Bandai HG 1/100 YF-21 & VF-22

[Gabe Q]

Can't see this as a regular release. Most likely a web exclusive. Sorry. 

[Big s]

16 hours ago, Gabe Q said:

Can't see this as a regular release. Most likely a web exclusive. Sorry. 

Either that or they’ll do one as standard and the other as a web exclusive 

[kajnrig]

2 hours ago, Big s said:

Either that or they’ll do one as standard and the other as a web exclusive 

That's what I thought at first, too, but if they do one as a standard release, I find it hard to believe they won't do the other as well just so the ability to complete the set is relatively consistent.

But I also don't see them releasing either one as a standard release.

But I also don't see them releasing each one as P-Bandai individually.

I keep coming back to the notion that they'll release them as a pair on P-Bandai, similar to the HGUC Mercurius/Vayeate bundle for Gundam Wing. I dunno. Probably not. Maybe it's just the colors.

[Mommar]

On 8/15/2024 at 9:10 AM, Chronocidal said:

Are we going to have to deal with their web exclusive nonsense again for this release, or are these going to be more widely available?

Nonsense?  You can still get Gamlins on P-Bandai right now.

[Big s]

23 minutes ago, Mommar said:

Nonsense?  You can still get Gamlins on P-Bandai right now.

I don’t know if it’s that Macross isn’t as popular as Gundam or that even Macross fans aren’t as familiar with Gamlin. Either way the mark up still sucks, then again it’s almost the same price as a standard YF21 at a place like bbts. 

[GRAND CANNON]

Guessing P-Bandai as well.  Sticks with mold variants and re-colors/coating versions being locked within P-Bandai.

[Big s]

There are the oddballs though. Recently they did that Gm moraccan front and then a recolor version for Sleggar that were both p Bandai. I think there may have been a slight variation in the head and chest, but I don’t really remember. Either way both of those were p Bandai, then they did a standard release of the same GM and it came with cooler extras than the web exclusives. The dang thing came with a bunch of weapons and added Missile launchers making the standard version an impressive deal compared to the basic versions that previously were web exclusives.

[Raikkonen]

On 8/15/2024 at 6:10 PM, Chronocidal said:

Are we going to have to deal with their web exclusive nonsense again for this release, or are these going to be more widely available?

The Max 22 is the only thing I like about M7 and been waiting since they announced they 21... 

I guess if it ends up being a exclusive it's my karma...

[Chronocidal]

1 hour ago, Mommar said:

Nonsense?  You can still get Gamlins on P-Bandai right now.

Yeah, my issue is that ordering through their site vs somewhere like HLJ or even Amazon is a massive price hike.

The YF-21 I ordered from HLJ was a little over $30.  Amazon had them for around $50, last I checked.

Pricing on the P-Bandai site for Gamlin's is over $70, due to the combination of shipping, taxes, and general Bandai markup.

Edited August 16 by Chronocidal

[Duymon]

Considering Gamlin was P-bandai and was the first mold of the VF-22 I'm just going to assume M&M's also gonna be P-Bandai

[Big s]

1 hour ago, Raikkonen said:

The Max 22 is the only thing I like about M7 and been waiting since they announced they 21... 

I guess if it ends up being a exclusive it's my karma...

How about an armored VF-11. I know I’d be super quick to drop some cash on one of those 

[KOG Water Dragon]

48 minutes ago, Big s said:

How about an armored VF-11. I know I’d be super quick to drop some cash on one of those 

I'd prefer that (and a vanilla VF-11 battroid) from Hasegawa. Heck, do a super VF-11 battroid too. Seems like a good way to get extra mileage from a set of moulds...

On a side note, I hope YF-19 battroid sells great so we can maybe get YF-21, VF-11, and other battroids later. It would actually be pretty cool to get a Hasegawa rendition of VF-25 and VF-31 battroids. All leading to getting an Armored VF-31 which has gotta be my most desired kit at the present time.

Edited August 16 by KOG Water Dragon

[Raikkonen]

1 hour ago, Big s said:

How about an armored VF-11. I know I’d be super quick to drop some cash on one of those 

I respect it and appreciate the VF-11, but if no Max... then the Moonbase VF-22... 

[Mommar]

2 hours ago, Chronocidal said:

Yeah, my issue is that ordering through their site vs somewhere like HLJ or even Amazon is a massive price hike.

The YF-21 I ordered from HLJ was a little over $30.  Amazon had them for around $50, last I checked.

Pricing on the P-Bandai site for Gamlin's is over $70, due to the combination of shipping, taxes, and general Bandai markup.

Amazon is going to charge tax too.  So, really, it's $57 plus tax plus shipping because they don't have an in with the US government for cheap/free shipping like Amazon does.  Not that big of a difference for domestic prices.

[KOG Water Dragon]

5 hours ago, Chronocidal said:

Yeah, my issue is that ordering through their site vs somewhere like HLJ or even Amazon is a massive price hike.

The YF-21 I ordered from HLJ was a little over $30.  Amazon had them for around $50, last I checked.

Pricing on the P-Bandai site for Gamlin's is over $70, due to the combination of shipping, taxes, and general Bandai markup.

There's a reason for the price differences, as I discovered through discussion with my local hobby shop owner.

The original yen price on the YF-21 for example is somewhere around 4700 or 5000 yen (I don't have the exact number handy). Right now, because the yen is weak against the dollar, the price to buy from japan (i.e. HLJ) is just over $30. But Bandai doesn't want westerners buying up japanese stock (either for personal use, or in too many cases, scalping). Bandai wants us to buy our stock through domestic retailers. And through western retailers, they've set MSRP as closer to what prices would have been when the yen was stronger, closer to the $1 = 100yen range. So that's why your Amazon or whatever price is a lot higher than what you can pay buying from HLJ right now. If the yen strengthens against the dollar, then that HLJ price will go up.

As we've seen, Bandai is making it harder for shops based in Japan to sell to the western market. Hobbysearch doesn't carry Bandai at all anymore, and HLJ only gets much more limited amounts of stock than it used to. So while it may be cheaper to buy from HLJ, it will also take a lot more waiting to actually get any Bandai stuff from there. I have only managed to get 1 YF-29 Max and 1 YF-21 from HLJ. I never could get a YF-29 or YF-19 or the new Fire Valkyrie from there. Similarly, I've been unable to get most new Gundam kits from HLJ before I could just buy them local. Was never able to get MG Narrative Gundam ver Ka, MG Sinanju Stein Narrative ver Ka, RG Force Impulse Spec II, etc from HLJ and just gave up and bought local. And in all cases I had preordered almost immediately after the items were posted for preorder.

As for the Gamlin VF-22, it may seem a lot more than what you paid at HLJ for the YF-21, but consider two things. First of all it's probably a little more expensive than vanilla VF-21 to begin with. It may come packed with waterslides, whereas they are an extra expense when you buy the YF-21. I don't know if it has any extra sprues compared to YF-21 vanilla, but that could also affect price. And then remember you're seeing on P-Bandai an MSRP based on converting the japanese retail yen price at something closer to the $1 = 100yen rate, so you're not going to see a price close to that $30something you paid at HLJ.

In effect, P-Bandai is just charging prices that reflect what kits used to cost us here, before the yen value dipped so low.

And realize, getting a kit at a straight $1 = 100 yen valuation is still a MUCH better deal than having to buy kits at a 2x $1 = 100yen valuation, which is what we used to be stuck with in the old days, when all stuff stocked locally was imported from Japan and then marked up significantly. We won't always be able to count on getting stuff cheap from Japan with the benefit of a severely weakened yen.

On the bright side, we can at least still get Macross and other series kits made by other companies (Wave, Max Factory, Hasegawa, Kotobukiya, etc) pretty cheap from HLJ still.

(Also, shipping from Japan has gotten super expensive. A simple kit like the YF-21/VF-22 could cost a TON to ship. I just checked, and the Hasegawa YF-19 w/ fastpack in my private warehouse has a lowest quoted shipping rate of $26.12 for 2-6 week non trackable delivery. Around $40 shipping if you want something faster like EMS, DHL, or FedEx. With shipping that high, cheap HLJ prices aren't such a bargain anymore. That $30something YF-21 is now close to $50 after shipping is factored in.)

Edited August 17 by KOG Water Dragon

[Chronocidal]

So I understand why that version would be slightly more expensive.  Comparing the P-Bandai price to Amazon adds $6 to the base price before shipping and tax.  If the Gamlin version comes with the waterslides and extra parts, that's great.

What I'm more interested in understanding is why an unpainted plastic kit of this size is reaching such an astounding price to begin with.  These are not large kits by any means, and it feels like they're getting priced equivalent to your typical 1/100 Gundam kit, when the amount of material and parts in these feel more like they should be in the 1/144 category.

I'm not terribly familiar with the current standards for 1/100 and 1/144 Gundam kits, so I might be just ranting about inflation in general, but are these getting artificially inflated just purely because Bandai sees 1/100, and goes "Oh, yeah, that's our $50 category?"

[PointBlankSniper]

IIRC, Gamlin also comes with dup runners for color accuracy, and effect parts, making it a bigger kit than the YF-21.

1 hour ago, Chronocidal said:

What I'm more interested in understanding is why an unpainted plastic kit of this size is reaching such an astounding price to begin with.  These are not large kits by any means, and it feels like they're getting priced equivalent to your typical 1/100 Gundam kit, when the amount of material and parts in these feel more like they should be in the 1/144 category.

Anything not bandai's IP also gets IP tax. In this case, it's bigwest tax. I think there's also some sort of economy of scale tax. You can see the same price hike with other bandai kits for 3rd party IP.

[Big s]

3 hours ago, Chronocidal said:

So I understand why that version would be slightly more expensive.  Comparing the P-Bandai price to Amazon adds $6 to the base price before shipping and tax.  If the Gamlin version comes with the waterslides and extra parts, that's great.

What I'm more interested in understanding is why an unpainted plastic kit of this size is reaching such an astounding price to begin with.  These are not large kits by any means, and it feels like they're getting priced equivalent to your typical 1/100 Gundam kit, when the amount of material and parts in these feel more like they should be in the 1/144 category.

I'm not terribly familiar with the current standards for 1/100 and 1/144 Gundam kits, so I might be just ranting about inflation in general, but are these getting artificially inflated just purely because Bandai sees 1/100, and goes "Oh, yeah, that's our $50 category?"

The Macross kits actually have quite a lot of parts and runners compared to a standard hg kit. I’d say like two kits worth of parts. The web exclusive VF-22 for Gamlin does include the waterslide decals, and that’s something that the standard kits don’t even include for some stupid reason. I’m not sure if they just added extra parts for the changes or if it also still has the 21 parts and the new ones included.

I don’t really know how to compare the prices to a standard mg gundam, because I can’t think of one that’s been worth buying in the last couple years. 
 

The RG kits are probably a better deal as standard kits than these Macross ones, but I like Macross far more and so far the only YF-21 that I really loved other than the old revoltech is Bandai’s hg kit.

I will say that probably the worst offender lately as far as expensive hg kits are those new Dragonar ones at about $40 at the U.S. site. But I still bought both of them and will probably buy any others the put out. I love the Dragonar-1 kit and I try not to think about the fact that it’s not really worth what they charged

[KOG Water Dragon]

17 hours ago, Chronocidal said:

So I understand why that version would be slightly more expensive.  Comparing the P-Bandai price to Amazon adds $6 to the base price before shipping and tax.  If the Gamlin version comes with the waterslides and extra parts, that's great.

What I'm more interested in understanding is why an unpainted plastic kit of this size is reaching such an astounding price to begin with.  These are not large kits by any means, and it feels like they're getting priced equivalent to your typical 1/100 Gundam kit, when the amount of material and parts in these feel more like they should be in the 1/144 category.

I'm not terribly familiar with the current standards for 1/100 and 1/144 Gundam kits, so I might be just ranting about inflation in general, but are these getting artificially inflated just purely because Bandai sees 1/100, and goes "Oh, yeah, that's our $50 category?"

It's inflation. MG Sinanju Stein Narrative Version Ver, Ka is about 8000yen, MG Narrative Gundam Ver Ka was about 7000yen, I believe MG FAZZ ver Ka was around 11000yen. MG Zeta Ver Ka was 6500yen, MG Virtue was 8000yen. Some simpler MGs like Kyrios and Eclipse are down around 5000yen.

Aside from inflation? This is getting into personal belief territory, but I think a big factor in the rising cost of these kits is absolutely down to the demands consumers are placing on Bandai for increased color separation and accuracy out of the box, as well as increased detail (internal structures and such) and poseability (kneeling, joints with multiple ranges of motion). Just look at the RG RX-78 2.0 for example. It's a small 1/144 kit but SO many small intricate parts, layer upon layer. The need for everything to be moulded in correct color and be super articulated absolutely drives up the parts count, which drives up the sprue count, which increases the investment in required toolings, and the increased size and weight of the final kit is going to drive up associated logistical and shipping costs. If you look at the larger 1/72 Macross kits from Hasegawa and Plamax, they are priced similarly to the Bandai 1/100 kits despite being much 'larger' kits. Hasegawa 1/72 YF-19 Battroid - 5390yen, Plamax 1/72 VF-1J Battroid - 4180yen, Plamax 1/72 VF-1S Strike Fighter - 5940yen. Bigger kits, but less rigid demands for hyper parts color separation and hyper articulation, so they can be made simpler with less sprue count inflation. And they even comes with waterslide decals while Bandai makes you buy those extra. Obviously the parts forming nature of the Bandai 1/100 kits is also driving up sprue count as well.

It gets even worse when Bandai is giving you kits with multiple duplicate sprues in different colors just to account for small color changes which one could easily paint oneself. It doesn't cost them a ton to pop some extra sprues, but they will absolutely charge you extra for the added sprue count.

[KOG Water Dragon]

17 hours ago, PointBlankSniper said:

IIRC, Gamlin also comes with dup runners for color accuracy, and effect parts, making it a bigger kit than the YF-21.

Anything not bandai's IP also gets IP tax. In this case, it's bigwest tax. I think there's also some sort of economy of scale tax. You can see the same price hike with other bandai kits for 3rd party IP.

If the Gamlin kit has extra runners, added effects parts, and waterslide decals, it's easy to see why it's costing a fair bit more than the YF-21 release. I'm seeing reports that the japanese price on it is 8000yen. So the $70-ish price on P-Bandai makes sense. If you could buy it direct from Japan, using dollars to buy it at the 8000yen price, you'd be getting it for way less than $70. But I don't know anywhere to buy P-Bandai in that manner. I don't think westerners can buy direct from P-Bandai Japan, and any western retailers with the kits are selling them at a markup. You'd pretty much have to travel to Japan and shop local stores to get that low price. Shops like HLJ of course do not sell P-Bandai merch.

As for whether the kit, at 8000yen, is worth as much as one of the newer 8000yen Master Grade kits... that's another question altogether.

All in all, I blame the high prices on modern Bandai kits being needlessly partsy and over-complicated.

To be honest I much prefer Hasegawa's traditional style 1/72 models over Bandai's 1/100 partsformers.

Edited August 17 by KOG Water Dragon

[Big s]

2 hours ago, KOG Water Dragon said:

It's inflation. MG Sinanju Stein Narrative Version Ver, Ka is about 8000yen, MG Narrative Gundam Ver Ka was about 7000yen, I believe MG FAZZ ver Ka was around 11000yen. MG Zeta Ver Ka was 6500yen, MG Virtue was 8000yen. Some simpler MGs like Kyrios and Eclipse are down around 5000yen.

Aside from inflation? This is getting into personal belief territory, but I think a big factor in the rising cost of these kits is absolutely down to the demands consumers are placing on Bandai for increased color separation and accuracy out of the box, as well as increased detail (internal structures and such) and poseability (kneeling, joints with multiple ranges of motion). Just look at the RG RX-78 2.0 for example. It's a small 1/144 kit but SO many small intricate parts, layer upon layer. The need for everything to be moulded in correct color and be super articulated absolutely drives up the parts count, which drives up the sprue count, which increases the investment in required toolings, and the increased size and weight of the final kit is going to drive up associated logistical and shipping costs. If you look at the larger 1/72 Macross kits from Hasegawa and Plamax, they are priced similarly to the Bandai 1/100 kits despite being much 'larger' kits. Hasegawa 1/72 YF-19 Battroid - 5390yen, Plamax 1/72 VF-1J Battroid - 4180yen, Plamax 1/72 VF-1S Strike Fighter - 5940yen. Bigger kits, but less rigid demands for hyper parts color separation and hyper articulation, so they can be made simpler with less sprue count inflation. And they even comes with waterslide decals while Bandai makes you buy those extra. Obviously the parts forming nature of the Bandai 1/100 kits is also driving up sprue count as well.

It gets even worse when Bandai is giving you kits with multiple duplicate sprues in different colors just to account for small color changes which one could easily paint oneself. It doesn't cost them a ton to pop some extra sprues, but they will absolutely charge you extra for the added sprue count.

I don’t know all in all where the pricing goes, but Hasegawa is definitely the budget builders best friend. I got that Queadluun Rau for something like fourty bucks or less before shipping, and even after shipping and taxes was about what you paid for two basic hg kits bit with a box that could house several hg kits and still has quite a bit of color separation and a massive size and waterslide decals. Not to mention awesome artwork on that massive box

[Duymon]

It's granted it's usually always cheaper to get the real exchange rate and import from Japan. 

However, in the US at least the other 1/100's are retailing in the $50-60 range at most online shops and the real kicker from P-bandai is the shipping cost that's always 10 bucks when almost all other online stores have free shipping incentives for orders over a threshold.

If gamlin at least comes with waterslide decals off the bat like many 1/100 P-bandai gundam kits I won't feel as bad.

Edited August 17 by Duymon

[KOG Water Dragon]

You know, back in the day, I paid $80+ for the MG Gp02 when it was first released. Not like it was P-Bandai or anything. I think the yen price was about 4000y. That was just how buying japanese kits from specialty import shops worked. That's what drove me to buying everything from HLJ for a lotta years.

P-Bandai could be worse.

Edited August 17 by KOG Water Dragon

[Raikkonen]

9 hours ago, KOG Water Dragon said:

You know, back in the day, I paid $80+ for the MG Gp02 when it was first released. Not like it was P-Bandai or anything. I think the yen price was about 4000y. That was just how buying japanese kits from specialty import shops worked. That's what drove me to buying everything from HLJ for a lotta years.

P-Bandai could be worse.

Around early 2000s, I was getting MG for around $30-$40 + $15-20 for shipping & fees.

HG then were like $14-$16 then. 

But this is almost 2 decades ago. So much has changed since, already starting with the license fees of the software needed to design them and the molds. 

[sh9000]

https://fb.watch/u2Bu7vfEEP/?mibextid=cr9u03

Quick view of Battroid modes of the VF-22S Max and Milia.  Down for 2 sets of each.  I'll order my second VF-22S Gamlin from P-Bandai soon.

[Big s]

On 8/17/2024 at 4:31 PM, Duymon said:

If gamlin at least comes with waterslide decals off the bat like many 1/100 P-bandai gundam kits I won't feel as bad.

It does come with the decals and stickers. That’s one advantage the p Bandai items usually have over the standard release items.

Edited August 20 by Big s

[Duymon]

12 hours ago, Big s said:

It does come with the decals and stickers. That’s one advantage the p Bandai items usually have over the standard release items.

Oooh nice. That basically makes it on par with buying a regular release at retail locally

[Big s]

2 hours ago, Duymon said:

Oooh nice. That basically makes it on par with buying a regular release at retail locally

Yeah, because they charge between five and ten bucks and then shipping and taxes it might be about the same price 

[Casual.Plamo]

Man... I hate P-bandai...

It sux that it's only available at normal pricing for privileged people living in certain countries and us commoners outside of those 11 countries need to pay double at best...

With gunplas recently there are bootlegs of some p-bandais but for macross kits i doubt there will be any.

I hope hasegawa will keep up with their new releases and make battroid/gerwalk versions of the YF-21 and VF-22

[Chronocidal]

I've kind of lost hope of any really impressive molds from Hasegawa, unfortunately.  It's been how long since the 1/48 YF-19 got produced, and we still have no matching YF-21.  

[Casual.Plamo]

1 hour ago, Chronocidal said:

I've kind of lost hope of any really impressive molds from Hasegawa, unfortunately.  It's been how long since the 1/48 YF-19 got produced, and we still have no matching YF-21.  

The recent queadluns, and YF-19 battroid gives me hope.

I mean the YF-19 battroid is like the first battroid thats not a vf-1 or 0 variant if im not mistaken. Hopefully they make more of the others or even gerwalks.

[Big s]

2 hours ago, Casual.Plamo said:

The recent queadluns, and YF-19 battroid gives me hope.

I mean the YF-19 battroid is like the first battroid thats not a vf-1 or 0 variant if im not mistaken. Hopefully they make more of the others or even gerwalks.

Their engineering on their newer kits are getting far better than they used to be as well. They’re really impressive kits these days 

[KOG Water Dragon]

10 hours ago, Casual.Plamo said:

The recent queadluns, and YF-19 battroid gives me hope.

I mean the YF-19 battroid is like the first battroid thats not a vf-1 or 0 variant if im not mistaken. Hopefully they make more of the others or even gerwalks.

There's the Queadlunns, and the YF-19 battroid, and the nice Regult series wasn't all that long ago either. Hasegawa may not release 10 new mecha kits every month like Bandai does, but I'm usually more happy with what Hasegawa actually does release. And remember, Hasegawa makes other stuff like cars and aircraft so they can't do Macross full time all the time.

Whether it's a Glaug or a 1/48 YF-21 fighter or 1/48 VE-1/VT-1 or a 1/72 YF-21 battroid or even just the VF-1J max super battroid or VF-1D battroid I'm waiting for, I'm hopeful Hasegawa will give us some more interesting things in the future.

[KOG Water Dragon]

8 hours ago, Big s said:

Their engineering on their newer kits are getting far better than they used to be as well. They’re really impressive kits these days 

AND they keep their prices reasonable. A massive kit like the 1/48 Super/Strike is under 6000y.

[Big s]

2 hours ago, KOG Water Dragon said:

AND they keep their prices reasonable. A massive kit like the 1/48 Super/Strike is under 6000y.

I just checked Hobby search and their prices on the Queadluun Rau kits are both $35 each. Those kits are so large with a lot of plastic and huge boxes. They’re definitely great for the builders that are low on cash and want an impressively detailed kit at a big size