Felix

15 minutes ago, bleecher said:

When was your order initially placed?

It was placed on June 8th of 2019, so quite a long time ago. I think that is the day they went up for pre-order. 

I received an email from Nippon Yasan yesterday telling me that my order of Fast Packs were being prepared to ship. Then late last night I received an email that they had shipped and are now in the hands of UPS. The number shows up in the "My UPS" app.  Now a delivery date is "pending" but that is to be expected since they just received it. All signs are pointing to them actually arriving in the not to distant future.  

I will say that if anyone is looking to pick up the Project BM Kaneda and bike make sure you see pictures (or even better handle) of both pieces before you pay for anything. Medicom RAH style figures and anything with vinyl have a tendency to rot over time if the toys aren't stored or displayed correctly. I have seen Kaneda's Jacket rotten away to shreds on a couple of these as well as spit bike tires. Also the Medicom RAH buck is notoriously fragile.  I'm not saying don't track one down, just be careful as you shop. I Have the set on display and mine has no problems at all, but it has been inside a toy display cabinet in a cool room with no sunlight. 

I cannot believe how broken hearted I am about hearing that CN has pulled the plug. No show that I have ever watched has played the long game on a joke, a plot point, or even a minor reference better than Venture Brothers. I still have hope that we get a conclusion, but who knows. Honestly, this isn't the first time this has happened with this show, but looks pretty final now. Maybe one of the streaming services looking for some quality content will pick it up and give them a chance to complete the story.

I had one in my cart and was checking out at HLJ and it went out of stock as I was hitting submit! Ugh.... I'll keep looking. Oh well.

Glad I stopped to pregame a little. Turns out I had to reset my HLJ password as well. That would have freaked me out on the day of. Got that taken care of. I'll see all of you guys for the F5 party on Friday morning.

If I remember correctly, I usually have a much easier time getting the Bandai exclusives than the standard releases because of the reservation window. I mean, yeah you have to pay your $$$ now and then wait, but we aren't in this hobby for sound economic decisions are we?

I got my notification for payment from AmiAmi yesterday. Now the waiting begins.

Just now, Focslain said:

No, it's them getting there money back.

And I was wrong it was $100 US

I figured that was the case. I also assume that we will be getting a general release at some point. I can wait for that. 

29 minutes ago, Focslain said:

$215 was the NZ price. the US price was $120 and all 9K sold out in a day anyway.

https://www.bigbadtoystore.com/Product/VariationDetails/103922

pre-order here.... I assume this is some sort of exclusive.... still a pass

7.5" tall, 100% plastic, and $215.OO US..... Damn I  really wanted one, but I'm out. I recently picked up a NEW GX-67 Battleship Arcadia for less than that, and it is huge and full of metal.

What time do they usually post the pre-orders? Seems like I remember it being 3:00am-4:00am-ish.... I can't seem to remember. 

2 hours ago, easnoddy said:

Jeez. 2 and a half months with ZERO HMR on the horizon... I may have to check out Xabungle on blu ray and consider getting into that line.

You wont regret it. The Xabuglue HMRs are amazing, as are the Dougram ones.

Ami Ami for the win. Goodnight y'all! Happy hunting!

2 hours ago, borgified said:

Has anyone seen this posted?

https://news.toyark.com/2019/02/12/star-trek-the-original-series-montgomery-scott-1-6-scale-figure-available-now-via-qmx-332251

Michael Crawford has a good review of this very figure on the front page of his "Captain Toy" site  right now. 

Spent the afternoon messing around with the new Kitz VF-1S, and I have a few thoughts:

Pros: The tampo printing is nice, as a matter of fact all of the paintwork is pretty good. The color selection for the plastics looks good and the panel lining looks nice. I also like that the landing gear is white. I like the cockpit and pilot even though I spent a couple minutes looking for Roy in all the packaging and not seeing him (he is in the pilot's seat out of the box). I kind of dig the light up feature. I feel like the engineering is pretty good. Yeah it's cribbed from others, but a lot of it works. I like the PVC hands. The fists look appropriately spherical in an 80's line art sort of way. I like that there is a gun strap included. I know that is a small thing, but it looks pretty nice. Nice elbow design.

Cons: I feel like there were some parts that were over engineered and more complicated than they needed to be. For example, the articulated hands are awful. Hate to think that extra money went into making them considering I will never use them. The proportions are weird. The legs seem too thin and the chest too thick. Likewise, the gun seems a bit chunky, but that might be a function of the light up feature. The chest piece seems to protrude too far leaving a gap. It looks like it should snap back into place somehow, but I can't seem to get it to and I am not going to force it. The transformation to different modes seems okay, but the fact that the side inserts and the neck insert are practically structural elements makes it feel more "parts-formery". Putting the heat shield into the track that it is supposed to be in was a little nerve wracking. No antenna in Gerwalk mode. The color and design of the stand. I know that the color may be a matter of taste, but the huge chunky stand is just awkward and unattractive. Excessive packaging that is very large and poorly utilized. A minor nit to pick, but it annoyed me that there was so much empty space in the box.

Worries: The plastics used for the arm transformation feel pretty flimsy and it was a little nerve wracking transforming and posing mine. That same concern extends to other plastics used throughout. Some of the joints are way to loose and others are way to tight. I alternated between praying something wouldn't snap while posing the arms and constantly readjusting the knees and hips while finding a pose I like. My head lasers are so tight I was afraid to force them any further than I did. These manufacturing tolerances may become an issue as time goes by.

Thoughts on the different modes:

Fighter: I like the nose and cockpit area. Is it 100% accurate, nope but the compromise looks okay. I dont't like that the tail section isn't level.

Gerwalk: The legs look okay, overall it seems pretty top heavy. I know that this mode is a compromise in form, and I can forgive some of its crimes. Like mentioned earlier the intakes are hard to get aligned and locked in properly.

Battroid: I feel like this mode was the focus of the design. Overall it looks pretty good, especially when in a group of other VF-1Ss on a shelf. The chest plate sits funny, but I can live with it. The metal feet keep it grounded pretty well. I will be leaving it in this mode for display.

Overall: I do not feel a need to pick another one of these up in a different paint scheme. I'm glad I have it, but I wouldn't consider it a "toy" I would play with. I like it on the shelf with my others, but I feel like it was a "nice try".  And..... In a world where we will, I assume, get a Bandai DX VF-1S, "nice try" won't be good enough for our $$$s.

Thanks guys! I was so mesmerized by that big beautiful bot that I completely missed the tiny box with the info. Either that or my eyes are getting old.  

The Green  Soltic is fantastic. Far and away the best toy version of it, which is saying a lot. Wonder when the release/pre-order date is for the Blue one. Any ideas?

The original is available to stream on Hulu, I believe.  

For some reason Nagano has always vetoed toys made from FSS. Years ago there was a small LED Mirage done that was, honestly, pretty poor. Not sure if that poisoned him against the idea or not. I love FSS and the designs are amazing. I would love to see "toys" of the mechs and characters, but that seems unlikely. Heck Bandai doesn't even have the license to make models of the Mortar Headds. To me the outline looks more like  one of the mechs from L-Gaim. Maybe the MK II or a Bat Shu. I mean, I would gladly buy FSS stuff, but I doubt that is what it is.

Truth is, I haven’t missed out on a single HMR. Even when I completely missed a pre-order. Heck, I’ve even gotten a couple on sale. If anyone doesn’t get a pre-order I wouldn’t really sweat it. There are usually extras available when they are released. 

Back up and available at HLJ. Oddly enough I was getting all kinds of errors on my PC, but the order went right through without a hiccup when I used my phone. We have all been wondering why the new design for HLJ and AmiAmi. I’m betting the answer is, “better phone based shopping...” I just received a confirmation email. 

I have both the SOC and HMR versions of Xabungle and I prefer the HMR. Yeah it has less metal, but the engineering is much better. The transformation is still pretty clunky, but that is more of an issue with the overall design. I wonder if I'll like the HMR Walker Machine better than its SOC.

7 hours ago, UN Spacy said:

...and Yamato getting the Soul treatment yet again.

 

https://tamashii.jp/special/yamato2202/

This one looks pretty cool maybe I'll finally pick one up.

I actually pretty stoked for this. I really dig the non Macross HMR releases. The Xaungle stuff is great. I hope we get more in the Dougram line as well.