PointBlankSniper

The issue is that, I don't feel like a story is generally very compelling or immersive if the foregone conclusion from the track record is that the franchise has a promise to always leave a bunch of loose ends with bad unfinished writing. They need to wrap up their old teasers before I can trust them with starting something new. There can only be so many surviving shady factions trying to overthrow NUNS before you start to roll your eyes and wonder where the rest of them are when the next group tries the same stunt. I also don't find it very immersive when stories like MCU or comics leave so many villains hanging that they feel like there are more villians and heroes fighting them than there are civillians to protect. UC Gundam over crowds itself in much the same way, with so many side stories set during the one year war, that there are now more hidden wars and gundams than there are probably number of mobile suits and battles that canonically could have existed during that war. Macross doesn't trap itself like that because it doesn't keep going backwards on its timeline. If that's a pitfall being in Gundam's shadow let it dodge, I'm glad its there, and hope it stays there. Macross has a single story that keeps going forward, so all the valkyrie development lore makes sense, and happens as a consequence of all the implied or glossed over politics. The fold magic and protoculture lore also keeps getting built upon. That's the stuff I'm invested in being explained and why I care about continuity. I'm not bent on having old characters appear. That was just an example of how to wrap things up. But it sounds like what you want to see is bound by the forgone conclusion that the writing will be bad, so you'd rather the franchise trash itself by feeding new fodder into it. That's literally exactly what I don't want the franchise to feed into in my first sentence in this post, and hope they pull themselves out of with full effort.

I'm honestly not fond of getting new characters that might be wimpier with each iteration. If sunrise has freedom to be as detached as they wanted, it's entirely possible we get digimon kiddies in the next one, with holographic furry mascots that summon magic fighter jets, and still claim continuity with the rest of the franchise lmao. From my experience, stories dealing with an established commanding superior you can't trust, makes for a much more intriguing story than just charging at the obvious big bad. I'd rather all the past aces come back, and star in the next series, rather than be mere cameos, and find out Lady M is a giant interdimensional cthulu monster that ate the protoculture, then teaming up to repel her. IMO sequels being hard to get into is a blanket excuse to shut down continuity. It just depends how the new story is introduced and framed.

It seems Absolute Live is on Disney+, so Harmony Gold somehow has no hold over Megaroad-01 or Max himself I do believe it was implied that there was more to Heimdall than just the forces present in the movie. And I originally had Epsilon on my list of loose ends too, but it started to look like I was padding the list with petty stuff so I removed it lol. Actually don't remember the telepathic hive mind being cleared out by Brera, but it's been too long. I also want a more conclusive closure to Alto and the Vajra than just beaming a message made of symbolism, but once again, list was getting long.

This isn't on Satelight's production and marketing schedule though. I doubt Sunrise will copy the same pattern. If that was entirely Kawamori's decision to preview like that in the past, I doubt he is involved enough with this series to call those shots this time. He should currently be busy at the helm of the new Aquarion at Satelight. Really hoping it's Sunrise proper thats doing all the work, with the full unlimited budget treatment, and not heavily subbed out to Sunrise Beyond or other low budget subsidiaries like where most TV gundam series have gone... They can cook for as long as they want if it is at least animated as seriously animated as gundam unicorn and other subseqent big budget OVA/movie releases. And hopefully it's more relevant to existing loose ends and lore, like Lady M, Heimdall, maybe the NUNS politics that Max left behind, the shady group that Grace was part of, etc. IMO we honestly don't need more vaguely introduced conspiracies that won't get tied up by the end.

The fun part is when amazon sells both of those bendy units to the next customer as new. This is apparently not uncommon with stuff like graphic cards, where people swap in lower models, only to be caught by the next customer, because they don't insepct returns and ship them out as new stock. While I don't condone sneakily offloading problems to someone else, both those corportate giants deserve their bad rap out of this lol

Since this thread is alive again, I'd just like to report that I finally played with mine a bit. I accidentally put a considerable amount of force on one of the triangles while it was folded, during transformation, and absolutely nothing happened. 🙃 These revival triangles are hella strong and definitely not made of explodium like CFs I heard so much of. There's more of a possibility that the tips and edges of those triagles can be mushed against it's own folded layer because there are no indications of their intended range of motion, but that is honestly a very minor concern compared to cracking or exploding. Trying to find the magic angle of the bicep for least stress and crookedness in fighter mode, and trying to to close the gerwalk intake extension weren't fun though. Going into battroid, the neck plate spin was real weird, and trying to line the spine's scalloped out spot with the major hinge section was somehow harder than it should be. But overall, I don't think it was as complicated to transform as I heard. Would definitely like to see a teal CF revival down the road. Especially if they made the RFV with dual the wing top fold boosters and tossed in all the big bombs. Bandai could probably even do away with the partsforming RVF brace if they just changed up the spine peg or added an integral adapter. There seems to be a lot of space to hide things between the dorsal panel and legs. A 17 with super parts would be nice too. Don't want to monkey paw this stuff into existence too soon though. Wallet needs to rest 😭

I hope someone figures out a way to change in some bigger custom landing gears that fix the ground clearance, if they can even be removed. I've been thinking of trying to add some layers of tape on the tires, just to see if that's enough for ground clearance while still fitting in the door. At times like these, I wish my had my unit in hand, not on a slow boat, so I don't have to imagine things and talk out of my bum lol.

Realistically, they just need to change the canopy, heat shield, face, and the two belly plates to call it the 22S. That's only all of 5 pieces. Recently, I've noticed there are depictions that differentiate the internal gunpod from the external ones, like in the Macross 30 game. They just slap the external pods as additions under the belly plate bulge that houses the internal ones, so I guess spawning those guns out of nowhere for battroid is not even an issue anymore. Ground clearance shenanigans even without fast pack would be fun to see though. 🤡 If they feel really adventurous, they could throw in the belly missile bay gimmick. Or cut some slots in the wing roots to peg the super parts, and proceed to never release them lol. I've been thinking, those loose wing flaps could also probably be replaced with ones that have pylon mounts that reach forward under the wing, to carry external missiles like in the master file. Not actually counting on bandai to do that, but maybe someone will cook up a mod like that. As for recpetion of this mold, I think some people canceled their orders after hearing about all the quality issues, so there's a few retail units still in stock.

If duping distributors and retailers, and then offloading unwanted stock to them is bandai's main businiess, that would make perfect sense. At this point, bandai has a much stronger pattern of not acting in favor of their primary objective. I'm still waiting to see how they justify spending like a billion to make their meta verse, which is just a barebones and unoptimized copy of vrchat, and using it as a link to p-bandai's site lmao. I think according to background lore, the 31A is the result of the hypernova project, where Yang Neuman was invovled to correct his old mistake of making a super plane for a special pilot, This time, its design for the grunts, so its supposedly on track as the new CF unit of NUNS, to replace the 171. That mean's there's a chance 31A will be literal fodder in the next series. That may give it an imminent chance at rerelease. We just have to hope sunrise doesn't drag the next series' production timeline out to 2041, or reinvent the lore entirely 🙃

Don't know how low that is, but it's actually 24500 yen, with free shipping at least to your proxy, on amazon jp right now. lol

I've been looking around for a comparison to the old one. Seems this is the only one. I've seen a couple other photos with it posed against the box, so it seems like the canopy is definitely clearer than what is shown on the box art. I can make out the fact that Hayate has painted eyes looking through it. Other than that, there is only a hand full of posts about it on JP twitter that aren't retailer ads. A couple were first time collectors or people that missed out on Web exclusive super packs. One of them had to RMA it because one of the arms somehow couldn't transform, and has already gotten it back fixed. One post said Yodobashi Camera has already price cut it. I just looked it up myself, seems to be 28,400 yen https://www.yodobashi.com/product/100000001008466909/ Personally, I was hoping they took the AX's wing hinge with the pylon jacks to make it compatible with the Lil Drakens without the funny adapters, or just to up the modular fun factor in general, but the photos I saw confirmed that it didn't happen. Looks like this was a very meh release even in Japan. Will be interesting to see how Bandai treats the rest of the Seigfrieds.

As with anything that has finite production runs, the price only goes up with the yellowing. Have you seen gundam build metaverse? Or Kyoukai Senki? They are a profound experience, but in the opposite way of what you are thinking. It's possible that the survival of the Macross brand is at risk in these new hands lol.

I don't think it's that low or niche. There are no numbers, but I'm sure they at least ship by palettes and container, enough to warrant mass production. But I also don't think Disney will be that big a boost. Kid's aren't gonna watch crunchy old anime, nor are western casuals gonna care about old japanese music or idol shows. When it comes to toys, complex transformations and massive price tags are gonna put off the kiddies and casual adults too. Anyway, the latest VF-31J has been released to no fanfare, or had any reviews, and has been readily in stock for weeks now. Meanwhile the older release is still clogged up in the second hand market.

Nothing has been mentioned at all. Probably just people panic selling because Hayate got a revival. But said revival also isn't selling very well, so that may lower the chances of the rest of the line returning, because bandai often has their head in their bums and takes hints from sales figures of products with no demand because of existing over supply. Imma be sad if they don't redeem themselves with Arad's super parts and jump straight into the armored parts instead though.

That Fire Valkyrie display is totally typical bandai vaporware lol. There's no sign that it's actually a project in motion. I'm not big on the valkyrie itself, especially the mouth. But together with the sound booster, it makes for a cool piece. Not sure I can stomach the price of that though, or the way bandai may or may not make the accessory at all.... I definitely welcome it getting us closer to a Blazer Valkyrie though. That one is extra different from the YF-19 and has a cool head, so I can justify wanting another 19 by that. 😁

Actually kind of curious to see if they will milk the exact same mold some more, along with the head design, to pump out some 31J kais, since that one is kind of written out of canon now. That could be one way to retcon their Delta revivals and start releasing missiles for everyone lol.

I personally like they orange one more. The main color covers more of the plane and makes it less monochrome looking. Maybe the purple one would grow on me if I could see it in a different lighting that makes the gray parts pop out against the black. If they really wanted to milk the molds, I think there are ways to do it without the game. They could just promote it in an SRW game for example. Or pull off a random year anniversary and give it a one shot 5 page eplilogue manga or a minute of animation. If not, they could always just cameo it with Leon in the next series. Isamu only needed 2 seconds of screen time to make a comeback after all lmao.

Yeah, it's readily in stock at hobby search right now. Maybe that will be an incentive for bandai to put the missiles back in if they continue with the line. But it also discourages them from continuing the line and finally reaching Arad and Chuck, to hopefully include their super packs this time around lol. I wonder if anyone will review this to check for differences.

With reworked built in braces. From my understanding, it barely even needed the extra braces, so some tiny internal additions should be enough. And then a less prone to yellow plastic or finish. That or do the two other colors that they are definitely never gonna do lol

For my specific order with YF-21 and a master grade kit, It was 3700 yen for surface VS 8100-9900 yen for all the other air and courier options. Literally less than half the price. In this case, YYK is covering half the shipping fees because of delays, so I'm paying less than a quarter compared to the other options had things gone normally. 😃 For shipping to my region, air small packet is usually the cheapest, starting around 1500 yen I think. Surface parcel is the second cheapest, starting around 3000 yen but starts at a much higher weight capacity and jumps in larger incriments. So at some point between the 3-4k yen range, small packet and parcel leap frog each other in best value, until parcel just wins out in large weight incriments of low price jumps. From what I recall, EMS and couriers usually start around the 5-7k yen range for shipments in that range where the other two are still leap frogging. On top of that, post office is easier for me to reach to pick up if I miss the delivery and they don't want to drop it off. They handle packages with more care too. Then there's an enigmatic import tax system that is somehow in my favor half the time. Couriers on the other hand will just pretend to deliver and never show up, forcing me to show up at their facility in the middle of nowhere, to pay their inflated mandatory brokerage fees, even on items with values low enough to be exempt from import taxes, before I can pick up,

The VF-1 is in a diffeent scale from the rest of the line. Bandai probably designed things to be incompatible on purpuse, just to stop people from mixing accesories of mismatched scales lol.

They actually responded now. It's been the fastest in the past two months lol Anyway, I paid and got a tacking number now, so it seems like things are finally moving along for me. Now to wait for the slow boat...

Everyone else seems to have had quick responses from them. Idk why it seems like it's just me getting pulled and thrown into non regular response proceedures. I put in the surface request on top of the original shipping confirmation, and haven't heard back for either, so I assume I'm in for another month long reply loop again. I think it's been over two months since the thing released, of course there's no hurry. 🙃 Tbf, I go for slow shipping through national posts whenever possible. They tend to do a better job for the lesser cost and more convenient for me to pick up from, than expensive couriers with their additional brokerage extortion fees around here.

Ah yes, good old list of dead gunpla projects Bandai has probably sent to the combustible trash. There was MG Age-3, Age-FX and GN-X IV. Then there's MG Gafran, that google can't even find records of ever existing. Probably nobody remembers that thing anymore, but I actually have photos of its hard to see side profile from reaching my camera over the rope and shooting from the side of the frosted display lol.

If those were worth a thing to Bandai, we'd be in a parallel timeline where we would have long since had a properly designed DX Wright Immelman's VF-22 that led to a YF-21 shortly after, instead of w/e we finally got this year. Kind of like how 2 seconds of an Isamu cameo got us the 19. But I guess Hayate, Mirage, and Wright themselves aren't cameos, so the cameo valks they used hold a lot less weight to Bandai...