Chronocidal

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.

Hey, at least it's a solid source of spare parts to rebuild some shattered 171s. Being entirely honest, I'm not a big enough VF-17 fan to be as spectacularly disappointed as many here. It is what it is, and I don't mind having a slim 17 to match the other 171s from a "mechanically feasible" point of view. As iconic as it all is, the scale shown in the Macross7 animation is completely nonsensical. I'm mostly sad that I probably could have had a couple for much cheaper if I waited. What will make me more sad is if Bandai continues to misinterpret their terrible decisions as lack of customer interest, and they just nix their entire 7 line before we get the other VF-19s. Though on the other hand, maybe that will convince them to finally go back to products that will sell, and we'll get more VF-1s. It might not be all bad.

Honestly, this is probably one of the first times I've looked at a Bandai valk and not had issues with the tampo situation. They usually splatter everything to high heaven with excessive markings, so it's refreshing to see them show some restraint, and just stick with what's in the animation (which is incredibly minimal). They arguably even did a better job than Yamato in this case, since they printed the kites on the spine. I can appreciate Yamato wanting to give folks the option to go entirely low-vis on a "stealth" valk, but I would rather just have it look like the animation (and can't stand stickers). Sadly, that's about the only thing I'd say they got right. I'm not going to hold my breath for more releases, but I was really hoping we'd get Ray's two-seater out of the deal, since that would at least be something new. I'm still hoping we actually get the band trio out of this eventually, but right now I'd honestly be more interested in more VF-19s or a VF-11 of some flavor. Edit: Also, now that I actually see it, screw you Bandai. You and your patented explodium-based plastic can both go drown yourself in the sun. As if I needed even more reasons to never transform this thing..

I hate to be the guy with popcorn waiting for the thing to explode, but I will be very curious to see if they have made any changes to the leg design this go-around. End of the day though, it at least makes a mostly decent fighter display. Also, if they colored it correctly, this one shouldn't be using that obsidian-like metallic plastic that always explodes into shrapnel along the flow lines. I might actually disassemble one, and gut it for parts to repair my busted 171s, then just glue it into permanent fighter.

I keep hoping they'll re-mold the X-wing from scratch, it's insane how bad the quality is compared with most of the other fighters now. At least it looks like they finally painted the canopy the rest of the way.