PointBlankSniper

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.

1 hour ago, Chronocidal said:

(And I still want that red Klan VF-25S )

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.

7 hours ago, Slave IV said:

Surface is almost always the way to go. The only time it isn’t is for very small items that cost less to ship small packet so you get it faster and cheaper that way. Saving $10 or more per shipment adds up quick!

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...

1 hour ago, kajnrig said:

Got a payment request from Amiami. Cheapest shipping was 3160 yen for boat mail, or ~$230 total. I went with air mail for 4860, which cuts down on shipping time by hopefully 2+ months and is only $10 or so more thanks to the exchange rate.

That's $20-50 cheaper than stores stateside (+ tax), which isn't anything to sneeze at.

If that's the difference, with my other items present, sounds like surface might be the way to go.

1 minute ago, MKT said:

Amiami does let you change shipping method when they invoice you as the item comes into stock, so you'll be able to judge which shipping is better for you. 
 

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

Sometimes they reopen closer to release date for w/e reason. Including the hobbysearch lottery. I just nabbed myself a 171EX that reopened on amiami sometime around 21's PO madness, and it think it's still open. Also got in on the 19's lottery recently, and mirage's AX lottery before that for the same reason, but failed those. And then there's camping mandarake after release. That's how I finally got to throw money at someone for a 19.

Don't think I can justify grabbing a 21 any time soon, now that I have that burning hole the size of two valks and some other accompanying toys in my savings 😭

1 hour ago, borgified said:

I honestly say that Bandai should re-engineer the Chronos (a la 31) and make another production run in either the Red or Blue. There’s no doubt that collectors will be willing to pick up another unit in a different  colour swash. 
But Bandai loves to pull the rug out and say it never existed. 

As similar as they look, the 30's body folds very differently from the 31's though. It would no longer be the same thing if they replaced the whole mechanism. Based on the reviews I've seen, the braces are kind of optional anyway. I think a few small hack job changes like adding some folding tabs for support, or to lock things in place should be enough.

6 hours ago, IIymij said:

what is this? I've never seen this before

 

Think it's from the master file

2 hours ago, kajnrig said:

Que? Beam cannon-equipped Super pack?

Should playback at the relevant timestamp there

In the midst of the YF-21 preorder madness, I noticed amiami had these readily available for preorder, and under msrp at that.

Then I got seduced by this footage:

At the thought of bandai never completing product lines, which means waiting for teal CF being a bad gamble, I buckled.

RIP wallet. 😭 Wasn't planning on stomaching the USD markups for the 21 anyway. Will just have to go on the hunt again near release, or on mandarake afterward. Still have an affordable 19 to hunt for too...

While we are huffing the 22 hopium, I'd like for bandai to throw in the super pack with the beam cannon  😃

17 minutes ago, Test_Pilot_2 said:

Thank you for helping me manage my expectations. I'm expecting them to "nope" me then. All I can do is ask, right?

Yeah, you can try asking them. They should reply in a business day or two.

2 minutes ago, Test_Pilot_2 said:

I realized I managed to snag both my VF-0/Ghost and YF-21 from AmiAmi, release dates are May and June respectively... Does anyone have insight on if AmiAmi will entertain combining those two items to ship together?

From my experience, both hobby search and amiami are a stick in the mud when it comes to arranging shipment in ways the recombination tools on their site isn't made to handle. Cross month preorders being one of those things they won't do, even if you know they are literally on consecutive days split between the two months. At most, amiami does have the function to let you tack on additional already in stock items to a released prerorder before their payment deadline. Hobby search will just nope you in that regard.

The other stores that offer warehouse services and handle that kind of stuff through messaging is much more flexible in these situations, but generally cost more. You get what you pay for i guess.

Its #6 on the robot rankings at hobby search. Looks like bandai couldn't even muster up enough stock for it to reach the first page of those scrolling ranks 💀

Tried amiami just now. The button turned orange a few seconds late, then seems like it instantly got botted to no stock the moment I loaded to cart, and then to preorder closed. Button came back and cycled through the same thing a few times before it stayed closed. lmao

2 hours ago, Mommar said:

I have two, they're both fine.  Those people on Mandarake have some ludicrous chemical issues in their apartments... or are massive chain smokers.

Assuming you display the two units, doesn't that point towards the styrofoam? If they are out of the box, they wouldnt be in contact with the stuff. But unopened and then stashed at mandarake makes them perfect candidates for yellowing.

Can't deny that mandarake stuff, whether its the store or previous owners, may have some nasty fumes though. Last year, I got a gunpla from them with a heavy musty(?) smell and extremely murky yellow factory sealed bags for the runners. The runners inside smelled as bad as outside. I cut, sanded, and then washed the kit with baking soda, vinegar, various soap, isopropanol, etc, and it still smells to this day after building it... fortunately the parts aren't yellowed though

I have seen a 30 displayed in a basement shop of a concrete commercial building in asia within the past month. Take those conditions as you will. The thing was significantly unevenly yellowed, even though it was only moderately yellowed overall. I would probably have for the price had I not noticed, or gone on to try to nab one elsewhere, if not for seeing one in person looking like that.

Eversince seeing theories of styrofoam speeding up yellowing, I've been more worried about unopened white valks with foam packaging than lightly used ones.

The 262 is probably the only one I have no such worries for, since it's so dark.

If they ever give the 262 another chance, I'd like for them to give it some renewal treatment and put the sword in a hatch in the shins, even if a folding hinged sword looks kinda fugly.