ArchieNov

Phew, they closed the preorder as soon as I paid for my order. But what's weird today is Chrome is preventing me from going to AE's site saying it's a Dangerous Site. That's never happened before. So I had to use Edge to visit the site. But when I click on your AE link, my Chrome lets me go there. EDIT: I think the address that Chrome is flagging as a Dangerous Site today is https://anime-export.com However that has been my bookmarked address all this time and I never had issues with it.

Whoa! I'm definitely picking this up! Been wanting another SV-262. I just wish it wasn't the H variant similar to Keith's.

I used to have all of those figures. But I sold them years ago due to shelf space issues. If I remember correctly, it had Sheryl as Basara, Minmay as Sheryl, Ranka as Minmay, Mylene as Ranka. Then there was a 2nd Sheryl figure with the maid outfit I think she wore during one of her concerts in the movies.

You must be the luckiest person so far in this forum

I just received mine. You weren't kidding about the hips being stiff. It took a lot more force than I was comfortable with to rotate the hips to the correct position. I'm actually worried that I might break or stress the plastic if I do it more times. EDIT: I got the chance to transform it into fighter. The hip joints were easier to move now (but still have good stiffness). Guess it was just really hard the first time. It's very similar to the Yamato, though it lacks some of the optional parts like the leg fillers. It also doesn't have as many locking tabs, which makes it harder to line everything up. But once you do get everything transformed into fighter, I must say the tolerances are really tight. I can hardly see any gaps, so good job there. Well the only gap I have is the where the chest meets the nose of the fighter, but I think that's mainly due to the hinge joint still being tight out of the box, so I am probably not compressing it as much as I need to.

If you're basing it on Usagi's review (Hobby Fan in Japan), I think she forgot to shift the hips up. That's why it looks so long in her video.

You can try removing the antenna. It's pretty snug so it can be scary to remove at first, but once you get it done once it becomes less scary.

Oh nice to know the proper method. Funny they also refer to it as an antenna instead of a laser haha.

How badly bent are your head lasers? You don't want to try straightening them out yourself if it's not too extreme?

I hope if Bandai does release the VF-27 again, it will be a true renewal with improved crotch/hips and shoulders. And I still want the ghosts that appeared with the Super VF-27!

This was the same thing I said a few weeks ago. I demonstrated that when pushing the lid down to close it on one side first, the cover flexes just enough that it can touch the laser. And since the bubble over the laser is tough, using enough force can theoretically bend the laser.

My DX seems to have a slightly smaller gap. Maybe the other pic didn't have the brace fully pegged in. Yes there's still a gap but in person it doesn't look that bad. For some reason, photos make it look worse.

Sorry, couldn't edit my previous post anymore. But wanted to add this reference pic taken from anymoon.com to show what I was talking about with the VF-17

Oh thanks for the clarification!

I wonder why they're still called Fast packs when they don't make them faster lol. But the ones that do have extra boosters (e.g. VF-1, 25, 27, 31, etc) are called Super/Strike/Armor parts instead.

I think it looks better with the brace. The brace helps fill in the gap between the back and backpack. And it's better to use the brace to put less strain on the joints long term. One of the main reasons I don't mind the huge backpack the DX has is because it looks like a jet booster backpack attachment instead of being the actual back of the battroid. It also looks more similar to the Queadluun Rau's huge back. Now if the DX's backpack was flat like the Yamato and had the same gap, it would look ugly. Kinda like the Yamato VF-17 which has a big gap too.

I would like to respectfully disagree here. The Yamato YF-21 was very far from perfect. IMO it was one of their worst ones. It only looked good in fighter mode and even then, it had flaws (like the feet showing at the back). The gerwalk was a hollow mess and the battroid had awful proportions and could barely stand out of the box. Granted the Bandai is far from perfect either, but QC issues aside, I think overall it is a better toy despite the line art inaccuracies.

Thanks. Maybe I'll try heating it up longer next time if I'm able to detach the laser from the head. I haven't been able to do so yet because I'm worried I might break it as it seems that it takes a lot of force to remove it. Funny idea. Maybe I can send my laser to you and you can fix it for me

Nice! May I ask how hot did you have to get it in order to get the stress mark to disappear? Or how long did you blast it with the hairdryer? I tried using a hairdryer on it for 30-40 secs but it doesn't seem to want to heat up that much and the stress mark hasn't faded either. I'm worried about having it under the hairdryer for too long and the plastic ends up warping.

For what it's worth, I was able to straighten mine out without breaking it. It resulted in some stress marks but it already had them out of the box when it initially got bent, and I'd rather have some small barely noticeable stress marks rather than a bent laser. The plastic actually doesn't feel like it will snap that easily, or at least it's not as brittle as the head laser on the YF-19. This is probably the reason why everyone with this issue got a bent laser instead of a broken one.

I wonder if this will be a rare instance where an MISB copy will sell for less than an opened/inspected copy.

Glad it worked out for you too

I guess it was worth the risk to try and straighten the laser out myself. I haven't gotten another reply from Anime-Export so I'm guessing they won't be able to get a replacement part either.

I did contact Anime Export last Monday about it. They asked me to send some pictures of the damaged part and the box, which I did last Wednesday. But I haven't heard back from them since then. Since mine wasn't as severely bent as some of the others, I decided to try and straighten it out myself to see if it was possible.

I managed to more or less straighten the one on my first copy. It did cause some stress marks to appear on the other side, but at least it's somewhat symmetrical with the stress mark on the other side. Basically I just held the laser just right below the bend with one hand, then with the other held the entire tip up until the top of the bend. Then I slowly applied force to straighten it out. Fortunately it didn't break. Now I wonder if using a hairdryer can help remove the stress marks. I've never done that before but I've heard some people have done something like that on other toys.