Bandai DX VF-31

[Ignacio Ocamica]

Mykombini canceled my order and refunded me

No back up preorder so I'm f@cked.

Will never understand bandai practices, it's like they don't want our money.

I won't pay outrageous secondary market prices, so my only hope relies on bandai producing Arad's 31A.

[brannon]

Man I really wanted this valk but my wallet said no every time I was gonna preorder. I hate loopaza overcharging practice and didn’t pull the trigger and watched them raise the price twice by $50 so no valk for me. That’s life I hope something awsome is next in the works

[GabrielV]

If someone mentioned it, I missed it, but a VF-31A showed up on Mandarake.GrandChaos.

35,000.  Already sold.

[Kinzoku VF]

55 minutes ago, Mommar said:

Sounds to me like there's a hunger for fighters in Macross that don't look like a box of crayons...

Makes you wonder if Bandai truly gives 2 monkeys about what the 'fans' really want. I mean they could still produce more realistic schemes, have whatever idols they want, and still please both camps, (hardcore Macross fighter aficionados and the more casual Idol/kawaï camp)  Exact same thing with the Soc line. It started well, but somewhere along the line, they lost the momentum. I mean, 70% of the latest releases are kinda rubbish imo, (And all those new 'Dynamic/Anorexic' re-re-re lease of Mazinger/Grendizer etc). Evolution toys on the other hand do release some true classics, unfortunately, the quality ain't there (and the prices aren't justified). I would've paid a lot for some SOC releases of Mechander, X-Bomber, Diapolon or Daikengo etc. Not sure Bandai care too much as long as they can milk yet another version of Mazinger. Disappointing. Sure, they do come up with some good stuff, but it's getting more and more limited. As for series like Macross that have such legacies, they should by now have a pretty clear idea about what the fans truly want. Both in terms of storyline and merchandising. Macross Delta is the only one in the entire series I never finished. Tried, several times, but really couldn't get into it. And I remember thinking Frontier was 'meh'....it's a masterpiece next to Delta! (my personal opinion, of course I know Delta has its fans, no need to bite my head off).  All that...just to say that the demand for more 'realistic' VFs is definitely here, probably more so than the ' box of crayons' schemes.....again it's a matter of balance..Rambling too much....

[jenius]

Let's not confuse the activities of the sponsor with the creative talents that make the show. Hopefully there is some positive impact on both the sponsor and the creatives at seeing the popularity of this toy.

[Kanedas Bike]

28 minutes ago, Ignacio Ocamica said:

Mykombini canceled my order and refunded me

No back up preorder so I'm f@cked.

Will never understand bandai practices, it's like they don't want our money.

I won't pay outrageous secondary market prices, so my only hope relies on bandai producing Arad's 31A.

Man that sucks and I'm sorry...

Did they cancel it after you reached out to them, or did you just get an email notification? Also, when did you place your order?

Trying to figure out why MyKombini is cancelling orders since this is the 2nd report that we've gotten of them doing that.

-b.

[Slave IV]

21 minutes ago, Kinzoku VF said:

Makes you wonder if Bandai truly gives 2 monkeys about what the 'fans' really want. I mean they could still produce more realistic schemes, have whatever idols they want, and still please both camps, (hardcore Macross fighter aficionados and the more casual Idol/kawaï camp)  Exact same thing with the Soc line. It started well, but somewhere along the line, they lost the momentum. I mean, 70% of the latest releases are kinda rubbish imo, (And all those new 'Dynamic/Anorexic' re-re-re lease of Mazinger/Grendizer etc). Evolution toys on the other hand do release some true classics, unfortunately, the quality ain't there (and the prices aren't justified). I would've paid a lot for some SOC releases of Mechander, X-Bomber, Diapolon or Daikengo etc. Not sure Bandai care too much as long as they can milk yet another version of Mazinger. Disappointing. Sure, they do come up with some good stuff, but it's getting more and more limited. As for series like Macross that have such legacies, they should by now have a pretty clear idea about what the fans truly want. Both in terms of storyline and merchandising. Macross Delta is the only one in the entire series I never finished. Tried, several times, but really couldn't get into it. And I remember thinking Frontier was 'meh'....it's a masterpiece next to Delta! (my personal opinion, of course I know Delta has its fans, no need to bite my head off).  All that...just to say that the demand for more 'realistic' VFs is definitely here, probably more so than the ' box of crayons' schemes.....again it's a matter of balance..Rambling too much....

I'm going to guess that Walkure concert ticket and album sales bring in more revenue than Delta Valk sales. If true, it would explain a lot of things. 

[Lolicon]

31A shows arrived at local post office. Yay! Should be here soon... on my one day off in weeks! 

[seti88]

38 minutes ago, Ignacio Ocamica said:

Mykombini canceled my order and refunded me

No back up preorder so I'm f@cked.

Will never understand bandai practices, it's like they don't want our money.

I won't pay outrageous secondary market prices, so my only hope relies on bandai producing Arad's 31A.

In fact you might have a chance at a delta 02 since this was delta 03 modex release..Am sure the 31A arad will be available some way or the other, its too good to pass up by bandai. 

From the feedback so far, i think i wont rely on mykombini either...

29 minutes ago, brannon said:

Man I really wanted this valk but my wallet said no every time I was gonna preorder. I hate loopaza overcharging practice and didn’t pull the trigger and watched them raise the price twice by $50 so no valk for me. That’s life I hope something awsome is next in the works

Armoured 31 valks seem awesome enough! But of course we dont know if it will be a mess..

[Lolicon]

1 minute ago, Slave IV said:

I'm going to guess that Walkure concert ticket and album sales bring in more revenue than Delta Valk sales. If true, it would explain a lot of things. 

^ This. While selling valk toys is profitable (or Bandai wouldn't be doing it at all), the market for $200+ toys is probably not as big as the one for the music of Macross. Which is why Delta emphasized the Walkure and not the valkyries. As much as I disliked Delta, I can understand that kind of method behind the madness.

And we're still buying the toys anyway, so I guess no loss to Bandai. 

[spacemanoeuvres]

So bummed to hear about preorders getting canceled. Only happened to me once before and it was quite disappointing

Edited March 29, 2018 by spacemanoeuvres

[Lolicon]

55 minutes ago, Ignacio Ocamica said:

Mykombini canceled my order and refunded me

No back up preorder so I'm f@cked.

Will never understand bandai practices, it's like they don't want our money.

I won't pay outrageous secondary market prices, so my only hope relies on bandai producing Arad's 31A.

Oh man, you got BBTS'd by Mykombini. Sorry to hear about that.

I wonder who's really at fault here. Did Mykombini knowingly take way more orders than they could possibly fulfill, or did Bandai shaft them and short them on the available stock?

[Lolicon]

Got a text from CVS that my prescription is ready. Can't go! Gotta wait for the mailman. Necessary medications will have to wait!

[Slave IV]

27 minutes ago, Lolicon said:

^ This. While selling valk toys is profitable (or Bandai wouldn't be doing it at all), the market for $200+ toys is probably not as big as the one for the music of Macross. Which is why Delta emphasized the Walkure and not the valkyries. As much as I disliked Delta, I can understand that kind of method behind the madness.

And we're still buying the toys anyway, so I guess no loss to Bandai. 

Yep...Its pretty easy to explain most things that might not make sense on the surface to a niche group when you apply the fact that the primary purpose of business is to make money. 

That being said, these TWEs still confuse me. Unless stores are getting a preorder limit for regular releases and then get more stock when the item comes out, it's highly possible that many TWE releases have higher production runs than regular releases. You can't tell me that items that sell out in seconds have larger production runs than similar items that keep sales open for months unless those regular releases are getting more than just preorder stock. 

[no3Ljm]

6 hours ago, TrickyCustomer said:

Super parts anyone? 

*snip*

I thought when you posted this it's the actual 31A Super Pack announcement and not 31F's Super Packs on it which we already seen before.

1 hour ago, Ignacio Ocamica said:

Mykombini canceled my order and refunded me

No back up preorder so I'm f@cked.

Will never understand bandai practices, it's like they don't want our money.

I won't pay outrageous secondary market prices, so my only hope relies on bandai producing Arad's 31A.

Sorry to hear about this, Ignacio. Yeah, guess if my NY order will get cancelled, I'll just wait for the Arad's 31A too if ever Bandai will do it. If not, then I think of the 31A a not-meant-to-be kind of thing.

1 hour ago, GabrielV said:

If someone mentioned it, I missed it, but a VF-31A showed up on Mandarake.GrandChaos.

35,000.  Already sold.

Yeah, Jenius posted this last night before midnight. It's right after I saw my notification.

38 minutes ago, Lolicon said:

Got a text from CVS that my prescription is ready. Can't go! Gotta wait for the mailman. Necessary medications will have to wait!

Yeah. Medication can wait, my friend. NOT!

Besides, it's CVS, right? You can still pick it up during in the evening after your mailman's delivery schedule. Don't make such excuses! Health is still important. Just so you know, I'm not the one who downvoted you. Hahaha!

 

Edited March 29, 2018 by no3Ljm

[Lolicon]

1 hour ago, no3Ljm said:

Yeah. Medication can wait, my friend. NOT!

Besides, it's CVS, right? You can still pick it up during in the evening after your mailman's delivery schedule. Don't make such excuses! Health is still important. Just so you know, I'm not the one who downvoted you. Hahaha!

 

Well, the mailman already arrived so I guess I can go pick it up... after I whoosh the Kairos around a bit.

[Slave IV]

Does the 31A not come in a brown TWE box? Just noticing people's pictures and don't recall seeing the box. Doesn't matter to me, just curious.

[kajnrig]

2 hours ago, Ignacio Ocamica said:

Mykombini canceled my order and refunded me

No back up preorder so I'm f@cked.

Will never understand bandai practices, it's like they don't want our money.

I won't pay outrageous secondary market prices, so my only hope relies on bandai producing Arad's 31A.

That really sucks, I'm sorry to hear that. I haven't gotten a similar or really any message at all since the payment request past Friday. Still holding out hope, but not much...

2 hours ago, Kanedas Bike said:

Did they cancel it after you reached out to them, or did you just get an email notification? Also, when did you place your order?

Trying to figure out why MyKombini is cancelling orders since this is the 2nd report that we've gotten of them doing that.

-b.

They seem to be the only one who's done it multiple times... I think? I know I saw one CDJ order canceled, but I don't remember any others.

1 hour ago, seti88 said:

From the feedback so far, i think i wont rely on mykombini either...

To be fair, it's squarely a Bandai problem. The preorders closed in late November. The number of orders they had was locked in - plus or minus a couple dozen, maybe - for nearly four months. It's not the store's fault they didn't receive the supply they were promised by the manufacturer (because again that was the whole POINT of making this TWE).

That aside, I'd be lying if I said I didn't also feel some consternation about buying from Mykombini in the future.

1 hour ago, Lolicon said:

I wonder who's really at fault here. Did Mykombini knowingly take way more orders than they could possibly fulfill, or did Bandai shaft them and short them on the available stock?

Dunno why your comment got a downvote, but for me, I'm currently leaning more towards the latter than the former, considering other stores are having difficulty fulfilling preorders as well.

[Lolicon]

Just now, Slave IV said:

Does the 31A not come in a brown TWE box? Just noticing people's pictures and don't recall seeing the box. Doesn't matter to me, just curious.

It does. All the stuff I just got were TWE and came in brown boxes. I took them out since a pic of plain brown boxes is not very interesting.

[OzmaLee74]

I’m loving this valk. I had no intention of buying this since I only wanted the Hero 31’s. What the hell was I thinking?!

 

[no3Ljm]

17 minutes ago, OzmaLee74 said:

I’m loving this valk. I had no intention of buying this since I only wanted the Hero 31’s. What the hell was I thinking?

Well. You can sell it to me if you want to.

 

[F360]

I wasnt able to preorder from MyKombini, but i see their cancellation of this TWE is more of their fault than Bandai’s ,

Unless we can see something to back their claim of bandai not fulfilling all of their preorders.  Did they used a 3rd party supplier?  Did they missed the cut off time?  Do bandai have a history of not fulfilling a TWE order? 

[OzmaLee74]

2 minutes ago, no3Ljm said:

Well. You can sell it to me if you want to.

 

I think I’ll hang on to it for now. Hehehe! 

[spanner]

8 hours ago, seti88 said:

wouldnt it b a hoot if it read Dear spanner, ...

Hehe! Yeah that would be funny eh! I should change my delivery details to first name "The" last name "Spanner" for future orders! 

4 hours ago, Mommar said:

Sounds to me like there's a hunger for fighters in Macross that don't look like a box of crayons...

Absolutely! 

4 hours ago, Blue Meanie said:

LOL. Exactly. My macross collection consists MOSTLY of realistic, or the more realistic paint schemes. I have lots of A's, Greys and beige.

If I was ever in that position that I had to let go of the majority of my collection, the few remaining would definitely be the cannon fodder variants. And Hikaru's VF-1J.. 

3 hours ago, davidwhangchoi said:

congrats spanner!!

Thanks David! 

3 hours ago, TrickyCustomer said:

Well I have paid the government their ransom money to free my valks. A total of £186 of my hard earned manx pounds. Pretty much the price of a valk itself. I would like everyone to share a moment of silence for my wallet and the great sacrifice it made so my valks could be returned safely to their loved one. Moral of the story here is, don't complain about delays if you get it at no extra cost. I'd rather it be delayed and still receive at no extra cost than having to pay extra VAT.  When you have to pay those extra charges for import fees/tax, In my case it was purely VAT. Then, you will have my sympathy. So be warned and pray your government doesn't steal your valks for ransom. 

WOW! £186! that's quite a significant amount! So do you get charged ransom for all inbound purchases or when the value good over a certain amount? 

3 hours ago, Ignacio Ocamica said:

Mykombini canceled my order and refunded me

No back up preorder so I'm f@cked.

Will never understand bandai practices, it's like they don't want our money.

I won't pay outrageous secondary market prices, so my only hope relies on bandai producing Arad's 31A.

So sorry to hear about that. I was going to say wait for them to pop up on Mandarake but it would seem that's already happened and they are commanding a high price! I do hope you will eventually able to find one.. 

3 hours ago, brannon said:

Man I really wanted this valk but my wallet said no every time I was gonna preorder. I hate loopaza overcharging practice and didn’t pull the trigger and watched them raise the price twice by $50 so no valk for me. That’s life I hope something awsome is next in the works

Yeah it's definitely a stab in the guts kinda feeling when they greedily hike up the price like that knowing that desperate buyers will pay.. I paid way too much for my 31J Kai but I had no other option in order to get one considering I don't live in Japan. 

2 hours ago, GabrielV said:

If someone mentioned it, I missed it, but a VF-31A showed up on Mandarake.GrandChaos.

35,000.  Already sold.

35k straight off the bat! I'm sure others will only be higher too!

13 minutes ago, OzmaLee74 said:

I’m loving this valk. I had no intention of buying this since I only wanted the Hero 31’s. What the hell was I thinking?!

 

I knew this Valkyrie was going to be a must have the moment I laid eyes on it! It's more conventional design and non crayon color scheme give it that closer to reality feel about it! Yes I do love the hero versions and I'm glad I have them but the 31a is definitely the holy grail Delta Valkyrie!

[Ignacio Ocamica]

Well regarding my MyKombini order I was very late at preordering. I guess it's more MyKombini's fault by taking more preorders than they could actually fill/secure from bandai.

Got the usual mail: not enough stock from the supplier, and was refunded at the same time 

So yes, as some of you suggested, I'll wait for Arad's A (if bandai decides to make it).

HLJ once cancelled one of my preorders too, it was the last Yamato rerelase of the Strike Packs set before they folded.

 

[Slave IV]

39 minutes ago, Lolicon said:

It does. All the stuff I just got were TWE and came in brown boxes. I took them out since a pic of plain brown boxes is not very interesting.

Ah, gotcha! Thanks!

[Moosey]

Given the hunger for the -31A I’m pretty sure Bandai’s accountants have already demanded that the board of management oks an Arad custom -31A. 

All we have to do is wait (not so) patiently. 

[Lolicon]

53 minutes ago, kajnrig said:

Dunno why your comment got a downvote, but for me, I'm currently leaning more towards the latter than the former, considering other stores are having difficulty fulfilling preorders as well.

It was probably noel. 

Some shots of this beauty!

 

Love the transparent canopy! Hope Bandai carries it over to the 31S and 31E!

[Moosey]

[spanner]

So beautiful!!! 

Can't wait for mine to arrive! I think my misses won't be too happy with all my love and attention being directed towards the Kairos for a while! LOL! 

[Mechapilot77]

so is nippon yasan ever getting these in and shipping them out?  they've had my money for a long ass time now.

[Saburo]

1 hour ago, Lolicon said:

It was probably noel. 

Some shots of this beauty!

 

Love the transparent canopy! Hope Bandai carries it over to the 31S and 31E!

Great shots @Lolicon!!

 

[TrickyCustomer]

2 hours ago, spanner said:

WOW! £186! that's quite a significant amount! So do you get charged ransom for all inbound purchases or when the value good over a certain amount? 

I think they said it's random, but personally i think they check the value. High value = High VAT charges. Obviously there are ways around it. Some stuff i get from certain sellers gets through ok. Never bought from loopaza before though so least ill know for next time. And on the plus side, i have 3 vf-31a's and an arcadia vf-0a to look forward to this weekend My ebay one has also shipped. 4 frigging 31a's lol what was i thinking hey. I'm not complaining.

[spanner]

Definitely not a random thing when it comes to the government making revenue through importation of goods.. sucks either way. 

[TrickyCustomer]

15 minutes ago, spanner said:

Definitely not a random thing when it comes to the government making revenue through importation of goods.. sucks either way. 

Aye it does mate. Live and learn i guess. My valks have just increased in value is the way i see it lol