wolfx

Interesting how they went from this veritech like Metal Gear to the TX-55. This basically. I actually gave up trying to understand the technology with RAY and even how that thing could stand up on the stubs it called feet. REX actually seems technically feasible by comparison.

After MGS1, everything started becoming trippier. Advances in cyborg and nanotechnology advanced to the point where we get more "organic" robots like the Ray and the Geckos (which seemed like some vile offspring made from an unholy union between the Rex and Ray).

I'm sad to hear that the ending of this game is crap. Was hoping for something epic like Snake Eater.

I just finished this series yesterday. It was slow to develop, but it got pretty interesting in the last four eps or so.

Make sure you catch the BluRay extras.

Considering "Metal Gears" existed since 1964 during the Cold War, I gave up trying to understand the technological advances in this franchise. Makes you think Otacon was just a dirty plagiariser. Lol.

SH Figuarts Captain Phasma. That shall be mine!

This is one informative article. Very interesting.

TL:DR I like Arcadias products and will support them further on but the shortcomings and qc issues are a major bummer for their asking price. Sorry for the lengthy post. I will put it into spoiler-tags so you're not bothered by it.

Reading through the translation I came to the conclusion that Arcadia Valkyries are really high quality. For comparison I want to take the Transformers Masterpieces Ultra Magnus and Star Saber (I love to hate them). Those two toys are also transforming vehicles (one is even a jet that follows a screen accurate transformation) they are bigger than the post-SDF Valkyries and they are incredibly cheap compared to Arcadias offerings (18k Yen compared to 36800 Yen for the VF-0D).

The toys come with various problems that diminish their value as a collectible. For example:

• Ultra Magnus has huge gate marks on its forearms, uneven applied white paint with plastic showing underneath, and less tampooed detail than the VF-0 Valkyries.
• Star Saber has the same problem with the white paint, unpainted die-cast, cheap plastic in look and feel (the greasy translucent red parts I despise) and hollow legs; he feels cheap Also the shades of Saber are not sitting correctly.

To be crystal clear I like both toys and I'm glad that I have them. However Arcadias offerings have none of the issues I listed here.

Another point I would like to bring up. Say you rate your collectibles on a scale from 1 to 10. I think that the jump in cost from a level 1 toy to a level 7 toy is less than from a level 7 toy to a level 9 toy. I actually believe that the amount of scrap Mr. K stated in the article is correct. Maybe not for the finished toys but for the parts that are produced during the manufacturing process. If you try to print a matching U.N.SPACY kite over the seam line on the forward fuselage of the VF-0 you probably get a lot of scrap because the two parts don't match up once assembled. Also the mix of different materials on Arcadias toys result in more cost because every type of material needs its own molds.

That said I feel I get my money worth out of Arcadias toys but due to the high costs I'm less forgiving about errors. Stuff like hips that crumble straight out the box and miss aligned intake markings are a major bummer when you pay that much for one item. On the two MP Transformers I just shrug the issue off and didn't even open a ticket with HLJ even if I'd probably have gotten a 25% discount for both of them.

As a side node I would like to bring the spotlight to two other companies. First Bandai. They produce product that is comparable to Arcadias offerings but they have prices that are more easily coped with. But compared to Arcadia they are one of the largest toy companies in the world (iirc in the top 3 with Mattel and Lego). They probably own their own factories in China and pump out much more units than Arcadia. This brings their prices down. Also their Soul of Chogokin offerings are not really cheap either.

The other company is MMC (my favorite independent toy company). They release grandiose toys but since they infringe the Transformers license they don't have to pay license fees and don't have to consult with the robot designers where Arcadia has to pay Tenjin and Kawamori for their input. One of my personal highlights is their Cynicus toy (aka IDW Vos from the DJD). This is such a lovely transforming toy but it was still around $90 for a deluxe size robot (without shipping). In addition MMC usually has almost no marketing costs unlike Arcadia.

I bring those two examples up because I think that Arcadia is a similar company than MMC but has extra expenses on top so their products will naturally cost more. Unlike Bandai I think that Arcadia produces a labor of love and they want to release the best VF-0 toy in existence. Bandais top priority is to earn as much money as possible.

To bring this post to a close keep in mind that Yamato toys weren't exactly cheap. The VF-19/17/4 where very expensive. Also keep in mind that since the majority of the board members are importing these toys so there are additional costs like custom fees, taxes and shipping as well as a different average income than Japan. My country has a lower average income.

So if we want to discuss the costs of these toys we need to discuss them from a Japanese perspective which is not really possible for most of us.

I want Arcadia to be successful and release more Valkyries so I will support them through purchasing their products. They are some of the best pieces in my toy collection. I hope the high asking price doesn't break their neck because Bandai will never produce a the Valkyries that Arcadia is able to release.

I like how you brought up MMC as an example. 3rd Party companies probably have similar production numbers to Arcadia. But yet their product (these days) are of very high quality with after-sales support ( MMC has been very good with providing replacement parts) and reasonable pricing considering their products aren't even carried by major retailers.

Its my personal opinion that Arcadia should get a new factory ASAP. This factory sounds real dodgy with their excuses. It really isn't asking for much to get the quality required by Arcadia because every other company manufacturing something in China is just as picky if not more so.

Thanks Renato for the translation.

I'm not sure if the article is supposed to be an Arcadia PR article to address customer's concerns on Arcadia's prices. The prices are why I have not owned an Arcadia product. I was hoping that I could've gotten some insight on why the costs of Yamato (then) and Bandai (now) are lower than Arcadia's prices. Especially when Bandai doesn't necessarily do things at a lower quality than Arcadia. And with the booming 3rd party toy scene that has seen some very high quality, small production run with affordable pricing transforming toys with comparable parts counts, i still don't see why Arcadia's products are expensive.

The only thing i got from the article was:

1.) Things then and things now are different. (not sure what exactly the things are other than the factory costs)

2.) Manufacturing costs are expensive due to the factory being used. Unable to change factory due to expensive costs of moving manufacturing to a new one.

Thanks Renato for the translation. Its just like Mr K. to keep rambling off-topic.

I'm not sure if the article is supposed to be an Arcadia PR article to address customer's concerns on Arcadia's prices. The prices are why I have not owned an Arcadia product. I was hoping that I could've gotten some insight on why the costs of Yamato (then) and Bandai (now) are lower than Arcadia's prices. Especially when Bandai doesn't necessarily do things at a lower quality than Arcadia. And with the booming 3rd party toy scene that has seen some very high quality, small production run with affordable pricing transforming toys with comparable parts counts, i still don't see why Arcadia's products are expensive.

The only thing i got from the article was:

1.) Things then and things now are different. (not sure what exactly the things are other than the factory costs)

2.) Manufacturing costs are expensive due to the factory being used. Unable to change factory due to expensive costs of moving manufacturing to a new one.

Try Shokugeki No Soma. Food + Orgasms. You'll never go back.

Hi there James.

Started Assassination Classroom. If every week is going to be the "tragic student of the week" formula and how a Mach 20 moving alien (what?) does something heart-warming for said student, i'm gonna be very disappointed by this.

That dog has been through some hell to come off looking like that......

The only good actor in the live action film was Hans IMHO. Exaggerated yes. But Hans has always been a comical character. They changed the world from feudal medieval to gritty steam-punkish. This was evident with the lack of horses in the film which were replaced by steam-powered APCs to carry the Survey Corp. There was a mysterious dude i robe introduced in the film but never revealed who he was and what he was doing there.

Shikishima is an a-hole. Not sure why they replaced him with Levi....possibly because they made him

I don't mind that it doesn't follow the source material closely. But like most live action adaptations of anime and manga, this movie had pacing issues and I felt really bored during most of the movie.

looks tired...

Picking up the soap.....

Forgot to mention, it used to be 2200 yen to ship via EMS per valkyrie to me. Now its 3400 yen. NY's shipping charges are ludicrously high. I was forced to go registered airmail. I can wait.

The irony of the armour and super parts was ppl were complaining that they were easier to get/order compared to the actual valkyrie itself back in the day. Now i guess we're finally reaching that point where the valk and armour part's quantities are levelling off.

Hope I'm able to get mine from HLJ. My order is still in my account page, so hopefully.

How does NY open up so many windows? Where are they getting their stock from if stores like HLJ aren't even getting more?

They just choose to release in batches. Like 10 first batch at 14,000 yen, then 20 for 18,000 yen so on and so forth.

Thanks for the info. Now they gotta reissue those.

Chances are will be slim given that it was a Tamashii exclusive and I don't think they have ever reissued any of the Tamashii exclusive items.

What Valk-1S said. Tamashii exclusive stuff never got reissued ever. That's the reason i got the Ozma parts a year ago on the hope that the Ozma will eventually be released. And it did! Yay! As expected, the prices are skyrocketing now.

Down to 15, I've PM'd a couple people who wanted one on the off chance it might notify them, but dunno if they're even awake.

How do you see the stock available? Just brute-force the quantity and see how many they reject?

The armor parts in NY had been going down incrementally by a few dollars since the VF-25s announcement. It used to be USD315++. It had gone down to about USD310++ before going up again to 311++. I've been monitoring this because I was planning on getting the armored parts once I get the Ozma preorder. I guess they were waiting if Bandai would do a bundle/armor parts reissue. I was hoping that it would slowly go down to below USD300, but now that it's rising, I'm assuming that NY thinks that Bandai WON'T do a re-issue of the armor parts. For now at least.

It used to be 15,000 yen a year ago then it went up to 30,000 yen this year. Insane. Got mine from Mandarake for 10,000 yen last year.

The armored parts in NY has been that high for some time. It wasn't a recent change.

Still 18,000 yen. Surprising.

Huh? Why Cancellation?

The yf-30 at HLJ hasn't budged since it opened up a month or so ago.

what do you mean? Its order stopped on HLJ.

Got my backup NY one.

If HLJ's one goes through, i might cancel the NY one or get it for another fan near me willing to pay the premium pricing, which I still feel is ok since i paid premium for YF-30 lol.

Those are items that have not been released yet. They're basically selling their PO, which might not even be guaranteed. Like another forumer mentioned, what will you do if you've already paid now and find out a few months later that it's too late to file a dispute?

Chances are they'll get theirs by hook or by crook. And its easier for them since they are japanese and their retail stores will have enough to go around.

On the bright side of this prices of the VF-25S will drop on the secondary market. 2 weeks ago it was still going for 50,000 to 60,000 yen on yahoo auctions. Now its 19,000 yen.

Dunno about you guys but gonna order another one from another site if available. Not sure if its a glitch that all preorders until now can go through. *pessimist*

The site is borken on all my browsers but with guess work i managed to locate all the "invisible" buttons and made my order. Phew.