MikeRoz

My lights are kind of yellow, that was taken with a cell phone, I'm not the best photographer, and I didn't have a pristine YF-30 to compare it to like I did my VF-25. All this to say, the wings have yellowed very, very slightly, if at all - the main thing to see in that picture is the nose yellowing on the right side of the picture. I took the picture from above so you could more easily see the contrast between the good side of the nose and the bad side of the nose. Also, I'd like to point out that that set of pictures was captioned with "Mistakes were made" - and the implication was supposed to be mistakes I made, not mistakes Bandai made. The Valkyrie was left in a place that gets direct sunlight, but only super, super early in the morning at a crazy angle, so I, not being a morning person, didn't realize until I happened to be up one day and saw it. I do not expect that an unopened YF-30 would have a yellowing problem.

I'm kind of in a bind with the VF-31. Of the schemes from the Delta squad, none really appealed to me. I'm a fan of the DYRL!Hikaru/Alto red, black, and white scheme. The protagonist's scheme is too blue, and I'm not a fan of the -1A-style head. Mirage's scheme is close, not as pink as it could have been, but ultimately too purple. Red like Millia I probably would have gone for. No thanks on the orange one. Squadron leader is flying an Angel Bird with a dragon tramp stamp - pass. Why couldn't they have just done a Siegfried with a YF-30 scheme? So I went with Messer. Seemed like the best option at the time. Black and white is 2/3 of my preference, at least. Then the -31J Kai flits by and is super tempting, but I've already got my -31F, it's still too much blue and not enough red, and at a significant markup on top of that. I guess the only way to out-madness preorder madness is with event-exclusive lottery madness. There's also the Kairos, but I pass because it is like a YF-30, but a better toy, but with a more boring color scheme. I feel like I missed out on a super fun community bonding experience by not being a part of that dumpster fire of a pre-order, but I guess I will have to make do with merely normal pre-order madness. Then the armor gets announced - except they're only making it for Arad. Except it's orange, which doesn't really go with any of them, including, ironically, the orange Valkyrie. Well, if it doesn't go with any of them, I might as well get it for my -31F. There's this illustration on the Delta movie cover with all the Delta crew sporting super color-coordinated armor sets - except Arad, because his unfortunate color choice is an irrevocable part of canon now, apparently. But those nice looking schemes are a nice thing, and Bandai never, ever lets us have nice things that aren't officially canon and shown on screen. (After being so judicious and careful about which squadron members do and don't reaction missiles, what will they do if they're all shown with nukes, sans super parts, in the next movie? Re-release the entire line?) So, aside from the occasional temptation to pick up a -31S that goes with but doesn't go with the armor, I'm committed to my plan. Except now there are pictures of this "Silpheed Armor" color-coordinated for Hayate's -31J. The white with a slight accent of blue looks really nice in a way the actual plane doesn't. It hasn't been seen in any movie or TV episode, but it's real, and there are pictures of it. What do I do now? Run out and get a -31J or a -31J Kai, hoping this isn't just a cruel tease? Hope that they work their way down the squadron until my -31F is blessed with a set? The Delta line is frustrating. Delta as a show was frustrating. If it wasn't for the fact that the DX VF-31 is such a well-engineered toy, I'd probably have skipped it altogether.

Plus I don't think any of the recent -19 DX releases have been TWE - general release all the way. No reason they couldn't reissue whatever they like.

I didn't want my parts until December 2020 anyway

What are the chances they release an M&M and DON'T release TV strike packs? I really only want to order one of these...

N-Y sent a shipping notice for my three missile packs.

This happened to me, also during the first markup window, but I cancelled the order after getting the PayPal error four or five times. The order appeared cancelled in my order history. Then I put in an entirely new order which went through with no trouble the first time. Then an hour later PayPal told me I'd paid N-Y again, and in my order history my cancelled order had been resurrected. So now I have two coming at 25,800 when I only wanted one. Don't want to get blacklisted by trying to cancel. Not sure what to do.

What is your evidence they are holding back stock? Their initial offering seemed just as small as what everyone else got. If they are acquiring additional stock at MSRP, why should they be obligated to take a loss and sell it at MSRP?

From what I've gleaned from the forums here, for any N-Y pre-orders beyond the initial offering they basically act as a vertically-integrated proxy service. They're sourced from other retailers.

So, during the madness, I was able to create an order for the marked-up version at N-Y. I could not pay for this order, as I kept getting PayPal errors upon being redirected back to N-Y. I tried this four or five times with the same result. Finally, I clicked 'cancel' on the "you need to pay for your order" page that came up when visiting N-Y. This resulted in a cancelled order in my order history. By then, the site was responding more quickly, and I was able to get in a second order and pay for it. Well, PayPal just sent me a receipt for the first order, and in my order history screen it's been resurrected to 'Payment OK' status. Should I risk their wrath by attempting to cancel? EDIT: Back up at N-Y! Same mark-up price: https://www.nippon-yasan.com/figures/28337-super-dimension-fortress-macross-dx-chogokin-movie-vf-1s-valkyrie-ichijou-hikaru-custom.html

Amazon.co.jp was very briefly back up just now. Didn't even get far enough to see if they'd changed their shipping policy.

On a more positive note, the MW forum servers were rock-solid throughout this whole affair. Props to management. At least we had a stable way to coordinate our efforts.

Not trying to discourage complaining at all. Just pointing out that "go into the website earlier" might not be the most helpful advice when the queue is broken.

The queue was inconsistent. I was in for the MSRP pre-orders, got queued immediately after I got cart-jacked, and then was back in before the item was re-listed with a markup. Meanwhile people were saying they were in the queue before the MSRP item posted and didn't get through until after the markup was sold out. All the websites except amazon.co.jp performed really awful today.

Closed all my tabs and resisting the urge to stare at the bittersweet sight of my order history page. Good luck my guy.

Well, I guess Max's -1A will be a test balloon. Though, a protagonist vehicle like this will undoubtedly be worse...

Had to cancel my N-Y order and make a new one, but I finally stopped getting PayPal errors. 30300 JPY total shipped. Here's a question for the VF-1J early adopters among us - how hard was that one to snag on or around release day at MSRP?

PayPal error 4 this time. Trying again...

30300 JPY for me. EMS.

For crying out loud, PayPal error 6 at N-Y.

Ah, that's why it started letting me through the checkout process again... E: No pay later? Weird

How long until N-Y starts taking orders at higher prices?

Got to the end of N-Y checkout - "Unfortunately, a product is no longer available"

It's in my cart at N-Y but the cart page won't load. E: ARGH now I'm 241 in line.

https://www.nippon-yasan.com/28337-.html it's up