Chronocidal

I don't properly remember how diver mode generally works, but I did take a good spread of fighter and bot mode pics. Honestly, these are so close in fighter that's hilarious. Sentinel is 8.5 inches long with a 6.4 inch wingspan. The Tomy is 8.4 inches long, with a 6.1 inch wingspan, though you could say the Tomy cheats on the length a little by not collapsing the feet quite as far. Either way, they're just really close. Height-wise, the Sentinel grows more, so it comes out about an inch taller overall, closer to 7 inches than the Tomy's roughly 6 inch height. Overall? The comparison I was expecting was something like a DX to an HMR.. but I think that's actually underselling both of them in a couple of ways. The Sentinel feels incredibly over-engineered, but it pulls off the design amazingly, in ways no one had tried before. The Tomy version just feels like someone decided to take more creative liscence with the transformation, and then asked "How can we do this for half the price?" And I do not mean the Tomy feels cheap by that. It's obviously simpler, but compared with the complexity of the Sentinel, it's also a lot more fun to mess with. The Sentinel feels like a (very small) high-end collectible. The Tomy just feels like someone wanted something fun to mess with in the same scale, and at a much more reasonable price. I'd say they succeeded in that. It's really enjoyable to transform, I just yanked it out of the package without even looking at the instructions, and was posing it in a couple of minutes. It just feels like it could use a little paint on things like the landing gear (which do give the chest ground clearance, by the way). Sadly one of my copies also came missing the yellow end-cap on the right arm, so I'm going to have to try and navigate HLJ's customer service about that one. It's not a complex part, so maybe something I could also scratch up a copy of, but if these get released stateside, I might try service on that end. Honestly, I'm kind of tempted to pick up more of these guys, they're just very fun. I went and ordered a second copy of the black one when the reviews started hitting, but the green was sold out.

That is so insanely nice, I really wish I could have justified getting one, but absolutely do not have the space.

It could definitely use a few more standard markings, but they did add the star under the LEX, it's just a little hard to see from above. It is pretty close to where the Hornet has it, but further back due to the LEX actually being a solid part, and it's better to have it there anyhow so it doesn't get scratched off during transformation.

AE still in stock as of about an hour ago, was able to grab one before I went out the door.

The obsidian plastic was just the icing on the cake (of the "let them eat cake" variety). The mechanism in the knees does not work the same in both directions when twisting the lower legs. The knee has to be completely straight to do that safely, or you're asking for the knee mechanism to shear off. The fact that you can twist it from fighter to gerwalk with the knee bent is because the mechanism is sloppy, but doing the same in reverse can destroy it. Sorry to be a broken record, but I habitually repost this warning in any new 171 derivative thread to make sure new buyers catch it.

Man, I know the old Monogram kit is a disaster, but how do you even manage to produce decals (and the entire box sample for that matter) that inaccurate?

I would imagine those molds are made to varying degrees of durability, based on the initial investment and predicted longevity of the kit. Higher investment and better materials would probably last longer. These days though, everything is most likely CNC milled, so while molds do degrade, it's not like they're ever actually lost. Still will take time and investment to remake them, but the CAD files shouldn't be lost.

Considering how much better this is than your typical Takara jet, I find this hilarious.

You know the worst part about that? The reverse transformation back to fighter is where the freakin' thing will explode if you follow the instructions, because Bandai never realized the legs don't work the same way going both directions. Following the instructions is the fastest way to make sure your knee joints turn into very expensive shrapnel.

Yeah, that's a pretty easy and simple solution, but it did occur to me that the open arm does prevent held weapons from getting completely off-kilter due to collisions. Probably the only benefit to it, but I wonder if the reason it slipped by them could be because of how the Legioss's arms are always drawn as being rotated outward, which has never made any sense to me.

It would be true to form for them to pull out another general release to pair with a Tamashii one, but it's anyone's guess whether they'll go back to something people actually want (and will actually sell), or go for another international shelf warmer. Part of me thinks they are actually trying to purposefully tank the international market so they have an excuse to ditch it and go back to domestic-focused releases. At this point, I would kind of be on board with it too. Being able to order stuff on Amazon is a nice novelty, but it only matters if the stuff available is actually worth buying.

Yeah, corrected that, I meant Hasegawa. I really really want to see them make some solid aircraft kits of the entire VF-19 line. And yeah.. I have a pile of 1/48 YF-19 kits to paint in various schemes, but I would be all over an official release in those Supernova paint jobs.

So since standard VF-19s seem less and less likely as a toy, how do we start a campaign to get Hasegawa to produce 1/72 and 1/48 kits of those? All I really want at this point is fighter mode models of the boring white VF-19 production models out of the Master file. I mean, an actual 1/48 YF-21 is hilariously overdue, and I'm guessing the lack of 1/72 sales drove them away from making it, but there are so many schemes they could sell more 19 variants in. Edited, I had Bandai on the brain when I woke up.

Yeah, absolutely not on my bingo card. I kinda want one, but the problem here is Bandai not having a clue about how US markings work, so it's even more obvious how bad they are at research. Stars on both wings? No NAVY on the legs? It's not terrible by any means, but I'd be much more interested if they showed the minimal interest in the subject to get those sorts of details right, especially when the Macross franchise as a whole already nails those sorts of details, and even Bandai has gotten them right on most of their other releases. Not to be too much of a stick in the mud, but boy Bandai's lack of giving a crap grinds my gears. Still would be funny to have one or two, and display one on my desk at work to see the funny looks it gets. I'd just have to do a fair bit of marking edits to get it where I wanted. Edit: So I actually was only half right, the movie plane used a more non-standard marking scheme than I realized, and didn't actually have the standard NAVY print on the lower rear fuselage. The double stars on the wings is still totally on Bandai though.

If anything, Bandai should've been smart enough to look at Yamato's sales history, and tried to avoid their mistakes. I don't think anything past the initial Fire Valk release was that much of a hot seller, and I think most of their Macross 7 lineup eventually went on clearance. They were just too expensive for Yamato to develop and produce effectively. Honestly? Bandai may have made the right move financially by not investing in the changes to make a proper VF-17 mold, but we'll never really know if the sales would have been better if it had been good, because Bandai is relegated to playing second fiddle to Yamato for every release. Most of the people who really really wanted those valks in 1/60 already scratched that itch, and that includes the international market. I do think the DX Fire Valk is a slight improvement over the Yamato in fighter mode, but I think the market performance is just putting on broad display that it's not enough of an improvement to garner any real attention. Bandai is just 15 years too late, and they're not doing anything differently enough to stand out from what people already have. They should have stuck with what they had going for them, and finished the 1/48 DX VF-1 line. Even without being able to officially sell them internationally, they would have had a much larger demand, and sold out easily, instead of their fleet of Nightmare Minuses headed to the clearance bin. Yeah, I'm gonna just call it that.. it's a Nightmare Minus.

Yeah, the toy-ness is why I'm actually not all that worried about the gear clearance, and finer details like the weird arm design. It looks like a really solid toy to fiddle with and casually transform back and forth, which is the opposite of the Sentinel version, and I'm happy to have both. I just shipped my pair earlier today, and I'm glad I got two for the extra parts it'll give me to mess with. I'm almost tempted to go and order more of the other versions if I still can.

It's just so dorky, it's perfectly fitting for M7. That is a good point though, that stage actually would make a pretty decent display base for HMR Sound Force (if they ever get produced, anyway).

I'm kind of loving what I'm seeing, these just look incredibly playable, and fun to mess with and customize. It didn't even occur to me that all of the holes were ports. Given how the art of all these new variants with extra weapons packs and other attachments is floating around, now I'm really interested to see if they start producing those new tread variants to give us even more parts to mix and match.

Given that's what they did with the HMR release, it wouldn't really surprise me, and I will absolutely grab a handful of them if they get made. For as many weird decisions as Bandai may have made, I do prefer the DX fighter mode to the Yamato design. Just barely. My concern is that I don't know if the HMR version of the 19P sold well enough that Bandai would even want to attempt a DX version. The way they're treating M7 makes me think this is basically their "contractual obligation album" list, and once they get the bare minimum produced, they'll just bail. I absolutely hope they make the rest of the 19s, but I'm not holding out much hope right now. They haven't even teased the rest of them in the HMR lineup, and they never even produced the 19F in the original HM line. I'm starting to think the only way I'm ever getting a good black and white VF-19F is if I print it myself. I don't even care about it transforming at this point, I'd be thrilled if Hasegawa broke out a line of M7 kits.

Hah, was hoping it'd be a bit bigger, but eh. I don't follow the franchise much, but I feel like this might be the cleanest jetformer they've produced since the original MP-3.

It is just wild seeing all of these older properties popping up, and suddenly filling the market with what feels like ancient designs and artwork re-rendered in HD. Seriously, I am all for this in every way.

I don't know what happened, I thought I ordered one of these at AE, but apparently not. I'll have to see if they pop up, I do want to grab at least one, but I might wait and see if Amazon throws them in the bargain bin this time around. Edit: Nevermind, I did order one from AE, for some reason I just never got a confirmation email about it. It's just waiting for stock, so I should be able to ship that with my 17S and VF-0S Ghost set soon.

I mean, I'd bet that probably sold a whole lot better than the 17S, so you can't really say they wasted the budget to make it.

Maybe they should have done a smart thing, and worked on releasing something people have already expressed interest in, and hasn't already proven to be a slow seller in the past 15 years. I really just want them to release the HMR version and watch it utterly destroy the DX sales..

Hey, at least making the 17S first means they can just repop it in red for Milia's version, which I will absolutely pick up just for the novelty. I'm still minorly salty that Yamato never made that one.