MKT

They are overcomplicated these days and are not very fun to transform anymore, but then again there doesn't seem to be much way around that to get the screen accuracy of both robot & alt modes. Blame it on the original character designers who didn't work out realistic transformations, so hats off to the current toy designers being able to pull it off. The good thing is that there are so many companies tackling the same characters with each company's own unique way of transformation so we get to pick & choose the one that's to our taste based on screen accuracy, sculpt, ease of transformation & handling, build & robustness. But in the end we choose the better solution - just get more Macross instead. I like this head-canon.. although Transformers alt modes are supposed to look like real-life objects, the transformation process doesn't have to be. Rewatching it now, I realize that every single part of the toy transforms, except for the cockpit canopy. As in title of the video, the designer is Black Apple, somewhat of a well known (and infamous, depending on one's view) name in the 3rd party movie-TF toy scene. There's some discussion of this toy in the TF thread.

Completely in agreement here. As long as we understand why the deviations are necessary then it would be acceptable. The DX YF-19's folding leg panels are probably the most TF thing Bandai has done for a valk (although I understand it mimics the SHE kit), but it works nicely for its form. Yamato's nose shortening mechanisms for the 21/22 and the v2 VF-1 may not be canon too but they make the final form look good, with the added elegance that they could very well be something that SK himself designed.

AUD70? That's really some crazy import pricing haha.. If I'm not wrong, that would cost about 3 times a normal CD album during that time in Australia. But I guess sometimes it's also the journey & sweat experienced to acquiring it that's more than the value of the item itself. Thanks for posting these images mate. Interesting.. I can compare how an original Victor vs SM look like now. Even the CD itself is printed to look almost the same. My CD tray could have been white instead of green though - I vaguely remember it may have cracked a long time ago and so I replaced it (Those prongs in the middle holding the CD down are always the first to break).

Exactly right! That album actually formed part of my core CD collection to listen in rotation for many years. I procured it during college years, it then followed me into uni, and ended up living in my car's glove box for a great many years of working life until I made the full transition into digital library for my music. Thereafter the CD was tossed into storage & somewhat forgotten. The album continues to surprise though. Something I read very recently (only a few months ago!) suddenly made me remember of it and I was compelled to dig it out. To my surprise, my copy is a bootleg! It was made by SM Records, an infamous Taiwanese company that makes extraordinary high-quality bootlegs that are pretty much indistinguishable from the originals to the average user. The booklet, the inserts, the colors & printing can look even more legit than some other licensed CDs, down to the robustness of the casing. What is different though, is that the BigWest Victor logo isn't there, and the SM Records logo is plastered somewhere instead. I actually heard of SM Records & their exploits years before, just that I totally didn't expect my Macross album to be actually one. This is because it was the only album I ever purchased at my local Tower Records then and paid what would be full retail price of an original album. In my mind it couldn't get any more legit than that, but yet.... Still, after this revelation I didn't remain perturbed for long. I now regard this CD to be a cherished Macross collectible for what it gave me, perhaps in the same way as how KO 1/55 chunkies are fondly regarded by some.

I can imagine it too as you described haha.. There are also other valks that don't look too flattering in Battroid, but become acceptable once imagined as something else in selective poses.. Actually, the Max & Milia 22s seem rather rare for some reason. I'm thankful Yamato made them because I don't think they appear in any other toy forms or scale.

Not sure if this can be of value to discussion, but I'm now thinking of some of the 3rd party Transformers today of similar size to this YF-21 and they have at least double or triple the parts and complexity. There are endless panels & parts that fold, swivel, collapse, unfurl & rotate, and most of them are engineered well enough to be quite stable & sturdy. Heck, a recent one I saw even had the landing gear transform to become an integral connecting joint piece for robot mode. Not to say I want the YF-21 to be this complex or breaking canon too much, but I think engineering-wise anything is quite possible these days. It could be a matter of how far Bandai wants to take it seeing that they are already tweaking quite a bit on the YF-21's aesthetics.

Something I also don't get is Bandai shortened the belly plates to get a shorter hip skirt. And then they add back the length of the skirts when the fast packs are installed. On another note, this could be the first valk toy where there are articulated rudders just for its sake. The rudders on the YF-19 / VF-19 Advance don't count as they are full folding flaps for transformation purposes.

I imagine it feels like a v1 VF-25 vs the 1/72 kit back in the days lol.

Most are not enthusiastic about its skinny legs, me included. Don't really like looking at it from the front, so I display it almost sideways. At this angle, I imagine it as a robot wearing a long robe - with the hooded headpiece, the stabs on the arms akin to loose hanging sleeves, and continuing on to the hip skirts as the lower part of the robe. Overall, not unlike a Jedi robe.

That is plausible, although for the HG 1/100 they didn't need as big a gap for the shoulders & arms. But with the massive backpack on the DX, they do need that gap for the hip skirtings to angle back lol.

Just remembered that Yammie's VF-17 also has that rather big gap between torso & backpack, but perhaps not as large as what we are seeing on the YF-21. Still, I suspect the gap won't be that much of an issue unless viewing it at very specific angles.

Distribution restrictions / arrangements aside, it still weird seeing a DX VF-1 on BBTS.. but then again BBTS have been occasionally listing Arcadia valks too with somewhat similar insane mark-ups.

I'm kinda tempted with the God of Flame Purple Edition since its on nice sale now. Plus KC also promised never to increase its quantity. https://www.kitzconcept.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=114

I guess the gundam sprues got assimilated.. *showing myself out of door*

Very, very nice!

Hmm I'm trying to find more information on their storage / private warehouse policy.. but can't seem to find any on their site. Anyone has more info on that?

Yup these colours are really cool & pretty much perfect.

Don’t know what to feel about this… https://twitter.com/shimayamas59963/status/1750663618558046559

Lol Yoyakunow must have roped in more family and friends to open purchase accounts at P-Bandai Yeah these days there doesn't seem to be any more complains on plastic bags. But since this is a TWE item, we know the brown box is the shipping box used for JP domestic shipping. It would be prudent to remind LP again during or near release to actually use a proper shipping box for international shipping and not rely on the Bandai brown box alone.

https://goodsmileshop.com/en/CATEGORY-ROOT/POP-UP-PARADE/POP-UP-PARADE-Mai-Shiranui/p/MAX_WD_00689?site=goodsmile-global&lang=en Pop-Up Parade Mai Shiranui Price: Yen 4,800 Release: Jul 2024

Video is not surprisingly region-locked so I guess only accessible via VPN..

Ok so the tent is actually papercraft. From the translation of the wordings, I can't figure out if the tent is included from a pull-out page in the instruction manual that you can fold, or if the instruction manual only contains the instructions on how to make one with your own materials. I think likely the latter, seeing that there isn't any mention of it in the parts list.

Regarding NY vs Yoyakunow vs Moehime, my own reading of it over the years is this: Yoyakunow was started by ex-staff at NY, I think it was mentioned by themselves on their site (that bit of info seems to have been taken down now though) with the name of the person actually given. Someone else online then dugged a bit, and found the Yoyakunow named person happened to share the same first name as someone linked to NY, possible the NY representative director / owner. Whether or not both are actually same person or not is not conclusive, but of course it is enough to set off alarm bells. When we browse Yoyakunow site, their ToS is clear and appear to go beyond what other shops normally do, and is pretty unprecedented. They update the customers on what happens on the back end with the supplier for every order – if I’m not wrong, after one puts in a PO on their site, Yoyakunow will then e-mail updates on when they order the goods with supplier, when they actually pay to supplier, when supplier actually confirms payment received by Yoyakunow, when the goods starts shipping to Yoyakunow, and when Yoyakunow actually receives the stock. So Yoyakunow’s USP seems to be transparency, no doubt due to their open admission of links to NY in the past and the impression portrayed was that they were not the decision makers in NY but as being staff at other levels not responsible for the shenanigans. Then not long ago, there is Moehime. Based on online conversations at MFC, Moehime started coming online for business a few months after NY’s site went down, but the site itself was registered earlier around the same dates as NY’s last site renewal. If we remember NY’s last days, they did a lot of aggressive sales on their existing stock – well beyond the usual mark downs. When Moehime went live, folks noticed 2 things - firstly the stock listed on Moehime looked exactly the same as the stocks NY had prior to them going down, plus they also started sales with same aggressive mark-downs on these stock in the similar vein as NY. Second, people who used e-mail addresses exclusively for NY account registrations started getting unsolicited marketing blasts from Moehime. The above 2 are huge red flags for me. It may well be Moehime legitimately bought over NY’s stocks for a song, obtained customer e-mail lists in the same package & started things going with them, but I’m willing to bet it’s just NY’s owner just switching to a new name. I did purchase something in-stock from Moehime recently though, and the whole website experience is actually very reminiscent of NY’s. The feel of the steps in the purchasing process – selecting currency, the gouged-up shipping rates, the confirmation pages, heck even their system for enquiry and contacting them. It all feels very old wine in new bottle. I’ve never made any PO at Yoyakunow yet, mainly because there hasn’t been a need to yet and also leftover apprehension from NY days – but I am more inclined to try them if I fail at other go-to sites. As for Moehime, a firm no for POs because I’m pretty convinced they are NY 2.0 and will only get something in-stock, somewhat grudgingly if the price is too good to pass.