PointBlankSniper

I don't deny that. I'm the one that pointed out the likely reason behind the hardpoints remaining on almost every release above after all. But that isn't quite the same topic. Here, I'm just addressing the idea of reusing the tooling specifically. I don't imagine they would literally grind out the injection molds for the kai, and then weld it back if they want to do another run of the YF.

I have Ozma ordered from them as well, so I'm in the same boat. They said they were very understaffed and backlogged when I was dealing with the YF-21. Took them like 3 weeks to respond to my email at some point during the defect inspections. But they also only took couple days to reply shipping inquiries and process it at the end. They footed half the shipping fee as compensation for the delays. Seems like certain operations are hung up and ridiculously slow, where they are understaffed, to the point of looking suspiciously unresponsive, but they go above and beyond with their customer service when they actually get around to it. Having gone through this once, I'm not too concerned yet. If anything, it's a great opportunity to observe whether people are getting consistent defects with this release that warrant an inspection before shipping. You never know how bandai quality is these days 🤡

That's the guy I watched and found out the colors are wrong in the instructions. He pointed it out a few times and laughed at it, but I think he's under the impression the instructions have the right colors and then they should have painted the head with the gunpod's shade.

Apparently the brow and cheeks are shown to have a dark metallic gray trim in the promos and instructions, but they are in a medium gray like the main body on the final product. I checked some wiki pics and it seems like the final product is correct. Dunno what happened to cause a difference, but the incorrect colors do make the sculpt look a bit sharper to me lol.

The YF-19's wings aren't the same shape as the Kai.

I think it's just a standard they adopted to all their designs after Frontier. Before that, only the 171 had accessories that needed it. The 21's design broke every design rule that had going, but it might just be following canon. It might be fixable or maybe even planned that the 22 can have hard points by having them molded into extentions on the removable ailerons. If not for cheaping out and recycling molds, I think the 25, 27, and 29, would probably get them too. IDK about the former two, but it's extra frustrating looking at my Max Durandal and seeing how they originally went to the trouble of sculpting in those shallow fake hardpoints on the 29, but not making them deep enough to be functional. Then again, there's almost nothing to use them with if you don't have some specific valks or 3D print them. Sometimes, it feels like Bandai is run by psychos lol

The canopy is purple, you can see where its thickest at the hinge, or if you find an image that looks through it's entire length from the front. But that's what makes me sad. It's so light that you can't tell it's there without looking hard for it.

Probably not the right place to say this, but apparently, Goodsmile USA got data breached for a whole month and still hasn't said a thing about it... People are getting sketchy charges on their cards.

I did see a tweet that also mentioned something along the lines of this. IIRC it said the battroid was stiff without armor, which sounded like there could be something not said or not TL'd that could have been implied. Since the TL itself felt a little stiff (pun intended), I didn't bother mentioning without full understanding of the context.

Oh boy... I might have jinxed us... 😭 I found a couple more: This is terrible! What's wrong, Bandai? The gate is bleached and there are parts that get stuck on the gate! It's an expensive item, so inspect it properly! ------------------------ The shoulder armored parts joints of VF-25S Armored Messiah Valkyrie Ozma are not symmetrical (´・ω・｀) (same person below) Both Chogokin VF-25S Armored Messiah models only have connecting parts on the left side, but I managed to force the shoulder missiles in. It still looks cool, although it can't transform because of the shoulder parts!!! ( #`꒳´ ) The ugly nub marks are kind of par for course these days, but hopefully it obstructing transformation and the double same sided shoulders (YF-21 flashbacks) are one off issues...

The lessening canopy tint on some of these revivals makes me a little sad. It's supposed to be part of the unit's distinct color scheme, and more canon than all the "no step" warnings all over the wing. It looks like the nose sensors have lost color along with it too. Here's to hoping the joints aren't floppy at least before the armor goes on lol. Gonna have to decide if I wan't to warehouse mine and wait for other items, depending on if it somehow is still light enough for air small packet.

Who's ready for a new round of Bandai QC?

Could it be, a 4 armed valkyrie? Missed opportunity not having Guld "meditate" behind Isamu though lol

Bandai's quality knows no bounds...

Release date is 2 posts above you

They were part of the Super Minipla line. Technically, those are candy toys, which are more akin to kinder surprise at face value. But unlike those litteral plastic wastes, SMP is positioned as an animation accurate adult nostalgia model kit collector line, with a single piece of gum or candy to pretend there is any candy element to it at all. The franchises they make kits for in that line are forgotten unobtainium. They reach far back to forgotten or unheard of mechas, even more obscure than the likes of scrapped voltrons, and sentai combiner planes before megazords were a thing. These things are scalped as badly as DX. The fembots I refered to in particular are from the GaoGaiGar OVA. They never got toys like the rest of the bots from the show, and they are probably far less known, since the OVA they debuted in was a much later produced mini sequel. They were released as a P-Bandai set to really squeeze those wallets of the few fans. Bandai knows how to do that obscure low volume stuff if they actually feel like it.

Bandai has done Kouryu and Anryu in candy toy before. They are just as fembot and transformable, and as partsforming as the DX YF-21. They are willing to sell funky fembots if there are enough fans willing to throw money at them for the sake of completion. I'm sure bandai will make the MAXL whether anyone asked for it or not, and it won't even need to look good in any form even with partsforming, while it comes out 10 years late. 🙃 As a bonus that is on topic, this popped up while I was looking at how screwed up the MAXL is. I don't know how official this is, but now we can assume the leg super parts straight up just swallows the whole wing root and hides any jank.

Got it back into fighter and high speed, with fast pack. Once again I'm reminded that the arm transformations are not even theoretically possible with the fast packs mounted on the stabilizers. For such a small piece, it's absurd how they managed to overlook this and do worse than the 31's oversized and all colliding armored parts in that department. In fact, I had even misread the instructions on that and proved it was physically possible to end up with the dorsal guns incorrectly pointed foreward in fighter mode without a partial mission pack transformation, making it more practical than it is in canon. Back to the 21, putting the legs in that engine shell was not fun. I think I figured out that if the upper knee joint is straight, it will cause the calf to bulge out at an angle, and probably was the cause of all sorts of misalignment for the panels in the discussion above. In the end, I found that with the upper knee forward 1 click, and having the hips and lower knee compensate to get a slight arch against the belly plate, it resulted in much better fitment for the panels. Somehow I got one of the longer arm cannons to pop out twice, or both consecutively once each, but only one has issues, can't remember which side the first time was. It seems that once you break the glue, those things might not have friction at all, and could just rattle its way out from being looked at. I put some crafting glue on, hoping for a non permanent/damaging fix. Did the same to the loose ailerons back when it was in a battroid, and think I forgot to mention the back pack kind of looked closer to line art proportions for the battroid to have them off. I wonder if that was the intention... The cockpit to cowl tabs really didn't seem to catch anything, as I had it from out of box. I thought I fixed it when it latched while it wasn't fully transformed, but after completing transformation, the detent disappeared again. The nose sagged when breathed on, although it could almost hold if left alone. After some more messing around with the neck tab, the detent is kind of back again... Idk what's up with that spot lol. Forgot to try fighter without the lock pin after knowing how tight the legs are in that shell, but I don't feel like opening and refitting the panels again atm. Maybe I'll try it out for a bit, right before I put it to gerwalk again for long term display

Wotafa just released cam footage someone sent him of the Tamashii nation event. Not that there's anything new to see, but if anyone wants to stare at it in a pan by motion... There's also footage of the 27sp and 25 tornado. I'm too lazy to spam repost of the vid lol

That reminds me of the art style jumpscare with the new aquarion. Now we have one more thing to worry about with the new macross... It's kind of early for premium toys of a new series though. Usually these things show up late into the show, or even years after airing. Right now, we don't even have a broadcast date. The mecha and equipment designs could literally change right up to the last minute just before the episode it debuts in actually airs lol.

The trailing edge near the wing root is a totally different shape on the Kai, than the flattened edge on the YF. It can't even pretend to have a high speed mode, or that rear corner would dig into the legs way deeper than the YF. That shallow backward sweep with VF-1 super parts might work though, because the root of the stabilizers can cover the rear half of the gap formed from the corner digging in, while the front half could be filled with w/e is normally hidden and overlapped by the stabilizer and wing root. The super parts could also block some of the view. The Blazer valks straight up have a bend built into the wing, so there isn't even a way to get rid of the angle that comes mid wing. Anyway, this is still in vaporware status, so wallet and FOMO are still at peace

I feel like these aren't even preproduction units for the revival. They probably just pulled an old revival out of storage for display, and blasted it with some semigloss. It's still undated and unpriced, so it's still pseudo vaporware like the fire valkyrie. At this point, they might not even have looked into whether they want to redesign anything yet. I'll keep huffing my hopium until the last moment, and pretend all the moaning will inspire them to make a couple tweaks lmao. Anyway, wallet is still safe for now.

For the hand stowage issue, I kind of had it from out of box since YYK did an inspection. I tried to fix it but made it worse, before kind of actually fixing it, but can't be sure I really had it right because of all the other slop. The things I vaguely remember trying are tucking the thumb under the palm and index finger, as opposed to a true open palm. That seemed to help clear the little swiveling piece in the side panel, and w/e else is bulging from the leg and bottom engine panels. I think that swiveling piece in the panel also isn't supposed to go fully rotated in. There's no proper stopping point, but I think if you go to the end of its rotation, it wedges under the double jointed swing out arm for the panel, blocking it's full closing motion. Hope that helps. That swing arm also kind of catches on to the collapsed bottom engine panels in delimiter mode, when you don't get the panel angles perfect. It's kind of weird how a swing arm that seems to have the most open storage space on the whole toy catches on so many things, and it's so hard to notice it too.

The first 3 releases were all on bad fitment and warped arm gun rng. All 3 of them had a chance of any of the issues. I think the re-release of hayate's AX that came afterward fixed all the random nightmare fitment issues, but it still kept the new wing root/arm gaps with misaligned tampo, and the canopy/fuselage fuselage gap inherited from the 31 that got worse.

Just got it to delimiter mode. Popped the legs out, checked the instuctins for the arms to find the disconnecting point. Too lazy for instructions and just went back to the fighter shell blind with only a vague understanding of the mechanisms from going into battroid from days ago. Dunno what gaps you may have, but I think the most confusing part going blind is the intakes. You gotta wiggle them in any and all directions while straightening the fuselage. But then you can't forget about that hump between the cowl and air brake that needs to thread through the collar. The neck is on a really stiff S bend with a fat neck tab that I complained about before. It needs to pull back properly for the tab to clear the back of the cockpit. I'm not even sure where the correct stopping point of pulling the cowl back is. My cockpit tabs back into it very weakly too, and IDK if its because that tab is still touching and pushing it out. The engines have 2 stages of telescoping. Once over the back surface, and then another for the round humps to get out of the engine blocks. Don't forget to unsink the engine humps from the middle of the blocks. Then theres the 1 click of unsinking the underside to get the lock pin back in. Anyway, back to my own scheduled complaining. I tried to skip the lock pin for delimiter, but it just gets pressed in with how stiff the delimiter tub's connections are. Also had to check what funny angles the engine panels had to be at to let the engine panel area of the tub seat in. TBH, knowing what delimiter mode is, seeing it fill so much space feels so wrong. I thought I would have felt better about the toy seeing one form look kind of good, but I really didn't. As a depiction of a barebones form, the size of partsforming required to reach it, kind of makes it disappointing. Once again, I also gotta complain about how a chunk of the tub is there to replace most of the shape that is already there under it... And the lock pin really didn't need to exist. A rotating block could have been on one side and held the height of the gap, and then rolled a shorter face towards the other side to allow collapsing. I also played with the landing gears again. The rear gears are even more frustrating than I thought. It's encased in a way that has protrusions to block any sort of imagined solution to their lack of length. You absolutely need to rotate it in that needless inward facing orientation when there is room to just not spin it if that hadn't blocked it off with a weird bump. It even blocks the animation accurate orientation with that thick door and fake struts when they absolutely had the space for it. I have seen a clip of what is probably its first takeoff, so I know the wheel hub faces down.