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Anasazi37

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Everything posted by Anasazi37

  1. Working on the decals. For MW members waiting for me to fill orders, this is the ALPS printer issue that I was telling you about. It’s driving me crazy. Hope to have it resolved by tomorrow.
  2. Yeah, the Bandai kite is absolutely ginormous compared to what Hasegawa and Yamarcadia have done. It belongs on a 1/24 scale valk, not a 1/48. The left and right points of the white kite should be aligned with the bottom of the black stripe. Join the club. I was on the fence about the 1S until I saw his review, then I caved.
  3. Over at least the past two years, Bandai has been pretty consistent about physically showing off what they are going to release, so I'm betting that Max and Hayao movie variants will be next. I wouldn't consider the TV Max 1A a surprise, because we did get lots of advance notice online, but it was an odd choice to follow the Hikaru 1J. It would be very nice to see a reissue of that. I think they reissued Alto's Yf-29 like ten times, right? They do now have the head molds for all variants except the 1D, though, so I guess anything can happen. To get a Roy during PO Madness will probably require one of those supercomputers that high frequency Wall Street traders use, where stocks are bought and sold in milliseconds.
  4. There's a 1S on Mandarake for ¥30K and it hasn't immediately disappeared, which is an encouraging sign: https://order.mandarake.co.jp/order/detailPage/item?itemCode=1128011520 Going price on AJ for it seems to move between ¥25K and ¥29K with free domestic shipping. I picked one up last week for ¥25K, had it shipped to my Tenso address, and it's currently sitting in customs at LAX. And there's a Max for ¥20K on Mandarake, too: https://order.mandarake.co.jp/order/detailPage/item?itemCode=1121403386 Maybe prices are starting to stabilize, although NY hasn't caught up to reality yet. They're still asking ¥32,250 for the 1S and ¥24K for Max. Gives me hope that I can avoid PO Madness from now on. But then Bandai will announce the Roy 1S and it will be a bloodbath.
  5. You basically need your own data scientist, or have to become one, to find the best deal these days Yep. So on top of needing a data scientist, you need a supercomputer.
  6. But when a store does shotgun an item, it definitely makes our lives more interesting. I was looking for a 1/60 VF-11B last month and searched for it on FromJapan just to see if anything was out there in the secondary market. I found the same one on four different platforms at four different prices with four different sets of shipping options and four different policies on taxes, handling fees, and buyer protection. I had to do some number crunching and cost/benefit analyses to find the best deal, which turned out to be Rakuten.
  7. Anasazi37

    Hi-Metal R

    The B-level Hikaru 1S Strike I found on Jungle right before Christmas finally showed up earlier this week. He is minty fresh. The only thing the previous owner did was open the box and remove one set of the optional head lasers from their sprue. Like @jeniussaid, B-level is a gamble, though. I just ordered a 1/55 Hikaru 1A reissue whose price was suspiciously low (¥6000 instead of the usual ¥16000). Since I'm going to use it for a custom, I didn't mind if the box was damaged or there was some yellowing since the valk will be completely repainted, so I figured that explained the price difference and it was worth the risk. To Jungle's credit, they sent me an email apologizing for the status of the toy ("Outer Box damage (slight), sunburn (moderate)") and asking if I still wanted it. Hell yes I still wanted it.
  8. I rarely get to put that education to good use these days
  9. As a professionally-trained archaeologist, I can tell what the standard explanation is when we don't know an object's purpose: ritual item. Imagine an archaeologist finding a Detolf filled with these things, carefully posed and displayed, with three copies of the same variant showing a transformation sequence. Looks like a shrine and valks are our deities. Given that they're machines and people are inside of them, whole books would be written about the deep symbolism of the fusion of humans and technology, plus some ramblings about how ancient myths and legends about man transforming into animals had been updated for our era.
  10. Or you could be really brave and paint those spots by hand or with an airbrush (forgot to add that)
  11. Some properly-sized, well-placed transparent waterslide decals or stickers would work. Since those spots are already painted white, you wouldn't need to use white paper or a fancy printer (ALPS or OKI) that can generate white-backed designs so the colors show up correctly on the dark blue background. You could probably get away with laser or inkjet designs if you adequately protect them. I will probably experiment with options once my Hikaru and SSP set get here. Both are in transit right now.
  12. We haven't even seen a preview of Roy yet at a Bandai event--just Hikaru, Max, and Hayao. So, my head was telling me they were of course joking, by my heart convinced me to check anyways because, well, it's Bandai and they've done crazier stuff than this in the past.
  13. I just snagged a new one on AJ for 25k with free shipping to my Tenso address. Right now they seem to be hovering around 26-27k plus domestic shipping. I had been holding off on buying one, hoping to snag it on Mandarake instead for 25k, but when their price jumped to 30k, it was time to move.
  14. ¥11470 from AE using Registered Small Packet, "shipped" to the US. I put shipped in quotes because it's been four days since they sent me the shipping notification and I haven't been able to track the package yet. They generated the shipping label and sent me the tracking number, but who knows if it's actually been dropped off at the post office. I've never had shipping issues with them, so it will get here...eventually.
  15. Canopy seam removal instructions courtesy of a step-by-step build guide for the 1/72 Atmospheric Booster done by master modeler @wm cheng:
  16. Anyone waiting to hear from NY about their SSP order is going to have to wait at least another week. They're now on a holiday break.
  17. I'm not sure why I didn't make the connection--thanks for the reminder. I saw that post a few months ago and said "meh." Not a big fan of expensive subscription builds (especially since I don't live in Japan). I'll stick to my Plamax 1/20 kits. All we need is for Max Watanabe to make a retail version of the Strike battroid he recently kitbashed for an event and I'll have all three modes.
  18. Glad I'm not the only who feels that the kite symbol is way too large.
  19. Direct link to the site: http://www.hcj.jp/vf1/home.html
  20. I've had good experiences with them when ordering TWE items. Buyee is another option that MW members have talked about, and there are several more that all seem reasonable. Whichever proxy you go with, though, you should get your orders in early. Bandai enforces per-item purchasing limits. They might be higher for proxies than for individual customers, but there are limits. I've already had one order cancelled by FJ for that reason, but they were very professional about it. They explained why it happened and immediately refunded my payment. You should see all of the items you've requested to ship in the "Pay Shipping" section and once they're shipped they'll show up in the "Shipped" section, which is as close as they get to giving you a list of past orders. Their system is not as elegant as HLJ's, but at least the items don't completely disappear.
  21. Seems like they sent that message to everyone who ordered SSP sets from them, regardless of when the order was placed (mine was after P-Bandai started taking POs for the April batch)
  22. Thanks for the heads up, guys! I just checked my account and my set is ready to ship, too. Availability notices from them have been hit or miss for me over the past year.
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