jenius

Big ol' video review is up:

More thought has gone into this thread then went into Super Dimensional Calvary Southern Cross. 

That's why I asked if the feet are where the ankles appear to be... otherwise the torso to leg ratio is way off.

7 hours ago, MKT said:

Is Prime1 = Pose+?

Oh no, I think I confused them, should have double checked.

That was Prime1 that teased the 1/28 Legioss. I think they're going for a concept where the rider's feet are where the ankle appears to be? I wonder if there are magnets that will attach the hip armors to the knee. I'm not convinced I like it yet. It's a fun 'ultra beefy' take on the Ride Armor.

I'm a little surprised that every store except HLJ is trying to make the tax mark-up on us out of country folks. Gimme my 10% off!

Hobby Search has its listing with the usual insta-sold out

https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/11015481

hlj was up, i clicked on it, got a dns error, then it was gone 

https://www.hlj.com/vf-171ex-armored-nightmare-plus-ex-alto-saotome-machine-revival-ver-banc657893

so is this thing supposed to be up at the regular stores in an hour?

Great question. If BBTS gets a pallet full shipped by boat, maybe we can get the best of both... cheaper product and cheaper shipping. 

Hmmm, I say it's superior in both modes, not from all angles, but I think that statement may be better in the conclusion than in the sculpt section.

Thanks... the article is also up on anymoon. The full video review should go up on Sunday. 

I think it's gorgeous.

Very cool! Looks amazing.

Getting close to publishing this review... so many things to consider...

I never realized how heavily CM's leaned on these old kits. 

Conjugal visits??? LOL. I love transforming robots... but not that much! 

I love the Ravens paint scheme and I really don't understand why Arcadia isn't doing small limited runs of other schemes when they do a run of a more popular toy. Maybe the costs of paint set-up are too high to warrant a 100 run production of something? KitzConcept seems to be having fun doing that. Even if they did 100 Ravens at the same time as the standard scheme, that's not a ton of inventory to have to stash away for a few months to separate out the releases. 

So that's an invitation to join the raffle rather than a guaranteed toy. If you don't win the raffle, they'll cancel your order. I just checked, cheapest air shipping is 9,200 Yen for me in California. Fortunately, it's a pay later situation.

Luna Park is about the same price. They don't tell you it's for a raffle item but I imagine they're going to be cancelling orders if they don't get the stock, same as Moehime. 

I've encountered plenty of old brittle armor bits... I don't really trust them any more. I'm sure some or more resilient than others depending on how they were stored but you'll never be privvy to that information and even so, it may still be a crapshoot. 

At 1/48 scale... is this thing like the size of an action figure? The old Matchbox is like 1/18 scale IIRC.

1 hour ago, DewPoint said:

Now that is interesting.  Are they dropping out of the Robotech toy business entirely?

Yes, it sounds like it was a passion project that became way too demanding so he decided to move on. 

Whoa... your perception is pretty far off base. M7 may be the second most popular Macross of all time. I hope Frontier has beat it out at this point but... yeah... M7 was huge for Macross. Obviously it didn't land well with Western young adult audiences ready for a gritty sequel to Macross but it blew up in Japan. 

On 8/25/2023 at 6:21 AM, glane21 said:

There used to be a guy who posted here under the name Lord Kungfu.  He claimed to have a warehouse full of Yamato 1/48s he was accumulating back when they were the new hotness.  He would post pictures of cases of each new release.  I guess that would be one investment that didn’t pay off.  But you have to remember that this was just after the days when a beat-ass yellowed Jetfire would sell for hundreds.  So it probably seemed a sure thing at the time.

Lol, I remember that! That was a fascinating time as the market shifted from adults seeking bits of their childhood by grabbing vintage toys to toy companies building new toys for adults so they could have the toy they always dreamed of. 

I think the arm transformation is a superior design to what Yamato and Arcadia gave us. The problem that I'm guessing Derex ran into, and many other have on both the VF-1 and VF-0, is that the arm, particularly on the first few transformation, doesn't slide on the rail like it's supposed to. If it's stiff and doesn't slide, the clip gets angled and the arm pops off. There's also a hinge that can be overly stiff so, after you've rotated the arms and you go to compress them into the lower position, instead of the hinge rotating and letting the arms sink down, the force is transferred through the hinge into the arms and can again cause the arms to pop off (or just not seat properly making everything look askew). If you luck out and yours aren't so stiff, or you spend some time on them in the first transformation going back and forth to loosen them a bit, the end result is pretty nice. Yes, at a larger scale the whole system would function better, but it does function here... sometimes it just needs some love first.