Salamander

Their Patlabor products are pretty good...heck, most of their ABS-and-diecast offerings are. Their PVC figures, on the other hand (except the Patlabor sofubis - those are awesome :D )

Considering they are very likely gashapon-style soft plastic figures (if SoC Iron Gear is anything to go by), they'll probably be as detailed as can be seen in those pictures.

That joint belongs to the stand. It is missing in Battroid mode.

Time for Bandai to do a SoC or reissue the 1/3000 Takatoku one...

You're sure you are pushing the hip gun armor on far enough? Because on my VF-25's it does click into place (even though it's not a very noticeable click). The crotch armor only tend to fall off when transforming the toy. The only armor bits that could attach more securely are the upper leg armors, IMHO. I wouldn't compare the VF-25 to a Yamato toy from 10 years ago. Even the best 1/72 M+ Valk (VF-11B Fast Pack version) is worse than the VF-25. When transforming a VF-25 I've never felt as scared of breaking something as on my VF-11B, and even the worst attaching armor on the VF-25 is better than the 'look funny and it will fall off' leg armor on the VF-11B. Oh, and let's not forget that the VF-11B needed two iterations to get to one that didn't suffer from breaking parts (hello, fractured hips!). The 1/60 VF-1 ver. 1 is marginally better than the FP VF-11B, but has the separating legs transformation...

Your soul. They'll also ask you to complete the order form in your own blood, and sign with yours and that of your closest relatives.

Keep in mind that there's 1/144 and 1/100 resin kits sold in Japan that retail at 100,000 yen (Five Star Stories kits come to mind...). Those often aren't much taller than 15-20 cm, and don't transform. They are incredibly niche products made in very small numbers. This is no different. Niche product made for well-off hardcore Macross otaku. Regarding the resin it's made off, although Yamato says PU-resin, most resin kits are made from some form of PU resin, so that only doesn't explain the price. Looking at those unpainted pictures, I'd say the dark grey/black parts are made from fiber- or carbon-reinforced resin: basically resin mixed with carbon fiber particles. This would explain the price, as it is quite expensive and requires specific tooling to produce. It also means that if something breaks, you are essentially screwed because it is very hard to repair. Luckily, the stuff is very, very tough.

Nice use of Kotobukiya Diorama bases. The Fan Racer itself also looks good, but obviously it needed a lot of work.

That's strange, because every time I've had to deal with HLJ to get replacement parts for things that broke in shipping or were wrong in the box it cost me nothing. They ask for a picture, you send the picture, they order the replacement parts, and the parts are shipped free of charge (and you don't pay for shipping either). So I guess your friend asked for additional parts, not replacement parts.

The link in the post you quoted clearly identifies it as a DX. The metal ankles could be painted.

Now for the important question: If Yamato is making the VF-11 variants, does that mean we'll see a MAXL in the near future?

See also: http://ga.sbcr.jp/mreport/013846/ Note repeated use of "DX".

Problem is that the reissue Fire Valk also costs 70 bucks (although you can find them for way less of Yahoo Auctions Japan).

Great. Just received my Armoured Ozma, and I think I've got to take back my defense of this line in this thread. Missing the neck extension, and two of the armour parts are the same instead of each other's opposite. :angry: Waiting for HLJ's response now.

This is likely to interest all you M&M marriage set lovers: http://toyboxdx.com/brog/?p=3179

Warning: long + RANT There's no 'banging head on wall'-icon, which is disappointing, but it would be totally appropriate here. Read what I wrote again. I am not contesting that most of the kits they produce (now) are for Gundam-related franchises, I am saying that they have more than enough experience with non-Gundam franchises. Franchises that involved very intricate and detailed kits in a time where their Gundam kits were pretty awful (to say the least). Quite a lot of Bandai's 1980s non-Gundam kits put contemporary Gundam kits to shame in terms of details and engineering. Bandai know how to make detailed missiles. That most of their current experience is with Gundam kits does not diminish that fact in any way. But I suspect that some people simply will not and don't wish to understand this. I am also constantly amazed by the apparently total lack of any comprehension of the price vs. quality gradient behind the production of a kit of these same people. You CAN'T have a highly detailed high-quality kit for very little money. The more complicated the design, the more complicated the tooling required for it is, and the more expensive the kit will be. A transforming kit requires a lot of engineering, so it's more expensive. A highly detailed kit requires more engineering due to having more parts, and thus it's more expensive. Add to this that the smaller the (expected) market for a kit is, the fewer kits will be produced. In a small franchise (and Macross is small, let's say it) this means the individual kit price will be higher because less kits need to bring in enough money to pay for the tooling that may indeed be as expensive as the tooling for a higher volume kit for a more popular franchise. So: More complicated = more expensive AND smaller market = more expensive. Right now I guess the top-end (non-Perfect Grade, which are a niche product) injection molded (styrene) kits representing some mecha are around 4,000-6,000 yen for a Master Grade-style kit (9,000-10,000 yen tops for a large kit). It looks like this is independent of manufacturer (check Kotobukiya's, Hasegawa's, Bandai's prices), so apparently these prices are what all manufacturers think the buyer is prepared to pay. If they develop a kit, and they overshoot their development budget, they will stop the kit's development. A nice (and very rare public) example can be found by going to Hasegawa's (Japanese) homepage and hitting the banner for their Virtual-On kits. You'll find a kit of the Myzer Delta that, I am sure, would be awesome to have and build. Now translate the Japanese below it, and you'll find they stopped its development because they overshot their budget by incorporating a transformation mechanism (their first) in the design. The design is done, the manual and CG artwork is done, they simply won't produce the metal molds for the thing because they overshot their budget. The most expensive Virtual On kit on the market right now is Kotobukiya's Raiden, at 8,800 yen. The only thing more expensive than that are same-scale (1/100) resin kits that are long out of production, which top out at 12,000-13,000 yen. So from this we can safely deduct that Hasegawa's Myzer Delta, should they have continued development, would likely have been more expensive than that. In their eyes, unsellable. Overshooting their budget in this case meant "if we continue development of the Myzer Delta we put all our potential future Virtual On models in jeopardy". It certainly accounts for the total lack of new mold Virtual On models from Hasegawa this year (normally they have 1-2, this year they only released a repaint of Temjin). I respect their decision, although I feel very disappointed that the Myzer Delta wasn't released this year. However, their strategy makes sure it might be released in a few years time, when they have recouped their losses caused by this error. So, where do I want to come with this rant? Simply: If you can get a highly detailed, transforming model of a lesser known subject for a (very) low price, there's likely a catch. Either the engineering is sub-par and parts don't fit or break when you try to make them fit, or worse, when you've completed the model and try to transform it. Or the material choice is poo. There's kits out there that look fantastic in the box, then you start to build them and discover the vinyl crumbles at a touch, the resin is full of bubbles and was mixed with diesel oil to dilute it, the 'styrene' is not styrene but something else that reacts badly to both glue and paint, etc. So finally you realise you wasted your money on crap. So quality and good engineering comes with a price. Obscurity of the franchise also comes with a price. Mass-production of a kit limits the price at which it can be sold. Everything together dictates a minimum price and a maximum price for a kit, in between which the price at which it will be sold can be decided. Several companies have gone bankrupt in the past because they tried to sell kits from obscure subjects for probably too low prices. Some several times. Any modeller will have heard a story about a little resin kit manufacturer who announced a great kit with excellent detail, only to screw up along the way and deliver a horrible product, go bankrupt, or simply disappear together with the money for the pre-orders people made. If you think all this is bullshit, why don't you go and try to produce a high-quality, highly detailed, low-priced kit yourself?

:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: I really wish people would stop saying that the only thing Bandai has experience with is Gundam. It's simply not true. Before Gundam, they made loads of mecha from other series (and they still do), and many of their older kits have excellent detail (1/100 Xabungle kits, L-Gaim kits, etc.). Heck, they made very nice military armor kits in the 70s and 80s. And they certainly know how to make proper missiles. It's more likely that this was a cost-based decision. The Macross F kits are already quite expensive, do you really want to make them more expensive just by adding some additional detail that an experienced modeller could make all by himself? Styrene sheet is available for cheap, and a drill to make the holes isn't all that expensive either...

... Okay, that's it, it's official. MW members do suffer from selective amnesia. Unless the broken shoulders on the 1/60 ver. 2 Valks don't count as broken arms.

I do too, but frankly, do you want a girl who suffers arm fractures all the time just because of normal behaviour like sitting on a couch?

You do realise that right now all QC issues reported are from Hong Kong, don't you? As long as no issues have been found on the Japan-released Valks, it could still be a case of bad factory cases. And it wouldn't be the first time that a country outside Japan got the QC-issue toys or the toys from the lesser factories. BTW, HLJ is sending out payment requests. Just got mine.

That's because they (of course) insert the metal peg after molding the plastic parts (and getting them out of the injection plastic machine). Having a piece of plastic cap the peg would A) be more difficult to produce, and B) risk cracking the peg.

Courtesy of Matt Alt from Toybox DX (on the Marriage set):

I wonder whether the cockpit rotates 180 degress into the fuselage to reveal the head on its flip-side...

Especially since he seems to be at least bare-chested (possibly nekkid?)...

Monster Destroid is a must buy for me, especially if it transforms (and it looks like it will).