ayaxr

ok... 2.5 hrs build out of the box. Great little kit. Tamiya regular liquid glue and a little super glue used. Very good fit on all parts. 99% of sprue cut marks are hidden. Couple of tricky bits, I can update more tomorrow when I build Mirage.

Thanks for the play by play! Hope to see more pics. Really good to see these kits built in the wild! Just reassures that the final product is indeed THAT good. I'll have to wait so long... makes me sad.. haha.

Here's pix out of the box... times getting away from me today, but definitely tomorrow! These things are amazingly detailed!! Totally hooked!!!

That looks amazing, as expected. the quality is there just as on the VF-1 kit. Going to HAVE to get a dedicated VF-31J fighter kit now... haha.

Indeed, the VF-25 in modern colors and a modern loadout looks outstanding.

the Carrier looks like the carrier from this scene in Yukikaze

Yeah thats a CVN-56 Admiral carrier. And man that lift-off scene sticks with you doesn't it. It was very well done.

I really would spring for a 31C Gerwalk mode most likely... and I know that would force me to get both modes again haha but whatever. Lets see what happens.

I really hope this line is successful and that it opens the door for more VFs.

That looks really really good. They really need to get into making the VF-25 as well, surely they can get a Frontier licence!

The VF-1 can be parts-formed after assembly of the main models. Unless you glue the connections that are meant to be able to separate in order to get Gerwalk. Though it is a certainly an "event" which I would not like to reproduce constantly.

I would think these VF-31s can be executed in the same way. I'll probably end up ordering another set to have all 3 modes separate of each other without needing to parts-form at any point.... *sigh* my wallet.

Just got shipping notification from HLJ

Cool! I'm gonna have to wait for a month or so now, cant justify shipping these alone, and just last week I had to ship out a big load....bummed these didn't get released sooner. Oh well.

I've seen a lot of anime start off with promise and then turn into total trainwrecks over the years, Guilty Crown and Aldnoah Zero come to mind, but I never thought it would happen to Macross.

And damn, I can't believe people are actually trying to make it sound like Frontier was just as bad as Delta is now. Even when Frontier had lulls, it still held my interest, still captured my emotions. The worst part about Delta is that I'm not even mad about it, I just watch it and when the episode is done I'm like "Okay, cool."

Agree with your comments. Though I guess in the end everyone is entitled to an opinion. Frontier was not perfect, but it wasn't bad either. Not to mention the composer/songs/singer combo for it was about as great as you could ever hope.

Finally got my payment request for the VF-31s

Well it goes in line with the other PLAMAX Macross releases.

I actually liked the first half of Delta a lot. It was very colorful and fun and different and felt like it was geared toward a younger audience. Despite being a bit clunky in the story pacing, there were a lot of energy in every episode with the way they intercut the songs and action scenes. There was a certain exciting momentum of discovery that propelled the show forward. I had a good time watching and rewatching every episode.

I felt it was more character driven with emphasis on Hayate & Freyja's journey from episodes 1-8, so I was willing to forgive some of the story pacing flaws and letting many of the characters being pushed into the background. And it worked pretty well by following those two from joining the team and discovering their powers and abilities and how they fit into their whole grand scheme of things in the Windermere War. It also seems like they were setting up matches and conflicts between certain characters from both sides which will pan out in the later parts of the story.

Then Episode 9 starts to focus on Message and Kagame and Arad, so I thought: "Great! they are gonna develop those 3 characters now with a second triangle and it'll continue to be a revolving door of shifting focus from characters to characters throughout the series"... But then it all went down from there with Messe's death. The show drifted aimlessly in space in the second half like the characters in them.

What I also find troubling is the sudden injection of fan-services into the second half which I think really cheapens this show even further. I felt uncomfortable watching those scenes and don't find it matching the fun, lighter tone of the earlier parts of the series. You didn't need it in the first half to sell the show, why stick it in now? It kinda feels like they are just spinning their wheels in mud and not know how to get the audience's attention anymore unless they default to typical anime cliches or go lowbrow.

It's just really disappointing.

That fan service episode was really out of place. it wasn't even sprinkled on, it was a plot on its own for the "hacking" or whatever... meh...

Combat, honestly the last "creative" battle choregraphy we saw was the astroid battle where they were using the surfaces to convserve fuel. Post that it's all been scissor in the sky. Now M+ broke this up by combining low and high altitude fighting even to the point of using ground terrian. Honestly, Delta platoon might have benefited more from this tactic. That being said it would have costed more from an animation perspective to introduce more transformations and ground related combat. That being said, I wonder how hard it would have been to take some of MF VF25 combat animations and apply them to the VF31. Shortcut? yes but breaking up the action types would have been worth it.

Pretty sad this is what we're seeing from a Macross series. I think you described it best... Always scissors in the sky, with the corny "wind/music" effects tacked onto the fighters...

I don't necessarily want the mecha to be the one and only center plot for an Macross anime, but it sure as hell should play an important role. To be honest save for a very small number of scenes this whole story can be done WITHOUT the need or purpose of transformable mecha.

I'd be interested in a PLAMAX 1/20th Mirage if it ever happened, though chances are low I guess.

Just got my figinstock alert. They are now available at HLJ. I have not yet gotten a payment request for my orders though.
Maybe the system automatically moved the expected month out based on the fact it was nearing end of month. Nevertheless good news.

HLJ has now changed the release date for the TomyTec Delta 1/144 VF-31J Hayate and VF-31A and VF-31C to September... :/

So, if they had just yelled at Messer and mebbe hugged him thru his Valk (!), he would have been fine?

Huh.

Haha, Hindsight's a beotch.

What scale is the Mirage Figuarts?

So glad I preordered the PLAMAX Minmay! That packaging and poster looks great. Cant wait for Ranka and Sheryl. Now I want a PLAMAX Sharon, heck give me the black box on a stand if you want

I had high hopes from PLAMAX ever since I took the plunge on their Machine Caliber kit a while back. It is amazingly packaged, the box is great, the additional material included is very nice and the kit is really good with water slides included... all in all top quality product.

Oh there was danger you know the enemy fighters they ignored to save the girls from having to use the rocket panties they use to jump from the same shuttle every concert

You know I thought about that, it would have been "easy" from a writing perspective. To say, ok they have rocket panties, but they only last so long and they were ejected from a too high altitude so they wont be able to make it on their own.. something like that.. At least you play into the script the technology you've previously shown but include the limits and how the team has to deal with it.

I mean is this crazy to think? To me it sounds like something completely plausible and actually worth more than what we saw.

•Freja & Kagame gets sucked outta shuttle but gets rescued immediately. So what point does that serve?

OMG such a cringe moment as well for me. I was cautiously optimistic thinking "Ok so now these guys need to nosedive like crazy or do something "so typical" of Macross in attempts to save a falling damsels to add a real sense of danger and stakes".... and you know what I'm totally OK with that... but guess what... nothing.. it was just a simple pickup by the guys, I mean....come on..at least try to fake to me that there's danger even though I know they will get saved.

Gotta say, glad they went with the movie version, Helps her look less loli when placed against Minmay and Sheryl, I think Sheryl will also be based from the movies, that one I'm not so sure about.
These look really good even without paint and at a nice price point.

The PLAMAX Minmay just went on sale today also but is already close to running out of stock at several sites from what I can see.
HLJ Link for Minmay http://hlj.com/product/MAX01028

Waiting on HLJ payment request here as well, got the Hayate VF-31J 2 Mode set and the VF-31A. Also waiting on the request for the PLAMAX Lynn Minmay from DYRL also due out in August.....

Wow.

They keep raising the bar in poor writing and rehashed animations from PAST SERIES.... so saddening to see this. And now knowing that this was originally supposed to end at episode 13 with a followup movie, it provides a logical answer for the train-wreck we're seeing, though it is not excusable by any means.

If you expand a series to double the length does that not mean you get more budget? more staff? more of whatever is needed? I mean if in theory its a big enough cash cow to provide a case for a second cour, then that means you can devote the resources necessary.... The only thing you can never work around is time or lack thereof. But what we're seeing here doesn't feel just "rushed" in addition to that its pretty bad overall on all fronts, the scripting is made in such a way as to use as little resources as possible seems like? Did they dump all the money into just the idols and their songs knowing that would be a key marketable product?

So onto this episode in particular.... After spending the better part of 3 episodes or so having the MC Hayate have this huge issue of going berserk from Freyja's singing, the fallout of that, now we get the "fk it just go into battle again" and all of a sudden its like "Hey guys, its OK.. It wont happen again, you girls are awesome, I'm cured cause I say so.. YEAHH!"

I was thinking we we're finally gonna see the 2nd space battle (yeah only 1 in the whole series, only one instance of the super packs) but no.... We're left to assume they just skate on by the battle of rehashed Frontier animations right into the planet. Funny how a whole star system is under war, yet we only see 6/8 mechs fighting it out among each other time after time. *yawn*

In the end I guess the series succeeded from their point of view as a commercial success and maybe thats all they care for at this point? I will certainly not be picking up the BDs. But I have already dished out healthy sums for model kits from Delta most likely DXs too, and I'll enjoy those for the mechanical aspect purely but they wont really have that feel or connection to the series I get from some of my other models.

I'll end my rant here, sorry if I'm being overly critical.. I've posted similar thoughts over at reddit on previous episodes and got completely flamed for thrashing this "wonderful" anime.. But to be honest Macross is close to the chest for me, as I'm sure it is to all of you here, and its just a bit unsettling to see it unWIND so negatively

May your winds blow true... yeah.. no.

Hey ayaxr. I'm just adding these 3 proxy sites that keeps on popping up everytime I browsed the P-Bandai site on their pop-up window. Buyee. FromJapan. SamuraiBuyer. Sad to say that when you click those links they don't carry as much for now. Probably down the line they will.

Hope that helps.

Thanks, I'll keep an eye on them.

Gah. The forum I got this from has stupid hotlinking issues (can't link to the specific post without isolating it from the discussion afterward).

Oh well. Here's the post in question: http://gundameclipse.net/single/?p=709810&t=5193504

And here's the discussion afterward (go down about halfway to get to the above post): http://gundameclipse.net/topic/5193504/36/

We're all discussing this P-Bandai web page: http://p-bandai.jp/bc/images/net-s_tokushu/international_delivery.html

It seems there are three proxy services: Buyee.jp (which NZEOD uses and recommends), From Japan (which I used just a bit ago to snag something, I had a good experience), and Samurai Buyer.

Sorry for the convoluted mess of links. >.<

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On a related note, I ordered a P-Bandai kit through a US store, Tatsu Hobby - the MG Powered GM. I've purchased other things from them before, and now have two other P-Bandai preorders with them. Their P-Bandai prices are probably a bit high compared to using the above proxy services, but I've always had a good experience with them, so... just an FYI.

Anything that's being released exclusively over P-Bandai store, you can get it from Nippon-Yasan.

There's this CS Toys site that you can check it out for proxy service.

Thanks guys.