Bandai DX Chogokin 1/48 VF-1

[wm cheng]

With all those crazy tampo markings, did anyone else notice that they missed the little yellow rescue arrow on the chest pointing to the access panel that releases the forward fuselage?  Aside from the skull on shield markings behind the cockpit which someone else here pointed out.  Why make up so many other extraneous markings and not include the important ones?  At least they finally got the Ejection Seat triangles on this this one.  Too bad they missed the VF markings on the legs especially since the first VF-1J was a TV release.

 

I wasn't going to get this, waiting for Roy's VF-1S, but I might break down...

[DYRL VF-1S]

For all those thinking about getting it, but not sure.  I might encourage you not to unless you get it after PO night so that those who really want it have one more statistic going for them that night....less odds against us.  HA 

I'm kidding, but seriously...

Ok, still kidding.

[Chronocidal]

1 hour ago, wm cheng said:

With all those crazy tampo markings, did anyone else notice that they missed the little yellow rescue arrow on the chest pointing to the access panel that releases the forward fuselage?  Aside from the skull on shield markings behind the cockpit which someone else here pointed out.  Why make up so many other extraneous markings and not include the important ones?  At least they finally got the Ejection Seat triangles on this this one.  Too bad they missed the VF markings on the legs especially since the first VF-1J was a TV release.

The only thing consistent about Bandai's tampo markings is their utter inconsistency.   I've actually always had the impression that they treat the various errors and omissions as ways that they differentiate their products from the other available versions.  How many years did it take them to finally print the chest stripes on any VF-1 at the correct angles?

I think one of the best things about getting these in 1/48 now is that they're finally in the proper scale to fix all the assorted Bandai-isms with Hasegawa decals.  

Far as the missiles go, I wonder how hard it would be to extend those pylons.  I thought the YF-19's were bad, but the box launchers are just literal stubs, and there's no way any of those leave remotely enough room to drop the movable flaps, let alone the slotted fowler design the plane is supposed to actually use.

Edited June 1, 2019 by Chronocidal

[Anasazi37]

3 hours ago, DYRL VF-1S said:

Dude, don’t jinx us! Haha 

You beat me to it!

[Shizuka the Cat]

Unfortunately, I am out of town on vacation and will not be able to attend pre-order madness. 

I want to wish everyone here good luck in pre-ordering the Hikaru VF-1S. 

Hopefully someone can take up the mantle of maintaining a store price and URL link list.

My apologies for not being available to help out.

[LW32]

Hey guys, I'm new to this forum. I'm hoping to grab the VF-1S. Do preorders open tonight? What time California PST Time should I be refreshing on Amazon JP? Any help is appreciated! Thanks

[tjdetweiler]

6 minutes ago, LW32 said:

Hey guys, I'm new to this forum. I'm hoping to grab the VF-1S. Do preorders open tonight? What time California PST Time should I be refreshing on Amazon JP? Any help is appreciated! Thanks

I'm not from the USA, so wouldn't know but it would be 4 pm JP tomorrow

[Slave IV]

14 minutes ago, LW32 said:

Hey guys, I'm new to this forum. I'm hoping to grab the VF-1S. Do preorders open tonight? What time California PST Time should I be refreshing on Amazon JP? Any help is appreciated! Thanks

To clarify, it is 4pm jst June 3 so 12am tomorrow night. There is no consistency when Amazon Japan will, if they even do put it up for preorder to USA. So just keep checking from12 am on. 

[vlenhoff]

2 hours ago, Shizuka the Cat said:

Unfortunately, I am out of town on vacation and will not be able to attend pre-order madness. 

I want to wish everyone here good luck in pre-ordering the Hikaru VF-1S. 

Hopefully someone can take up the mantle of maintaining a store price and URL link list.

My apologies for not being available to help out.

Thanks @Shizuka the Cat, have fun with your family and friends. 

[LW32]

29 minutes ago, Slave IV said:

To clarify, it is 4pm jst June 3 so 12am tomorrow night. There is no consistency when Amazon Japan will, if they even do put it up for preorder to USA. So just keep checking from12 am on. 

Thank you! What other sites should I check for the US? 

[Foblander]

The 1S is looking sweet, but I don't know if I want to endure this PO Madness again. Last time with the 1A it took me an entire day to recuperate staying up until 5:30am. At 34, my body can't hang like in my 20's ><

Edited June 2, 2019 by Foblander

[DYRL VF-1S]

5 minutes ago, LW32 said:

Thank you! What other sites should I check for the US? 

That’s actually been asked within the last day or so. I was a noob for the last pre-order hell and there is a lot to be gleaned from this thread. Give the thread a quick search and there are some suggestions. But pretty much all of the main hobby/toy collectible stores ship to the the US via SAL, EMS, or DHL. 

[Sanity is Optional]

27 minutes ago, LW32 said:

Thank you! What other sites should I check for the US? 

 

[sh9000]

https://facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2218858344834584&id=173460846041021

[Anasazi37]

MacrossCentral is now saying that the armor will only work for the Hikaru 1S. Last week, after we poured over the magazine pics, the consensus seemed to be that the armor would work for all Skull Squadron variants, possibly by being able to swap out the roundels on the FAST Pack. Is Bandai really going to release a different armor set for each valk? We've seen them do this with the Super and Armor sets for Frontier and Delta, but in those cases the color differences were "significant." Here we're talking about two small colored circles. Makes me want to fire up my ALPS printer and crank out "conversion" sets consisting of stickers/decals for all variants that you can put over the red ones (or whatever color you happen to buy).

[Lolicon]

Having unit specific sets would spare people from having to buy 4+ at the same time to outfit the entire skull squadron, knowing that Bandai pretty much never reissues their web exclusives. 

[davidwhangchoi]

36 minutes ago, Lolicon said:

Having unit specific sets would spare people from having to buy 4+ at the same time to outfit the entire skull squadron, knowing that Bandai pretty much never reissues their web exclusives. 

except the missiles, i think will be an exception.

 

[F360]

1 hour ago, Anasazi37 said:

MacrossCentral is now saying that the armor will only work for the Hikaru 1S. Last week, after we poured over the magazine pics, the consensus seemed to be that the armor would work for all Skull Squadron variants, possibly by being able to swap out the roundels on the FAST Pack. Is Bandai really going to release a different armor set for each valk? We've seen them do this with the Super and Armor sets for Frontier and Delta, but in those cases the color differences were "significant." Here we're talking about two small colored circles. Makes me want to fire up my ALPS printer and crank out "conversion" sets consisting of stickers/decals for all variants that you can put over the red ones (or whatever color you happen to buy).

 

Macrosscentral can be wrong too .  If you look at the wording of how Bandai Is using “for movie edition vf-1”.    It’s similar to that way they used on the missiles too .  If it’s only for the vf-1s  they would add the “s” to show “for movie edition vf-1s”.

all the specific armor parts that’s made only for a particular valk are normally promo and names with the valk in the title or sentence.  Delta  and frontiers armor parts .

 

 

[eggy99]

I'd help with maintaining the list for DYRL VF-1S Hikaru, but I'll be on a plane right when PO madness begins so I'll definitely miss out.

I can help once I'm home, but probably not as quickly as @Shizuka the Cat did for A1 Max.

There is a tiny chance I could get in a PO if the plane is sitting on the tarmac, my mobile internet is up to scratch and the HLJ PO listing goes up before I need to enable flight mode. 

On another note, with the strange release pattern Bandai has gone with so far with the DX VF-1 line, who thinks the 1D mold is next or will it return to the 1J instead?

Or maybe a 1A brownie. Brownie more popular than poor TV Kakizaki?

I'd prefer a TV 1S Roy though and accompanying TWE TV Super packs, but maybe Bandai will loop back to the 1J mold  which is only 1J TV Max/Milla, but counter to that I'm not sure Bandai would release another Max so soon. 

I'd actually LOVE a new mold the most, ie 1D Trainer with civilian Hikaru and 2 Minmei figures (cockpit sitting and in the hand).

[Chronocidal]

I think I'm ordering at least two of those super packs regardless, just so I can have a spare to make into something else down the road.  If they come with all the marking roundels, I'll probably get four sets.. possibly five, if they include the plain kite.

[jenius]

Why would they make the emblem interchangeable if they were making specific releases?

[seti88]

The answer shall be revealed when the product page for the supers are up.

 

[Chronocidal]

35 minutes ago, jenius said:

Why would they make the emblem interchangeable if they were making specific releases?

I didn't think they've said one way or another if they are or not.  Nothing about the announcement says "Hikaru" or "VF-1S," just "Movie Edition VF-1." 

Realistically speaking though, it's much more likely they're doing a different release for every color variant.  Ridiculous, and pointless, but it would go against their established operating procedure to do anything that makes that much sense.   Would probably also piss off a lot of collectors years from now, when there was no way to know how many of these Bandai was going to produce.

Edited June 2, 2019 by Chronocidal

[jenius]

So, as our evening of fun rapidly approaches, can someone remind me of the best way to search CDJapan?

[eggy99]

4 hours ago, jenius said:

So, as our evening of fun rapidly approaches, can someone remind me of the best way to search CDJapan?

I did a JAN code search last time and that worked, but still too slow to get a CDJ VF-1A Max PO.

[sjoebarry]

4 hours ago, jenius said:

So, as our evening of fun rapidly approaches, can someone remind me of the best way to search CDJapan?

Is CDJapan preferred by most over HLJ?

[anubis20]

24 minutes ago, sjoebarry said:

Is CDJapan preferred by most over HLJ?

I prefer them over HLJ. HLJ can cancel your PO and blame it on Bandai instead of their crappy site. Happened to me with the 31E 

[davidwhangchoi]

Hlj new website sucks for pre orders

[Anasazi37]

8 hours ago, F360 said:

 

Macrosscentral can be wrong too .  If you look at the wording of how Bandai Is using “for movie edition vf-1”.    It’s similar to that way they used on the missiles too .  If it’s only for the vf-1s  they would add the “s” to show “for movie edition vf-1s”.

all the specific armor parts that’s made only for a particular valk are normally promo and names with the valk in the title or sentence.  Delta  and frontiers armor parts .

 

 

My thoughts exactly, but I guess we're in wait-and-see mode. Hopefully they'll put up the product page with enough advance notice so we can figure that out before buying too many or too few.

[DYRL VF-1S]

7 hours ago, jenius said:

So, as our evening of fun rapidly approaches, can someone remind me of the best way to search CDJapan?

I have the app and it notifies me when new Macross product pops up. It was quick enough for me to get 1A in the cart last time....then cart jacked.

2 hours ago, eggy99 said:

I did a JAN code search last time and that worked, but still too slow to get a CDJ VF-1A Max PO.

Have you found the JAN on this one yet?

[DYRL VF-1S]

Btw, as we get ready for tonight... 

 

[nathans82]

Get ready my people, the VF-1S and GX-88 night is upon us!

[Alphahorizon]

I think I'm still going to try and get to so that way if there's some disappointed Macross worlder I'll have an extra copy. That's if I can even secure one

[Sanity is Optional]

I just want a backup in case there’s a QA issue on the first.

[HardlyNever]

I think most of us are of the mindset that we'll pre-order 2-3 "just in case."  Pre-orders get canceled, there are QC issues, etc.

Of course this only exacerbates the limited supply situation, but that's how it goes.