rematron

Release date is getting closer! 🤩

hahaha! Well, honestly, I'll be happy to wait if that means it's actually going to be made and not disappear into oblivion. 

This thread is just a little over two years old now.  I'm so hoping this gets released soon and doesn't take the almost 5 years of teasing that the Bandai YF-21 has put us through.  I really like this design a lot.

9 hours ago, MKT said:

Love the VF-27 quite a bit, perhaps we have been seeing too much 25 & 29 recently.

v2 VF-27B in stock for Yen 26k. The description in Mandarake parlance looks to be Mint in Box:

 https://order.mandarake.co.jp/order/detailPage/item?itemCode=1253099223&lang=en

Agreed.  I don't have room to display my whole collection at once but my v2 VF-27B is always out there.  Super sleek fighter mode and intimidating battroid and gerwalk.  And I love that shade of green.  I only have one but someday I'd like another to display 2 modes at once.  Although, I do have the 27y as well.

1 minute ago, ImChris5115 said:

Yes, a katana stored inside on both side of the fast pack booster that mounted on wing. 

That is wonderful!

On the wings folding flush with the inside of the backpack: Leaving the rest of the design as it is (for argument's sake) couldn't they have used a double-jointed pull-out hinge for folding and a stubby tab and slot system for stable deployment?  Then the backpack hinge plate would have room to be not as deep or even collapse a little.

I’m also a big fan of Gerwalk and agree that it’s a big part of what makes Macross. I also like to pose Valks in Gerwalk but with the arms still stowed so that the Valk looks like a bird of prey. Is there a name for that mode?

Panel Formers make sense to me in the world of Transformers because those guys are metal-based aliens that sort of morph from one form to another, right? But it doesn't seem appropriate in Macross because, how would that work in real life engineering? Maybe the more complicated panel formers are appealing to collectors who also appreciate a good 3D puzzle.  

11 hours ago, Chronocidal said:

Yeah, this is an angle I didn't catch before.  That's insane.  

Makes me wonder if they couldn't just throw some sort of accordion fold into that massive panel and decrease the gap like they did for the VF-171, but yikes.

Agreed.  And it looks like the folded wing has just enough room to fit in that space.   But, along with an accordion fold to the panel, it seems like they would be able to increase the joint length of the wing so that it lays flush to its counterpart when its folded.  But, perhaps there is some other factor like the engine nacelle that is keeping the wing from folding completely.  I'm still super excited for it, though.  It will be interesting to have it in hand and see it at all the angles that we've been wanting for the past 4 years. 

To be clear, I love Arcadia products. Anyways, this is why I stated that Arcadia “tweaked” molds. While the SV-51 and VF-19 and VF-0 are not the same molds as Yamato, they are still based on Yamato’s molds and the transformations are basically identical. Arcadia just went in to try to improve them. That seems substantially easier than engineering and creating a perfect transformation from scratch. The VF-5000 is such a design. How many Macross mechs has Arcadia designed from scratch? 

10 hours ago, no3Ljm said:

Don't worry. Arcadia preorders last longer than Bandai's 5sec preorder window.  

I'm sorry if this question has been answered a thousand times but why is this the case with Arcadia releases?  I have seen it myself since I started collecting a few years ago.  Is it because Arcadia releases are typically more expensive to purchase than Bandai? Or is it because they don't offer completely new designs very often?  I'd be tempted to be a little worried about the VF-5000 pre-order just because it's the first toy version of that model to ever be released.  It's not like a tweaked and remolded SV-51 or a VF-0D premium finish or a VF-4.  Is it that Arcadia will adjust their production number based on the number of pre-orders and just keep making them if they need to? 

13 hours ago, Duymon said:

Yeah I'm a big sucker for Greys too

Yes, PLEASE!  I would love love love Bandai to put this out.  I would buy three at least.

After pre-ordering 2 from LunaPark within the first few minutes of availability (don't really care about the price mark-up as it was my first available option when I went online to order), I'm having a moment of reflection today and appreciating the fact that this thing actually managed to make it into production and get made and I'll have it in my hand sometime in June.  😊

Got 2 from Luna Park

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I seem to remember something about the aesthetic of the leg kibble of the 19 and 21  supposing to be reminiscent of samurai armor… Or am I making that up…?

10 minutes ago, wsna said:

Sorry about that...I haven't been following this thread until recently...that and it's probably easier on the eyes not to look at the thread on your phone during a quick smoke break.

It's no problem! It's been an ongoing off and on discussion since the first photos showed up.  Lots of repetition and opinions.  I've just been glued to this thread from the get-go.

On 10/31/2023 at 9:31 AM, rematron said:

Fair point but we all have to agree that the YF-21 has a whole new special kind of anime magic necessary when it comes to those big legs disappearing into the sleek fighter.  It is, after all, the only one of Kawanori-san's designs that doesn't utilize the 'intake/engine/thruster = leg' format which enables him to 'hide' the legs in plain sight.  Even the line art and drawings I've seen don't really address how the big legs fit into the little space under the belly plates without squishing the fairly large engines up top.  Not a problem for the VF-1.  I wonder if the design was sort of a personal challenge for Kawamori-san to see if he could break away from the 'legs=engine nacelles' formula.

My defense for the Yamato design has always been that if it were 'real life', big legs wouldn't be necessary to make the mech mobile in battroid because the lift would still be generated by the 'backpack/engines and that would be the majority of the control for its lateral or vertical movement with the legs acting more like kickstands - sort of like an Appollo lunar lander or the legs of a mosquito.  This is to say nothing of how the legs look or support the weight of the TOY.  It's just my brain making a reason for this toy to look the way it does as if I were playing with it in deep imagination mode.

The Bandai design is sort of a different Macross universe in my mind where they (General Galaxy) decided that the legs needed to be big and beefy and agile for whatever reason (in case the engines break down and it still needs to be mobile?) And they (Bandai) tackled the question of what the plane would actually look like if it needed beefy legs AND engines.

Just my personal take on it.  Cheers and happy Halloween from the west side of Washington State.

@wsna: My take on the legs from a month ago. Page 49

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I’m wondering if they’ll re-release the YF-19 full set. I’ve been holding off on getting a 19 until the 21 came out. I’m in the small minority that’s not so excited about the 19.  🙂

And if we're going by the photos, it looks like it's also coming with a delimiter mode presentation attachment.

Any educated guesses on when this will get released? Does anybody have any memory of Bandai teasing something else at shows for 4 years? I do realize that covid might have played a part but we're past that for the most part and here's the prototype staring at us again. I'm an old fan of Macross but I only started collecting the toys 5 years ago, so I haven't really seen the trends.

34 minutes ago, Chronocidal said:

Yeah, it does look like they've at least slightly addressed how ugly the canopy was at first, though keep in mind that the angle viewing the nose will alter that significantly, and it's going to look better from the top down than bottom up.

Yup, you’re absolutely right. I cropped and oriented the 2023 fighter photo to better match the 2019 battroid photo and the differences are a lot more subtle than I thought in my post. I can’t stop staring at this toy. Really looking forward to it.  Time for me to give it a rest. 😅
 

2019

2023:

It does look like the actual canopy was tweaked since its debut in October 2019.  Particularly the front part of the grey obscured ‘window’ area as well as the two profile clear windows on either side. 
 

2019:

2023:

58 minutes ago, Mommar said:

That's not a guarantee.  I have a Bandai 19 with a gear that does that.

Yeah, fair enough. *knocks on wood* 🤐