Chronocidal

Honestly.. 1/60 is a nice scale for a lot of larger planes. F-14/F-15 size planes are a nice size in 1/60, and I'd love it if I could get a few more.

Nah, don't think that'll ever wear out entirely. I like all the various series for different reasons, Plus usually wins out as favorite because it was my introduction to the universe, and hit me in the serious soft spot I have for flight test related stuff, but they all have their strong points. I think Zero really has some of the best fight scenes out of any of them though, because of how insanely detailed and semi-realistic it all was. The F-14s in the intro were awesome, plus the final showdown between Shin/Focker and Nora/D.D. really put Zero in a class by itself for dogfighting. The stuff in Plus was close, but none of the other series really makes it so clear what kind of g-forces those planes have to be able to pull to do all that fancy mecha-flippity combat stuff.

The extra figures would be nice, since I doubt this'll come in at under the price of the YF-19. I know I can't personally justify a new paintjob though, especially since the tolerances are so tight that any transformation would probably ruin it. Unless they mold it in sparkly plastic like the Hi-Metal, but really, I never liked the way the sparkles look on that one.

Is it bad that I think I would actually enjoy a gritty war-era scenario like during Vietnam or something? I mean.. clearly, they wouldn't do that.. I was actually surprised at how relatively sad/violent Planes got with the WWII flashback section.

I dunno, I don't think the M&Ms have ever been big sellers. They always come out late in the VF-1 runs, after everyone else has appeared. I think a lot of the perceived want for those just comes from the foreign audiences, who seem to like them a lot more then Japan.

Well, an anniversary is a good reason... it's just bad timing.

I wouldn't even bet on them being profitable.. wouldn't surprise me if they operate just to break even. Either way though, I can't see this being successful when there's a relatively large amount of these still on the market. Unless they add some bonus features (stand like the VF-1s, extra figures, etc), I don't see this being a big seller. The effort to redesign the intakes to use the YF-19 style ones wouldn't be worth the cost in tooling.

While the movie/plot/characters were mostly forgettable in the first one, I'll admit that picking out the various aircraft-related jokes and references was entertaining on its own for the first one.. had a good laugh watching it with my father (similarly into aircraft history). They're really pushing it further than it needs to go though.. the entire "vehicles as people" thing can only go so far before it gets really demented.

That kind of thing looks fine on a robot that looks about as aerodynamic as a brick to begin with. Something that looks like it should actually be agile, and not plodding around like a star wars chicken walker? Not so much. I mean, how would you like to go into combat with a giant boxy thing hovering over your head? As a deployable thing, sure, maybe... but it can't be folded down and hidden, and looks like it would get in the way of any close quarters situation (since that's pretty much entirely what battroid is for to begin with), and would probably just wind up restricting what sort of moves you could perform, since it looks like it would just snap off. I mean... even practicality aside.. it's not even real, so you're trying to design an attractive product so it will sell. That box is the exact opposite of attractive. It looks like they could just paint it red and blue, add lights, and voila, you have a galactic police robot.

The booster was also on heavy discount, along with the Fire Valk right before Yamato went under. Honestly, I hope they don't change the Fire valk any, because I think the way the intakes and wing glove pivots were on the old VF-19s is a better design than the YF-19. The way they made the wing gloves lock until you extend the pivot joint is really not a helpful feature when everything around it is already locked tight by all the tabs. If they can pull off the opening intakes, while keeping the rest the same, bravo, but I'm not sure which parts would have to be redesigned/replaced.

I think what's driving Arcadia is seeing how pretty much every VF-25 of Bandai's except Alto and Ozma have been shelf warmers. While I think older series had a wider variety of likeable characters, and could appeal to a bigger audience, the current market is extremely main character focused. They're probably doing the mains to start, and hopefully that'll lead to enough profit to produce some of the less well-known designs.

Actually, I did notice something interesting about the wings, which might have contributed to the breakage. Mine look slightly warped downward at the tips, which makes me wonder if there are locator pins between the layers that are slightly off-set from where they should be. If the wings were forced together without proper alignment, it could definitely stress them, and they might shatter.

Wonder if it will include both Basara figures (jeans/tanktop and concert outfit).. Glad to see they can re-release it though, it gives me hope that we'll see more repaints of that mold later on.

Yeah, the ankles were really the only problem the VF-19 series had, aside from the skin-slashingly thin wings on the F and S. Just picked up my pair from HLJ, opened one, and glanced at the other to see all the pieces were there. Opened one looks like it's in good shape so far, but it's interesting seeing the kinds of changes they made between designs. Specifically, they made an interesting change to the way the wing gloves swing out from the intakes, and I don't really care for it, or understand it. They redesigned the sleeves so that the wing gloves cannot rotate outwards until you lift them away from the intakes. This causes.. well, two problems, but they're really the same problem in two different directions. First, moving out of fighter, they are a royal pain in the ass to get loose from the hips. Because of how everything interlocks, they can't just be pulled out, and folded down... The insets for the laser barrels in the roots are so deep, it's difficult to get the corresponding tabs on the back of the intake portions to come out. Similarly, on going back to fighter from battroid, rotating the wing gloves into position is a pain, because you can't rotate them freely unless you extend those pivots.. which of course, means none of the tabs anywhere will line up, and you can't push the chest back into position. It's kind of a messy thing, and I really don't know why that change was made in the first place, since it was never a problem on the VF-19s. The way i found around it was basically to actually rotate the intakes a little inward, pulling the feet closer together, which seems to help get the wing gloves loose from the little plate that locks into them. It's kind of a mess honestly. Feet on mine are a little loose, but they won't spend much time pulled out anyway. Aside from that, it's gorgeous. Also, on the positive side, the shoulders latch down nicely, but are nowhere near as difficult to lift as they are on the VF-19s. At various points, I've resorted to using plastic spoons to pry those things up, and they sometimes broke before the shoulders lifted. Btw, I couldn't resist trying it out of curiosity, but no, the Bandai armor pack wings don't fit like the super packs. You can kind of wedge them on if you rotate the wings back, and slip them in between the clips, but the notches on the wing gloves don't line up well enough to hold them on. Edit: Oh, also, I was able to get the canopy to stay open just fine without actually dropping the nose. The trick is lifting the canopy out a little, pressing the anti-glare panel down all the way, and then pressing the canopy back in. There's a slot for the anti-glare panel's little tab to pop through the cockpit, but it won't go all the way down unless you lift the canopy hinge out of its slot a little.

Hehe.. will always love that Roy 19P. So pretty. I'm actually contemplating doing a little parts rearranging/printing, and making a white 19F out of a P... basically, putting the F's feet/ankles/shoulders onto the P, and scratchbuilding a white set of short wings. Probably more work than I'll get to doing though.

Dang, I need to hunt one of those sets down someday.. or get around to repainting the spare 30th version I have.

Actually, it might be decently simple if you use the type of connection used on the Yamato YF-21 stand. You could make an adapter for the tip of the arm that uses an octagonal hole and pin, and you could mount the valk at a few angles to get a decent variety of combined bank and pitch angles.

I keep thinking there's some kind of massive weather/holiday/etc holdup, because mine's been stuck the same way for almost a week now.

Ugh, is there some holiday coming up in Japan? I don't think I've ever seen FedEx take this long to ship something out. I requested shipment on the 29th, so that probably delayed things a little, but it went to FedEx on the 31st, and the thing hasn't even left Japan yet.

Not just battroid, they look ridiculous in fighter mode too. Eh.. I might just wait. I love the fighter mode (mostly), but the other modes are fairly meh (the missile pack is just funky looking). That, plus I'm getting too tired of the preorder shenanigans at this point, and I'm running out of space for new valks (too many VF-19s ). Maybe once it's released it'll be available, since I don't see this really appealing to anyone but gamers, and the odd completionist or aircraft fanatic.

I actually half wonder if their "excuse" about pricing things lower is because AmiAmi picks up the damaged ones at a discount, and sells those off without looking at them.

Oh, that actually sounds familiar. I think I recall one of my VF-19Ps having the same issue with the head, and it took a bit of working the neck joints back and forth before it would seat itself correctly.

Honestly.. I can't even comprehend how something that stupidly obvious could ever make it to shipping. A cursory glance in the box should clearly say, "Oh, yeah, this thing has a broken wing." To say nothing of the dipshit who packaged them by hand, and still managed to miss such obvious problems.

I think we may be going overboard here, just because there are so many people who need stands.. hopefully not overwhelming the designer here. See, there's a part of me that wants to buy a bunch, but if the costs are too high to be practical for mass production, that's just throwing too much burden on ChaoticYeti to try and meet the demand. I might need to see about getting one of those types of printers eventually though, my Up Plus II doesn't seem to print things nearly that nicely.

Those are looking beautiful, what type of printer are you using to make them? Also, if the weight of the base ever becomes an issue, you could probably mold the base hollow on the underside, to let people attach metal weights to it.