kajnrig

I was surprised that HLJ charged me for it already. I was expecting a charge closer to the end of the month. Shame, too. I shipped out my Metal Gear Rex like two days ago; if only I'd waited a couple more days...

Hm. It's interesting seeing the last few posts. I rewatched the first episode today and even managed to move onto the second, and my opinion of it is a bit more positive than the first run around. It still feels kind of... odd, and not just because of the remarkably uncanny valley acting on the androids' parts. I have very little patience for the outsized role theology plays in the narrative - it just leads to everyone acting incredibly stupid by everyone else, but maybe that's the point? Religious zealots responding to a distress signal and being too religiously zealous to see the practical assistance that's needed and/or asked for, only the opportunity to proselytize. Like c'mon, they're called missionaries, they've been operating for hundreds of years, did you not read a single history book? Not a marginally diplomatic mind among the lot of you.

Anyway, the religious conflict aside, the show has piqued my interest in a way it didn't before. Still really dig the androids' acting, still dig the setting, here's hoping it goes somewhere interesting... though judging by your posts, maybe that's a fool's errand?

Finally polished off The Expanse last night. That's a heck of a ride. The fifth season started for me with some fatigue, but I quickly became engrossed again. Tokyo Vice a week or so before that has also been excellent, and I'm eagerly awaiting a second season.

Thor 3 is definitely where Thor finally starts feeling like a full-fledged Marvel movie, but I do miss the classical meter that Kenneth Branagh imbued into the first film and the goofy juxtaposition of that against the modern world in the second.

I'll be honest, I don't get why Thor Ragnarok continues to get such effusive praise. It's a good movie, don't get me wrong, definitely in the upper tier of the MCU, but I would hardly put it in the top 10... or maybe even top 15. Even compared to its two predecessors I'd personally put it in second place behind the first movie and impersonally wouldn't rank it that much ahead.

Sigh... I must have been looking at different Exia kits or something, then, I dunno.

grumblegrumblwfriggin' three Grades with different versions in each grade and some are pbandai and some aren't andgrumble grumble grumble

Thanks for the insight. Gah, of course I should have looked at reviews as well!

According to the wiki, the R2 internalizes the previously exposed cables, not eliminates them. The R3 I assumed would have kept that feature, but apparently it switches to a GN condenser instead of a true GN drive, which might explain the return to the older style forearms... but not thighs? Grumble grumble grumble...  And the R4 uses a GN Tau drive...

As for the back skirt armor, I chalk that up to stylization, as aside from the splash of blue, the shape of it seem to be the same. (Of course, the model kits maintain this difference in color... Gjrjdkeidhfjskeirbr )

Aw, that's cute. Both the Monster and Makina. It doesn't look like she's the dedicated Monster pilot, though... which for some reason I figured she would have been.

I'm down for one or more of these for sure. Very nice, unique riff on the design.

tl;dr - The Exia designs are inconsistent. Does your MB Exia R4 have 1) GN cables? and 2) elbow guards?

This might not be completely apropos, but I figured I'd ask here since it involves the Exia R4, for which only a Metal Build exists in physical form. I have a MG kit of the Exia R3 (that has parts to build the Exia, Exia R2, or Exia R3) that I'm converting to an R4 via a conversion kit (that appears to have recast some parts wholesale from the Metal Build), and I'm confused as to which certain parts to use. (The conversion kit is made with base MG Exia in mind, but omits some parts that it arguably "should" include.)

1) Can someone explain the existence or omission of GN cables between versions? The R2 supposedly does away with the GN cables (all of them, not just the obvious ones in the shoulders and thighs), but they find their way back in artwork for the R3, only for some to disappear again for the R4. (And obviously the R4 gets the one shoulder cable back again.) From the promotional images, the Metal Builds don't seem to bother to get rid of them between releases, beyond the shoulder/thigh cables. Is this the case?

2) Similarly, do the forearms change between Metal Build variants? The artwork suggests that the R2 gains elbow guards, the R3 returns to the original Exia forearms, and the R4 re-upgrades to the R2 elbow guards. Interestingly, the MG instructions tell me to build the R3 with the R2 elbow guards, indicating that either the artwork is wrong and the Exia R3 "canonically" is patterned on the R2 design with minor revisions, or the model kit is "inaccurate"... Meanwhile, the Metal Build pics I've seen indicate they do not have different forearms/elbows, and the R4 conversion kit seems to follow in their stead as it does not include the R2-style forearms.

For reference, the inconsistencies in artwork:

6 hours ago, borgified said:

Anyone mentioned this at all??

https://www.eknightmedia.com/macross-movie-absolute-live-yf-29-durandal-valkyrie-maximilian-genius-use-full-set-pack-dx-chogokin-action-figure-by-bandai-tamashii-nations.html

14 minutes ago, davidwhangchoi said:

great place

Seconded.

25 minutes ago, sqidd said:

Got one for $225.88 shipped no tax through Kappa. Seems too good to be true. How easy was that?

I sincerely hope there aren't any issues and I'll have unwittingly contributed to screwing over a bunch of people here.

23 minutes ago, Lolicon said:

Does Kappa require payment upfront?

Yes.

14 hours ago, borgified said:

@Sanity is Optional got charged by AJ @kajnrig as his copy just got processed.  As for Amiami, it might take a while to get it ut processed when they get it. 

13 hours ago, no3Ljm said:

Yes, probably HLJ got theirs a few hours or a day before the others. But fret not, your AmiAmi order is good as long that they didn't cancel your order.  

Thanks for the heads-up. And on that note, I decided to check out the order page on Amiami and there was the prompt to checkout. Either the automated shipping request (if it is automated) didn't trigger - no email in my inbox or junk folder - or it's as @Lolicon said and Golden Week has delayed them.

So if you preordered through Amiami and are worried about having not received a shipping request, you might want to check your account.

13 hours ago, Sanity is Optional said:

Btw, loving that exchange rate. ¥29,136 shipped, and got charged $229.55

Indeed. Even with the card fee, 29,039 JPY turned out to be something like $227 for me. This lopsided exchange rate is screwing with all my usual money calculations. Typically I just move the decimal over two spots to get the rough dollar amount, but nowadays that's overestimating by as much as... well, in this case, by over $60.

2 minutes ago, jvmacross said:

Looks like the best price so far....have you had experience with them?

tl;dr - Great experience over several years, but never bought a toy (certainly not a transforming one) from them.

I've bought maybe... half a dozen? static figures (no toys) from them for a few years now, starting back when they were just an Ebay store without a dedicated website, and they've always done good by me, with responsive customer service. A quick google indicates it's been the same with others as well. There was apparently one incident where a customer thought they received a fake product and it turned out they misunderstood a sticker or something.

Kappa Hobby: https://www.kappahobby.com/products/dx-chogokin-yf-29-durandal-valkyrie

I didn't pay close attention, was HLJ the only place to already charge customers for the Mirage 31AX? I haven't gotten a shipping request from Amiami, and I wonder if HLJ simply got theirs in early or something.

Man, imagine if we got a 1/48 Monster, eh?

😄

4 hours ago, Valkyrie Hunter D said:

But new FM is better than no FM I guess.

Given modern Square Enix's track record of success when it comes to maintaining their back catalog? I dunno about that. Who wants to bet on the FM1 and 2 remakes being horribly optimized junk compared to the originals? They couldn't get Chrono Cross to even match the PS1 original's performance...

Just wanted to confirm: Was the Mirage pushed back to April from March, or to May from April? EDIT: I may be confusing it with the WWM -25, so clarification on that would be appreciated, too.

Mirage = Apr 2022, from Mar 2022?

WWM = May 2022, from Apr 2022?

Lighting makes it look awfully pink...

Which I think looks fine. Red or pink looks good. So long as it's not actually maroon.

Can anyone summarize what happened Macross-wise at this event? There's this, the surprise Arcadia Destroid Tomahawk announcement, a notice of delay on the WWM VF-25 and Mirage VF-31AX... anything else? Or was the movie announcement actually all there was and the others just coincidentally happened around the same time?

Look up "Gundam G-Frame." Basically hand-sized toys packed alongside a piece of gum. They're sold in packs of... 6? boxes to retailers, to put on display and sell each box individually. Typically, each Gundam came in two varieties in two different boxes (so three different Gundams per G-Frame pack/release):

- one box had a fixed-pose frame plus armor

- one box had an articulated frame plus accessories (usually weapons, shield, maybe a stand, etc.)

Seems these Eva Frame are following a similar route, except it'll be

- top half (the Eva 02)

- bottom half (the Eva 02)

- armor (everything else)

- articulated frame (everything else)

+ a standalone options set to be used with the other releases?

Those were my thoughts, too. The arms look especially stubby in the lineart. Just an awkward pose, perhaps...

And speaking of female leads, would the pilot of the Stargazer count? Sure that "show" was all of... 45?... minutes or so, but I remember enjoying it way more than anything else Seed. Or is the Strike... Noir?... pilot considered the lead?

I'm liking the name of the show, I'm liking the lead's design, I think the Gundam looks decent. It's got some THICCCCCC thighs, though... Feels really unbalanced, like the only day it DIDN'T skip was leg day. I'm not a fan of the clashing shapes, either; the upper thigh all linear, the lower all curves... I'd like it more if they blended into each other.

As it is I keep getting the impression that it's running around with its pants down.

So... "canonically," where would this variant fit into the Exia's lifespan? Probably some "00V"-esque prototype equipment thought up during the transition from Astraea to Exia but never put into production, a la Avalanche/Dash parts?

Thanks for the clarification, @dero. That's a shame about Amiami/CDJ/et al. Seems kind of heavy-handed on Bandai's part... Wouldn't a cease and desist have sufficed?

I have a bunch of legacy kits on backorder at HLJ, expressly because they're old and/or OOP and/or otherwise unlikely to ever find their way overseas. This new policy kind of really frakking sucks, if it is as it says and it applies to them.