Chronocidal
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Nice! Sad, my first thought was that those M&Ms are in more accurate colors than the HMRs...
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Bandai is so against admitting they did it wrong that they'll print the same mistake on multiple generations of products of the same robot, as if they're insisting that their mistake is the truth. It's like they seem to think if they keep copying them, everyone will forget they're wrong. It's part of why I really don't want to buy the M&Ms, because it's just supporting that nonsense. And I don't buy for a minute that Japanese fans aren't as critical. There's a reason these high end toys and models exist there, when the US gets to choke on masterpiece veritechs and the garbage coming out of Revell (specifically the Star Wars kits).
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So, I take it that's Max and Millia's baby flying the TV 1A?
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I'm desperately trying to avoid getting sucked into another line of VF-1s, because I've got way too many as it is. The M&Ms look fine without the packs, but if I wind up getting those, I'm going to feel like I need a Hikaru 1J to round out the group, and then I can easily see that spiraling into picking up a Max 1A, and then a Kakizaki, and everything else they'll make.
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I've had the impression for a while that the "popularity" of the M&M valks is a myth. I don't think Max and Millia are anywhere near as popular in Japan as they are with western audiences, for whatever reason, and the Yamato 1/48ths were always hanging around unsold in webshops and on Ebay, which makes me think Yamato might not have produced nearly as many of the 1/60ths. Looking back at my order history from HLJ though, they were also released during a veritable Itano Circus of sales, which is when I started my own collection. Between August of 2009 and January of 2010 (the M&Ms came out in October 2009), I picked up an Sv-51CF, YF-21, VF-11, VT-1, Roy 1S, Max TV 1A, and Super Hikaru 1A, all heavily discounted. And that's just from HLJ. This is back when Overdrive was still going, and I grabbed the M&Ms from them, along with a Hikaru 1J, and an Sv-51 Nora. Honestly, I am pretty sure the M&M valks were the only Yamato VF-1s I actually pre-ordered. The rest seemed to get constant re-releases, and drop into the bargain bin, but I wanted to make absolutely sure I got a pair of those, because a Millia 1J Matchbox Joke Machine was my single Macross toy growing up, and I wasn't going to let that nostalgia slip.
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I'd buy that reason more if Bandai was designing it themselves, instead of Kawamori, but maybe he just got lazy this time? The few shots of the landing gear in the series confirm the location, but I really can't begin to comprehend the thought process that decided that location was the best option. Even if they're proper struts, the location and kneecap covers look like an afterthought. All the more reason to keep it displayed on a stand though. And honestly, if they actually start using clear plastic for their monstrous stands, I might even consider using them.
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Episode VIII: The Force Hits the Snooze Button -
But.. but.. I don't want to punch holes in the boxes! Seriously though, space is my biggest current issue. Except for the few I keep out on display, I keep my valks boxed up in a closet for storage. Pretty soon, I'm going to have to consolidate boxes, and pack the valks in something a little better optimized for space, because I keep wanting to buy more of them. The first step is going to be seeing how many VF-25 kits I can fit into a single box, if I cut the parts off the sprues. I already packed five or six of the 1/100 VF-25 and YF-29 kits in a single one of their boxes that way, so I imagine I can probably fit the entire SMS squadron into the box for an armored VF-25.
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If it's complete, why don't they show the complete version, instead of popping out more copies of their prototype? None of the ones they're showing are anywhere near complete, they all have solid forward fuselages with no gear doors or fold points, and they all look like they have a single piece leg from hip to ankle. I mean, it can only help them. They've clearly got the 262 done, and can put it in all sorts of dynamic poses, but the battroid 31 hasn't moved a limb since it first appeared. I'm not upset or anything really, I'm mostly just baffled, and impatient. I want to see how the final product looks so I can start picking apart how it transforms.
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Nice that they got the dish to fit nicely, now they need to get off their backsides and finish the rest of the freakin plane. Sorry I'm starting to sound like a broken record, I'm just baffled by the lengths they're going to advertise a half-baked prototype, and I really want to see the final version. It feels like they're desperate to get the fans excited for something they haven't even figured out how to make yet.
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The colors match, but honestly? The panels they decided to paint white don't really match anything on the valk, or even make sense. The fronts of the boosters? Ok.. but why pick that random panel on the rear half of the leg pack? There's nothing special about it, and it just looks goofy. If they had put striping similar to the rest of the valk it would look much better. The way those prototypes are painted reminds me of what I did to my model planes at age 5 when I was given a paint marker to "decorate" them, just picking random panels to make a different color.
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While this might be true for most models, Bandai absolutely loves to try and decide how you paint your models for you, or just help you skip the painting entirely, by molding everything in whatever color they think is best.You can always ignore that, but it just makes extra work when you have to cover up their nonsense colors.
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WTF Bandai, can we stop with the random "We don't care about accuracy, we're gonna do whatever we like" crap? Those are the same colors they used on their 1/72 kits, and now they're just sticking with their home-grown nonsense again. It's not that they look terrible, but how hard is it to follow the freaking designs and colors from the animation?
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I'm surprised Bandai went to that length to produce 5 copies of a still obviously unfinished prototype. They look good, though I'm not sure how many I'll pick up. Mirage at least, and probably Chuck, but I'm running out of room.
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I think I skipped over a few of the Yamato "Web Exclusive" releases, because I figured we'd never see them on a retail site, and wasn't paying attention when HLJ got them. I think that's just the v.2 1/60 Angel Birds and VF-X though. I think it's really only those two I'm missing. I followed a "no duplicate paint schemes" rule for years, so I skipped a Max VF-1S, but it doesn't bother me that much, and if I ever really get desperate, I've got enough extra Roys to make a kitbash Max 1S from his 1A. But then I'd feel the need to get a DYRL Q-Rau to pose him with, and we all know how that train of thought goes. I think the thing I'm most wishing I'd bought were more VF-11s when they were cheap.
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I'd be perfectly happy if they gave us rubbery screw covers that you can just pop in and out. Covering the screws isn't the problem, it's that they soak the darn things in super glue, and you have to practically drill them out.
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I don't know how credible this idea is, since I'm not familiar with the property, but there's speculation that the font (and sword) are references to them trying to build a Hasbro crossover universe. http://siskoid.blogspot.com/2016/05/transformers-last-spaceknight.html I've never even heard of this character, and it seems ridiculous to try and branch off your existing property into something so obscure, but then again, the Transformers movies have never hesitated to dive headfirst into complete nonsense.
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Well, I mean, it is called the VF-19 "Excalibur." Though, I'm not sure which wings you mean. The Yamato VF-19s had wings thin enough to slice yourself open like blades, but the YF-19 has thicker wings for hardpoints, and I don't think they have any sharp edges at all.
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The biggest thing missing from Bandai's model kits in terms of being able to pose them, is that they don't include the standard thigh/knee gerwalk joint twist, so you can't spread the legs naturally for an aggressive stance, and any spread you do get is likely to be stressing other parts of the legs.
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Technically, the Arcadia YF-19 doesn't even count in that category though, since the wings might be floppy in fighter mode as well. I'd actually say the same about the VF-19s though, they feel more solid than the YF-19, and not just for the wings. Maybe it's the polished surface hiding flaws, or maybe it's just a difference in tolerances, but the YF-19 didn't seem to me like it had the same "WOW!" factor straight out of the box. I dunno, maybe by the time the YF-19 came out, I was just spoiled by all the VF-19 variants. From a design standpoint though, I'd put the VF-19s ahead by a decent margin. They had a more streamlined intake design for one (that blocky lip still bothers me), and less fiddly/fragile bits around the hip plates, but they also made a few unnecessary changes to the YF-19 design that actually made it more annoying to transform. Specifically, they added an interlock to the wing root hip hinges that keeps them from rotating out away from the chest unless the wingroots are first pulled out, away from the hips. That's great... except you need to rotate them out away from the chest to unlock the chest for gerwalk mode, and they're locked down by the chest, so you can't extend the hinges to unlock them. It winds up meaning you need to do a bunch of hip-related shenanigans to shift the wingroots enough to unlock them, all for a locking mechanism that really has no purpose at all, in any mode. Still, it's a beautiful design, I just hope I can find a way to make the wing mechanism not suck.
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Bandai Macross Δ Mecha Collection Small Scale Plastic Model Kits
Chronocidal replied to IXTL's topic in Model kits
Those old fighter-only kits were actually 1/100 I think, which would have been a much better size all around, especially since they would have been in scale with the HMR line. But you know, heaven forbid that the Bandai model and toy divisions should ever coordinate on anything ever.. -
I wouldn't call their X-Wing kits anywhere near their best work. While the kit is insanely detailed, and even very fun to build, the fuselage is a gappy mess of nonsense, due to them deciding, for some reason, that the nose markings HAD to be molded in color.. despite not including any other colored parts in the entire kit. On the other hand though, while they still went with the molded marking panels, the Y-Wing is both a lot better designed, and insanely intricately detailed (you might have to assemble parts of it with tweezers). The TIE Fighters too are nicely designed, and will look beautiful straight out of the box with no paint or glue, because of how they broke down the solar panel assemblies. Anyhow though, if you can manage to find ways to get the VF-25 kits to stay together in fighter mode, they do look nice when everything lines up. The biggest lesson I've learned with any Bandai kit is that you really have to clean the parts. Bandai's molding is top-notch, but even they will have slight bits of plastic flash or mis-molding sometimes, and you have to make sure that you clean up sprue attachment points carefully. The parts will fit together nicely, but only once you get everything aligned. I found that I had to squeeze the hips pretty forcefully onto their joints before they would sit nicely under the chest. Once the hips fit, the arms and shoulders all align better as well.
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I dunno, I really wasn't impressed by the VF-1 kit they did. For some reason, the design team went way off of the line-art, and tried to reinvent a bunch of things that didn't need to change, while simultaneously getting a little too ambitious with the transformation mechanism and the tiny details. I'm not going to argue about Bandai being able to design amazing model kits. It's when they start getting into things that transform, and decide to get "creative" with their interpretations of established designs that things start to fall apart. I just hope they learned a lesson or two about designing these kits from the VF-25s. I've given up hope that they'll ever discover that you can just Google the term "landing gear" and get some wonderful design references, but at the very least they need to include tabs to actually keep the darn things from dissolving into a froppy mess in fighter mode.
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Given the option, I wouldn't mind screw covers if they would make them easier to remove. It just seems like every time I actually need to take something apart to fix it, I'm stymied every which way by screw covers that are so over-glued, I have to destroy them to get them out. Bandai is the worst for this though. At least with Yamato/Arcadia, the screw covers are usually easily identified, and not covered by massive glued-on panels.
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Finally opened up my HMR Roy last night, nice little piece of engineering. A little fiddly to get the arms situated properly in fighter mode, but I like the sliding mechanism for the most part; I freaked out a bit the first time I tried to rotate a shoulder, and the sliding hinge popped off the shaft (nothing broke, they pop on and off pretty easily). Those ball joints actually feel tighter than any of my 1/60 Bandai valks. Makes a nice little desk model though, and I like that you really only need the canopy cover and gunpod handle to fully transform it. Was also happy to see that the popped-up fast pack angle I've seen in a lot of pictures is just from the backpack not being pushed fully aft. They line up nicely level once everything is pushed into place. On the flip-side of that though, I think my biggest gripe is that they printed most of the skulls at a screwy angle (I didn't look closely at the canopy cover). They're all aligned with each other, but it's like Bandai used an off-kilter reference point to align them, and they're all tilted pretty significantly. I might also try to pry apart the dual reaction missile clusters, because they're assembled entirely cockeyed on the pylons.