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

Bandai with all their departments definitely dont make a lick of sense. They have so many specific longstanding gundam designs with massive fan demand that they won't make kits of in the desired scale. They go as far as prototyping them and then cancelling them for absolutely no reason. Best they do is redesign existing kits. Or they do things like put most wanted designs into low volume p-bandai releases, and resort to endless reissues to keep with demand, except nobody wants to pay for scalpers to buy them. Then they go on making new IP that nobody wants, and spend all their marketing on those, despite bad reception. Bandai pretty much birthed the premium third party scene by creating masses of diehard fans of specific designs with no intention to merchandise anything. The those companies just showed up to fill the demand, and now have evolved into making higher quality collector toys than bandai. You know even their gaming division is as also a mess when tekken's director goes on stage at tokyo game show to call them out on the lack of marketing support for all their other smaller game IPs that needs the marketing push overseas. They axe beloved gundam games that people want ported, while porting the ones nobody asked for. Then throw all their money at metaverse just to be laughed at. Their nonsensical macross release are just a tiny fraction of their insanity. Everything they do is induces head scratching, and it's their fault when i bald. I can't even find an image of it without being flooded with pics of the aoshima's vfg kit these days. I don't think I've ever even seen it in battroid form lol

Since this topic has gone towards the deep end, if one was to have another gift them the entire product, do they win this discussion? 🤪

My amiami invoice came in. Surface 3340 Air Parcel (not small packet) 6860 DHL 7585 EMS 7540 Small packet wasnt even listed, so I guess my other items pushed it over the limit. They were 4 littlearmory kits. mp5k coffer, m870 tactical, and the lycoris recoil collab chisato and takina kits. Too lazy to check weights but from my experience with those kits, that's probably slightly more than 200g. As for my durandal, it did come with packing protection. I don't believe there was any skimping in packaging. Things seem to line up with what MKT said. From my experience, Surface, small packet, SAL, EMS, all the national post options almost always arrive in pristine condition. It sometimes makes me wonder about the neccesity of all the packing protection inside. So I can attest to the fact that between Japan post, the boat/mail plane, and my local post, there is absolutely no malevolence towards boxes. My time using couriers like DHL and Fedex during lockdown though, seem to suggest dragging the boxes accross some nasty floor is a bare minimum. Things that I get from murica, usually go through UPS or USPS, often look like they have gone through wrestling matches. My friend recently bought a PC case from the states for example, and there was a fist sized hole in the box, almost as if someone drove a forklift through it at an angle while it was tumbling... The point is, I'm inclined to trust japan post, the boats and airline cargo, and my local post office, way more than premium priced couriers and other posts offices. There's a lot less inflated brokerage fee shenanigans that goes on with my local post too. Anyway, looks like surface it is. Paying more than double for anything else and potentially much worse handling is not the way to go for me lol.

The thing is, hobby search sent my Max's Durandal as a small packet for just 1800 yen last year. So a "very small" box is apparently enough to stuff a whole valk with super parts in, if retailers actually wanted to be good to other customers, as opposed to treating the couriers. I guess the true cost is paid for by suffering the wait for their PO lottery results though lol

I am simultaneously wishful that the long pause from releasing the rest of the 25s means they got enough flak and time to fix things, like the droopy arm guns on the AX Hayate reissue, while also not actually counting on them to ever finish the gang, because that's how bandai rolls... When the time comes that the latter is evidently the case, I might just cave and try to grab one of these despite the sad joints. Hopefully those fuselage hinges and gun pods don't auto crack over time, like how all the old ones in the scary unopened mandarake listings seem to suggest...

If that's the difference, with my other items present, sounds like surface might be the way to go. I realize that now, after what kajnrig said. I keep forgetting which stores let you change these things because they all have different policies and invoicing proceedures. 🤪

I think that sounds to be around the range of size tiers where the rates near the end of trading places with surface parcel lol. Not sure if the other stuff in the order will tip things into the upper end rates for air sp. Maybe I'll wait for invoice and hope amiami lets me change if it does end up cheaper, or at least for same price but faster shipping

Anyone know or have a guess at whether surface parcel or air small packet would be cheaper for this box, plus small stuff that amount to approximately 1 hg kit in size and weight? To my understanding, air small packeet should be cheaper, until it nears the limit and suddenly leapfrogs surface parcel's starting rate, but I can't judge which side of things my order would fall on... I have ordred with surface right now, Not sure if I should to change to air sp.

I think of the Hs as the anubis head too, and it kind of feels like cheating in mechanical design for a valk head to be structured like that tbh. The Ba imo is pretty much the VF-14's squid head. Don't see any resemblance to Stitch in either one though

I feel like bandai has already forgotten ozma and luca, along with the rest of the AX, draken, superpacks, etc. They probably intentionally plugged the thoughts of tornado packs by how they released alto and micheal's 25 with bundled super packs too lol Maybe the 27 has a better chance, because it hasn't been reissued yet, and the 30 maybe whenever the game's big anniv comes up. To my understanding though, the 27 requres a brace in battroid more so than the 30 though, and could do with some updates to fix that. Given that these revivals seem to not contain much design changes, I'm not sure there's much hope for fixes lol