Kinzoku VF

Still not convinced, especially regarding the scale. Design-wise, seems it shares a lot with the HMR (at least as far as the torso/arms are concerned). Really don't know what to think about this one. I still have all my old 1/48s Yammies and like them a lot as display pieces. Not to mention all my 1/60, Yamarcadias V1, V2, the 1/48's, HMR,  the  vintage (yes, I tend to keep everything...even the 'not so great' pieces..)

Also, what if they start releasing the entire squadron in that scale? Is it going to be ¥30000 pop? More?. Wasn't it supposed to be part of the DX Chogokin line? The 1/35 from a few years back, I would've considered, it looked different enough, really detailed etc. This one though, not so sure. Its more akin to a'DX HMR" than anything else? ....It'll most likely be a pass for me however nice (or crap...) it turns out to be.

No way would I blind-transform a DX the first time around.  Even when knowing exactly what you're doing accidents happens.....For years now, I've stopped transforming most my DXs/1/60. I might transform one of each type, but that's it. No point in transforming all color variants. One of the last DX I transformed was the DX Draken III...actually it's the only DX Delta I transformed. Mostly because of its completely original and impressive engineering....but was it fun? Nope....just a pain in the butt. 

I'm part of the crowd who prefer their VFs in fighter mode. I'd say 80% of all my VFs  are displayed so. The ones in Battroid are mostly due to lack of space,( and hoarding....). They're all the 'old' stuff. My 1/48, old V1 Yammies, crappy Toynamis to name but a few...(yes, I kept everything, to me they're all different enough to warrant having them in my collection. ). Also, aside from the 1/48s, I'd probably only get peanuts if I sold them off...so I keep them.

Like other have mentioned. For stuff such as  Frontiers, Deltas, V2s etc whenever I transform them , I always end up putting them right back into fighter mode. Not worth getting scratches, stress marks etc for a 10 minute look and a few pics. Especially considering their current cost, and the fact they're not 'toys' in the real sense of the word. (far from being robust, tons of tiny hinges everywhere etc etc.). In the 'olden days'....when most VFs didn't cost an arm and a leg, I did tend to transform them more. But now though, they're mostly display pieces..(and the occasional whooshing around when no one's looking.... couldn't resist when I finally received that cursed Kairos.... )

HMR being the exception, I do enjoy transforming, posing and fiddling about with them. They're more action-figures like. Most importantly they're no way near as a pain in the backside to transform back and forth compared to their DX's and Yamarcadias brothers.....Difficult balance nowadays, the more advanced the engineering gets, the more the prices rise and more fragile things get (even today's so-called 'Chogokins' compared to their vintage counterparts are more akin to a DX model kit with a few die-cast parts). Sure we now have some amazing looking pieces, some exactly like their anime counterparts, but in the process we are loosing in playability, durability and most importantly fun........One of the main reason I still collect vintage bots....plus you can't beat the looks of a display case full of red/yellow/green/blue bots from the 70's-80's.....

Not a particularly hyped release. Personally, mostly wanted it for completion's sake rather than anything. And couldn't be bothered to wake up at a stupid hour to preorder it. Pretty sure had I missed it, it wouldn't have been difficult to secure one on release day at retail.

I had preordered the first one too. And upon release, it was available for retail without any mark-up for at least a few weeks. I assume it'll be the same this time around.  Anyways, no issues as it was still available in most stores when I got up, picked one from NY 

I wonder if the amount of Macross II pieces produced is lower than your average HMR VF?

Will get the Nexx, for completion purposes....Can't say I'm really that excited though...Wish they would stop milking and announce 'slightly more exciting' stuff. Sure, looking forward to the Ostrich...but when you consider the original lineup announced a few years back when the HM got the 'Renewal' treatment, they haven't even touched a fraction the Zentraedis stuff. Taking way too long to finish the VF-1s. Hope the series won't end up like the original HM...(by that I mean dropped off completely... )

8 hours ago, CharlesXavier said:

Good news for me on a Monday morning for my VF-31A

Finally, Congratz man. Wonder how many they still have to send off and if they'll be able to get as far as November?  

The sad thing on my part, even though I was supa pleased to finally receive my order, still  haven't even taken any pics nor even *played around* with it. (hardly ever transform my DX and certainly don't fancy transforming this one)

I really wanted to try and fit the 31-A in somehow. Had to mix up lines, some Delta stuff, with Macross II and Macross stuff (not forgetting  some HMR and some SD pieces) in order to cram it into a Detolf 'square'....you hardly see the thing...(;_;).  Due to a lack of Detolfs, (I have 6 for vintage, Popy etc, Sofubis and modern Giant robot stuff ) but only 3 for Macross stuff, and all are completely crammed. (I kept everything, my Toynamis, all my old Yamato V1 (love die-cast...) not to mention the 1/48s, 1/60 V2, vintage pieces etc....and of course the Bandai stuff, DX and HMR. So unfortunately the big majority of my Fighters aren't displayed in cabinets.

It's still certainly my favorite Delta VF so far, no contest. I like the others, but no way near as much.. Maybe the fact I didn't enjoy Delta has something to do with it....don't know..

If I ever sell the Deltas (fat chance as I tend to hoard everything),  I'd only keep the 31-A and the SV-262....

Erm....I rambled....my bad....only wanted to say 'Gratz' to CharlesXavier 

16 hours ago, Arthurius said:

I asked them a while back, and they told me they are expecting in July.

O.k, thanks for the heads up 

Out of curiosity, any more infos regarding the 'June/July' 'Owl' sets release dates? 

Only had my Kairos for 8 days or so. Looked for any defects after reading some comments. Can't seem to find anything under the wings or anywhere else for that matter.Tried to look under different lights as well, no 'weird' paint/mold defects as far as I can tell. I remember panicking slightly whilst removing those 2 transparent protective plastic sheets.( In case some of the tampo-printing would've pelt off or something). Luckily, nothing happened. Still haven't transformed it though and probably won't as 90% of my VFs stay in fighter mode, and when I transform them, after a few pics they go right back into fighter...

Seems the ones with most issues came from an early batch (rather than a different production run, still don't think they had several production runs for the 31-A.)

7 hours ago, Guyffon said:

Its finally here, shipped on fri, reached on mon

Whoop whoop! Gratz Guyffon, that was fast!

42 minutes ago, Guyffon said:

Woah my order for the VF-31A just shipped too, and all it took was 3 months of waiting

Gratz Guyffon. It's worth the 3 months wait, really nice bird .

1 hour ago, Slave IV said:

Congrats! I was hoping you would calm down and not stress yourself out too much over it.

Thanks! Yeah....the stressing out for nothing was getting tiresome. Especially when it became clear in April/May the delay was going to be considerable. 

1 hour ago, kajnrig said:

Anyway, congrats to all. Hopefully VFs really are slowly trickling out, though why Bandai wouldn't address this in a press release I don't know..

I'm still wondering whether Bandai has anything to do with this mess. There seem to have been some early delays here and there, but  apparently, most Japanese customers received theirs in a timely fashion ( judging from the Japanese Tweets, blogs, reviews etc). Though local collectors were fine, a lot of international resellers based in Japan somehow got cut short and in the process the price skyrocketed. Maybe Bandai knowing that the rest of their orders were coming from retailers (who aren't really supposed to buy crate loads of TWE to begin with) decided to take their sweet time to deliver...? Not sure we'll ever find out 

16 minutes ago, rdrunner said:

Congrats, it’s nice to see more deliveries this month! So maybe the June restock rumor had some truth to it after all?

Thanks! Yes, hopefully they'll finally start getting some stocks, truly hope all orders get sent by the end of the month so that we can finally move on and forget this mess ever happened in the first place....

27 minutes ago, sh9000 said:

Open it up.  What is it?

That cursed Kairos what else! . Somehow still can't get myself to open the bloody thing....

Humm.....A suspicious package just showed up .....

8 hours ago, ArchieNov said:

But anyways, I already said no worries about it long ago so not sure why there’s still some animosity here. It’s all good.

No animosity whatsoever, just sarcasm. 

Edit: as for the order numbers...been saying it for a while that it's more or less out of a hat......

7 hours ago, Guyffon said:

1st 4 days? they haven't even scratched the 2nd day, I only know of a special case of someone ordering on the 10th and got theirs aside from that nothing, my order is on the 7th at ard 10am and still no movement

*Shhh* better not mention that person.....I did in a post way back when we were first trying to figure out what was happening, he bit my head off for no reason whatsoever....

Again, pretty sure at that stage the order numbers don't mean anything. Seems they're just trying to clear out the first 4 days of preorders, that's it. Don't think it's got anything to do with the chosen shipping method either. At that rate I don't get how they're expecting to even reach mid-October or later orders. Aside from that phone call that mentioned some expected mid-May stocks, there hasn't been any official confirmation of any expected stocks as far as I know.  Anyway, we'll see what happens....

1 hour ago, rasky said:

 

Sigh. I am still waiting. Anyone get new shipment notifications recently? What order number are we at around now? Thanks in advance!

2 minutes ago, wmkjr said:

That's for the Hayate/Messer Movie VF-31F with lil draken adapters. PO was on June 1.

I just noticed . For some reason I thought it was a Kairos, didn't even look at the title......My bad....was too good to be true....

2 hours ago, Shizuka the Cat said:

CDJapan has the DX VF-31F available for pre-order again, this time for 27,800 yen

Says October.? A year after it was announced?!!! Maybe,  just maybe they are finally starting starting to produce more. Due to popular demand??  ! !   

Don't think the international customers that are still waiting(/complaining! Lol) are the cause though. It was a popular release in Japan, if they are really making a second batch it's probably mostly due to the Asian market demand.

Not sure about the price hike though , although it's still much better than its current ¥37000 or ¥40000 . Any clues as to why it'll cost more if we're really talking about new stocks?

20 minutes ago, spacemanoeuvres said:

I choose to wait...and be salty AF about it 

Yeah....Hear hear!

I'm just venting some frustration. Thankfully their head office is not up the road. I'd go postal. 

2 hours ago, Guyffon said:

How are you so sure we are all not doing anything about it.

I answered them that I only want my toy at this time nad they can take their BS store credit and shove it up where the sun don’t shine, but I got no response from that reply, go figure.

I was only saying 'most people'. I'm sure some have tried. But some of the people I spoke are still waiting without contacting them mostly in fear that their orders would be automatically cancelled if they complained about this unacceptable situation.

I did message them again a day ago myself. The lack of reply as soon as you mention that you do not want a refund/voucher implies the following:

"You want your VF? Tough, we don't have have enough stocks to honor all those preorders, never had, never will. Want to wait for nothing? Go ahead, just mail us when you finally want a store voucher, we'll reply then."

Most likely scenario: NY received all their stock in March, but only a fraction of what they were expecting  (probably due to a mistake from their part, assuming they'd be able to get their hands on that much stock, or they forgot to place the rest of the orders, their proxies sold them off for a profit) whatever the issue, it doesn't matter anymore, the outcome is the same.

From the beginning, probably to save face and unlike most other retailers who came clean right away regarding the situation, NY decided to keep it going for as long as possible (until now). Sending out a few every month out of a hat from that initial stock they got in March. That's it. Much more realistic than: 'Bandai is producing extra runs', 'Stocks from March are stuck in customs in HK' , 'Magic May stocks have been delayed to June'. 'Some stores are getting extra stocks in June' (yeah right not from Bandai they're not...maybe 5 or 10 pieces tops with a premium to pay on top). From day one in Japan, seemed that anyone who ordered a Kairos got their orders. Why would Bandai bother producing more? To satisfy the international demand from customers that aren't even supposed to get hold of those pieces in the first place? Doesn't make any sense. 

When NY's initial stock is gone, that'll be it. You'll get a store voucher wether you want it or not (wouldn't put it past them to even say it's been too long for a voucher lol). Hence they now stopped replying all-together to anyone enquiring about their orders, (especially if you mention you don't want a refund). Just their way of saying, "let us know when you change your mind".

I had enough, and contacted them (NY) yesterday morning (the only times I mailed them before that was shortly after release, end of March).

They have yet to fulfill orders from the 7th. Those mid-May stocks never materialised. And unless anyone has solid proof regarding those  'June Stocks', feel free to post the official Bandai post regarding the matter. Everything else is just rumours and assumptions (one other store said they'll receive "some" stocks in June doesn't mean a thing....not to mention their stocks might be a box of 10, that's it.)

7 months ago, you pay for something, 2 months after the official release date, you still haven't received your product nor a proper explanations. Yet, no one seems willing to contact them? Yeah, makes sense . I get it,  everyone's 'afraid' to msg them in case they cancel their orders ( no other reason why you wouldn't want to find out what is happening with your order....right?) 

They haven't even fulfilled the first 2 days of preorders, yet, somehow, they're going to send off all orders now? Feel free to explain and back up the reasoning behind this 'hope'.

Maybe more people should message NY, you know, 'out of curiosity', rather than wait, say nothing, and hope those rumours will come to fruition.

Here's a hint: June won't be much different than April/May.

13 hours ago, no3Ljm said:

Love this shot and angle. These two would look nice escorted by VF-31A's.

Tell me about it .....I still don't get what we're waiting for. Not a single word from NY, only a few orders shipped in the past month....like 3 or 4 if that.

If they haven't sorted out that BS in June, that's it, I'm requesting my money back. Not willing to wait any longer for something that obviously won't show up. 

Still prefer mine 'naked'. Personally not a big fan of SP. Makes them look too 'busy' and 'Gundamy' for my taste  (no disrespect to Gundam fans...).