Bandai DX Chogokin 1/48 VF-1

[Ridden001]

After the Fokker release next year, super and strike parts will be released.  They are also planning the release of the SDF-1 tower and deck following the release of the launch arm.  

Recent meeting discussion from the development coordinator.

[David Hingtgen]

Sounds like it'll be a long wait for Max and Milia then...

[seti88]

7 minutes ago, Ridden001 said:

After the Fokker release next year, super and strike parts will be released.  They are also planning the release of the SDF-1 tower and deck following the release of the launch arm.  

Recent meeting discussion from the development coordinator.

1/48 launch arm?? Fer real?

[Sanity is Optional]

16 minutes ago, Ridden001 said:

They are also planning the release of the SDF-1 tower and deck following the release of the launch arm.  

In 1/48 that'd make a hell of a display.

Honestly, I'd prefer those in HMR scale though, due to space/expense.

[Sildani]

That’s... staggering. I swear I heard my wallet whimper. Wonder if it lights up. 

Thanks for that Ridden001, whoever you may be! Hear anything about future VF-31 releases by chance?

[Major Focker]

11 hours ago, Ridden001 said:

 They are also planning the release of the SDF-1 tower and deck

were there any pics shown?

[sumyumgoy]

I wonder if these are the tower, deck and launch arms for the Hi-Metal R's?  Either way I'm looking forward to it.

[technoblue]

I'm going to remain skeptical, myself until Bandai does something official at this scale (like show a new display with these items or reveal release dates and pricing information to the public). For now, it seems more plausible to me that any diorama or play set add-ons would be fit more to the Macross HMR series. We've seen that already in the HMR marketing displays, so there's a precedent there. Heck, we've even seen Bandai tease HMR-scale stands modeled after Zentraedi capital ships.

[HardlyNever]

10 minutes ago, technoblue said:

I'm going to remain skeptical, myself until Bandai does something official at this scale (like show a new display with these items or reveal release dates and pricing information to the public). For now, it seems more plausible to me that any diorama or play set add-ons would be fit more to the Macross HMR series. We've seen that already in the HMR marketing displays, so there's a precedent there. Heck, we've even seen Bandai tease HMR-scale stands modeled after Zentraedi capital ships.

Same here.  This isn't the first claim Ridden has made about having "insider" knowledge about the goings-on at toy companies (last time I remember was involving an Arcadia vf-0 ghost booster bundle).  So he apparently knows at least 1 person at both of the major Macross toy manufacturers.

I'm not saying he's wrong, or lying, but this is the internet.  And unsubstantiated claims with no evidence whatsoever, beyond "I know a guy," should be treated as such.  If some of these products start showing up, obviously the credibility of these claims goes up.  Until then, take the appropriate sized grain of salt.

[skullmilitia]

When we talk about aftermarket pricing, its hardly Bandai “screwing its customers” it’s Bandai only doing numbers and strategy for the Japanese market. They dont factor in the thousands of outside markets buying them up. If you got rid of the foriegn buyers, they would be plenty on store shelves in Japan. 

Bandai only does numbers based on its market, and no where else. So don’t blame Bandai for only selling in asia markets.
I wont tell you who to blame for lack of them being made available to Bandai America, because you already know.

 

 

On the wing gimmick, while I initially liked the gimmick in the old Yammies. This being so over engineered with new enhancements. It feels cheap. I mean at least they could have made it half length since the animation, only the inboard flaps were fowlers. Plus only have the amount of flap movement would make the piece more stable and less floppy plastic to break eventually. Here’s hoping they offer hard wings down the line with no flaps.

 

If Bandai decides to make the DX be the new flagship of Macross I could see them building a 1/48 launch arm for display purposes. 
it’s a brilliant move if they make it correctly (not like Yamato). I have a hard time even fathoming a 1/48 SDF-1 Tower display that makes any kind of sense. It would the size of a compact car.

[stratos]

Quote

50 minutes ago, skullmilitia said:

I have a hard time even fathoming a 1/48 SDF-1 Tower display that makes any kind of sense. It would the size of a compact car.

The only thing I can think of is possibly a forced perspective type of thing to replicate the opening of DYRL

 

[Chronocidal]

1 hour ago, skullmilitia said:

When we talk about aftermarket pricing, its hardly Bandai “screwing its customers” it’s Bandai only doing numbers and strategy for the Japanese market. They dont factor in the thousands of outside markets buying them up. If you got rid of the foriegn buyers, they would be plenty on store shelves in Japan. 

Bandai only does numbers based on its market, and no where else. So don’t blame Bandai for only selling in asia markets.
I wont tell you who to blame for lack of them being made available to Bandai America, because you already know.

I'm not talking about markets so much as what they did with the VF-25s, Ozma's in particular.  From what I recall, they ran at least three separate production runs of the VF-25S.

The armor packs that Ozma spent 90% of the series in, and Bandai refused to reissue when they started popping out more VF-25s?  Yeah, good luck with those.  If you didn't order them in the first production run, you're pretty well screwed, no matter what market you live in.

No, they're not producing enough to meet international demand, and no one should really expect them to.  But when they repeatedly reissue the base product without reissuing the exclusive add-ons, all they're doing is driving up demand and raising aftermarket prices across the board for items they never intend to revisit.

Edited November 28, 2018 by Chronocidal

[jenius]

Guys, they are calculating in international demand because Japanese stores but quantities to sell to us. They just don't need to think of it as international demand.

[davidwhangchoi]

On 11/25/2018 at 8:11 PM, LunchMeat said:

Did anyone notice that in the official promotional video, the toy's designer managed to knock out one of the connectors on the adjustable aileron on the right wing?

I had the same problem with the Yamato 1/48. The wing flaps were just held in by tiny pegs, which made it easy to knock out during handling. Eventually, one of the pegs broke entirely, and I had to glue the flap in. I am disappointed to see that Bandai has not improved on this situation. (I'd consider omitting the adjustable flaps entirely, as in the Yamato 1/60 v2, to be an adequate solution.)

yeah i noticed that from the first promo with kawamori handling it.

 

the wings are going to be a floppy mess. why i'm keeping my yamato's. it's not going to be a fun toy to handle.

 

 

[ArchieNov]

Everyone’s talking about the flaps, but for me the one area that worries me the most with regards to durability is the hinge right after the hip intakes. Since it’s able to swing both forward and to the side, I’d imagine that the connection point is going to be pretty small.

Swinging the hips forward/down was always an area where I had to use a lot of force, regardless of the maker and model, so I just hope it’s strong enough to withstand repeated movements.

Edited November 28, 2018 by ArchieNov

[F360]

I’m not worry about the missile set .  Is it even Tamashii exclusive?

if we go by history then Bandai will initially release a set of missiles for each coming Valk they make.   And maybe if the 1/48 missiles did well for this release , all the follow up vf-1  with include the missiles similar to what happen to the later vf-31 release.

 

[Chronocidal]

15 minutes ago, F360 said:

I’m not worry about the missile set .  Is it even Tamashii exclusive?

if we go by history then Bandai will initially release a set of missiles for each coming Valk they make.   And maybe if the 1/48 missiles did well for this release , all the follow up vf-1  with include the missiles similar to what happen to the later vf-31 release.

 

I don't think you can make that assumption with the VF-1, because nothing about the missile sets would be unique.  The VF-31 situation is an aberration in their standard operating procedure, because they clearly couldn't make up their minds about how they wanted to include the RMS missiles.  First they were a Hayate custom exclusive.. then they were packed in with Mirage's packs.. then they started including them in the normal release valks?   Unless the missiles are color-keyed to each valk, there's no reason to make individual releases for them.

Now, maybe the exclusive missile pack is a release to test the waters, and help decide whether to pack them in later releases.  One can at least hope.  The missiles and TV super packs are an oddity compared with all the other exclusive packs Bandai has released though, because they're not meant for a specific valk.  In the HMR line, Bandai doesn't have a good history with that sort of thing, because people are still waiting for them to reissue the generic super packs produced for the original HM VF-1s, and the brownie VF-1As they're meant for didn't even exist until the HMR line.

Once we start talking about the strike packs, yeah, they'll have to issue individual ones for each release because of the color-coded markings.  If they get as far as releasing M&Ms, I wouldn't expect their packs to be bundled either, because then we're just back to the modern pattern of custom packs for each release.

[Sanity is Optional]

Just now, Chronocidal said:

The VF-31 situation is an aberration in their standard operating procedure, because they clearly couldn't make up their minds about how they wanted to include the RMS missiles.  First they were a Hayate custom exclusive.. then they were packed in with Mirage's packs.. then they started including them in the normal release valks?   Unless the missiles are color-keyed to each valk, there's no reason to make individual releases for them.

The VF-31 thing makes sense (a bit) when you consider how the missiles were in the show. Hayate's valk only ever had them after the livery change, likewise Messer never had them. The weird part was that Mirage got them in the super bundle, but the rest came with the Valk itself.

[Chronocidal]

See, you're right, and for the majority of Bandai's releases, they only release things in "canon" combinations, as far as what was seen on screen. 

But the 31 release schedule screwed them up there, I think.  They should have included the missiles with the packs from the start.. but as the half-assed arm shield hardpoints would imply, I don't think they even thought about it until after the fact.  They released the Hayate packs too early, before they had a chance to incorporate the missiles.  So, in one of their typical "I hope you bought the exclusive ahead of time!" moves, they released the missiles with the Hayate custom scheme version, and just waved a casual middle finger at anyone who would have bought more packs to outfit the repaint.

In the VF-1's case.. the missiles are entirely universal to all versions, so if Bandai stays true to form, they'll make one release of them, and we'll never see them again.

One thing to consider though.. depending on how many VF-1s Bandai intends to release, one missile set may be enough for all of them.  If they only release Hikaru's 1J and a Focker 1S, a single missile set will cover both of them.  Even if they produce a Hikaru 1S as well, it'll be enough for him too, because you'll have TV missiles for the 1J, reaction missiles for Roy, and the box launchers for Hikaru's 1S.  Each of those are iconic loadouts from key scenes, and it fits with Bandai's trend of canon configurations.

If they open the floodgates and we get releases for every VF-1 under the sun again, I'd hope they start bundling the missiles, but they may just be testing the waters for now.  Only time will really tell.

For the time being, I'm just planning to buy at least two or three of each of the exclusive packs to future-proof Bandai's release machinations.  

Edited November 29, 2018 by Chronocidal

[Sanity is Optional]

10 minutes ago, Chronocidal said:

They released the Hayate packs too early, before they had a chance to incorporate the missiles.  So, in one of their typical "I hope you bought the exclusive ahead of time!" moves, they released the missiles with the Hayate movie scheme version, and just waved a casual middle finger at anyone who would have bought more packs to outfit the movie version.

Except Hayate never got them on his blue livery VF-31, only on the blue+black livery one. It's not a movie version, it's the version he flew near the end of the series when he had missiles.

In the movie he just straight-up flew Messer's valkyrie (with Lil' Drakens instead of supers or missiles).

[Chronocidal]

Heh, thanks, fixed that, I meant the custom from the end of the series.  

Just goes to show you, even the merchandise from that series was convoluted and inconsistent.  

[mcfly50]

Predications are fun! My turn...I think Bandai will make a great 1/48 VF-1 DX line. So good that Arcadia goes out of business. 3-4 years in...after the competition is defeated and they’ve exhausted the line...bam...Bandai introduces their new 1/60 scale DX line and gets everyone to collect them all again!!! 

[ScrambledValkyrie]

2 hours ago, Chronocidal said:

 

One thing to consider though.. depending on how many VF-1s Bandai intends to release, one missile set may be enough for all of them.  If they only release Hikaru's 1J and a Focker 1S, a single missile set will cover both of them.  Even if they produce a Hikaru 1S as well, it'll be enough for him too, because you'll have TV missiles for the 1J, reaction missiles for Roy, and the box launchers for Hikaru's 1S.  Each of those are iconic loadouts from key scenes, and it fits with Bandai's trend of canon configurations.

Good point. One set will be enough for me since I will likely only get the 1J and the Focker 1S.

[nightmareB4macross]

50 minutes ago, ScrambledValkyrie said:

Good point. One set will be enough for me since I will likely only get the 1J and the Focker 1S.

Well played. Well played indeed.  

[Matt Random]

One set of missiles will be fine for me as well.

[mcfly50]

No complaining from me about Bandai DX pricing. Even on the secondary market. Now that I’ve seen how much the new Masterpiece Optimus Prime costs. Wow. 

[mcfly50]

Sorry.  Not trying to change this thread. I know we have others for that topic. It’s just that Bandai and Macross collecting seems more reasonable to me now. 

[Sandman]

49 minutes ago, mcfly50 said:

No complaining from me about Bandai DX pricing. Even on the secondary market. Now that I’ve seen how much the new Masterpiece Optimus Prime costs. Wow. 

Yeah that is insane. 

[kanedaestes]

I’ve occasionally scanned this thread so I may have missed it so my apologize but any ideas on potential launch date?

[HardlyNever]

23 minutes ago, kanedaestes said:

I’ve occasionally scanned this thread so I may have missed it so my apologize but any ideas on potential launch date?

Bandai's official website has the release date as December 29th.  

That personally seems like an odd date to me, but that's what it says.  I kind of interpret it as "before the end of the year."

[spacemanoeuvres]

NY sent an email saying the release was changed to 12/29 as well. Seems like an odd release date to me too :/

[no3Ljm]

Good thing I already conditioned myself that I will get this by January 2019. No pressure for me.  

[nightmareB4macross]

27 minutes ago, no3Ljm said:

Good thing I already conditioned myself that I will get this by January 2019. No pressure for me.  

Same here. Makes for a nice way to start the new year.

[kanedaestes]

Works for me too. Thanks all

[OzmaLee74]

Up again @ NY for 26000 yen

 

https://www.nippon-yasan.com/25676-super-dimensional-fortress-macross-dx-chogokin-vf-1j-valkyrie-ichijo-hikaru-custom.html