rematron

There's another thread like this?! Where is it?

I'm a fighter-mode guy. The shorter nose would be fine if it weren't for the big belly and would be a little reminiscent of a real-life SU-57, which I love. But if an SU-57 had a big belly, it would throw off the whole look. The combination of short nose and big belly makes my head go straight to penguin-mode. Like, every time I look at the thing, I cannot unsee the belly flopping penguin. Now, if I were a battroid-mode guy, I would appreciate the new pose-ability but the small arms would bother me the same way a lot of people are annoyed by the skinny legs of the Yamato version. And then there's the whole new addition of a giant hunchback...

I ordered 2 from Luna Park at the same time. One arrived yesterday. I hope the other will be delivered soon. I'm surprised they weren't shipped together and hope they didn't misread my order. There were no obvious issues with my unit, so I feel lucky for that. We'll see if my luck holds out for the 2nd unit yet to arrive. I only opened my 1st up to check and did not transform. These are my brief initial thoughts, now that I've had it in hand: It's heavy, which gives it a feel of quality. The colors and tampo printing and quality of plastic are nice. But, being partial to fighter-mode, I cannot get over the big belly and huge thrusters on this thing. It's like the front half is 1/60 scale and the rear half is 1/48. A Bandai 1/60 VF-31 pilot could practically stand fully erect inside the thruster of the Bandai YF-21. My opinion is that the beefy legs were not worth this fighter-mode at all. Especially, since the beefy legs appear to be the only 'improvement' over the Yamato YF-21. Even the arms are obvious in fighter-mode just like Yamato's. Bandai had the opportunity to do great things with the YF-21, especially with the ability to learn from Yamato's version of it. They did not do great things, IMO. I will probably sell my Bandai 21's and continue to enjoy my Yamato 21 and 22's. The legs don't bother me. Taking the line art out of the equation (not that Bandai did a good job of following it anyways), my head-cannon continues to tell me that the Yamato legs are more believable anyways considering they don't provide any use at all in fighter mode and only add weight. In battroid-mode the legs don't really need to be beefy either since they are not used for thruster vectoring and it's not like the YF-21 especially needs the ability to walk around. It's just fine jumping around with its thruster backpack and using it's legs like a mosquito. Maybe, someday, Arcadia will improve upon the Yamato design.

Fair enough, but I prepaid for shipping and the ball is in their court. I should not have to hound them to come through with their service.

Yikes. Thanks for this. I was wondering if I needed to contact them or just be patient. Obviously, I need to contact them. My first and last time ordering from these guys if that's the case. Better off using Amazon at this rate and pay the extra money so not to deal with all these hassles.

Did Luna Park send you a shipping notice, or did it just show up in the mail?

Thanks!

Thanks. When did they post the release on Facebook? I'm not on it.

Thanks for your reply! Sorry for the bent lasers. I guess I'll have that to look forward to as well. How long ago did you receive it from Luna Park? Did they send a shipping email? I haven't heard anything from them. I live in North America. Not sure where you are on the globe. Thanks again.

Anybody hear from and/or received an order from Luna Park yet?

Yup, I'm waiting to hear from Luna Park as well.

Watching this thing evolve just blows me away. You're doing such an amazing job!

I really hope so. They're gonna need to come up with a canopy shield for VF-22 battroid though. And it would be nice if it were integrated somehow but I'm not sure how they could pull that off. One of the many design features I like about the VF-22 is the unorthodox canopy style.

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.

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.

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?

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?

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. 😊