PointBlankSniper

I think they've been that way for decades... We'll know how they handle equipment packs once the YF-21 releases. It comes with fold booster struts, while the 19 lacks that as well as weapons and fast packs. Bandai is literally setting themselves up with the need to demonstrate how they will handle these things under WWM releases. I wouldn't be surprised if they just prove they will only continue to release incomplete collections for decades to come though lol.

You have it backwards. The AI model is well trained on bandai's long standing history of releases. At which point you would think they don't need to use said AI because they can do it themselves. But they still use it, because bandai.

In the midst of enless second hands and same colored AX in circulation, gotta use up the blue paint and plastic, and deny collectors of completing story sets. Just another round of typical bandai

I thought it was just to flex how it has not horrifically yellowed 😂

Finally got mine. The bendies are very bent, but shouldn't be a big deal if they can be fixed with heat. Front landing gear doors don't seem to align if pressed flush, so I have them bulged by a hair for now. Not sure if its fixable. One arm came untabbed and won't budge, but I haven't learned it's articulation yet, so it's not really an issue for now. Noticed a stressed nub mark on the instrument panel when I stuck the Alto in the cockpit. Haven't tried anything else yet. Tbh, nothing seems out of line knowing bandai's usual jank, and having not even done a first transformation. It's back in the box for now, until im not lazy.

On both of them, it says resin cast. And then big reflection blocks rest of the important text on the 22. On the MAXL, it says on sale now, with a whopping price tag of "probably not a plamo kit"

NGL, this looks kind of like they went through so many revisions to test ideas, that they completely forgot what the original design looks like, by the time they settled on what design points to keep.

They may as well do that sooner with macross 7 stuff they keep pretending to do, and reinvent canon by making all the massive proportion changes to the VF-22 to explain why it occupies a different number from the prototype. Even all the different versions of the 19 don't get new numbers, so the differences must be massive here 🤪. We can then pretend all the retro morphing animations must have hidden the fact that the 22 had been a different airframe structure from the 21 all along 🙃

Aren't those only from the CF's armor pack? Since this is not teal, bandai can get away with this one.

I will look past all the flaws if they manage to make the 22 perfect transformation, including the internally stowed gunpods. I imagine since there is no need for the fast pack belly armor, that material thickness would be recovered as free space to make the integral belly plates just barely clear the floor on landing gears without using those partsforming dummy gunpods. I won't complain even if it looks like drooping tumors if they actually pull it off. I'm sure that would make for some horrifically malformed skirts in battroid though rofl.

This franchise as a history of telescoping leg segements, it's too late to suddenly say its too hard to be done. There have also been plenty examples of roll pins in panels no thicker than a credit card or two, and the toys still hold up. Considering the product line and the price point, metal parts should not even be off the table either. Its not that complicated to give the collar plate two or three folds into a V or U shape, and then run a peg or tab through them, to be an "accordion". The vf-31's body is basically already vertically held together like that, despite being much more disproportionate. it's even simpler though, to just turn that collar plate into two trays that slide under and over each other to double up as locking tabs on opposite ends and double the total thickness if strenth was a concern. If anything, collapsing the plate to reduce overhang in any way, and adding thickness and fastening points between the backpack and the body should only make the whole toy sturdier. Bandai regularly does far more fiddly things than this. The crux of the problem though, as seen above, is that none of this would actually be neccessary if the proportoins weren't so arbitrarily inaccurate in the first place. Since they are going the inaccurate route, they could have made the proportions into anything to avoid the gap as well. In either case, the size of that gap didn't need to be there in the first place.

Ignoring the cockpit, sombody is probably going to make the advance parts too lol

The swivel calf already blatantly contradicts official transformation though... and doesn't seem to be meaningful or neccessary... Meanwhile the yamie has the non canonical retracting nose and everyone seems to be in universal agreement that its the best reimagination ever. Not sure how a retracting backpack can't be done "at this price point using these materials" either. The price is already way above everything in the product line with no discernable reason. These toys already often have smaller joints that need to carry more load than this. As far as I can tell, all we need is the collar plate to fold or slide over itself.

I thought the yellow camera was supposed to be an obvious selling point. They might have even officially pointed it out somewhere that I was meant to be more color accuarate than the original release. Part of the reason I was sold on this release was because of how it matched the canopy better, and looked a little more unique than common glowy clear green bits in mechas.

It looks like you can stand a whole other valk in there to hold it up