Chronocidal

The only thing consistent about the AX quality is how inconsistent it is across the board. The leg tabs not fitting is one thing, but I've seen a few other larger tolerancing and assembly issues. That sticky arm slider mechanism plagues every one I have, the front gear doors continue to get worse on every release (across both the 31 AND VF-25 lines), and the Mirage I got has the tail and wing hinge pinholes drilled cockeyed, making the whole thing a disheveled mess of off-kilter angles. And that's leaving out the holdover issues from the original 31s, because that sloppy neck gap has only gotten worse. It's like they bypassed the B team, and handed down all of the AX releases to the C and D teams. Far as the swoosh factor goes though.. Yeah, the entire 31 line has not been conducive to picking them up. They have so many folding bits and pieces poking out every which way that it's really difficult to find a grip that doesn't stab you, let alone one that doesn't knock something out of position. It's kind of hilarious, but the best option I found? Just yank out the canards. They pop off without much trouble if you lift them vertically, and taking them off gives you space for a nice solid grip to pick them up and handle them. Removing the canards and head is always the first step I take when I go about fixing anything on the AX, since it just gets them out of the way. (No lie, I actually kind of prefer the look without them, especially the Kairos )

Highlighted for emphasis. We've had three AX releases now, and they've all been a complete crapshoot for bonkers QA failures that shouldn't happen. I still hope they'll turn it around, but I don't like the design enough to buy any more, and Bandai seems to have zero interest in finishing all of the other dangling product lines they left in Delta's wake. The situation actually feels like a self-reinforcing spiral of failure, where the fans have stopped caring, so Bandai stops caring, quality takes a dive, driving the fans to care even less, and so on. The nose fix for the VF-1 was insanely tiny, so I guess that's the threshold of what they're willing to change. It wasn't even what I would call the worst flaw in the design, so that's probably a good indicator of how much effort Bandai is willing to expend to correct their own mistakes. "Changing molds and tampo patterns? That's too much work. Just send them stickers to fix it."

Is it too much to hope that maybe we'll get something focused on actual military things this time? Or are we going to be forever stuck in the "plucky group of teenagers inexplicably entrusted with advanced military hardware" trope? I'm not even sure I care either way.. just please write a good story this time, and build around that. Delta had so much wasted potential.

The part I can never figure out about this is that I think T-REX did the design work for both the Yamato VF-17, and the Bandai VF-171. Just because the same team did the designs doesn't mean anything once the contractor gets their fingers into it and starts dictating design features. The VF-17 is a plastic tank, while the VF-171 tends to explode if you look at it the wrong way. All good, and it's a fair point. They should be able to crank out a superior product with all of that help, but Bandai has always seemed to have very different design priorities when compared to Yamato and Arcadia. I'm not thinking of the little things like painting the gear white, or printing numbers backwards and trying to gaslight the customers that it was on purpose. It's the larger design philosophy that they adhere to.. and a lot of times, their design choices just do not make a lick of sense. They keep trying to re-invent the wheel, and always come up with something slightly less effective. Without going through a pile of reasons why, I just don't understand their design logic. It's often baffling and nonsensical, and so many things they get wrong would be so easy to fix with small adjustments.. they just never do.

Agreed, the canards look really bad there... but I'm actually kind of liking the larger delta silhouette of the combined Legioss/Tread. Why they have a landing gear hanging out when hovering on the legs is anyone's guess though.

Yikes.. I forgot how monstrous that stand bracket is. Did anyone ever try and make something to mount the VF-25s on that doesn't involve clamping the entire thing in a claw? I'd be curious to see if you could work a wire armature between and above the arms to mount it on something that looks like it's actually meant to be displayed.

Money? Yes. Superior work force? Cannot say that's a given. It would be an easy job for them if they cared to do it correctly. That's the part I do not trust them with. Even with all of the recent production and QA issues aside, their YF-21 had some serious issues to solve. If they had strayed from the lineart in ways that improved the design, I would have probably been alright with it, but everything they did made it look worse. They appear to be bound and determined to snatch failure from the jaws of success.

Finally got around to something I'd been meaning to do for a very long time. I've probably had those nubs of tan sprue hollowed out since shortly after the VF-1D released. Was really irritated they didn't give us hardpointed wings for it, but it wasn't hard to rectify, and I finally have the packs to use on it. Also took a little time, and painted up a set of TV missiles that came with the Messer crossover version. A standard red Gundam marker with a flat coat turned out to be a pretty good match to the paint they use.

I'm actually not convinced it can't be done, but it's going to probably be fragile, and take some very complex plastic origami to pull off. The Yamato design is a solid starting point, both from over all proportions and mechanical transformation, but I think what has to happen for better legs to be possible is to do part of what Bandai attempted in their prototype. The upper engine nacelles need to be widened a little, and the underside of the fuselage needs to be hollowed out to let the legs recess into those spaces. The "down side" of that is that you get an even less believable area for those engines to exist in than you have now, but I would gladly sacrifice any and all detail under the backplate for the legs to get more room. I don't think the legs ever looked too bad from a side profile, but they need to be much wider, and that's exactly where they need room to expand.

So that is interesting.. I haven't been paying much attention, so I might have just missed it, but when did they start using "Expanded Universe" again, instead of "Legends?" Or are they still using both, depending on what property it involves?

Sadly, it's just not a popular design, judging from how much attention it usually gets, at least in comparison to the YF-19. One of the first Hasegawa kits to get released in 1/48 was the YF-19.. but they never bothered even teasing a YF-21. It makes me think they just didn't see the demand for it, which probably means Bandai doesn't either. It would be interesting to see a revamp of the old Yamato mold, like Arcadia did with the VF-0, but I'm not holding my breath. I think there's room to work bigger legs into it, but it would take a rebuild of the inside compartment, and probably make it look ugly.. which is fine, they need to ditch the removable legs anyhow. Would be fun to see them add hardpoints to the wings though.

The whole AX mess has been a pile of lemons though. I kind of expect they're shoving the bare minimum out the door for all the things seen in the movie for the hero to get some return for the R&D on the designs, before they abandon the product line.

Look back a way through this thread, and there are discussions of how to take the shoulder apart entirely. Once you get the screw out of the shoulder mount on the right, you can pull the entire arm out, and access everything you need to completely remove the shoulder, and replace the broken part. Actually, with that particular breakage, I kind of wonder if you could drill out the shoulder, and replace the shaft with a piece of solid plastic that would friction-fit into the shoulder pivot. I'd have to take mine apart again to experiment with the idea. As an alternative though, if you can get in contact with your uncle, he should have no trouble getting in contact with Arcadia directly to request a replacement part. You might even be able to make the request yourself, if you can find the right support email address to contact. I'm not sure how much the barriers to getting service in the US have weakened, but it's probably worth a shot trying to get a replacement either way. Edit: Wasn't sure which post it was, so I went back to check. Check here for showing how to get that screw out. I could also just get off my backside and model the parts for a Shapeways replacement like I originally considered.

Have any pictures of the break? There have been a few variations, and some are probably easier to fix than others. I think some of them could definitely be fixed with printed parts.

I always wished they had made more of the designs from the show, either the regular Sylph, or Fand 1 and 2. They're wild designs.

Yeah, that's some next level half-dimensional chess marketing gimmick there. I can see the board meeting. "So.. we made all of these clone figures, right?" ".... Yes..." "... Meaning, they're all identical... right?" "......." "I need three people for a name brainstorming committee. I want ten viable names for every figure we produce."

Fair, yeah, still way too high compared to the Roy. I'm still wondering if the lack of paint on the missiles was just an oversight, or they just gave up.

Yeah, it looks cool, but not $200 of cool, or whatever the exchange works out to at this point.

Aha, interesting. I have to wonder now, because I think I saw some lineart that showed them tilted. I'm not sure of the source though, and it's been quite a while. I might strip and repaint those then, it really is an eyesore.

This is why I stock up things like this at HLJ, and ship them all at once

I think my main gripe with the design is also the tails, but not so much because they're too small.. I don't care if it's canon, the angled stripes bug the crap out of me.

That is one thing I noticed new about the Armored VF-1J, they gave it a tiny bit more tampo printing to start. Nothing spectacularly game-changing, but they added the 101 modex on the ventral fins. The pilot definitely looks to be painted and molded at a higher level than the original stand-alone release as well. They've gotten better over time.

I'd probably jump quickly on an Arcadia re-release, both normal and PF. Would love one to match the PF YF-19

Ok.. that's a little bizarre. I have no idea what they were doing with those photoshoots, but the second set are republished shots of the painted prototype with the frosted canopy. I think I can live with that blue on the upper two shots though. A little bright, but I like that better than too dark.

Honestly, I am in no rush whatsoever for them to release it. I want them to fix their design before pushing it out to market. The last time we saw it still had far too many compromises.. The legs were an improvement, but everything else was worse.