it almost makes me think a panel or something has to be missing. Then again, they seem to be happy with leaving those tabs on top of the chest plate...

You have chosen... wisely.

Sweet picture, sh9000! Something I've wondered, is the 1J GBP's headsculpt a new one? Compared to the Hikaru 1J I thought it was a new sculpt, but next to your Max 1J they seem identical. Perhaps the grey googles are making me think it's a new sculpt.

Picked up two (and one Capt. Phasma!) at AmiAmi, grabbed one more (and another Phasma ) at CDJ. Waiting around a bit to see what HLJ's price is at; probably be similar to HobbySearch's price. CDJ I've changed shipping methods by just e-mailing them with the order number and asking them to change it. Never had to change shipping with HobbySearch, but I imagine they'd let you do the same. With Paypal you have to prepay, if you chose to pay with a credit card they'll only charge you when the item arrives in stock.

Hmm, looks suspiciously like the Hobby Search one.

Here's a quick comparison I took of the Hi-Metal Roy VF-1S with the RD Unicorn Destroy mode (Full Action Ver.) to give an idea of what to expect from the fully nude VF-1J. *sneaks into sh9000's room to turn off his alarm* That's one less competitor for tonight's preorders!

Both Act 5 and Act 4 Stages have the same sized connectors, so yeah, a Hi-Metal will connect to either type of Stage (uses a couple included stand adapters to do so). I'd suggest the Act 5 for any long-term flight poses, as the main arm on an Act 5 Stage is much sturdier and stronger thanks to its use of a ratchet joint. Waiting on Maul as well before shipping my HLJ orders.

Hmm, I was thinking that being smaller was better because it would allow the tab to fit into the rectangular connection point more easily, but you make a good point as well mickyg. You know, I think I'll just leave it alone, haha. I only connect the boosters in fighter mode and the right one holds on decently enough in fighter that it's probably best I don't risk screwing something up.

Ah, yeah! When I first attempted to put on the boosters I remembered your previous posts about the issue and I checked on my tabs and they looked OK. Took a closer look just now, however, and I noticed that the right-side booster's rectangular tab (which connects to the bottom of the wing root) is in fact slightly larger than the same tab on the left side booster! I think that may be culprit because while I can get that tab to grip the connection point, it immediately pops out. Cheers for getting me to take a second look, Chronocidal! Now I just need to track down where I put my exacto, haha.

Sweet pictures, Gundam@EFSF! I've got my VF-1J sitting in HLJ's Private Warehouse and I won't be shipping it til October, so your pictures help make the wait more bearable. I'm very skeptical that will be possible, but that would definitely be a LOT of fun if it is. It would make a great vehicle for my Cobra troopers, haha.