Paco Grande

Forgive my ignorance, but I thought the WWM thing only applies to characters from after Macross Plus. I have heard that we will never get a WWM release of a SDFM/DYRL/Macross Plus figures. So this being pre-order madness again is not a surprise as far as I know.

Yes I missed that. I only follow this thread because all the DX VF-1 info used to be in here. Why are we creating dedicated threads per release? That does not make sense to me at all because if you have alerts set up for this thread, you will not be notified. Anyway! Sorry to bother everyone! I will go back to lurking.

Yup, I'm aware of that. I've ordered those before. What I mean is that there was very little discussion in this thread about it and I cannot even access the Bandai web site anymore for SDFM/DYRL stuff because I'm not in Japan. So I had no way of knowing when you could order it. And even in the pre-order thread on this site it was barely mentioned. I just thought it was odd. Normally there are pages of discussion here whenever a new DX variant pops up. I assume there will be a lot more discussion when it's an actual character release.

I'm a little shocked that I completely missed a DX pre-order. Or did I? I can't tell. I wasn't really interested in the Angels anyway, but they appear to be sold out already and I wasn't even aware they were on sale yet. And when I go to the Bandai web page to look them up, it keeps redirecting me to their international store and there is no Macross products there. That did not used to happen. They were not discussed in this thread much at all. As far as I can tell the pre-order date was not even posted here once. Are we keeping all information about ordering, including the pre-order madness date, in the pre-order pinned thread now? That seems ridiculous to me, even for this super strict forum. Or is it that nobody cares about that release so there was not much discussion? The only reason I'm bringing this up is that I'm concerned that I will miss a release I do care about from lack of info. Thank you!

Since that new world wide agreement does not include SDFM, DYRL or Macross Plus I'm wondering if Bandai is focusing on the shows and movies that are included to see how that goes. To be honest I only have so much geek budget to go around and I've been relieved that there wasn't a DX Valk that I wanted for a while. But I would still like Max & Miria VF-1Js and a TV Kaki at some point.

I thought it was understood that NY no longer exists. First Nin-Nin came up when you went to the NY website and now it's this: https://materialmatcha.com/ Anyway they are toast.

Not sure why you care so much about other people's spending habits. But for your info, this is the second Bandai DX I've ordered from Luna Park and both times they shipped DHL and somehow avoided the border taxes. They charge quite a bit for shipping, so they may be including the taxes ahead of time like Amazon Japan and there are no surprise fees later. Or maybe they are marking down the value like AE and others. Not sure. Yes I paid the late tax for this, but I was expecting another tax assault later that did not happen so that's good. Oh, and you were also concerned about me buying the Lego UCS AT-AT earlier. Just to keep you informed I purchased it last night and I'm really looking forward to assembling it. 👍

The FOMO kicked in. I caved and used my N-Y refund to buy this set from Luna Park. And it's now costing me $70 CAD more...... Damn you N-Y!!! Luna Park has about the same price as the Ebay sellers I'm seeing, but I would rather buy from a store. I really wish we could get these things closer to MSRP. This figure is now my second most expensive nerd purchase after HasLab Unicron which is crazy. Now I wait to see if Luna Park actually has stock to send me. Embrace the suck!!! 😭

Yup. I skipped the Falcon and the Star Destroyer UCS sets due to cost and lack of space, but I'm not skipping this one. I'm selling a few figures to help pay for it. Same thing I did for the HasLab Unicron. To make the wife happy.

Believe it or not I managed to get a refund from Nippon Yassan by complaining to PayPal. Thankfully I was still within 6 months. Now to decide if I really want this armor set after all. It’s been an expensive year. Do we think this set will be easier to get for a decent price in the future like Roy? Or will the price go up?

And I'm getting more and more concerned about my NY order. Still radio silence and ignored tickets. Pretty soon I'll be putting in a PayPal complaint. Edit: I just submitted my PayPal dispute. It's a shame because I have used NY for many years and appreciated them marking down my packages so I could avoid taxes. But enough is enough. I also find it hilarious that when you start the PayPal dispute process NY actually have a note on the PP page that lets you know that if you raise a dispute all your orders will be stopped while the dispute is being performed. And as everyone knows by now, your account will be closed after the dispute.

I'm actually hoping we get a bit of a break for the VF-1s because it's been an expensive year. But I would still like TV Max & Miria VF-1Js and a TV Kaki.....pretty soonish.... I originally planned to get the movie Skull squad, but after getting the TV Roy and 1D I'm hooked on the TV versions now. I like the variety of colours.

Yeah I once said I only want one DX valk and I now own five.

I thought that as well, and they may just be behind on receiving this set, but they don't reply to helpdesk tickets so I'm having to guess. I'll most likely just wait a little while longer. But before 6 months is up I'll be filing a PayPal dispute. Yeah, I have 5 of these Bandai DX bots now so I'm a little more used to it, but it still sucks. Thank you for the advice! If NY falls through I will embrace the suck and buy one elsewhere. 🙂

I foolishly ordered this through NY. I have not been screwed by them yet so I thought my luck would hold out. But I have not received a peep from NY about this order and they ignored my ticket as usual. Normally I would have more patience, but it's NY so paranoia is kicking in. When I check Ebay and Okiniland the prices seem high to me. Some of you were saying the prices aren't too bad for this set on Ebay etc. but I'm not seeing that. Am I just not searching correctly, or are we saying that Okiniland's price of $342 USD plus shipping is pretty good? The best price I've seen on Ebay is $392 USD including shipping from Japan. I paid $370 total from NY. I'm weighing my options because I'm thinking about doing a PayPal dispute with NY. But I ordered on May 21st so I'm only at 5 months. I'm used to buying MP Transformers at a 30% discount from Japan so paying so much over the $288 MSRP of this set is killing me.

I forgot some things in the survey, but I'm thinking we could do it more than once? 😀

Not sure where to post this. I saw on Twitter that Bandai had a QR code you could scan at NYCC this week to do a survey about Macross toys in Canada and the U.S. (possibly other locations, not sure). I just did the survey and I thought some of you may be interested. I assume they are trying to figure out what to sell outside of Japan? https://jp.surveymonkey.com/r/RNGJ73D Edit: QR code image added:

I was originally not planning to order this one because I'm not a huge fan of the chunky armor, but I ended up pre-ordering the set and I'm not regretting that decision! I do not own a DX VF-1J yet so this is a double new release for me. That box is very nice as well and I did not expect that. The only store available to me at the time was NY so I'm a little nervous but I have received everything I ordered from NY so far and they seem to be improving lately so I still have hope this will come through.

To be clear the first packages sent out, like mine, were not even bubble wrapped. It was just the VF-1D box in a DHL bag with no protection whatsoever. All corners on mine were a bit crushed. I believe that after they received complaints they started wrapping them a little better with bubble wrap at least. My Roy was also shipped in nothing but a Fed Ex bag from Japan so my last two releases have damaged boxes. The Roy was from an Ebay seller. Luna Park has stated that they are now packaging their shipments themselves to avoid issues, but it`s taking a lot longer because they don`t have a lot of staff. That`s why some people have had to wait a long time. I`m assuming they paid DHL to pack their shipments at first because they don`t really have a shipping dept.

AE has always been like that for me. Sometimes their emails go into the spam folder but there is usually no email at all. I just start logging and checking around the release date.

Usually that estimated delivery date is a "worst case scenario" date. It should arrive much faster than that. I'm still baffled by my Luna Park DHL delivery. I paid 3000Y back in December for shipping which was most likely EMS at the time. They did not ask for more money for the DHL shipping and on top of that it was delivered last week and I have still not received any fees at all from DHL. It's bizarre. Not sure if it was a glitch or what. The packing job sucked and the box was a bit damaged but I'm still happy because I was expecting to pay what you paid. I do feel your pain though! I've been screwed by many expensive shipping bills this year.

I received mine from Luna Park a few days ago. Delivered DHL to me in Canada and there were zero extra fees or taxes. I’m wondering if I will get billed later but DHL doesn’t usually do that. I’m also wondering if Luna Park is somehow fulfilling by Amazon Japan because the delivery time and price for DHL is very similar to AJ DHL shipments. Anyway it’s bizarre but I’m really happy I seemed to have escaped the extra fees. So far.

I received mine from Luna Park today in Ontario. Ordered it in December. I was shocked because I was not charged any taxes or border handling fees from DHL. That normally only happens when shipping DHL from Amazon Japan and in that case I pay the taxes to Amazon. But the bad news is that they shipped it in a DHL bag. Seriously. The only cardboard was the Bandai exclusive slip cover over the VF-1D box. No bubble wrap. So obviously every corner on the inner box was crushed. Contents seem to be fine. What is with some Japanese stores shipping in bags? My Roy was shipped in a FedEx bag.

Yeah, I've mentioned it a few times on this site but the last DHL shipment I had from Japan was a $36 mook from HLJ and I ended up paying $95 total because of all the BS DHL fees and taxes. I was pissed and complained to both HLJ and DHL, not that they care. I'm still used to the $16 DHL 2 day delivery from Amazon Japan with no extra fees so this was shocking to me. So now that I have a $400 item inbound from DHL I'm really concerned about the taxes and fees. I'm really hoping that Luna Park marked the price down on the customs forms but I'm assuming they didn't. To keep things on topic: I'm really liking the colour scheme on this release because it's so different than my other DX VF-1s. Mine are all white with very little colour so this will stand out for sure. My original plan was to collect only the movie VF-1s and get the whole Skull squad, but now I'm changing my mind and going for the TV versions to get more colour. I'm really hoping they eventually do the Max & Miria VF-1Js as well as the brown Kaki VF-1A.

I paid 4500Y back in Dec. for what I assumed was EMS from Luna Park. They shipped a few days ago using DHL and did not charge extra, which I think is pretty great. Except that I'm expecting the usual taxes and DHL border fees assault any minute now.