Paco Grande

Amazing! Great job!

I’m hoping the panel lining is not that pronounced on the final version. And agreed, my biggest disappointment with this figure is also that they didn’t try to integrate the side fillers. I don’t usually use side fillers because I’m a perfect transformation nut.

That's a pretty crappy attitude to have about your fellow humans, but not surprising. If you truly do not care about Bandai or it's employees why are you buying the official and not a KO? Aren't you the person that paints all their landing gear white or something? You seem very unhappy with these products so I can't figure out why you spend so much money on them. Sorry to bother everyone, carry on with your hatred of this toy, even though it's already been established that the YF-21 cannot be made into a toy and look good in all three modes.

Thank you for posting that, it made me smile. I'm a rookie on this forum and I'm pretty shocked at how picky everyone is here. I'm also shocked how much money people in here are ready to drop. I'm used to Transformers fans and there is a huge amount of complaining there as well, but TF fans are so cheap and constantly complain about having to pay "so much" when the prices on TF products are typically low compared to other franchises. I'm a mechanical designer so I think I appreciate more just how much effort is required to produce something like this and also how difficult it can be when there are many constraints put on a project. Budget, etc. I'm sure Bandai only gave their team one kick at the can and there is no more budget to fix anything. The designers would happily work on it for years to perfect it, but that's not how it works in large companies. this design was most likely finished back in 2019 and it's just waiting for Bandai to pick a release date. Looks like they decided to wait for the anniversary next year. At least you don't have endless posts in here about how they will "wait for the KO". Transformers fans are always waiting for the KO and it makes me sick. Takara Tomy posted a video about their new Missing Link Optimus Prime the other day and people are posting "I'll wait for the KO" in the comments of the video. Just disgusting behaviour imo. The designers work really hard on these figures and they deserve more respect. Steering back on topic, I'm not nearly as picky as others on here so I'm just happy this thing exists and I'll finally have a buddy for my YF-19 on the shelf! No, it's not perfect, but it's close enough for me and I can't wait to get it.

Thank you for the info. I know absolutely nothing about ThreeZero so it's really hard to tell what they will do. The problem is that if you wait and see if they do enemy mecha before buying you end up paying the late tax for everything. If these still look good, but are smaller and possibly more fun to transform I would replace my DX valks with these. For now I'll wait for reviews of the first release and see how it is. I wish these companies would give us some hints on what their future plans are. I get why they don't, but it makes it pretty hard to decide what to buy!

I'm assuming if these sell well there will be super pack add-ons later? The nose cone folds so I'm assuming they are planning to do the full armor at some point. I don't know anything about Three Zero. Do we think they will only sell armor parts separately or do bundled releases later where you can buy the VF with the armor in the same package? I currently only own Bandai DX VF-1 figures, but these Three Zero VFs are appealing to me because they are smaller and take up less shelf space than the DX but look almost as good to me. They are also cheaper and will be way easier to buy for retail price than Bandai DX, I assume. It sounds like these will also be good quality with metal joints (fingers crossed). And I'm also thinking that Three Zero may actually make other mechs from the same show like the destroids and Zentradi pods. Bandai seems to have stopped making VF-1s for a while and they don't seem interested in making enemy mechs. Even if they did, they would be massive and I don't think I have the shelf space. I'm looking forward to some reviews of their first release.

Very interesting find! The prototype markings on Transformers are usually stamped on with ink. They will do a a small run and all the copies will have the same number on them. It's to track which batch they are from in the prototyping process. And they are also typically made with whatever plastic the factory has on hand so they look pretty bad with the wrong plastic colours. I think you are correct. These copies were most likely made and marked for the trade shows and store displays. They used the correct colour of plastic and they have all the lettering etc. Examples of prototype Transformers:

I find that Kaki price totally bizarre. Maybe my fellow collectors in Canada are just cheap, but I took forever to sell my MIB DYRL Hikaru VF-1S and Kaki VF-1A. And for Kaki I ended up selling over $100 less than I paid for it. Buyers here want to pay retail price or close to it for used copies, but it's very difficult to buy them at retail price in the first place so that doesn't make sense.

Forgive my ignorance, but I thought the WWM thing only applies to characters from after Macross Plus. I have heard that we will never get a WWM release of a SDFM/DYRL/Macross Plus figures. So this being pre-order madness again is not a surprise as far as I know.

Yes I missed that. I only follow this thread because all the DX VF-1 info used to be in here. Why are we creating dedicated threads per release? That does not make sense to me at all because if you have alerts set up for this thread, you will not be notified. Anyway! Sorry to bother everyone! I will go back to lurking.

Yup, I'm aware of that. I've ordered those before. What I mean is that there was very little discussion in this thread about it and I cannot even access the Bandai web site anymore for SDFM/DYRL stuff because I'm not in Japan. So I had no way of knowing when you could order it. And even in the pre-order thread on this site it was barely mentioned. I just thought it was odd. Normally there are pages of discussion here whenever a new DX variant pops up. I assume there will be a lot more discussion when it's an actual character release.

I'm a little shocked that I completely missed a DX pre-order. Or did I? I can't tell. I wasn't really interested in the Angels anyway, but they appear to be sold out already and I wasn't even aware they were on sale yet. And when I go to the Bandai web page to look them up, it keeps redirecting me to their international store and there is no Macross products there. That did not used to happen. They were not discussed in this thread much at all. As far as I can tell the pre-order date was not even posted here once. Are we keeping all information about ordering, including the pre-order madness date, in the pre-order pinned thread now? That seems ridiculous to me, even for this super strict forum. Or is it that nobody cares about that release so there was not much discussion? The only reason I'm bringing this up is that I'm concerned that I will miss a release I do care about from lack of info. Thank you!

Since that new world wide agreement does not include SDFM, DYRL or Macross Plus I'm wondering if Bandai is focusing on the shows and movies that are included to see how that goes. To be honest I only have so much geek budget to go around and I've been relieved that there wasn't a DX Valk that I wanted for a while. But I would still like Max & Miria VF-1Js and a TV Kaki at some point.

I thought it was understood that NY no longer exists. First Nin-Nin came up when you went to the NY website and now it's this: https://materialmatcha.com/ Anyway they are toast.

Not sure why you care so much about other people's spending habits. But for your info, this is the second Bandai DX I've ordered from Luna Park and both times they shipped DHL and somehow avoided the border taxes. They charge quite a bit for shipping, so they may be including the taxes ahead of time like Amazon Japan and there are no surprise fees later. Or maybe they are marking down the value like AE and others. Not sure. Yes I paid the late tax for this, but I was expecting another tax assault later that did not happen so that's good. Oh, and you were also concerned about me buying the Lego UCS AT-AT earlier. Just to keep you informed I purchased it last night and I'm really looking forward to assembling it. 👍

The FOMO kicked in. I caved and used my N-Y refund to buy this set from Luna Park. And it's now costing me $70 CAD more...... Damn you N-Y!!! Luna Park has about the same price as the Ebay sellers I'm seeing, but I would rather buy from a store. I really wish we could get these things closer to MSRP. This figure is now my second most expensive nerd purchase after HasLab Unicron which is crazy. Now I wait to see if Luna Park actually has stock to send me. Embrace the suck!!! 😭

Yup. I skipped the Falcon and the Star Destroyer UCS sets due to cost and lack of space, but I'm not skipping this one. I'm selling a few figures to help pay for it. Same thing I did for the HasLab Unicron. To make the wife happy.

Believe it or not I managed to get a refund from Nippon Yassan by complaining to PayPal. Thankfully I was still within 6 months. Now to decide if I really want this armor set after all. It’s been an expensive year. Do we think this set will be easier to get for a decent price in the future like Roy? Or will the price go up?

And I'm getting more and more concerned about my NY order. Still radio silence and ignored tickets. Pretty soon I'll be putting in a PayPal complaint. Edit: I just submitted my PayPal dispute. It's a shame because I have used NY for many years and appreciated them marking down my packages so I could avoid taxes. But enough is enough. I also find it hilarious that when you start the PayPal dispute process NY actually have a note on the PP page that lets you know that if you raise a dispute all your orders will be stopped while the dispute is being performed. And as everyone knows by now, your account will be closed after the dispute.

I'm actually hoping we get a bit of a break for the VF-1s because it's been an expensive year. But I would still like TV Max & Miria VF-1Js and a TV Kaki.....pretty soonish.... I originally planned to get the movie Skull squad, but after getting the TV Roy and 1D I'm hooked on the TV versions now. I like the variety of colours.

Yeah I once said I only want one DX valk and I now own five.

I thought that as well, and they may just be behind on receiving this set, but they don't reply to helpdesk tickets so I'm having to guess. I'll most likely just wait a little while longer. But before 6 months is up I'll be filing a PayPal dispute. Yeah, I have 5 of these Bandai DX bots now so I'm a little more used to it, but it still sucks. Thank you for the advice! If NY falls through I will embrace the suck and buy one elsewhere. 🙂

I foolishly ordered this through NY. I have not been screwed by them yet so I thought my luck would hold out. But I have not received a peep from NY about this order and they ignored my ticket as usual. Normally I would have more patience, but it's NY so paranoia is kicking in. When I check Ebay and Okiniland the prices seem high to me. Some of you were saying the prices aren't too bad for this set on Ebay etc. but I'm not seeing that. Am I just not searching correctly, or are we saying that Okiniland's price of $342 USD plus shipping is pretty good? The best price I've seen on Ebay is $392 USD including shipping from Japan. I paid $370 total from NY. I'm weighing my options because I'm thinking about doing a PayPal dispute with NY. But I ordered on May 21st so I'm only at 5 months. I'm used to buying MP Transformers at a 30% discount from Japan so paying so much over the $288 MSRP of this set is killing me.

I forgot some things in the survey, but I'm thinking we could do it more than once? 😀

Not sure where to post this. I saw on Twitter that Bandai had a QR code you could scan at NYCC this week to do a survey about Macross toys in Canada and the U.S. (possibly other locations, not sure). I just did the survey and I thought some of you may be interested. I assume they are trying to figure out what to sell outside of Japan? https://jp.surveymonkey.com/r/RNGJ73D Edit: QR code image added: