mechaninac

Aslan? Qui-Gon Jin? The dude from Taken? Gawain from Excalibur?... Very nice Ra's al Ghul. I tip my proverbial hat to you Kicker, on all your collections, with the scope and quantity worthy of their own Museum exibit.

Got mine this Saturday as well. The first thing I did was check everything to make sure nothing was missing, and I'm happy to report that all is accounted for; also, paint and tampo applications are flawless and, unlike my F, there is no slight "bite" taken out of the right LERX/swing bar. However, as others have mentioned, mine suffers from wing warping as well, specially the right wing bends up enough to be visually noticeable even from a distance... not happy about that, and something I'll eventually need to attempt to remedy. Other than that, the surfaces have a slightly oily film (mold release lubricant I assume). I found the blue to be much darker than I was expecting from all the pictures, and the joints nice and tight; however, at least straight out of the box, things were not alligned as perfectly as I'd like: left leg just didn't want to sit as high up as the right in fighter mode. One thing I found underwhealming is the sniper gun... it looks "cheap" to me. It's probably due to the plastic Bandai used; on mine there are obvious flow and knit lines that cause it to look "toyish". They could also have made it 5-10% smaller or a bit shorter and it would have looked better in fighter mode without being undersized for GERWALK and Battroid, but that is just a nit-pick. Overall, not bad, and a worthy addition to the collection... Now, when is the anouncement for the RVF-25?...

The helmet is kind of okay, but the rest of the costume... just not feeling it; it looks like a Batman inspired power suit, or like the one in the GI-Joe movie, not a robot/android; and it's not the matte rubber look with glossy shoulder pauldrons and other bits, it's the whole aesthetics of the thing... on its own it fails miserably at visually conveying the very underlying theme of a dead cop grafted to a robot body.

... So... How long before Robot Chicken does its version?...

I suppose you could just get those self-adhesive felt pads available at Radio Shack or Home Improvement stores; they make them in many different sizes/diameters. It's not an ideal solution, but it would give you a non-skid, non-marring, surface separating the damaging clear tips of the stands from your precious VF. I don't have any of the new stands, only severeal of the old, pre Flightpose, black tipped ones, and while they do no damage to plastic, paint, sticker, decal, or tampo prints, they do tend to leave a bit of splotchy residue behind on whatever you're displaying if left on the stand for a long time; the good thing, however, is that the residue is easy to clean off with a bit of soapy water.

I'll just pretend this doesn't exist until it hits broadcast TV, and then, out of pure morbid curiosity, I may give it a viewing.

That is very welcome news. If, and this is a big if, Bandai saw fit to invest in new tooling to mold the secondary colored parts to run concurrently with the production from existing molds in order to get the full compliment of pieces in their properly pigmented plastics, what are the chances that any re-release of the 25S will come with color keyed plastic instead of painted pieces?... Just wondering...

I don't know about the Tornado Packs, but the Super Pack is a given... just give'em time.

I've no idea. I have not checked out MLP:FiM, and have no intention to do so, whatsoever. I assume that it's very much a saccharine and insipid pablum for little kids, but with enough inside jokes, snide humor, and over-the-head-of-kiddies innuendo to make it palatable, and maybe even somewhat enjoyable, to many adults.

Flip the 22 upside down and you'll notice two small black screws (Hint: pop-off the fin antenna to avoid bending/breaking it): Remove them by using a fillips-head jeweler’s screw driver (make sure to note where each one is supposed to go because they are different lengths -- longer near the lens), now the whole assembly of the inner wing bottom with the landing gear door will come off, just pull on the open landing gear door and you'll see; Undo a third screw that actually holds the hinge so that you can disassemble the whole thing (there is no need to remove the metal hinge pin from the outer wing hinge as that would require breaking the glue join, and the problem is the all-plastic hinge anyway... if desired, a small drop of clear nail polish can be applied to the middle slot that exposes the pin, for good measure); Separate the plastic hinge and add a good thick coating of polish, or some electrical tape, to the clamping piece's open "C" section -- if nail polish, allow to dry; Reassemble the hinge and screw it back in it's place using one of the longer screws (don't over tighten); Since the landing gear and door will have likely become dislodged in the process of taking the wing apart, just put everything back in its proper place -- gear in its cradle in stowed position ("V" shaped piston detail forward/down), and door closed on lower inner wing panel); Flip open the belly plate's arm cover so that it's out of the way, and make sure the small cover hinged to the wing root is in its proper place, and closed; Work the inner wing's bottom assembly under the arm cover and in line with the lens (it slides off, so be careful not to lose it) until you feel the whole thing just seat itself on the upper inner wing's screw bosses; Reinsert the screws and tighten them down until you feel some resistance (Tip: drop the screw in the hole and, before tightening, give it a counter clockwise turn until you feel it seat on the right point where the threads line up... it's a very distinct, unmistakable, feel when it just finds its proper place); Pop the belly plate's arm cover closed and voila, good as new, only better. I made these instructions as step-by-step easy as I could; hope they help. Cheers!

Bandai really should release a CF 25 (A?) this time around, the slightly yellow desert sand color looks great on the Messiah...

Crom would disown you if you did...

It appears that all the 21s and 22s have this problem, and more so with the left wing than the right (the right wings of all my 21/22s are fine, if not truly stiff). What I did on my toys was dissassemble the offending wing, which is really easy, and add a bit of electrical tape to the hinge on my Miria and clear nail polish to the same area on my Gamlin (haven't done anything to my 21 yet as it's boxed up in storage at the moment); both fixes yielded the same result... a left wing that stays in place, just like the right, in whatever position you place it.

Very nice. I do have one question for those who may have the G in hand already, because even with gamu-toys photos spread it is very hard to tell: Is the underside of the wing glove on the G painted or molded in color? One thing is that those intakes would greatly benefit from a coat of black/dark grey overall and silver/steel on the fans. Another is that those who were complaining about a possible bent antenna/head laser can rest easy as it appears that Bandai has included a had plastic alternate to swap out the bendy PVC one... cool. Mine is on its way from AE, so I'll be able to see the toy for myself, in all its glory or ignomimy, in a week or two.

Ballistically exploding cans of shaving cream FTW! I can't wait for the How-tos on both physical effects.

Wow, shipping from AE worked out to be quite reasonable: ~ $36.00 for EMS, and ~ $23.00 for SAL. I went with SAL since I don't need to get it fast (had the difference in shipping been only about $5.00 I would have gone EMS, but $13.00 was too much to ignore). Including the 60 cents Paypal tacked on to the exchange rate, my total going with AE came to $188.48... Amiami would've been a much better deal, but ever since after the VF-25S you stand a better chance of getting hit by a meteorite and getting struck by lighting, at the same time, then you do of securing a preorder for a Bandai renewal 25 with them. So now the waiting begins...

Reïvaj, Thanks for posting the link; That's looking fantastic and seems to have an inpressive range of motion and much more stability than one would expect given its top-heaviness. Kurisama, Ooh, you evil man, you!

Just put in my shipping request with AE... What an expensive year this has been, but I can't wait to get this.

I've completely skipped this sale. Don't get me wrong, I was sorely tempted to splurge on a number of 1/60s, specially at the discounts they were offering, but I've already spent far too much on toys this year (already blew my self-imposed budget for the year... I'm weak some times, what can I say?), and I still have open preorders to last me the rest of 2012 that will push my overspending to the point that this will be a record for the amount of cash I've shelled out for any 12 month period in my collecting history. But oh were those prices ever so enticing...

Neat, but for some reason that flight suit screams Star Wars, to me, than it does Macross...

Not only the 17S, but the 19S and Fire as well... Sooooo tempting, but still sooooo pricey...

That's looking pretty good, except for some of the dwarves. This is my own bias speaking, but I've always pictured fantasy dwarves to be stocky, barrel chested, bearded/hairy beings (Gimli's portrail was more in line with my expectations of those particular folk). While some of the dwarves fit the template I'm accustomed to picturing in my mind's eye, the slim, clean faced ones just look "wrong"; but this may be a case of my needing to broaden my expectations of this particular genre. I'll withold judgement until I've seen them in full context.

So far I'm in to the tune of 164.82 USD with AE; shipping will be the determinant factor whether I got a passable deal, or a good one. MSRP was originally set at 14000 YEN by Bandai. I don't know how much NY charged when the preorders first went up, but AE's price was 12600 YEN.

That means that AE will be sending out shipping ivoices within the next 2 weeks too. I assume they send out an email requesting your shipping method preference first, or give you all the options in the invoice, is that correct?... First time ordering from them.