Chronocidal

Only problem with that approach is that removing the legs does nothing to slim down the back end. You'd have to pull off everything including the arms, legs, the entire belly plate and the entire rear engine sliding section before you're back working with something that could theoretically be streamlined. All I'm thinking of doing is chopping the rear side panels smaller and replacing the lower arm with something that fits the cavity and doesn't need an external cover.

What's that quote about man being nothing but a miserable pile of secrets? I feel like the DX YF-21 falls squarely in the category of "a miserable pile of compromises." On the positive side, it doesn't look as bad as I first expected.. but it definitely looks better from certain perspectives than others, and anything focusing on the back half is not pretty. It's almost like it was designed to give you a real-world implementation of forced perspective, in a weird way? If you look at it from the front, the back end actually gets hidden enough that it looks proportional. From the back end though, you get the opposite, and it looks like the plane is getting sucked into a black hole from how narrow the front looks. The shape is just such a weird combination of chunky and slim, it looks like they pasted together a 1/60 fighter front end with a 1/48 engine section. I think maybe the problem my brain has is that it actually looks too chunky to fly. The back end is so bloated, it just doesn't look airworthy, or aerodynamic. It's just.. weird. The overall proportions in fighter mode aren't even that significantly different from the Yamato, but the sizes and placements of the individual components make all the difference. It definitely needs about another half inch of nose, or rather, it needs everything from the intakes to the tails yanked backwards about that much, while keeping the overall size the same. As much as they're responsible for the bulky back end though, I don't want to blame this entirely on the legs. They're the primary source of the badonk for certain, but there were a lot of other things Bandai could have done to mitigate that chonk, and they just didn't. The arm cover panels are egregiously massive, and I see absolutely no reason they could not have been made significantly smaller, while making the forearms also significantly larger to take up the space. They look absolutely puny, and don't even fill half the space they were given. There is no excuse for how small those arms are, they had all the room in the world to enlarge them, and they chose to eat the space with a panel instead. (One small caveat here.. I will give them credit for closing that space. The Yamato had a gap there from the arms not being quite the right shape to fill the cavity. The 1/100 HG kit has a much better solution than either, though.) I'm honestly sorely tempted to remove those back panels, and redesign them, and the lower arms and tails from scratch. There's really no fixing the side profile, because the bigger legs are never going to allow the side profile to look reasonable from the back half, but at least battroid would look more proportional if the arms were bulked up to match them. As it stands now, I guess my original impression remains unchanged. The legs are an improvement, but literally everything else looks worse in all modes compared with the Yamato. And yes, that includes the tampo. Extra markings are only a positive when they aren't printed by someone who's completely cross-eyed, and constantly making you question whether something is actually causing a localized dimensional distortion.

Got two inbound right now, one from AE, the other from Big in Japan. I did get the notice of my backup from Yoyakunow, but waiting on that one before I ship it just so I don't have them all shipping at once.

Oh, fair, I forgot they were different, actually. Clearly I need to rewatch it. Just got my first copy from HLJ delivered, and yeah, laser had a fair bend and stress mark at the tip. Was able to get everything mostly evened out with some tweezers and a small space heater though. I think what's kind of funny is that one of my main complaints about the design seems to have come down almost entirely to people displaying it incorrectly (it's Bandai, go figure). I was thinking the tails looked like they were mounted too far forward in all of the early pictures, and it looks like that's because people were just leaving them in their forward position. When I got it in hand and realized they actually slide back, it was a pretty big improvement. Still too much junk in that trunk, but at least it's not looking like the tails are steering from the middle of the plane anymore. Think my biggest issue is the arms now. By deciding to go for a clean look covered in panels, they forgot that the arms were those panels, and now they're stupidly tiny to fit inside. They should be bulky enough to occupy that entire space without anything but the most rearward portion to cover the hands like the Yamato did. Even just using the same approach as the HG kit would have done worlds better. The forearms just need to be about half an inch longer, and about a quarter inch deeper so they would fill out that cavity better. Although, looking back through the thread, at least I'm not alone, but this kind of thing makes me want to scream. It's just too stupid to be believable. How difficult is it to print a literal arrow shape pointing in the right direction, Bandai? Come to think of it.. are any of the markings on this supposed to line up with anything.. or each other? Every one of the tail stripes on both sides seems to be cocked at a different angle. Feels like they hired drunken hobos to calibrate their tampo machines. The more I look at them, the more I want to scrape everything off.

Bandai themselves put up a few pics of it, I think. I recall it actually looking better that way than with all the baggage attached.

At this point? Honestly, I'm entirely onboard with that. If the HMRs are just going to be copy-pasted Yamato/Arcadia molds, I'd love to see those molds all recreated in a more compact size.

Probably because those were TV-specific markings. I don't believe any of the DYRL versions have those rescue markers, since they were only shown in the TV episode where Roy ejected the cockpit. I'm not even sure anything but the VF-1D has those. Definitely liking the colors on this one though, it's a nice contrast to the dull HMR version. So, do the tails pop off so you can replace them with ones spare Angel Birds ones?

Yeah, unfortunately I was entirely expecting them to be that boneheaded. At least in this day and age, it's stupidly easy to just scan and upload that to reprint. I expect the page to be scattered across the interwebs in very short order.

Same for my copy from Big in Japan, we'll see when my Anime Export copy gets in-stock.

Interesting, guess I know what to expect then. As a side note, YF-21 just popped up as available at Anime Export. https://anime-export.com/index.php?product=81635

Out of curiosity, is there some holiday going on in Japan right now? Ordered my YF-21 (and a pile of other warehouse items) shipped out from HLJ on Friday via EMS, but the tracking has yet to update past the origin posting.

Maybe we can hope they did the smart thing, and molded the tails in orange with tan tips? Not likely.. but I don't plan to use those regardless. They won't be necessary with the booster packs holding things in place. Far as the tent goes though, I expect it's either a piece of cardboard in the box, or they expect you to print it out and make it yourself from a page loaded with a QR code. Pssh. To make an improvement would require them to acknowledge it was a bad design to begin with, which I sincerely doubt will ever happen.

Production-wise, it would make more sense to make the two DYRL 1As at the same time, or possibly make the two remaining VF-1S releases (DYRL Roy and Max) at the same time. Still, I'm not even going to try and predict which ones they will sell as TWE. Their release schedule is all over the place, and the only DYRL 1A we've gotten was Kakizaki first. All bets are completely off for what logic they're following, if any at all.

Speaking of Batman things, I saw this actually go up for sale, and I'm really wondering if this price is too good to be true for something this big. https://www.amazon.com/DC-Comics-Batwing-Anniversary-Collectible/dp/B0CSPMM3X3/ref=pd_rhf_dp_s_gcx-rhf_d_sccl_2_1/138-1624582-5886553?pd_rd_w=BQhXf&content-id=amzn1.sym.f714e129-a2ad-4639-b076-38ae36a3f73b&pf_rd_p=f714e129-a2ad-4639-b076-38ae36a3f73b&pf_rd_r=Y2VGDMDX5XC7Q57X2QMR&pd_rd_wg=9nlxW&pd_rd_r=e811aa9b-217a-427b-aa05-726fceec4685&pd_rd_i=B0CSPMM3X3&psc=1

Have to admit, I've been tempted to pick up one of the new releases just for the fixed tail mount. But none of mine were ever really that bad, you just have to not mess with them too much.

Thank you for making me aware of this sticker. As it turns out, I've got the same sticker on a YF-29 I picked up from Amazon. Don't know if it'll help me any, but if I get screwed by my imported copies, I might roll the dice with a local distributor (either purchasing one, or just contacting them) and see what happens.

Since there's really nothing to be gained or lost by opening tape holding a box closed (they aren't shrink-wrapped), I'll usually open everything and check for defects. Anything that needs fixing I'll try and fix myself and keep, but if something is defect free, I'll keep it that way in case I need to sell it later.

I didn't look that closely before, this one must come from a really interesting future! I want to know when the US will have 84 states!

I did find a tweak to the old gulleted YF-19 that would bring it closer to the VF-19 mold, it just required a few adjustments to the neck joint to lower the nose. I hacked mine up, and never finished once the new YF-19 was announced. It just sits in the box. Maybe someday I'll go back and finish it, but it just feels like a waste now with much better options available. I almost feel bad about chopping it up, but this particular old Yammie was already in a shambles in the box, and needed repairs when I got it. It did give the nose a lot better angle, but never did anything to fix the actual gullet, which is mostly due to the gear bay area being oversized compared with the later VF-19 mold. The new mold has its drawbacks, but it's so much more solid and well engineered in almost every way (looking at you, wing hinges), I don't really have any nostalgia for the old Komodo dragon version. If anything, the nostalgia is more for the time when it was released, when the market was seeing the explosion of new Yamato molds into a vacuum still mostly filled by bootleg Chunky Monkeys. It definitely looks like that particular YF-19 has been aged though, the tan color of the upper surface looks like it's been displayed in a sun room. It's interesting to note that the wing joints on one of my PF versions actually are very tight, they actually hold quite well, I think partly from the spray fixative I believe the PF finishes receive. The only loose joint is the innermost pivot, which has metal rotating on plastic. That one probably would benefit from a coat of nail polish, future floorwax, or maybe a bit of superglue. That aside though, the first thing I did with my first PF YF-19 was open up the wings and swap out the metal swingarms with permanent hinges I designed. They just lock the wings into place with a single pivot like the old YF-19 and VF-19s used. The hard part is disassembly, which requires prying out a couple of screw covers, opening the wing gloves, and then gently prying the wings apart to remove the original hinges and slip in the new ones. The hinges still look available in POM from Sculpteo, and aren't expensive at all, so if you're frustrated enough to do the disassembly, they might do the trick for you. More details about installation of the replacements start here in the old YF-19 thread. Just be careful with the wings themselves though. They were shown to be rather fragile early in release of the Arcadia YF-19, since some folks received ones with wings that were cracked clean through. I would not recommend trying to pry them apart completely. The only reason these parts work is because the wings don't tend to be fully glued together at the root, and I was easily able to wedge them open enough with a fingertip to remove the stock hinges, and slip in my replacement after removing the screw.

Yeah, no, this is just Bandai in a nutshell. "Screw you, send us the whole thing, we do not replace broken parts." I would just send them a video of it being pulled off, with a reply of "Tell me again that it can't be removed." When and if it existed, I would also post a link public to a shapeways site selling replacement parts to tell them "We know you're lying to us, so we fixed your problem ourselves." I just can't comprehend how they treat their customers like such garbage.

It's just traditionally been a laser, even if it can't face forwards like the VF-1. The YF-19's can't either, but you see Isamu use it as a trailing deterrent against Guld while dogfighting, which is perfectly in line with where the 21's is.

Good grief. Yeah, not going to be looking for fragile stuff there.

Wait, expecting Bandai to actually care about accurate panel lines? Yeah, they basically tried to blind everyone with extra panel lines, while not actually paying attention to whether they were accurate.

Yeah, I have absolutely zero expectations that they will ever offer any sort of satisfying explanation or fix for anything like this. It's less work to fix it yourself than to get Bandai to admit they did anything wrong in the first place, let alone do anything to make it right.

Which is ironically very fitting for an Ostrich.