VF-1A Grunt

I’m glad I decided to have HLJ ship my models a few weeks ago, since they sent out a notice yesterday that they are halting shipments to the U.S. while they figure out how the new tariff process will work. I requested the shipment via EMS on August 8, they shipped it on August 16 (it was actually accepted on August 18), and it arrived on August 25. Of course, a number of other items have arrived since I requested the shipment, but HLJ says they will hold things indefinitely in the Private Warehouse until the tariff process is resolved.

I’ve had one of those sets saved in my Amazon cart for a few years. I wanted to compare the weapons to Hasegawa’s, but I was always reluctant to order it because I assumed the Bandai Super leg and arm parts wouldn’t fit properly with any other brand.

I was a little concerned that I might have missed out, but I received the notice for my armament sets this morning. I’m interested to see how the micro missile pods compare to the Hasegawa version, which I always thought looked slightly too big in 1/72.

Thanks, it’s an outstanding model from everything I’ve seen. I may build it as a cannon fodder squad leader as part of an eventual Macross City battle scene diorama. Papa Rat, your model looks perfect! Looks like the VF-1D battroid reissue just arrived. HLJ charged me this morning for the one that I ordered a few months ago.

Very cool! I’ve always like the VF-1D. Unfortunate to see that the price went up about 30%, but I ordered two from HLJ. I took the opportunity to add a VF-1J Battroid to my private warehouse, since that model seems to have been quietly rerun. Kind of odd how their models show up under a new product listing rather than restocking the original. I missed it the first time around. Had hoped to buy one in Japan last summer, but they were sold out everywhere. The only one I saw was a display model.

The HLJ product listing says: Item Size/Weight: 34 x 19 x 9.6 cm / 510g. That's about 4 cm thicker / taller than the Plamax VF-1A Vermilion Squadron fighter box that I just measured myself, which matches the dimensions HLJ lists for that box as: Item Size/Weight: 34.2 x 19.5 x 5.3 cm / 290g.

I received my purchase notice from HLJ this morning for the Deculture Package kits too. Hoping the weapons set will arrive soon. Not sure I'm going to risk shipping these now, as they probably won't make the August 29 tariff deadline (assuming that still goes through).

If it "helps" at all, HLJ has the 1/72 Black Aces discounted 50% to $12.87 USD for their summer sale. That's a crazy good price. 1/72 VF-1J Super/Strike Valkyrie "SVF-41 Black Aces" The regular 1/72 Super/Strike Valkyrie is $11.26 USD. I really don't need any more of either model...

I think it's something more than that, possibly an issue with their website's calculations. For the ¥3,230 price of the 1/48 VF-1J/A to equal $26.10 USD, the exchange rate would have to be about ¥124 to the dollar. The yen hasn't been that strong in over three years. Not a big deal, regardless. I'm just happy that the prices ended up being lower than I expected. One of my cousins is visiting Japan at the moment, but I doubt I can talk her into squeezing a few kits into her bags for me!

That's good news, I'm hoping to have mine shipped before the tariffs kick in. Are you seeing the 1/72 Armament Set in stock too? It looked like they would be released together.

I'm sure like most of you, I received an email from HLJ this morning warning about the impact of the impending tariff on Japan that goes into effect at the end of August. In case you didn't get it, the email states, "The recent announcement implies that a flat-rate fee will be added to shipments valued at under $800, based on the effective IEEPA Tariff rate decided by the US government. These charges begin at $80 dollars and increase depending on the tariff rate of the country of origin." And, "Therefore, we would like to advise customers in the US to prepare for the possibility of tariffs also being applied to JP post methods following August 29th." I decided it was time to ship the items in my Private Warehouse in the hopes that they'll ship / arrive before the deadline. I had two Hasegawa models, the 1/72 VF-1J Armored Valkyrie Operation Bullseye Part 2 and the Queadluun-Rau "General Machine," plus the PLAMAX "Max" VF-1A Battroid. I decided to add a Hasegawa 1/48 VF-1J/A Vermilion Squadron as well. The point of this post is to note something odd with the HLJ pricing that I haven't seen before (maybe others have). HLJ lists the 1/48 VF-1J/A as $26.10 USD, but when the purchase went through, the price was ¥3,230 = $21.89. The EMS shipping option was showing as about $96 for the four models (ouch), but when I actually shipped the order, it came out to "only" ¥11,890 = $80.44. The shipping transaction is still pending with my credit card, but that's what the email receipt says. That was a pleasant surprise that everything didn't cost quite as much as I was expecting, so I wanted to pass that along. I'm probably going to hold off on shipping anything else for a while, since HLJ is being generous with their extended hold time in the Private Warehouse. We're planning another trip to Japan next summer, so I may need to take a second extra suitcase to bring more things back than I normally do.

My plan is to basically swap the decals with a regular 1/48 VF-1J/A kit. I’ll build the standard kit as a Black Aces and the Super kit as a brown cannon fodder Super VF-1A.

That’s definitely a good point! I think I have three of them now, along with 5 or 6 of the 1/72 version. I’d like to do one 1/48 model as in non-Super configuration at some point.

Hasegawa is re-releasing these two kits, just FYI: 1/72 VF-31A Kairos - Macross Delta 1/48 VF-1J Super/Strike Valkyrie SVF-41 Black Aces The Black Aces is my favorite squadron scheme of the ones they’ve done, so I’m tempted, but I already have a couple I haven’t built yet.

That’s a fantastic model. It must be a 3D printed design to fit the Hasegawa model. Link to the rest of the photos on X: