Chronocidal

That might have been it, I only put the minimum down for a "pre-order" since I don't think there was any solid release date listed.

Just searched on a whim, and this popped up. Hope someone who missed it can grab one! https://www.hlj.com/hi-metal-r-vf-1j-armored-valkyrie-hikaru-ichijo-machine-revival-ver-bans64968

I want to re-engineer this kit to make a better fighter mode so badly. The YF-21 puts it to shame.

For starters, the posts throughout this thread comment on a lot of the changes, but the comparisons to the kit in its own thread are also a good reference. Compared with the Yamato YF-21: Compared with the DX: The cockpit shape has been a sticking point mentioned in various points in this thread. It has nothing to do with transformation, and they just decided to make it a different shape. For me, the tails are also a sore point, because while it's a small detail, the tips are absolutely not supposed to be clipped flat. No source shows it looking this way, it's just the way Bandai decided to make it. What I'm talking about isn't essential functional design, it's purely in the aesthetic category. But what Bandai does makes no sense. There is no logical reason for why those details should not be a perfect match to the source material (you know, the thing they're actually calling it, and saying they're making), because those details have no bearing on the functionality of anything. They're just surface details. But apparently Bandai just cannot stand to make things accurately, and instead decides they know better what the design is supposed to look like. If there were functional reasons related to the transformation it would be one thing, but there aren't. The overall design is one thing, and they've done an "acceptable" job at it, but the changes in details they've made come down to aesthetic choices that should not be even on the table if you're making something meant to replicate something else. They just decide they like their own version better.

This doesn't have anything to do with size though, it is purely that Bandai completely ignored every source for what the YF-21 looks like, and straight-up redesigned portions of it. Not transformation mechanisms, but just the shape of the plane, it's wings and tails, and various completely static surface details. The 1/100 is far more accurate to the line-art than the DX even tries to be.

The really weird thing about this YF-21 though isn't that it's not accurate because of compromises for transformation. It's inaccurate in ways that have absolutely no impact on transformation whatsoever. Bandai just straight-up ignored what the design is supposed to look like, and went down their own path for some reason. Meanwhile, the 1/100 HG model kit nails all of those details that the DX ignored. Again, nothing about the transformation at all, it just looks like they actually cared to match the source material, instead of inventing details and reshaping bits however they pleased.

Yeah, no, I've never been impressed with KC's molding or other details enough to jump on one. I did put in a pre-order for one of the KO Yamato V2 releases in that scheme though. No idea when (or if) it will even happen. I might wind up painting one of my old Yamato V2 kits in that scheme instead, but I'd have to find some super packs for it.

Comparing this to the HG kit, I think it's abundantly clear that "accuracy" was not high on their list of priorities.

Agreed, but it's a whole lot better than the initial price, which is why I pretty much ignored it entirely.

Anyone after the Jetfire repaint, BBTS has them on clearance at the moment.

I mean, the old Matchbox one was hilariously mis-proportioned, just like all old GI Joe scaled aircraft. I'm thinking something like this. There were several companies that made these big 1/18 scale aircraft for a while, mostly WWII era, because those were slightly more manageable sizes. I managed to pick up one of the F-104 releases, but I always regretted not grabbing the F-86 and MiG-15 ones when they went on clearance at a local Walmart.

Honestly, the VF-1 isn't that big a plane, about the size of an F-16 I think. Anything up to about 1/18 would probably be manageable, and would put it in scale with all of those 1/18 planes some companies released years back. And at that scale, it would work pretty well with 3.75" figures of any style.

Had to take a visual log of this one, I didn't know HLJ even had a shipping box this big. I thought I'd gotten their biggest in the past.. I was wrong. "Monster" is absolutely correct.

Just got my Arcadia gold-plated Fire Valk in, and doing a quick compare, I can't really see much difference up close in the red plastic. It's a little darker, maybe? But I actually wonder if that's just the color fading over time, since all of the colors on the new one seem a tad darker. Except for the bright orange paint on the shoulders and backplate. That's identical on them, and a terrible match on both versions. Otherwise, looks good, and glad to have a shiny one. Will probably display this one in battroid to hide the fugly canopy.

Yeah, it's gone, I wonder if they pulled it down just to help stem traffic on the site.

Wonder if that's a feature on just this specific valk, to address the fact that it doesn't have any arm packs. I don't have one handy to look at, but I think the arms usually rely on the legs holding up the arm packs to support them. Edit- Looked at all the close-ups I could find, and I'm really not seeing any reason for those slots.. and it looks like the opposite arm has a plug in that hole, so who knows if it's supposed to be there. It looks like the arms are just going to depend on the tabs that usually hold the backpack down.. which, yeah, I'll probably be looking for some way to reinforce those dumb arm pegs, or add a notch to them to lock the arms up, because they've never been worth anything.

Yeah, I really don't mind the 102, and modexes are -supposed- to be obnoxious. It makes sense they would reference the same number for the retelling. Little disappointing about the tent probably being paper, but there is a benefit to that. If it was solid plastic, it would be harder to light it up from inside with an LED campfire.

I think they received a pile of feedback about that, and eventually started using boxes, but my experience ordering one thing from them was a little weird, because they just seemd to forget about it until I reminded them.

Yeah, this is an angle I didn't catch before. That's insane. Makes me wonder if they couldn't just throw some sort of accordion fold into that massive panel and decrease the gap like they did for the VF-171, but yikes.

The free shipping shouldn't be underestimated, depending on the methods available.

Yeah, they're not too much more expensive than your usual proxy shipping service for normal TWE items. It's things like lottery exclusives where they add a higher premium.

I think CD Japan has sometimes listed TWE items as well, but it's a rare occurrence. They have the original VF-31A in their listing history, and I think I got a set of DX VF-1 missiles there, but it's really not something you can depend on. They do offer proxy services for hunting down rare items after the fact, with some markup applied.

Anime Export does usually carry the TWE items, but AmiAmi and HLJ do not. AE has been very reliable in the past, but they do require full payment up front, and they usually seem to have a shorter order window than many others. And no, we're not seeing this one stateside, unless someone sorts out the rights to DYRL lickety split.

I'm not too worried, so long as they aren't marking up the item as the numbers change. Could just be people adding or removing to the cart. As nice as it is to see those numbers, the systems that calculate them may not be reliable due to how people add and remove them like that.

I'm not seeing anything about status, but it might be an indicator of shipping/payment status? I opted for storage, to avoid having it delivered during the holiday week in July.