Bandai 1/60 DX Chogokin Macross 7 Fire Valkyrie

[Actar]

All right. When will the preorder madness begin this time? I'm not missing out like I did with the YF-21, though, evidently, it's not going to be as bad?

[betocc]

1 minute ago, Actar said:

All right. When will the preorder madness begin this time? I'm not missing out like I did with the YF-21, though, evidently, it's not going to be as bad?

April 25, 2025 most likely 4:00 pm japan time 

[Chronocidal]

Ugh.. obviously the gear are bare metal, but I don't think that integrated neck cover is doing fighter any favors at all.  Now it's just got scoliosis.

\

I do think the overall fighter profile is a bit better than the Yamato though.  Better intakes (but still the same ugly knee gap), and the LEX looks like a better angle, making the nose look longer.  Still want to see a top view, but I'll try and bite for one at least.

Edited yesterday at 01:53 AM by Chronocidal

[nightmareB4macross]

It has teeth?!?! Why?

🤣

[Chronocidal]

8 minutes ago, nightmareB4macross said:

It has teeth?!?! Why?

🤣

Is this a trick question?  

\

Though on that note, maybe it's time for a new edition of my avatar.. "LISTEN TO MY LAZOR!!"  

Edited yesterday at 01:54 AM by Chronocidal

[sh9000]

Listen to my song!

[Arakure Knight]

Time for another pre-order it seems. Just waiting on the usual Yoyaku or Luna Park links to be posted.

Any idea impact of US tariffs on importers? Just saw Good Smile US stop all pre-orders based on this. At least things go on as normal for us down under here.  

[Actar]

48 minutes ago, betocc said:

April 25, 2025 most likely 4:00 pm japan time 

I'm trying to get in on HLJ myself, but they seem to not follow the standard preorder time...

[Zeliard]

Does anyone know what is the official / acceptable panel line colour to blend with this red?

[Chronocidal]

I'm honestly not sure HLJ is even worth trying lately, because they seem to be on Bandai's sh!tlist for some reason.  I am STILL waiting for my original HG YF-21 order, and they didn't even list the HMR VF-19P.

I don't think they've been getting sufficient stock from them for a long time.  Whether a DX release will be different, I don't know.

[Shawn]

I thought they forgot a piece for the head/neck, but that appears to be the design. From some angles it seems to be an abrupt drop off.

[Chronocidal]

3 minutes ago, Shawn said:

I thought they forgot a piece for the head/neck, but that appears to be the design. From some angles it seems to be an abrupt drop off.

Yeah, that's the price you pay for getting the neck cover integrated.  Can't say I'm actually a fan, it just looks like it breaks up the entire flow of the spine.

Looking like once again we're just going to be trading off positives and negatives between the Yamato and Bandai designs, with the perfect mix being a non-existent blending of the best features of both.

[Shawn]

Looking back at the Yamato, I do think the DX neck is an improvement....well maybe lol

Would need to recheck the Arcadia ver.

[treatment]

1 hour ago, Chronocidal said:

Is this a trick question?  

\

Though on that note, maybe it's time for a new edition of my avatar.. "LISTEN TO MY LAZOR!!"  

ahahaha!!!

nice!

...

Anyway, so this Bandai variant has:

• matte finish
• open-mouth weirdness. with teeth.
• bizarro head-placement with their integrated neck cover
• seems to only include a standing and sitting Basara pilot.
• 33k-yen (without tokyo-tax) /36,300y with tax

A bit steep to not include gummies of Mylene, Ray, and Vefidas. 

Them gummies most likely will be a separate TWE offering,  to go along with the most-likely TWE Sound Booster option?

 

Way to go, Bandai! 

 

 

 

 

 

[seti88]

1 hour ago, nightmareB4macross said:

It has teeth?!?! Why?

🤣

To whistle?! Beatbox?

 

[treatment]

couple of Heppoko Samurai tweets for full-sizes of his pics...

https://twitter.com/simsim5479/status/1915237363875537319

https://twitter.com/simsim5479/status/1915229417686868317

web-translated:

[Yugure0]

2 hours ago, Chronocidal said:

I'm honestly not sure HLJ is even worth trying lately, because they seem to be on Bandai's sh!tlist for some reason.  I am STILL waiting for my original HG YF-21 order, and they didn't even list the HMR VF-19P.

I don't think they've been getting sufficient stock from them for a long time.  Whether a DX release will be different, I don't know.

To be fair to HLJ, the HMR VF-19P isn’t retail so they won’t list it. It is available as a P-Bandai exclusive (or through a reseller).

Edited yesterday at 05:23 AM by Yugure0

[Mommar]

I'm gonna skip.  Not a Basara guy.  I got the HMR out of curiosity but I'm not dropping this much on a Fire Valk.  Hopefully an F/S happens, though likely the P will be next if HMR is any indication.

[MKT]

It's a contradiction of sorts in Fighter.. I like the overall sculpt, especially the sexy curvature behind the cockpit but there's that weird abrupt cliff at the neck cover. The intakes look great here - it's a normal feature on most other valk toys, but a first for a Fire Valk (?), but that knee gap is distracting and looks even more prominent than Arcadia's. Couldn't Bandai make that black area red or something to mask it a bit?

No complains on Battroid sculpt though. The legs are long yet suitably chunky. I'm just concerned that it doesn't look like there's a cockpit rotation gimmick, to enable us viewing Basara sitting inside the egress hatch. This is all the more reason for me to hold on to the other 1/60, or even hunt one on top of this. It's always the little Yamato / Arcadia extra little touches that really endears.

 

Meanwhile, just recording for posterity:

 

[Actar]

Issues with the neck sculpt aside, the fact that they went the extra mile to engineer a non-partsforming cover just goes to show how much more they give a crap about the 19 than the 21/22.

[davidwhangchoi]

Why does it look like in the pilot seat his face got smashed like a pancake   

[ArchieNov]

Darn, that is one ugly looking headsculpt Basara pilot figure. I understand that it's hard to make it at that scale, but it just looks bad. The glasses look more like cybernetic eyes or something and the hair looks like wavy mush rather than the spiky hair.

Other than that, really excited about this release and definitely getting it. Hopefully no QC issues so we don't have to play the Bandai'd lottery.

[Scyla]

As a big M7 fan I think the screaming face is a great addition. Love the standing Basara: Ore no uta o kike!!!

I think I might buy two of the SynergenX Transformers Basara Prime if the guitar is big enough so I can give one to this VF-19Kai. 

Yeah, the spine in Fighter-Mode is ugly. Too bad they didn’t try to implement a cover that goes over the head turret to give it a more smooth looking spine.

I think it will look better with a VF-19F/S head laser though.

Edited 21 hours ago by Scyla

[TdoubleK]

After all these years. They still can't fix the intake lip make it as smooth transition as YF -19. But anyway please take my money 😂😂😂

[PointBlankSniper]

I don't understand the knee gap. It's not even there in battroid or gerwalk, and as far as I can see, neither is it in various fighter mode art. It's literally only there in toy depictions, and only in fighter mode, through an intentional extention showing the gerwalk joint that is collapsed and hidden in other modes, and bandai is cranking it up to 11 here.

Anyway, seems like the landing gear hubs are painted white.

Seems like mega inflation for a barebones valk to cost more than the 25 Tornado...

[nightmareB4macross]

I wonder if Bandai will revisit the YF-19 and VF-19 Isamu sculpts using the new Kai as a base. Honestly, the previous 19s could use some bulking and would benefit greatly from this improvement.

Anyone have skills to repaint the Kai and do a head, shoulder, and intake swap? Would be cool to see the changes.

[Chronocidal]

2 hours ago, PointBlankSniper said:

I don't understand the knee gap. It's not even there in battroid or gerwalk, and as far as I can see, neither is it in various fighter mode art. It's literally only there in toy depictions, and only in fighter mode, through an intentional extention showing the gerwalk joint that is collapsed and hidden in other modes, and bandai is cranking it up to 11 here.

Anyway, seems like the landing gear hubs are painted white.

Seems like mega inflation for a barebones valk to cost more than the 25 Tornado...

The knee gap is a consequence of needing to compress the legs for battroid, and stretch them out for fighter.  Otherwise, you get the long skinny legs on the DX YF-19. Since the Fire Valk generally gets a lot more time and attention to battroid mode, the fighter just gets the short end of the stick to make the legs look appropriately chonky.

The YF-19 got the opposite treatment, and while it leaves the battroid looking more lanky than it should, I'm not even slightly interested in them redoing it.  All that will accomplish is giving us another giant knee gap like the Arcadia version has.  We've got the Arcadia for a good animation battroid, and I'm fine letting Bandai keep its more fighter-focused take.  (Though I would love to see them make that stupid gray thigh hinge match )

We'll see how he price works out though.  Inflation (and other potential increases) aside, the exhange rate has still kept things fairly consistent on the import end for the US.

I'm really not sure that neck cover is going to be an improvement though.  They're trying to hide it with camera angles, but it looks like he's wearing a neck brace.

Edited 15 hours ago by Chronocidal

[Reïvaj]

I'm actually not really worried about the neck cover, I think it's only a matter of alignment.

[treatment]

8 hours ago, davidwhangchoi said:

Why does it look like in the pilot seat his face got smashed like a pancake   

 

They also downgraded their sitting gummy-Basara to use a ukelele instead of guitar for piloting.

At least their standing gummy-Basara is still his usual guitar-queero style...

 

 

Edited 14 hours ago by treatment

[rsvictor1976]

10 hours ago, MKT said:

I

The Basara figure kind of reminds me of the judge from Who Framed Roger Rabbit crossed with Beaker from the Muppets.

 

[lechuck]

11 hours ago, MKT said:

It's a contradiction of sorts in Fighter.. I like the overall sculpt, especially the sexy curvature behind the cockpit but there's that weird abrupt cliff at the neck cover. The intakes look great here - it's a normal feature on most other valk toys, but a first for a Fire Valk (?), but that knee gap is distracting and looks even more prominent than Arcadia's. Couldn't Bandai make that black area red or something to mask it a bit?

No complains on Battroid sculpt though. The legs are long yet suitably chunky. I'm just concerned that it doesn't look like there's a cockpit rotation gimmick, to enable us viewing Basara sitting inside the egress hatch. This is all the more reason for me to hold on to the other 1/60, or even hunt one on top of this. It's always the little Yamato / Arcadia extra little touches that really endears.

 

Meanwhile, just recording for posterity:

I'm just glad that Bandai doesn't do the drooping nose thing with fighter mode and keeps it in a relatively straight line, unlike what Yamato/Arcadia has with the YF-/VF-19

[Major Tom]

17 hours ago, Chronocidal said:

Is this a trick question?  

\

Though on that note, maybe it's time for a new edition of my avatar.. "LISTEN TO MY LAZOR!!"  

Hmmmm.... This looks oddly like 

[PointBlankSniper]

8 hours ago, Chronocidal said:

The knee gap is a consequence of needing to compress the legs for battroid, and stretch them out for fighter.  Otherwise, you get the long skinny legs on the DX YF-19. Since the Fire Valk generally gets a lot more time and attention to battroid mode, the fighter just gets the short end of the stick to make the legs look appropriately chonky.

The YF-19 got the opposite treatment, and while it leaves the battroid looking more lanky than it should, I'm not even slightly interested in them redoing it.  All that will accomplish is giving us another giant knee gap like the Arcadia version has.  We've got the Arcadia for a good animation battroid, and I'm fine letting Bandai keep its more fighter-focused take.  (Though I would love to see them make that stupid gray thigh hinge match )

We'll see how he price works out though.  Inflation (and other potential increases) aside, the exhange rate has still kept things fairly consistent on the import end for the US.

I'm really not sure that neck cover is going to be an improvement though.  They're trying to hide it with camera angles, but it looks like he's wearing a neck brace.

I suspected it was for the fighter engine length reason. But for the amount of morphing proportions, It seemed to trivial a reason to make a weird fix for... and they could have did an extension with some hidden panel magic like they did with the YF. I guess it was easier to just copy precedence of every toy having a black hold there at this point lol

I have a feeling the neck cover can be gotten away with on the 19S, with the bundle of head lasers as distraction, and their turret base matching and breaking up part of the cliff.

It seems like the misalligned fuselage issue is still kind of there. The piece that holds the canards, with the vent slits. On my YF, its totally buckled up over the piece behind it. I could press it in, but then the belly panel under the cockpit would then shoot out. Through careful squeezing balancing of tensions, it can be hidden for some time until anything gets bumped, I'm seeing that same two panels slightly stepped up here as well, although to a much smaller degree.

[davidwhangchoi]

21 hours ago, Chronocidal said:

Is this a trick question?  

\

Though on that note, maybe it's time for a new edition of my avatar.. "LISTEN TO MY LAZOR!!"  

hahaha

[Duymon]

Honestly I'll just wait to get it for WWM release if I really want it. If anything it'll prolly get sold for a nice discount on Amazon 6months or so after release