Pontus

I'm in the same boat, but it says we can pay anytime before the pre-order deadline which is June 2, so that's nice.

Thanks. I had assumed that and thus didn't order because I don't have the money. Btw, if you're paying with paypal, expect them to screw you over on the exchange rate. I recently got a figure (non-macross) from Mandarake, and the current exchange rate was supposed to make it come out to $345 but Paypal said it came out to $363. Read the fine print, and it says they can basically pad it out however they like. Also, it seems that although we currently seem to be saving a good amount on the current exchange, it's made up for by exorbitant shipping costs, and DHL is no longer the cheapest. I went to cancel that Mandarake order when it came back with 18k¥ for DHL shipping and they wouldn't take paypal, but they came back offering to do paypal with only 11k¥ shipping EMS.

HECK YEAH!!! SDFM Kakizaki FTW! Finally. Guess I can undo my hack job and put my Hikaru 1J and brownie 1A back together. Edit: Aw, it's a TWE bullpoop? Guess I'm paying scalper prices again. Better keep the hack job for now just in case. Still need Max tho.

Great idea! As a DIYer, I'd go with an acrylic shadow box from a craft store and just stencil on the details I wanted, making it totally custom (which I'd want to do anyway instead of being restricted to Bandai's or whoever). This one's only 3" deep, so not super far off the wall yet just enough to mount a valk. Kinduv expensive tho. Using a standard wood frame shadow box would be much cheaper, but not nearly as good looking or visible.

I'd propose that the tumbler and other such angular designs were in no small part influenced by the same fighter design as the VF-17 was itself based on, the "Stealth Fighter" F-117 Nighthawk (according to this fandom wiki page). Personally, although it may be good for evading radar, I'm not convinced that it influenced design for the better. I'm looking at you Cadillac. Awesome display tho, not casting shade. Speaking of awesome displays...

Has anyone gotten a reply/invoice after confirming their order? I sent a confirmation Monday afternoon which was 3 days ago for Hong Kong now.

My 2¥... If you want all the cool accessories and features, go Bandai. If you want accuracy and ease of transformation, but doing your own decals or want to customize (unless you go premium) go Arcadia. I feel like Arcadia is much more picky about quality than Bandai. I only have one Arcadia, the VF-1J GBP, and it's a beauty, but imho, it's all plastic. I know Bandai puts metal weights in things to make it feel better, but it must be effective because it just feels sturdier to me. Like I said tho, and as others have pointed out, expect some quality issues with the Bandai if you get it. You can find replacement head lasers on shapeways iirc if you get a broken one (I did). I also had to loosen the hips which requires taking out a couple of easily accessible screws, a pretty simple easy job. My arm cannon fell apart and had to be glued back together too. The Bandai is fiddly to transform, but I sorta like that personally as long as it's solid when done and well engineered, and the Bandai is indeed solid imho. That said, after seeing the Anymoon review of the Yamato YF-21 and knowing Bandai may never even release theirs, not to mention I wasn't a fan of the appearance, I decided to buy the old Yamato (which became Arcadia if you're new to this). I liked it better than the DX if I'm being honest. Oh, and you'll definitely want to grab that X-9 Ghost that's in the for sale section to complete the set!

I think I will have to keep such a great figure. I usually try to limit myself to just one of each character (already have the Kitz Hikaru in flight suit), but early and late Hikaru are a totally different person. That's my justification anyway, lol. I also have a weakness for Freyja figures for some reason... they're just so cute! This will make my third now... wait fourth, forgot about the VFG VF-31J that I stuck my figuarts on in place of the generic figure. Taxes weren't great, had to pay some federal, but state came through with a decent refund, so I'll bite the bullet.

Thank you very much for the reminder! In my case, I ordered it on 7/2021 using an old email address I rarely check, so even though I have since changed and confirmed my new email address with them, they sent the confirmation to the old email which I don't check often anymore. I would've missed it without your reminder.

I really wanted to get this, but after Mandarake said it was 6600yen shipping tacked on, I just couldn't justify the purchase sadly. Just remembered I haven't filed for my tax returns yet. Guess I better get on that since I just changed my mind. Edit: Sorry if I teased anyone by posting the link and then buying it afterall.

Is it ok to contact them directly for purchase of individual kits instead of waiting for them to come up on ebay? Or should I just buy what comes up and wait for them to list the ones I want one at a time? I'd rather combine shipping for a large order, but I understand that this could take some time to sort through.

And "no step" printed on every available corner/edge. Ironically, they might finally remember to put the ejection warning on tho. It's probably more along the lines of an AI/algorithm that scours the internet for hits on particular subject matter, then reports the amount which then registers them as mentions instead of complaints. I bet they probably just pay google to do it, but don't want to pay for the deep dive details. So the more screw ups they include, the more people talk about it, so it counts as a win. Honestly, it goes with the double entendre, "No publicity is bad publicity." If you had nothing to talk about, even bad things, you wouldn't be talking about it, and thus they would sell less because less people would hear about it in the first place.

I was just looking into my 1/72 regult preorder from KC and noticed I apparently still have Hikaru Advanced Figure preorder listed in my order history. Thought I'd come here to see if anyone actually got theirs, but I don't see any. Wasn't this supposed to release last December? Did anyone get one, or are we still waiting? Website says it's now due out this month, but I've seen KC stuff come and go and come back again for PO. Any word on that?

Did anyone else hate this toy as much as I did? It didn't transform well if at all, looked awful in every form/pose, and was overall just a frustrating PITA to play with. I'll PM you @MKT. I have the 1/60 version which is much better and matches my DX YF-19, so I've been meaning to get rid of this 1/72. I may not like it, but it's still worthy of love and should go to a good home.

I got mine from this wonderful ebay seller that had all 6 figures I wanted (used without boxes, but very well packaged), combined shipping, AND discounted the multiple purchases by $40. She still has some Macross figures including some of the Blau versions and at least 1 schoolgirl version that you might be interested in.

Manda had them for just 400yen, but only 2 of them. I found mine on ebay, all 4 for $110 or so. That seems extreme for $4 kits, but Manda probably would want at least $40 in shipping. Amazon has a couple of them too, and I think they were $15 or so, but didn't have all of them I could have bought them individually on ebay for much less, but there was one that was going for a crazy price iirc, so it was about the same buying from one seller. I'm in the wrong business, or at least the wrong side of it.

+1 for Mandarake, that place is awesome! At least until the shipping charges appear. Not unreasonable tho.

Weeping? Srsly? Dang tho, that is a gorgeous figure! Congrats Miria on finally getting your man.

I figured it wasn't fair to the other Delta ladies not to have at least some representation when I have 3 (possibly going on 4) Freyja figures. Even so, Freyja figures are all just too darn cute to have just one! And of course, I can't afford to spend oodles of moola on all 5 DX, but I can't have all 5 figures without matching valks. I really liked the Tomytecs but they only made 2. I thought about doing 1/72 kits but don't want to build them (and also expensive), so these lil Bandai Mecha Collection numbers should suffice for a nice display behind each figure. Got a good deal on Chuck's DX, but now I might have to collect all of the spy/recon valks. Boohoo.

Ok, that was hard to find but fun! According to this, it appears only in ep.27, so I pulled it up on youtube... and even just skimming around looking for it with no sound on, I'm honestly tearing up here. What an amazing episode, my favorite I think, the culmination of all of the astropolitical AND the personal drama, destruction of earth, and the retaliation and war juxtaposed against interglactic cooperation, personal and social love, and "culture." Wow, reminds me why I love this show so much. Anyway, @11:28 you see the VEFR-1 for all of a fraction of a second in the fleet of valks gathered in front of the SDF-1.

Awesome, thank you everyone. I forgot about that RVF-171 which is a really cool looking machine! Hope I can find one for a decent price eventually. Which show/movie/media did the VF-11C appear in? I'm assuming it was Macross Plus, but I don't remember a scene with that. Edit: nevermind, found it. Well, close at least, it's the VE-11, and it looks awesome! I think I'll just go with Hasegawa fighter kits since the DX versions are all very expensive, and they only really look their best in fighter anyway.

This thread will probably die off quickly, but I wanted to give some love to the spy planes. I've always fancied them with the big disc on top, especially the RVF-25 which happens to be my favorite color, sea green, and I recently picked up a Chuck Mustang VF-31E (in my other favorite color, orange). So I guess I have to find a Vsn2 RVF-25 and a 1/60 scale VE-1 Elintseeker now - even though I don't collect Fronteir/DYRL toys - just to complete the collection of spy valks of course. But are there any other "spy valks" that I'm missing here? Wasn't there one in SDFM that was a bit different from the VE-1 of DYRL? (or maybe I'm thinking of the trip to Alaska Hikaru and Misa took). Oooh, gotta get a 1/72 scout regult to go with them. Gotta have that spy vs spy action!

I'm not one to keep up with the "pre-order madness" and only pop in once in a while to check for new stuff. I pretty much have everything I could want by now, but being in the middle of padding out my Delta collection with a few figures, when I saw that Max makes an appearance in the new movie (although I cannot find a synopsis for the life of me) with a beautiful, tricked out YF-29 that's currently up for pre-order on BBTS, I had to pull the trigger for what seems like a decent "old man tax" price, lol. Considering that I normally end up paying $300 for even the basic DX valks, $260 seemed reasonable. But am I going to get one? Usually if you miss the pre-order, you're stuck with the scalpers. But this is the first time we're getting US pre-orders for these things. Did BBTS order a set amount and haven't filled their pre-order quota yet? How does that work now? Looks like the YF-25 anniversary edition will come out any day now if it hasn't already, but it also still has pre-orders available on BBTS. I'm tempted to get that one, but heard that the QC wasn't too good.

I used a pair of hemostats (or just fine needle nose pliers) to squeeze the clip together underneath the plate while pushing up with my thumb and it popped out easily without damage. Personally, I wouldn't pry with a blade if you can access the clip. I tried that but didn't like the stress it was causing to the plastic.

I'm gonna have to find/match the brown color to paint the shoulders and tips of the rudders. White for the lower legs should be easy tho.