Lupin The Third

Err...yes, thanks for the correction. Cool idea.

Well at least this release is falling under the radar a bit. Usually we know about the new valks a couple months in advance and this kind of came from out of nowhere. So hopefully between that aspect and the recent stock dump of 171CFs and even RVFs being in stock for retail actual customers like us will be able to get the ones we want tonight. How many are you shooting for? Also, does anyone know if the forum allows for login required threads? If so we could put all the preorders into a single thread that requires actual MW users to login so that the scalpers aren't taking advantage of our efforts to help one another out. I'd also say that if you registered w/in 48 hours you can't view that forum/thread as an additional layer of cock-block against the scalpers.

Those are exactly what I need! I was looking at the ones Kicker recommended for a while but they weren't quite doing it for me (I like swing open doors better than sliding) and I think these will be a better fit for my collection room. I just checked AP's website and it looks like they've changed the design a little and now have a small cabinet section as the bottom shelf. I'm ok with that as stuff on a bottom, floor level shelf is so damned hard to properly view. Thanks for the info and awesome display of your collection!

I let Duymon out buy me on the VF-171s...not this time! Must buy 7!

Macross Plus? I must have the wrong set of DVD's because I've never seen that segment in Plus...Nice mod though!

Sorry for any confusion, I wasn't saying you were. I was pointing out that everyone is suddenly surprised that HF didn't come through and I mentioned 3 months ago that they wouldn't and OTHER members here completely went after me with a vengance. If you look back on pages 5-6 you'll see what I mean, I nicely pointed out that HF's preorders were bunk and got called an "asshat" and such for doing so. Sorry if you thought I was address you specifically, I wasn't.

People are surprised about this? Didn't I predict this would happen? Oh yeah, I did, back on pages 5 & 6.... So yeah, all of you who attacked me for pointing out that a crappy little bootleg shop wasn't going to get these can now apologize for being the vapid morons that you were a couple of months ago.

I'm quite pleased about this, especially since I revile Macross 7 and wouldn't want its logo on my Valk. I think the unit will look much better without all the logos as well.

Haha...true about the everyone has close to a dozen here...well Kicker does at least. My, admittedly snarky, point was that some people will keep buying broken product again and again. Virtually everyone I've know with an iphone goes through them like tissue paper. It's the same with Xbox 360s, the PS2 before that. I understand the occasional faulty product, but to have all but one of my units scracthed? That's just a complete lack of QC. Where did I even remotely imply anything heroic about a class action lawsuit? Talk about tinfoil hatville. And as usual the same individuals instantly came into a thread I made and launched into a series of simple minded attacks because I dared to bother asking a question they didn't like for whatever reason. I'm asking for ANSWERS to a very, very simple question that even an elementary schooler could answer; but as usual xrentonx and anime52K8 came in and spewed their infantile stupidity into the thread. As others have mentioned if you don't have a response, and all you have is mental dribble to spout because you've taken a dislike to me for some stupid reason or another, just leave. It's really that simple. And to be perfectly clear, responding in a terse manner to the same few members who would rather attack me at the sight of a posting than actually have a discussion doesn't count as me lashing out at the community. These same couple of fools have spewed the same mental dribble in other threads and you acting as their arbiter makes you look equally foolish. That is not an attack on the MW "community", most of the community here is pretty cool, while a couple of you seem to have lost your minds. Light scratches and scuffs, typically most prevelant on the white pieces on the mechs with white. Honeslty looks like the pieces were assembled by a worker who didn't give two craps about the $2 an hour Bandai must be paying people. I'll try to get some pics this weekend and post them. If I were to guess, the parts probably sit loose in a bin with dozens, or even hundreds, of identical parts scratching against one another before being pulled from the bin and assembled. Thanks. I really don't get why those couple of people have it in for me, it's kind of pathetic and sad...they're kind of like a little puppy chasing after a child who beats it. Am I ticked? Well yeah, I've dropped around ~$1900 on my collection thus far with more to come. I kind of expected decent quality and when I discovered that all but one of my valks are scratched I wondered how many other members here had the same problem. Honeslty it's hard to say that I should keep spending money on something like this when I could sell my collection tomorrow and go buy the FN F2000, or a new Gibson, or just about anything else I've been considering recently but held off on to instead purchase Valks. I just wanted to see how prevelant this issue was before I made any further purchases, guess that makes me a bad guy....or raptormesh's hero...not sure which. Yeah I've seen you mention that before and I've considered it. I just don't like the idea of buying something and having to restore it new out of the box. The parts issue sucks too. One of my VF-171 Altos is missing the chest/nipple gun as well...it's all of $0.25 worth of plastic but without it the Valk just looks off. Though ironically I don't like the chest guns, but it's naggingly irritating when they aren't there.

Yes, heaven forbid that I just ask a simple question like "hey, how many of your valks are scratched up too?". Forgot, this is MW where only the shitheads can start a thread or ask a question.

So you like paying $150+ for a toy that's scratched to frakk and back? Wow....some people really are blind fanbots that will gladly pay for cheap crap if it has the right branding. Guess that makes sense, that's how Apple makes their money too...I just thought actual collectors would have a little more sense than that. Obviously not.

Yes. Just like the VF-4G. Probably the best way to go at this point. Unless they nail down some huge new Macross license (Frontier, the VF-2SS, etc). I spent $3000 with them last year. I didn't pay for two items, one simply because I overlooked the email, and they sent me an insulting email that tries to guilt trip the customer into feeling sorry for them like you've caused them to incur a financial loss becuase you didn't pay for a preorder. I told them how insulted I was to be blamed for the inability of a retailer to manage their stock, something I am somehow magically able to do for my businesses but the "world's largest online figure store" somehow can't manage, while I had given them $3000 in sales that year alone and the items I didn't pay for were each ~$75 worth of figures that they sold instantly to someone else upon relisting. Told them that they were to cancel all pending preorders as I would have nothing further to do with them. They never replied but instead would send me a payment request when a new item became available; I'd laugh at their stupidity and ignore it. Then they sent me another nasty email a few months ago to which I again clarified that I would not do business with a company that insulted me as a customer after spending that much money with them and if they bothered me again I would post our emails and my story on every collector's forum I'm on as well as their facebook page. They finally deleted the account after that. They are morons, complete total asshats and the worst customer service of any of the companies that sell anime figures directly from Japan. A friend of mine just had his account delted by them because he, unbeknownst to me, ordered a gift for me and tried to send it directly to me; so they closed his account. I mean seriously what a bunch of petty little shitheads. Never do business with them. It doesn't matter how loyal a customer you are, Amiami has the worst customer service out there. If anyone deserves to go under it is them, not Otacute. Boooo....no.

Given my sudden discovery that virtually all my Bandai Valks are scratched pieces of crap Yamato's return is quite welcome! Preordered.

That's a sucky way to start the collection off. Ironically the first one of mine also, the VF-25F, does have scratches and has been open since I bought it. The lighting in the room I display them allowed the scratches to hide so I never relaized until people were talking about it with the 171CF; the green makes it way more obvious than on the lighter color valks.

So up until about two weeks ago all but one of my Valks were still new in box and unopened for a couple of reasons, mostly because my collection room is undergoing a somewhat long and stalled renovation. However in the 171CF thread I kept seeing folks mention scratches on their Valks again and again. So I began to open mine to inspect for similar problems plus any other missing parts. Out of 11 Valks all but one have the damn scratches! I have never seen such lack of quality control before! I even thought "maybe the Yamatos have these too and I never noticed" so I checked a few of my Yamato valks...not a single scratch anywhere. Also nothing wrong with my Bandai GX-48 Big-O, or my ten year old Bandai SOC Eva figures, nor even the "cheap"-by-comparison Bandai Robot Damashii figures I have. So my query for MW is how much of your collection is scratched? If you haven't seen scratches on your Bandai Valks before I'd suggest you look closely in a variety of lighting to confirm. Chances are they are there even if you haven't noticed them yet. I cannot even begin to convey how much of the joy of collecting these Valks has been completely taken away from me. If Bandai were a US based company I quite honestly would be talking to an attorney and considering starting a class action lawsuit, but because they're in Japan they can just claim "not intended for export" to avoid having to have an ounce of integrity with their products. I am stunned that they think it is acceptable to sell customers a ~$150+ toy that looks like a 5 year old got ahold of it. This is supposed to be "Chogokin" quality? And when my wife found out she blew up. She couldn't care less about macross or anime but she inquired what was wrong with all of us (yes she's seen me chatting on MW) that's we'd allow a company to sell us such garbage. I told her I'm about ready to sell them off and just go back to reputable companies and collecting stuff that matters like firearms. Had I known sooner I wouldn't have bought a single unit. EDIT: Sorry for any confusion but I was actually asking about the Renewal Chogokin Valks. If you still want to post comments about 1/55s, Hi-Metals, etc go ahead. I was curious about the prevalance amongst the Chogokin line specifically.

I think it's more a matter of it's simply too high a price at the scalped amount for most people. Especially when there's a chance you could save $60-80 by being vigilant and hunting around at release. ~$250 before shipping really is a lot to pay for a Bandai Valk with their atrocious quality control; for those of us outside Japan once you add shipping you're talking about a nearly $300 Valk....sorry but NOTHING Bandai has made for Frontier is worth more than the VF-4G retailed for...

33 currently available at NY: http://www.nippon-yasan.com/lang-en/macross/5088-macross-f-dx-chogokin-vf-27-lucifer-valkyrie-super-parts-set.html

Sniff...sniff...smells like douche bag for some reason....Seriously though even if someone is snapping a shot with a phone cam they can max the resolution so it's actually viewable. And someone taking a photo of a magazine shot from a newsstand in japan to post on the web is trying to put the news out to the web for those of us who don't live there and can't just go buy a copy ourselves. So it's not too unreasonable to expect they'd try to make the darn thing more than 200x200 pixels. Oh my gosh....hillarity. I laughed so hard when I read this; funniest thing I've seen/read this week aside from the hilarious Brad Pitt/Seven Xbox One gif making it's way round the net. I can't imagine the moisture content of the average bathroom would be good for a valk but who knows. Maybe someone really needs a bathroom buddy. Get three in there and you've got a toilet defense force! Brown Devil Vajra attack? Valk TDF to the rescue! Please no. I am so tired of the Bandai shennanigans. In fact when the Riobot Detonator Orgun went up for preorder I submitted my order for 3, then decided later to add 2 more as gifts. Went back to HLJ and added the extras. Didn't have to go over to NY and pay a 25% over Retail markup at 3:47am in the morning or any of that nonsense. Thought to myself "Holy crap, I'd almost forgotten that being a patron for a company isn't supposed to be so difficult as Bandai wants to make it with their manufactured 'shortages'!" I'm tired of frakking toy companies acting like I owe them something; you're supposed to be the one selling to me, not the other way around. I'd rather Arcadia manage the line by making the valks people want (not just reissue after reissue of the stock valks), manage their costs better, and continue to treat the customer as valued unlike their competitors. People forget that Yamato made a TON of non-macross stuff, far more than Macross in fact. They didn't go under simply because of their Macross line, there may have been some overproduction or poorly performing licenses there that contributed, as well. Nope, that's the character for "Man-en", so 10,000 yen X 35 thus 350,000¥. For the truly nuts fan.

Personally I didn't buy anything in the the great panic. All the Valks I really wanted and had missed out on while out of collecting for a few years were rather pricey before the panic (Roy Low Vis, Stealth Valk, Double Nuts) and I just said screw it, I'll focus on getting all the Bandai's I want and if something comes from Arcadia great, and if not someone will take their place one day. I'm just curious if anyone went nuts buying stuff and had an "uh-oh" moment today.

I've been wondering why everyone always talks about how Yamato couldn't afford better variants but somehow Hasegawa can. Obviously Yamato was in bad financial shape but no one knew that until the name change, everyone just assumed they couldn't afford anything other that "stock" designs and it would seem the same for how people view Bandai's licensing (or maybe Bandai just doesn't care). Either way I've always been surprised that Hasegawa gets the best Valkyrie variants for it's models and wondered if anyone actually knows the financials of how this works? Real details please, not just your speculation. I can presume just fine for myself that a $30 model is affordable for more folks than a $300 webshop valkyrie; though alternately there's going to be more profit per unit on Yamato's VF-4G than on Hasegawa's VF-11 Thinder Seeker. I'm curious if anyone actually has knowledge of how the macross licensing works for toys and models and how Hasegawa gets amazing variants that no one else seems to be able to. Or are the "stock" valkries actually more expensive due to having more mainstream appeal and the cool variants actually cost less to license due to obscurity? Anyways, basically I'm just wondering out loud here. And damn do I wish the VF-11 Thunder Seeker was a toy, cause I'd buy at least 4 of those....

So anyone regretting paying Macross Panic 2013 prices now that it looks like Arcadia/Yamato are officially back in the game? The shrinkwrap is amusing since Yamato never did that, must have been the shop itself.

On a side note, so this confirms the panic buying of the last months was simply that (panic) and this is a toy, not a model like the Hasegawa correct?

Is that price for real for the guitar? That's nuts...~$3500 for a replica guitar? I don't care if they got Gibson to make it; go buy yourself a Les Paul or Songwriter, or any other decent high end guitar, and you'd have a guitar that sounds amazing and probably a hell of a lot better than that one and, if you bought it during on of Guitar Center's sales, enough cash left over to buy every Valkyrie release this year...

Just sold put again at NY. Either we have hit critical mass for this figure or everyone is in bed.

You just found amiami's entire stock!