Chronocidal

Just.. wow Bandai. Reissuing it and not including missiles like you did for the Hikaru re-release... and apparently not even bothering with a stand this time? I mean.. great for people missing one, but yikes. Feels like they're pushing the franchise along in maintenance mode.

My family still has the original changeables toys in a bucket somewhere, my brother and sister and I essentially filled an old 5 gallon laundry detergent bucket with them as kids.

Boy I love those little Yamato kits, they're such fun to build. I'm terrible about finishing them though, I actually really just enjoy building them and rebuilding them like Lego kits, since they go together and come apart again so cleanly. Eventually I'll have to just glue them permanently and paint them though, once the tabs wear down. I do like the oversized boxes though.. I think I've got about a dozen in a single box. If only they came in 1/48...

At this point I'm just waiting for Bandai's separate lines to duke it out, and watch with popcorn as they put out a typical Mini-Yamato release for an HMR VF-17 that completely obliterates the sales of this abomination.

No tracking yet, but I did get a note from BBTS that my Miriya should ship soon. I will definitely give them credit for working to honor their original prices as much as possible, they said the tariff change would basically be adding $3.00 to my price, which I have no trouble with. I was expecting it to be far more than that.

Like.. ok, I'm all about bonus features. But.. what?

Given the scale, you could probably take a shortcut and make a small adapter to plug the Arcadia posable hands into the wrists. Style wouldn't really match, but we've never had posable cartoon hands to begin with.

For as much screentime as they got, I'm still waiting on someone to actually put out models of the Fand 1 and 2. The 2 is a very awkward design, but the 1 kind of looks like an advanced development from the F-16.

I really have to ask whether some people are actually aware of Lego history at all.

Or.. just focus on a product that clearly represents the series it's taken from, maybe? Not to be a stick in the mud about having fun, this just feels ill-advised for them to be parading around random variants and possibilities, when many of the people who pre-ordered are still waiting for the original product. Maybe there's not much they can do while waiting for production, but showing off things that probably won't ever get produced probably isn't doing them any favors.

Yeah, that's also something to consider. They might cover the purchase price for a refund, but you're probably not getting any support from Bandai for replacements. Not that that's exactly new, but it's kind of wild seeing Bandai's customer disservice on display internationally.

Honestly, moving to the wedge nose is a huge upgrade over trying to blend in actual cones. I've hated how those transitions work since I was about 6 years old, and always worked to make better-shapes out of slopes and wedges. I do think that Blue Power jet set was one of the best they managed though. I love when they break out of the standard wedge plate angles by stacking them to combine into new angles, and especially when they make the extra effort for retractable gear. The fact that the thing is basically an aerobatic F-35 is more hilarious than anything though.

Amazon's been pretty regularly beating the Japanese prices, partly due to the free shipping and lack of duties, but the heavy discounts only tend to hit on certain releases that they seem to have over-supply of. I think I grabbed Max's YF-29 for about $175. The hard part is predicting which releases are going to hit that point. I don't think I've seen the YF-19 on heavy discount, but I was tempted to pick one up for the better tail mounts.

I... have no idea what I'm looking at. They're making Robotech figures... right? That's what these are supposed to be? Or did I miss a memo or something?

I think I did grab one of these from AE at release, but we'll see how that goes. If they show up in the Amazon bargain bin, I'll probably grab a couple more for customizing. Those stands are an interesting thing, though. As much as I appreciate the half-assed attempt at making the stands slightly less ducking fugly by making the mounts out of transparent plastic, I just can't trust them. The first time I mounted a VF-1 on one, that clear plastic started a stress fracture right at the connection point. Still a decent base to build a better mount onto, but those chonky plastic cradles have always looked terrible to me, and I'd rather either use landing gear, or stand the valks vertically on their feet.

I got my Tread pre-ordered with Nin-Nin back at the initial pre-order, and have yet to hear from them about any shipping option, so I'm biding my time. I asked about shipping when it came in, and they said something about their warehouse shipping working.. not like any other site I've seen with a warehouse option. Something about shipping out as a bulk order at the end of the month? I don't know. But that was right as the tariffs hit, and I held off trying to ship it, since I don't know if they ever worked out a method. Then holiday travel happened. Hopefully I can actually get it shipped out soon.

Yeah, DHL's service depends on whether they decide your region is worth supporting as an actual service area. That's why they've been a disaster so many times for me. I live somewhere "too remote" for them to support fully, so they only send things my way via a third-party carrier hand-off that generally results in a complete loss of tracking and communication regarding my packages.

I will give Bandai backhanded credit for one thing.. their pilots are always so tiny, the 17 almost looks the right size.

Youch. That doesn't give me any warm fuzzies about getting the rest of the VF-19s.

Yeah, I kind of hate that I was considering ordering two of these after the holiday rush, specifically to have the spare parts to make that version. Looks good though. Maybe funny to say, but I think the up-greebling of that design actually helps the ship look better overall. At least with the giant phaser cannon in place, the underside of the saucer is supposed to look blocky. Franchise-wise, I have to wonder if this one will have the same longevity that Star Wars has had. It's taken them four or five iterations of a UCS X-Wing before they made some of the changes it needed from the first version, but I'm thinking it's unlikely we'll be seeing that many redesigns and re-releases of Trek ships over time.

Hilarious that they blurred that, but I guess they want people to have to think about what it could be.

Ok, seeing the original original in theaters would be worth it, maybe even in the unrestored state. I'll have to keep my eyes on this. Maybe after this they will FINALLY release the full restoration. Not getting my expectations up, but fingers crossed they'll finally do it. Even if not, there are always the other unofficial releases, and I still have my DVD dual-pack releases from 2006, which I think uses a transfer of the old Laserdisc master from before the special editions happened. They're not great quality, and only standard resolution, but to this point I think they're the only official unaltered theatrical version release. Episode IV in particular is pretty degraded from the age, with a few classic VHS-style audio tracking issues, but officially it's not even "Episode IV," since it's from before the subtitle was added.

Hah.. I love the fact that he's got Herbie's number just brushed on the hood XD

As much as the completionist in me wants a PF VT-1, I feel like the Bandai DX kind of satisfied that itch for me. Wouldn't mind picking one up if it existed, but it's not a priority anymore.

It's definitely not the same, but my thought is mostly on the side of how much return they can expect to see on their investment. Without going too deep into details I don't know a ton of, I've always been under the assumption that Yamato's success with the VF-1 funded all of their more expensive ventures (VF-19s, VF-17s, and VF-4), but there wasn't enough demand to keep up with the higher production costs, and the VF-1 market got entirely saturated, so they couldn't use it as a reliable funding pool. In terms of Macross7, I think the only Yamato release to get multiple production runs was the Fire Valk (not counting bundle re-releases for the VF-17 packs). It's also the only one Arcadia reissued, and it made sense for the Japanese market, because yeah, it's iconic for that series. In Bandai's case though, making another Fire Valk at this point feels like a bad one to start off with, especially if they're interested in actually selling to international markets. There are just so many factors working against it: - Both Yamato and Arcadia have sold multiple runs of that specific valk in that same scale, so the market is fairly well saturated in both regions - There is so little difference between the two different products that probably only hard-core collectors are going to think "I need both" - Macross7, Basara, and the bright red and yellow scheme are all what I'd just call "acquired tastes." On top of that, they're actively sabotaging their own releases, by selling the HMR version so close. Throw in the tariff situation, and you're going to lose even more customers, because at least some existing fans who would otherwise happily gobble up duplicates are probably going to just convince themselves their old Yamato/Arcadia is good enough. Like, I get it, the Fire Valk is the icon of the show, so not making it first would feel dumb too. But trying to sell it again feels like a bad bet to make. I would love Bandai to start offering up more polls to see what people want, but I also don't think they have the mentality to make those polls effective on the international market. If I'm remembering correctly, we did have a poll long ago to help decide what the first international releases should be, but I think all it really covered was which series people wanted products from, not anything as specific as characters or paint schemes. I think that was one of the factors that led to the weaponless YF-19 re-release. (I also think this was before the licensing fiasco was "settled," so a lot of people blew their feedback comments on wishes for SDFM/DYRL products that we still can't get.) I will say though.. the Kairos getting a reissue is a wild card, and I'm really surprised they would even consider it. I don't want to get my hopes up, but I would love someone at Bandai to make the mental bridge between cool transforming aircraft and military aircraft collectors. People gobbled up the Kairos, and the prices stayed sky high from the get-go. I would love them to experiment that way with the VF-19, or pretty much any other Macross product they can sell here.