Knightdramon

Really? Not one? You know there's like over 500 TF designs versus like...20-30 transformable macross designs, and you still can't find one you can say you like either mode better than a valkyrie? Not -ONE-? And are we talking about toys, or generally designs? The VF19 is actually one of my favourite, if not favourite transforming mould, but there's some pretty great transformers that look half decent in either mode. Binaltechs, Alternity, RID [2000 line], Movie lines, some Generations, most Masterpieces...

Honestly, bar the first picture, if you hadn't pointed out what was wrong, I wouldn't be able to tell. For the extremely minor issue with the silver paint on the calf...is it really such an eye-opened for you? I'd completely dismiss it since it's like half a milimetre of overspray right above the painted area. If you want to fix it though, either try to scratch some of it off with a tiny blade or find an insanely thin q-tip and try to use alcohol there.

Because we're talking about the market value. Not specifically about any allocated stock in the general geographic vicinity of Japan. And the fact that Arcadia is about to re-release, with minor tweaks, something that can still be found on ebay and some online stores for less than its original retail was.

19S is so cheap because it got a reissue along the lines, and it didn't sell too well. So there was an oversaturation on the market for a valkyrie that wasn't as popular as Yamato thought it'd be. Right around that point this fandom had a collective "oh I'll wait until it's 40-50% off", resulting in any sales for non discounted VFs being near zero. My point was more for the original being so cheap and still plentiful on the market there's no resale value in "used" samples. At the very best, people like me who got their VF19 for very cheap will just break even, everybody else will lose money. VF19 Kai, VF19S and the VF17S are still so oversaturated their "regular" market price is below their original retail price.

LOL what value? The VF19 Kai and the VF19S [especially the S] are the cheapest valkyries you can get at the moment. I got mine already discounted at like 12.000 or so yen, and even if I wanted to sell it, I doubt I'd make that money back.

Gerwalk is my prefered mode in nearly most valkyries. SV51? Either fighter or gerwalk VF1? Half gerwalk [arms back, tailfins untransformed] is my favourite. VF0? Likewise VF11? Looks awesome in gerwalk, I prefer it to fighter. VF17? Gerwalk VF19? Actually that one is battroid for me. YF21/VF22? Fighter or battroid VF25? Gerwalk

Yeah, we might have started on the wrong foot here, but it's okay, no harm done. Just to clarify a few things; I did not demand to return the item, I let them know that it wasn't what I expected and asked IF they accept returns on such cases, which they did. Then it went okay until I asked for further clarification, which I never received. It's not like I am actively trying to be the bad guy here. Seeing as they are a company which deals with customers from all over the world, they must come across questions like "where's your post code?". Surely something the majority, if not all of, Europe and USA use for their addresses must come up from time to time. If they said that they do not accept returns on items that aren't outright defective, I'd be okay as well. It's just the ignoring part that got to me.

Well seeing as I was a customer with the potential of being a return customer, they didn't do right by me. And how on Earth is a simple "I see no postal code, could you please provide me with one?" an accusation? I never accused them of bad service until well after that. A simple "I am sorry, we do not operate with postal codes in Hong Kong, if you still want to return the item, return it to the address provided" would have been sufficient and I would definitely have bought something else from them after this. EDIT: "And they thought less of me, and you don't blame them" ? -Get off your high horse brother, read exactly what I wrote, and then start accusing blame and thinking less of people.

Really? HKCollectibles? I bought my [now long since sold] VF17S from them. Was generally disappointed with the item, just checked to see if I could return it for a refund. They told me that it was okay, and I asked for a return address. Their return address was incomplete, missing the post code. I sent an email back notifying them of this...and they never, ever replied. Since I was moving out of the country a few days after that, I never had the chance to ask back for it as the back and forth would have been useless. So, um, yeah, top notch customer service...leaving a customer hanging like that.

Literally, nothing. It'd not even the final hero mecha. The only reason it stood out for me when watching the series was that it was blue. Perfectly nice airplane and design, but as far as show-appearances go, this is borderline above nothing.

As I predicted a while ago in other threads, Arcadia is playing it safe with what they're releasing. Every single release and announcement of theirs is carefully premeditated from that character popularity poll sheet that caught my eye months ago in this forum. VF1S Roy [with strike]---on the top 3 most popular valkyries VF1S Hikaru [with strike, again]---very close to that YF19-----Need you ask? Top 5 VF0D----Best sales of the VF0 series as it's the only one we never got, hero-wise. VF19Kai---whether you like it or not, it's an amazing toy and a hero character So besides the VF1J which came out for the anniversary, everything else is a hero mecha. I suspect Gamlin will be next with either VF17. I also believe they will make various changes to the Kai for this release. Not remoulding, but extra quirks like more tampo printing maybe and so on. Because otherwise it makes no sense, both the kai and the booster can be purchased for below their original retail right now, there'd be no incentive to buy a bundle.

Are we sure that these are indeed die-cast arms? Realistically, I see no other reason for those parts to be bright glossy gold on the test shot, but you never know. Pretty cool nevertheless. The 0D was the valkyrie I admired the most when watching Macross Zero [first ever macross thingie I watched as an adult going into the hobby]. It will be glorious and I'll be putting one pound aside each day for it until its release day. Will probably have cash for 2 but it never hurts lol

...sigh...why is it that macross fans must always diss on TF products when things get tight? I am a fan and collector of both macross and TFs. I appreciate each of them for their own unique take they bring on my shelves and life as a series. Why is it so hard to get past the elitism and call it a day? For better or worse, Macross designs [not figures, not yet] are the works of just one person, and this unique person puts more emphasis on them being transforming airplanes rather than transforming robots. The lack of numbers in the fanbase, wordwide, means there's a prominent lack of low-end merchandise for this franchise. Conversely, high end merchandise is prevalent [...relatively] and each of the TWO companies at the moment, tries hard to emulate what's on paper. Admittedly, bandai is doing a better job with the frontier stuff because they were designed from the get-go to be fully transformable like this. The earlier designs [like M7] use too much anime-magic. People who see the lineart of, say, the VF17 side to side with the toy and think it's 100% accurate are fooling themselves. One way or another, the VF17 is inaccurate in every mode when compared to the lineart. Furthermore, the -only- VF1 figure that transforms the way it is supposed to, based on the holly lineart, is the more recent bandai kit, which came out 30 or so years late into the franchise. So how about we tone it down a little with the elitism about lineart and accuracy and all that when 50 billion VF1 toys and model kits later, it took 30 years to produce a somewhat fragile accurate model? Transformers, on the other hand, rarely strive to be collector-oriented in their releases. And because the G1 cartoon was guilty as well of using "anime" magic to transform and translate most toys into characters, it's a similar case of compromises being made in both modes for the final product to come out. Furthermore, unlike Macross, there is more than 1 designer working on things at the moment and there are definitely more designs coming out per year. -Arguably-, Macross has like 50 different mecha designs? Maybe I'm saying a lot, but I'm counting things like the VF22 and the YF21 as different designs. Transformers Prime, which only lasted for like 3 years, had more designs than that out, counting toy designs as well. So yeah, there's quite a difference of quality and quantity in those two franchises. TF toys are just that---toys designed to appeal to kids who are drawn to a franchise of robots at war with each other. Some of the toys are taken more seriously than others [MP figures, for instance], but it's still toys for children. Revolved around a franchise of war between robots. Macross figures are high-end toys designed to appeal to more or less adults, revolved around a show which...puts very little emphasis on the robot aspect. I recently watched Macross [original series] with my sister [a near complete stranger to the franchise]. She said that initially she thought it was a show about mecha, but it really wasn't at all. The mecha are just...there, rarely used as a medium to tell the story. So, to sum up...different goals, different options, different audiences, different numbers in fanbases...can we all get along now?

Just curious. I can see why buying three of them [ridiculous as that is, but still] be ok if you want to display them in their different modes...but buying 3 and never opening them? -EXTREMELY- busy job aside, why man, why? Is there a flap on the VF25 boxes? If not, even more the reason, why man, why?

Little help here? I'm THIS close to getting this one [still available everywhere]. It does have all the extra side cover things the last Yamato release has, right? I'm kind of turned off by the bright[er] white colour though; do you see these yellowing in the future more easily than the old Yamato ones? Ah decisions, decisions...

Still available, got one. Worst case scenario I'll cancel later on. Wanted a VF17D but at that price I can't say no to how the YF29 looks

For the ones who still have a[ny] VF0 in their collections... Does it look like a brand new mould, or is the chest/back area and the legs the same from the old VF0 toys? Eagerly anticipating this!

Um...something like 14.000 yen shipped EMS or something? Which, admittedly, now it's not a huge discount considering this is the 19S' regular price more or less, but in August 2012 that was quite a bargain. Actually July, I received it on 1st of August. From all the valks in my 3rd collection reset, I think I only got the VF1S Max for retail. All the rest were after a substantial discount each.

I've read it somewhere else as well...do you guys think that Bandai/any other company in their shoes... Is losing money from the inflated aftersales? Why? Or rather, HOW? Bandai/X company actually makes all the money they would, from such a release, when the retailers buy their product and it appears on stock. I'm pretty sure there's a cost/profit ratio for each run, and Bandai's "account" is always on + profit from these, otherwise they wouldn't produce them. The over-inflated prices are mostly artificial, you know that, right guys? The VF17D with FP has been out for more than a year. Reviews are well out now, most people know the ups and downs before handling it. It's not like there's a standard influx of people who have clicked "buy now" at 380-500 USD and the rest followed suit. I'm almost certain Bandai tries actively to NOT overflow e-tailers with these [remember how 6 years back, you could buy almost any SOC from HLJ, and at one point they all went at -50% sale?].

In a way, yes. Almost halfway, or 1/4th of the way through, but relative. I got the VF19S because I found it for stupidly cheap on mandarake. I received it on possibly the worst and most stressed out day of my life. And I was awed at how good the figure was. How good a TOY it was, with all the ratchets and stiff joints and locking points, that was still an adult collectible figure. Being like, one of the 3 guys in the fandom that actually likes Macross 7 [possibly my favourite, or second favourite Macross show], I knew that I had to get Basara's valk. But with the exception of SDFM, all the hero valks come with a sister unit VF19Kai's sister unit was the VF17D...I got the VF17S on sale and was not happy with it at all. BUT...far fetched...BUT... YF19 is getting remade in a fantastic figure. *IF the YF21 gets a remake as well, we can expect the VF22S valkyries. Which means, Gamlin's VF22S with Basara's VF19P Zola...on a display at my place... Macross satisfaction---100%

Yup, remembered now, saw the video from jenius. In this picture, there's two tabs below the wings that *look* like they should tab there but aren't---is that what you're talking about?

Complementary question... The fast packs on the 17 can stay on for transformation...but when it fighter mode, do the leg clips that open and extend beneath the wings...clip on to the wings at all? I've watched one review of them and they just hang there loosely, only plugged to the leg. It *looked* as if they could snap on some part of the wing as well, thus becoming highly secure, but the reviewer didn't utilize that or that feature doesn't exist; which is correct?

The hip joints only rotate one way to get into position for battroid mode [can't remember which way], and they have to be fully extended in order to do so. For me, the hardest parts to move on my VF17S were the front landing gear covers, the damn cockpit and the rear landing gear covers. Everything else I could do without much fuss, although it was still very tight. Is the general consensus that the D was stiffer or looser than the S?

All's well...but the VF0D is THE hero valk of Macross Zero. Shin only got a VF0A with ghost in the final episode, and that thing got its head blown shortly after he first transformed into battroid. So even though it's not a final battle valk, VF0D is still a main hero valkyrie. It's the VF17D of Zero

Too much worrying people. Folks missed VF27 with FP preorders. Folks missed VF 171 CF preorders. Folks missed the YF29 Isamu preorders Likewise for the CF VF25, and RVF 25. This Ozma valkyrie will be available after release, at retail. I have faith.