Chronocidal

Judging by the package contents, it looked like Bandai actually included two separate sets of shoulders with the fins in both positions, rather than make them move. I'm not going to pretend it makes any sense, but Bandai certainly aren't known for trying that hard either.

After some of the disasters involving Squeenix's FFXIV statues, I don't trust anything about their production quality.

See, right there is where I think the price should have been from the start. I'd seriously consider grabbing one more if I didn't have other priorities at the moment.

Having the ports for firing forward doesn't mean the doors shouldn't open to fire outward when the ports aren't usable though. Those ports are only good for use in fighter mode. What's always been funny to me is how the YF-29 just went completely overboard on this concept though. Not only can it fire through the ports or open the doors, but the entire launcher bays rotate.

The relative lack of demand doesn't surprise me. Between the 171's terrible history, and the Yamato VF-17 just existing, I can't imagine anyone really attached to that design is scrambling to pick one up.

I think a significant portion of the weirdness comes from the fact that the nose of the 171 makes up a significant portion of the torso, which is just completely absent on this "17" version. There's just nothing there to look like it even connects to itself, and the legs are just left floating around the nosecone.

If they ever get around to making the super packs, the hardpoints will also work as a ready-made attachment point for them under the wings. Which.. boy I'll be really curious if Bandai even bothers with those, or whether they function at all. All of the packs in Macross7 were pretty janky in their implementation (except for the VF-11, which came from Plus).

Yeesh.. I mean, it's stupid, but I absolutely believe Bandai would cut costs by not making the hinge and missile parts for the legs, since they weren't shown in the animation. "If we didn't see it, it didn't exist."

I'm just committed to breaking them off entirely on at least one of mine, can you tell if they're glued in as a separate piece, or actually molded together with the shoulders? If they're molded on, I'm just going to saw them off of the sideways gerwalk set, that looks even dumber to begin with.

Boy, I can't wait to see how terribly the arms and gunpod fit with the packs on. Pretty telling they didn't bother to mount it for the display.

As one who has read the original NeverEnding Story in book form, that's a very succinct way to describe the differences.

Yeah, this one was a hot topic a while back when it was revealed. I'm not ashamed to admit I ordered one just for the sheer hilarity, but the reception seems to be a mix of high comedy and despair. The amazing part of this to me is that it might actually be the best-looking jet transformer we've gotten from Takara in a very long time.

I'm not sure, but I think at some point they may have changed how HLJ places charges in yen? I've had my paypal linked to my account for a long time, and always flagged to use yen by default, but they might not accept new requests to use that method. I wouldn't quite blame them, since the way the exchange rate has fluctuated has resulted in some wild price differences over the past couple of years.

Yeah, I'm in no rush to receive anything at this point. If the sites don't mind holding my stuff, I'm happy to let them do so until the shipping options open up again.

Yeah, once they've put out product images, it's pretty unlikely Bandai will make any changes at all, no matter what feedback they get. They sat on the YF-21 for so many years, and had so much time to correct their bad decisions, but nothing ever changed from that first prototype.

It's fixed, the page was broken and listed as out of stock, try again now. I think they prematurely added all of the products to the main page, and then had to re-list and re-link all of the Bandai products they added, because the pages were all 404 errors.

Up on AE, go one no fuss. https://anime-export.com/index.php?product=97550 HLJ seems to be having web issues though, it's listed on the main page, but the link is dead. Seems that they added all of the Bandai products to the front page, but none of the individual item pages are ready. Edit: Working now: https://www.hlj.com/dx-chogokin-vf-17s-nightmare-stealth-valkyrie-gamlin-kizaki-s-banc692672

I think we're firmly in the realm of Bandai retreading designs that Yamato already covered the demand for a decade ago, and we're in a market that didn't have that much demand to begin with. I'll see if I can pick up an HLJ or AE order, but I'm not going to stress over it. I should really be asleep before they go on sale, but I would not be surprised to see them still available when I wake up.

Interesting, I will be interested to see how that goes, I have a pair ordered there.

Being tomorrow would put it tonight around midnight PST, depending on timezones and daylight savings shenaniganry.

I think the 171 was always supposed to have the single port, but it moved up to the top of edge of the shoulder plate in fighter mode, since the shoulders were compressed so much. Man.. I went looking for scenes in Frontier where they might have used those ports, but got sucked into just watching a bunch of episodes. Time for a rewatch, clearly.

Yeah, unfortunately, no part of that art makes even the slightest lick of sense.

Yeah, I'm just holding off shipping anything until another option exists. Thanks for the info though, good to hear the details confirmed.

For all they get transformed, I wound up picking up a few of the 1/72 kits. Can leave the posable ones in battroid, and display the fighters in flight without any worries about the legs dropping off. I'll definitely spring for a Millia if they make it, but we'll see how the first one sells. If it starts getting dumped into the bargain bin, I'll probably grab one on amazon in case it just turns into a one-and-done.

As fun as it is to paint them as the villain for all sorts of reasons, I think it just all comes down to them doing everything in their power to min-max their profit margins. If they can make a quick-turn reboxing of the 171 with minimal new parts molding, and pass it off as the companion to their Fire Valk? You bet they're going to do everything they can to minimize the effort and expense involved. I frankly would have rather had straight repaints of the 171, but it is what it is, and if Bandai can be trusted to do one thing, it's that they'll never backtrack or admit their mistakes or bad decisions, no matter how obvious or stupid.