Max Factory 1/20(!) VF-1S/A Hikaru

[mslz22]

Well unfortunately the response I got from HLJ customer service is that the $325 shipping is correct for DHL or Fedex.  Not sure why it's $240 more then it was less than a year ago for a smaller box but I had to request a cancellation for it.   Guess it's only gerwalk for me,  which is fine.

[Mr Jones]

Damn - that is unfortunate; I hadn't preordered the fighter mode but that seems crazy to me ( unless HLJ screwed up on shipping costs for the Gerwalk in the first place - which is entirely possible ).

Keeps me away from the future impulse purchase..

18 minutes ago, mslz22 said:

Well unfortunately the response I got from HLJ customer service is that the $325 shipping is correct for DHL or Fedex.  Not sure why it's $240 more then it was less than a year ago for a smaller box but I had to request a cancellation for it.   Guess it's only gerwalk for me,  which is fine.

 

[tekering]

1 hour ago, mslz22 said:

$325 shipping is correct for DHL or Fedex.

I'm sure they have their reasons for using international couriers, but that's absurdly expensive.  Japan Post has much more reasonable rates for overseas packages.

1 hour ago, Mr Jones said:

I hadn't preordered the fighter mode but that seems crazy to me ( unless HLJ screwed up on shipping costs for the Gerwalk in the first place - which is entirely possible ).

Well, if there's any interest, I'd be happy to take my kit down to the post office and get accurate shipping quotes.  I can get further kits shipped to me here free of charge from Amazon.jp (there's still retail stock available), so you'd only have to cover the retail cost plus overseas shipping via surface mail, airmail, SAL, or EMS.

[TMBounty_Hunter]

On 9/22/2019 at 9:37 AM, tekering said:

 

Anything else you want to see pictures of?

 

Can you please take some pics of the runner pages of the manual? Seems that the multiple taped boxes is preventing Hobby Search from scanning the manuals

[tekering]

[peter]

I really like the idea of this massive scale Valk in fighter mode.  Although the Gerwalk looks incredible, it sort of irked me that something so massive and so expensive was so fixed into position in terms of pose-ability (I get it, it would have driven cost up more if it wasn't).  At least in fighter, limited moving parts is built into the mode.

If I see one of these when I'm over there in November, I might grab it just because shipping would cost more than $300, lol!

 

[Anasazi37]

11 hours ago, tekering said:

I'm sure they have their reasons for using international couriers, but that's absurdly expensive.  Japan Post has much more reasonable rates for overseas packages.

Well, if there's any interest, I'd be happy to take my kit down to the post office and get accurate shipping quotes.  I can get further kits shipped to me here free of charge from Amazon.jp (there's still retail stock available), so you'd only have to cover the retail cost plus overseas shipping via surface mail, airmail, SAL, or EMS.

That's incredibly generous of you. Using the picture you shared of the box with the dimensions and weight printed on it, I got a rough EMS estimate from Japan Post's website that is waaaaaaay more reasonable: 13,400 yen. That's in line with what HLJ quoted me for EMS shipping in January for the gerwalk kit. It's actually less expensive than the gerwalk kit, but that makes sense because the fighter kit weighs about 1kg less.

[Anasazi37]

Just sent a long message to HLJ asking them to honor what they did for the gerwalk kit and give us the option to use EMS for shipping. I told them that I based my purchasing decision on the reasonable expectation that they would offer that option for the fighter kit, too. It's $200 less than FedEx. I'm willing to be a pain in their backside for that much money--especially since the alternative is paying as much for shipping as I did for the kit and I can't really justify that. I pointed them to my support ticket from January where they provided lower-cost quotes across the board for the larger and heavier MF-25 box, gave them my EMS estimate from Japan Post for the MF-37, and included the picture of the box that @tekering posted which clearly shows the gross weight and dimensions. I'm hoping that they'll do the right thing.

Edited September 25, 2019 by Anasazi37

[TMBounty_Hunter]

Thanks for the pics tekering!

Updated the known+expectations chart

https://i.imgur.com/n9XzTNv.jpg

Seems that now we just sit and wait until the inevitable vanilla Valkyrie. Not really sure at this point if it will be announced this weekend at the All Japan Hobby Show since yesterday Max posted on twitter a preview of what looks like a 1/20 minimum factory Dougram instead.

Edited September 25, 2019 by TMBounty_Hunter

[Major Focker]

21 hours ago, tekering said:

Well, if there's any interest, I'd be happy to take my kit down to the post office and get accurate shipping quotes.  I can get further kits shipped to me here free of charge from Amazon.jp (there's still retail stock available), so you'd only have to cover the retail cost plus overseas shipping via surface mail, airmail, SAL, or EMS.

may i take you up on that offer?

will PM you in a bit

[Anasazi37]

I heard back from HLJ within a few hours and this was their response:

Quote

Thanks for writing and reaching out to us.

I understand your concerns, and we are currently looking into the freight prices for the item MAX01094.
I will let you know as soon as I have more information.

In the meantime, I thank you for your patience and for being a valued customer.
I hope to have some more information for you soon.

I will give HLJ credit for having excellent customer service. It probably also helped that I provided them with all of that info. It's difficult to ignore cold, hard data. So, if you have an MF-37 in your Private Warehouse, hang in there a bit longer before you decide to ship it or cancel your order. My guess is that we'll get an EMS option.

[Anasazi37]

Early look at what Max Factory is displaying at the All Japan Hobby Show. Is that a 1/20 fighter with no armor?

 

Edited September 27, 2019 by Anasazi37

[TMBounty_Hunter]

Not really a surprise to see it, they've had parts for it for years now. Still no date or price on the placard next to it though.

Mirage is looking great. Hopefully they keep doing characters too.

[Atrial]

Video of 1/20 fighter at the Maxfactory booth. Sounds like the fighter/no armor will be ¥19,800. 

At min 14:  https://youtu.be/01tfKfkXmp4?t=838

Edited September 29, 2019 by Atrial

[TMBounty_Hunter]

Oh so there is a price on the placard. Neat. The photo from the previous tweet was so blurry that it looked like the typical mess of TBA kanji instead of numbers.

 

[Anasazi37]

Thoughts some screencaps might help. Good lord the armaments are big.

[Anasazi37]

HLJ followed up on my inquiry about exorbitantly high shipping costs for the fighter kit last night. Here's what they said:

Quote

Thank you so much for your patience.
I have received a revised shipping quote from our shipping department.

The MAX01094 kit can be shipped on its own with the following quote:

EMS ￥9,840
Ｆｅｄｅｘ　￥18,494
ＤＨＬ　￥20,266

Please let me know which you would prefer, and I would be happy to arrange that for you.

Now *that* is more like it. Very happy that they were able to help us out. If you have one in your private warehouse and haven't contacted customer service about shipping, do so.

[jorawar_b]

This kit is big

Edited October 1, 2019 by jorawar_b

[MechTech]

He he. We always joked about the "beer can" missiles. NOW they actually are that size! - MT

[nightmareB4macross]

6 hours ago, MechTech said:

He he. We always joked about the "beer can" missiles. NOW they actually are that size! - MT

I so wanted this kit, but the static state in which it will rest does not appeal to me. Battroid (even static) is where I will be pulling the trigger that is if the proportions look good. And then I ‘ll have Roy chugging a Missile-Weiser!

Hiccup.

[peter]

On 10/1/2019 at 3:29 PM, MechTech said:

He he. We always joked about the "beer can" missiles. NOW they actually are that size! - MT

 

micro missiles

[peter]

On 10/1/2019 at 9:49 PM, nightmareB4macross said:

I so wanted this kit, but the static state in which it will rest does not appeal to me. Battroid (even static) is where I will be pulling the trigger that is if the proportions look good. And then I ‘ll have Roy chugging a Missile-Weiser!

Hiccup.

I think it would look awesome on a custom launcher arm

[MechTech]

Ha ha! Yes, we recycle! - MT

[Anasazi37]

My fighter kit arrived today! I can definitely think of worse problems than having to build both of these beauties. They do take up a lot of space, though. Armament sets are still at HLJ, need to get those shipped soon. I was surprised by the flimsier packaging for the fighter kit compared to gerwalk. They basically put a light cardboard wrapper around two boxes. I can't decide if that's better or worse, but it does make it harder to move since the boxes slide around and if I do open up the boxes to look at the stickers and instructions, I'll have to tape them shut again.

[macsam]

does anybody know where i can order the fighter online?

[tekering]

9 hours ago, macsam said:

does anybody know where i can order the fighter online?

Amazon.jp has a few sellers with stock at retail price... although it's considerably more than the pre-orders were.

[macsam]

is shipping from Japan to Canada 16,700 a reasonable price for the Valkyrie?  Cost is 42000. 

 

[Anasazi37]

17 minutes ago, macsam said:

is shipping from Japan to Canada 16,700 a reasonable price for the Valkyrie?  Cost is 42000. 

 

Maybe for FedEx. HLJ gave me these three options when I contacted their customer support team about unreasonably high estimates for shipping to the US that their site generated automatically:

EMS ￥9,840
FedEx　￥18,494
DHL　￥20,266

If you can get flat rate DHL shipping through Amazon Japan, that would definitely be better. They also look to be cheaper than 42,000. (check out the link @tekeringshared)

Edited October 9, 2019 by Anasazi37

[macsam]

1 hour ago, Anasazi37 said:

Maybe for FedEx. HLJ gave me these three options when I contacted their customer support team about unreasonably high estimates for shipping to the US that their site generated automatically:

EMS ￥9,840
FedEx　￥18,494
DHL　￥20,266

If you can get flat rate DHL shipping through Amazon Japan, that would definitely be better. They also look to be cheaper than 42,000. (check out the link @tekeringshared)

16700 is EMS - 4 to 7 days

19350 is Airmail -1 to 3 wks (why this is more, i have no idea)....

13950 is SAL - 2 to 3 wks

 

[sketchley]

1 hour ago, macsam said:

16700 is EMS - 4 to 7 days

19350 is Airmail -1 to 3 wks (why this is more, i have no idea)....

13950 is SAL - 2 to 3 wks

 

Airmail is priced by size as much as it is by weight (not to mention the speed premium).

[peter]

15 hours ago, macsam said:

is shipping from Japan to Canada 16,700 a reasonable price for the Valkyrie?  Cost is 42000. 

 

Holy $hit, that much?  Ship it 4 times and it's a flight to Japan.

[Anasazi37]

21 minutes ago, peter said:

Holy $hit, that much?  Ship it 4 times and it's a flight to Japan.

It wasn't that much the first time around, and initial estimates from HLJ were twice that (33,720), meaning that shipping was just as much as the kit itself. I don't know what HLJ did, but they got the cost down to something more reasonable after a bunch of customers complained (myself included). It's a big box, so I get that overseas shipping will cost more, but the initial numbers were ridiculous. I'm not sure if other stores will be as accommodating as HLJ.

I just went through the motions of buying one on Amazon Japan (40,101). The only shipping option to the US is AmazonGlobal International Shipping (Priority), which is 33,565. Same problem as HLJ. The 16,700 option might be the best one out there right now.

[geck]

I got mine on eBay for $428.00 WITH EMS shipping...it was not an additional charge.  Got here in about 5 days, but thought it would take longer.  No damage...brand new in the box!

Some of those initial shipping charges are outrageous.  What was HLJ thinking?  Glad they lowered it.

[Sanity is Optional]

On 10/9/2019 at 4:05 PM, Anasazi37 said:

If you can get flat rate DHL shipping through Amazon Japan, that would definitely be better. They also look to be cheaper than 42,000. (check out the link @tekeringshared)

I checked Amazon Japan, and they are not offering flat-rate shipping (as of last I looked).

[Anasazi37]

10 hours ago, Sanity is Optional said:

I checked Amazon Japan, and they are not offering flat-rate shipping (as of last I looked).

I saw the same thing the other day when I checked. 33,565 to the US.