Chronocidal

Maybe we'll get lucky and see another Black Friday discount on this one? Otherwise, yeah.. no plan to spend that much money on something that's intentionally inaccurate.

I think one thing that YF/VF-19 molds tend to suffer from in general is that the nose gear is far too short. The gear loses out, because there's not that much room for a full length strut. Consequently, you get droopy gunpods that drag on the ground, and the planes look like they're leaning forward. Bandai sidestepped that problem a little by making the gear fold in half. End result is that the Bandai is the first 19 mold that actually looks level on the gear, so I have to give them major credit for that. I still think the gear looks goofy with such a short bay, and would gladly have traded the waist joint for a full gear, but that's just my personal preference, and I still have to give them credit for coming up with any waist joint at all. I think my two biggest gripes about the Arcadia are the bad wing mechanism, and the gappy knee design (besides the ankles, though mine aren't that bad). While I understand the knees give it a much beefier look in battroid, I think they could have easily extended the lower legs a little further forward without drastically changing the overall shape. The neck comparison is interesting, but I think that VF-19 pictured might a bit of adjusting in the nose area. Mine feels like the nose tends to sit lower than that, and adds a bit to the droop. The biggest detractor from the nose profile though, is that bulgy middle panel underneath. I can't imagine why they molded it that way, I don't think there's anything on the inside that prevents the panel from curving upwards further. They just decided to bulge that one panel downward, and I think it makes the VF-19 look like it's got something stuck in its throat. The droopy canards will forever bug me though.

Pretty much, yes. There's enough slippage to let you rotate the legs going away from fighter while the knees are bent, but it won't work the other way around. Only way I've gotten mine to rotate reliably in both directions was to make sure the knees are entirely straight. To do that, you have to drop the legs at the gerwalk thigh joint, instead of at the knee.

Ah yeah, I guess I should say, I only got started around the 1/48th VF-1 and Macross Zero line, so the earliest valk I have is a 1/48th VF-1J.

Joints being accessible is on a valk-by-valk basis, for both companies. Pre VF-19 series, everything Yamato made was incredibly easy to service. The v2 VF-1 series is like a dream to work on, and it's probably why we got unassebled kits of it. Lately though, every joint has become buried under layer after layer of glued-on parts, making maintenance a nightmare. Certain things you can still get to, but whereas Yamato and Arcadia started gluing screw covers over things, Bandai has a tendency to glue a screw cover on, and then hide the screw cover with a giant plastic panel that you would destroy trying to get off (speaking of the leg assembly on the VF-171.. they really don't want you taking those lower legs apart). Most of the ball joints can be accessed in one way or another, but I like to break down and rebuild my valks as far as I can to work on them, and that is getting harder and harder to do without damaging them. It also is getting that much harder to fix them when they break, because everything is glued shut.

Yep, exactly. It's not meant to replicate the YF-19, it's just Bandai's way of squeezing their own take on it into the market. Arguably, they had a slightly easier job, specifically because they could be more flexible with the interpretation.

Bandai took a few liberties with the YF-19 design to make their VF-19, and really, some of the changes work very well, even if they don't replicate the classic look.

I haven't seen any breakages reported, but I'm still very wary. I should say, the RVF-171 I opened has a malformed shoulder pauldron that would not rotate correctly without some work being done on it, and actually comes apart rather easily because the screw is stripped out. I don't think the lower triangles were a problem, but I haven't looked at it in a while.

The shoulder triangles seemed like mostly a tolerancing and assembly issue (I even had issues on one of my Luca RVF-171s with the shoulders not being assembled correctly). They might explode just from existing. The leg issue though is a seriously complex thing. It's a combination of effects from bad structural design, bad transformation instructions, and bad materials. On the structural design part, the entire thigh swivel is based on a metal spring pin inserted into a hollow plastic shaft that bears the brunt of the stress in moving the legs. On its own, that might fail over time from wear and tear. The transformation instructions are a problem because they don't tell you the correct sequence of lowering the legs, and the mechanism is sloppy enough to let you do it the wrong way. In fact, the legs should be dropped at the hip first, and not at the knee joint, like almost literally every other valk in existence. The reason is that the leg rotation only works correctly with the knee joint entirely straight. Note, the lower leg can rotate into gerwalk position while the knee is dropped one notch, but it isn't meant to. The only reason the leg rotates at that point is because the interlock in the rotation joint is sloppy, and lets it slip going toward gerwalk mode. The reverse is NOT true. Turning the leg back sideways to put it into fighter mode is the point where my leg exploded, because I had the knee bent. The mechanism is locked until the knee is straight, and since the directions don't give you a reverse transformation, there was really no way to tell that. Trying to twist the legs back into fighter mode without the internal lock disengaging means all the stress from that twisting was applied to the thigh rotation joint at a skewed angle. The off-center force destroyed the entire knee joint. I've got diagrams posted earlier in this (or another thread) showing exactly how it broke. The best thing I can do for that leg now would be to shapeways myself a solid replacement for the knee, and leave it in fighter forever. As far as materials go, I'm highly suspicious of the metallic plastic they used in the CF-171s. When my knee shattered, I mean it literally shattered into shards. The plastic broke along defined flow lines, leaving sharp edges like glass. Something about that batch did not work correctly. I can't say anything for the design improving on later releases, since I don't think Bandai would even bother, but I can say that I still suspect the plastic. One of my Luca RVF-171s has a hairline fracture in back surface of the knee joint, right along a flow line in the plastic. Consequently, I've stopped transforming any of them, because I don't trust them to survive. TLDR: Don't bend down the legs at the knee joints and expect the rotation to work. This is my favorite example of why I hate Bandai's engineering practices, because there is no reason that stupid leg twist interlock should exist. They could have saved themselves money on manufacturing, and saved buyers a lot of frustration with broken legs if they had just made it a simple twist joint. It even would have added to the articulation by letting you point the toes out further for battroid.

Demand for some items is also really high specifically because of Bandai's marketing shenanigans. Most of the really highly sought after add-on packs for their valks are limited to a one-and-done release schedule, and only sold from their Japan-only web-shop. So, if you're late getting into the series, or miss that precious pre-order, you may never see the item being sold again for anything near retail. Anyone trying to get a hold of Ozma's VF-25 armor pack at this point is probably shelling out 2-3x what the valk itself cost. Their sales schedule for the valks themselves is sometimes not much better, but there's at least a chance that a re-release will happen. Also, entirely agree with Plus as an intro to the universe. It's just a nice self-contained chunk of the franchise that stands on its own, and brings out some of the best music and action the franchise has to offer as a whole.

Dunno if this is really spoilery at all, but I'll hide it just in case.

I will readily admit, I like to harp on Bandai because while they do some things very well indeed, I also really dislike some of their past and present design decisions. I tend to be heavily biased toward Yamato (not necessarily Arcadia though) because of their attitude toward respecting the source material, and actually attempting to pay attention to the little details that aircraft aficionados appreciate. Bandai just isn't very good at that yet, and the few strides they seem to make in that direction appear half-assed to me, like copying markings everywhere without thinking what they say, just to make it look like they put effort into it. It feels a lot like kids in school padding reports with blank space to make them look longer. That being said, the Arcadia's wing mechanism is pitifully weak compared to the Bandai one. I've tightened them multiple times, and they never seem to stay very long. Bandai definitely has a handle on complex transformation mechanisms.

Bandai hasn't really tried to replicate the look of the VF-19's main gear, or really any of the valks they've done. I don't know if it's some vague attempt at paying homage to the old gear on the 1/55 chunky VF-1s, or what, but for a company so focused on mecha, they seem not to have much understanding about how landing gear work, or look. They have gotten better over time, but they still don't seem able to make realistically proportioned struts or tires. The VF-25's gear are supposed to splay out like the Yamato VF-19s do, but Bandai has stuck to simple rotating sticks from the get go. The quality of the sticks have just improved. The ones on the Arcadia, and all of the Yamato VF-19s look pretty close to that VF-19 kit line art, but the Master File is just a copy of an F-18 main gear, so I pretty much ignore that. I know that VF-19 kit image is old, but I don't know what reference they were using at the time. The thing that occurred to me about the ankles though.. and it's not really a flaw, but I find it irritating.. Bandai's folding panel shenanigans with the legs was creative, but it means I can't extend the feet in fighter mode. My favorite display position for most of my valks is actually standing on the feet in fighter mode, and the way Bandai built those ankles, it pops the legs out of position, because it extends the folding panels. I've honestly never been the least bit bothered by the recessed area for the arms on the Yamato/Arcadia mold, so while I applaud their skills in plastic origami, I think that entire mechanism is just excessive.

I would actually chalk the missiles up as a severe negative mark against the Bandai, since they give you wings with hardpoints, but no missiles, and the missiles that fit can't even be bought outside of an entirely separate product that's not even related to the VF-19. And while I like the advance packs, they cheapened out and didn't even attempt to make the shoulder packs accurate. Even without the wing boosters, the fast packs on the Arcadia are just better thought out (they actually attach to the wing gloves), and the missiles (for better or for worse) are your "everything you can ask for, plus two kitchen sinks" set. As for a stand.. I'd only call that an advantage if it wasn't so ugly. But that's just personal opinion, I know they're perfectly functional. As far as "amount and quality" of tampo though, Bandai went into overkill mode. They went above and beyond what was seen in the animation, and honestly, with all the SMS logos plastered everywhere, it's approaching the gaudy level of over-marking you see on the 171s... "How are the pilots supposed to remember which craft they're flying?" "Don't worry, we've painted the name of the aircraft on every available surface to make sure." It's really not that bad, but I think they overdid it in an attempt to appeal to the more demanding aircraft collectors. Some of the markings and warnings make perfect sense, but throwing "ACCESS PANEL INSIDE" all over the place only looks good if you can't read the text, and they used too big a font for that to work. The Arcadia really skimped on the tampo, though, and they seem to be adopting that approach for everything, sadly. I probably would have been perfectly happy with the intake warnings added, that might be the first time they actually left those off. I just hope in the future both companies try to hit that middle ground between the two. In the end I can't really vote, because I can't say either has an advantage in the long run. They both have features I like, and features I dislike, so it pretty much winds up averaging out. If anything, I'd say the Bandai has both better good features, and worse bad features, while the Arcadia kind of plays the middle of the field.

K, maybe Bandai just likes to micro-manage it's products then. The specific thing that I always see in every Bandai valk is that they absolutely love tiny insert pieces. When I took apart the hips on my 171, there were at least three individual itty-bitty plastic nubs that slid into place around where the rest of the leg fit in. And it's like that all over the thing. Removing any major assembly will usually result in a handful of plastic filler bits falling out. I've just never seen that kind of practice on anything Yamato or Arcadia do, so maybe it's just in Bandai's requirements.

True, bad design is just bad design. It's more that Bandai seems to always design everything with 3 to 4 times the number of necessary parts, so unless they're mandating a ton of details to their contractors, I don't think the group who made the 171 worked on any of the Yamarcadia valks. It's just a consistent style of parts breakdown that the Bandai designs have that I haven't seen replicated anywhere else.

I dunno, I've never seen any mechanisms as needlessly over-complicated and outright stupid as the 171's knee joint. I can't honestly believe those came from the same engineers as anyone working for Yamato or Arcadia.

Yep, should all be the same colors. The only oddball was when Ranka must have been riding with Michael in her performance dress. I forget which valks came with extra figures for sure (and who they were supposed to be), but didn't Michael's come with a micronized Klan figure? It might be the same model as the others, but I think she wore the same style uniform as Canaria, possibly with Michael's helmet.

... .. Yes.

Likely.. the only pilot figure to actually be changed visually from male to female was Nora, if I recall correctly. I never had trouble putting the legless Ranka in a VF-25 though, the cockpit is small enough that her arms hold her in decently. She rattles around if you swoosh it too much, but she'll generally land upright in the seat. Also, given that it happened in the series at least once, I think the one included with Ozma's valk was supposed to be Cathy.

I bought a few multiples with the intention of customizing them.. last count is at least 2 of each, with 3 of the 19F and 19P I think. I hate the thought of modifying something only to trash it, so I bought backups. I plan on reworking one of the 19Ps into a white 19F somehow, possibly with shapeways printed wing components. I hesitate to paint anything, because the tolerances on those things are so incredibly tight.

I need to stay away from there, or I will wind up buying more VF-19s. My 19 collection is close to rivaling my set of VF-1s, and considering how many there are of those, that's saying something. Last count, I think I have 15..

The Bandai pieces are also shaped nothing like what was seen in the animation. The T-Rex parts actually cover the entire shoulder joint, which looks much more accurate.

Honestly, I think it looks better that way, just because the wing gloves actually attach to the legs.

That pic isnt using the leg packs, just so you know. Still works pretty well, but the shoulder packs stick up a little that way.