Radioguy

Which stores are you specifically referring to?

I should also acknowledge my own error: Bluefin had been renamed Bandai Namco for a few months now.

Well, it's more about the distributor, I think. Here in New York City, we've got some big box retailers, some large comic places like Midtown Comics and Forbidden Planet, and little comic shops. I mean, some larger comic shops will deal with Bluefin directly for Tamashii stuff, which I assume will include DX and HMR stuff, but most small places will deal with Diamond after Diamond sources it from Bluefin. As for Target, yes. The larger stores will sometimes sell spidered (enclosed by loss prevention device) high ticket items upwards of $100-$200, although these days they are more often Hasbro US releases of Takara/Tomy Masterpiece Transformers than anything like Gundam stuff. The question there is whether they already deal with Bluefin, Diamond, etc. as the lower-ticket Gundam stuff they do carry might be via one of Bandai's other distribution channels. For brick and mortar, the relevant question is whether Bluefin tried or is trying to solicit this new stuff to Target, Walmart, Best Buy, etc. I assume GameStop might be more of a lock as they carried Yamato releases years ago and Toynami stuff since, but their web-sales division has been actively undermining their own retail store division's acquisition of figures stock, and it's affected their Gundam, Transformers, etc. stock in a big way. Buying from them is more like going to BBTS or EE now. Anyhow, if anyone sees more solid info on shops getting them and not just websites, I'd love to know. To me, that would be a true revival in the US. 🙂

Was that for me? I was actually speaking more to brick and mortar availability. Tamashii Nations stuff appears in physical stores, and I wonder with the announcement, if Diamond or other vendors will make the Macross stuff available to physical retailers again like they have with the HG-approved merch over the last few years. Seeing Toynami stock end up in bargain bins as a result would just be icing on the cake. Truth be told though, since it's out there, I'd like to see the KitzConcept stock on store shelves too, and I haven't seen that happen either. That would still be nice.

I wonder which US retailers will have those; especially the VF-0S. I know BBTS, EE, and other online ones likely will, but I wonder if we'd see them on shelves of GameStop, comic shops, or, a longshot, maybe some bigger Target stores? (They do get some Gundam stuff these days) Would be great to see some brick and mortar availability again after nothing but Toynami...and usually just nothing.

Wow, hadn't expected any actual toy, even a KO, to exist in green. While it's no DX custom, and not 100% the scheme I'd wanted, I'd hop on that if reasonably priced... As for Axoid, that blood red...well, it still looks great to me. Legs akimbo or not. There's a menace to it. Like it should have a necklace of skulls around its neck. Plus the photographer Revell used did some great scenes for the kits they picked up. I loved model kit box art like those or from Testors, etc. As a kid, those looked so great, and it hurt SO much after the cellophane came off to see the contents and the work involved. Wish they finished! Oh, I don't know when I'd find the time to build a kit these days, but I don't know if I'd be happy at the moment with anything less than 1/60, and those kits were 1/72. If they finished and put it on eBay, though...who knows. I might be tempted. If I had my druthers, or a Powerball win, I'd have each scheme as DX customs. In all, I'm kinda surprised no one so far has seen anyone do up an Axoid when Yamato did do a woodland camo like Orbot (Revell's VF-1D box paint scheme).

Just curious if anyone had ever seen someone do custom repaints of released toys as either Revell's Axoid blood-red & black box image VF-1J paint scheme, or a non-canon VF-1J all-over green for a Hayao who survived? Those color schemes just seem to resonate with me, and I was curious if anyone went down a path to creating them.