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Bandai VF-19 Advance....!!!


Scream Man

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I was under the impression or read somewhere that they worked with Kawamori (or was it Tenjin?) to determine the markings to use.

In any case, my only real complaint about the markings is that some of them just look out of scale, like way too big. The ones on the nose cone for example look like they were meant for something at a larger scale.

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I tend to get picky about markings, because I know what they're there for, and what they mean.. it's the same reason I couldn't stand the BoP/Doublenuts releases of the Yamato YF-19.. they went and did color swaps of things that are colored a specific way for a reason. The biggest offender was painting the anti-glare panel ahead of the canopy bright orange. Aside from that though, because they did a straight up "let's just put other colors in the paint machine and run it the same way" process, a bunch of thruster vents wound up orange as well.

The things that gripe me are when you get "NO STEP" printed on the underside of wings (which to be fair, almost makes sense in a zero-g environment, but in zero-g, you wouldn't be "stepping" on anything), or random warning symbols for exhaust getting placed near landing gear doors, and things of that nature. I don't know if they did that this time, but I know I saw a completely randomly placed "DO NOT TOUCH" marking right under the wingroot, on.. well, really nothing. It was the flat surface of the intake housing. :p

I know I think too much about it, but it just gives me the impression that Bandai is trying its hardest to overwhelm people with details, while never actually caring if they're accurate in any way.

And yes, the markings look far too big for the details they're applied to, or at least in too bold a font.

Edited by Chronocidal
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I haven't transformed the 19Adv yet, but I did attach the super parts. :)

The boosters like everyone else pop off fairly easily, the thing that was disappointing was the upper part of the wing root doesn't peg into anything when leg armor is on. :wacko:

Other than that I am pleased with it. We'll see if that changes when I attempt to transform it. :lol:

19109315836_a964cd64bc_b.jpg

Edited by Saburo
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My GF might get jealous if I do date nite without her. :lol: :lol: :lol:

-b.

:lol: :lol:

And I love the fact that it's just one of his 'quick pics'. Already tons better than mine

My quick pics are usually taken with camera phone, but in this case it was DSLR. If it was the phone the pics wouldn't be as nice.

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While I think overall this toy looks gorgeous in all three modes, I do have a few minor gripes about the apperance:

1) My number one gripe in Fighter mode is that I think the canards are not angled up enough. They are a bit too horizontal, this is really noticible to me and quite jarring.

2) The gunpod is positively anorexic, especially the handguard/barrel area. Yamato with their VF-19S/F/P and Arcadia with the YF-19 absolutely nailed the gunpod sculpt as far as size and shape (although the Arcadia was missing the cooling vents on the barrel cover).

3) The gunpod does not sit close enough to the belly in fighter mode, despite the banana bend. Bandai should have made the pistol grip telescope into the body of the gunpod a couple of milimeters, which would have allowed the gunpod to be 1mm to 2mm closer to the belly. Or allowed the gunpod to be a bit thicker (see gripe # 2).

4) The gap between the shield and legs in Fighter mode is a bit annoying. With all the other clever stuff they did with this toy, you would have though they could have found a way to get rid of the gaps.

Graham

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Anyway, I have to say, I like this toy so much that I just bought a second one locally at a retail store, so I can keep one in Fighter mode and one in Battroid mode.

This toy just does it for me and screams to be handled, played with and touched.

I thought the Arcadia YF-19 would do the same, but it was just underwhelming to me and sits untouched, unloved and unplayed with.

I think though that given that Bandai directly copied several of Arcadia's gimmicks, such as the removeable head cover, leg missile bay and hi-speed mode wings, I'm going to call this a 'Bancadia'......hahahah!

Graham

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I heard Bandai wanted to release this toy a long time ago and it caused bad blood when Arcadia released their YF-19 toy. I don't know who actually designed the VF-19Advance for Bandai but nobody should think the Bandai folks played with the Arcadia toy while designing the Bandai product. The Bandai product design was done before the Arcadia was released. That's not to say that the Bandai folks couldn't have seen the CAD work done for Yamato and lifted some elements from that, perhaps under the impression that that toy died with Yamato.

Edited by jenius
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Anyway,I have to say, I like this toy so much that I just bought a second one locally at a retail store, so I can keep one in Fighter mode and one in Battroid mode.

This toy just does it for me and screams to be handled, played with and touched.

I thought the Arcadia YF-19 would do the same, but it was just underwhelming to me and sits untouched, unloved and unplayed with.

I think though that given that Bandai directly copied several of Arcadia's gimmicks, such as the removeable head cover, leg missile bay and hi-speed mode wings, I'm going to call call this a 'Bancadia'......hahahah!

Graham

Graham how much did you pick up your second for?

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That's not to say they didn't incorporate ideas from the Yamato VF-19s, which I think were out long before the Isamu cameo came up. I'd chalk up the rest of the similarities to there just being only so many ways you can actually make a YF/VF-19 work.

And yeah, I might have to mod the canards to angle up further. I was hoping the hinges would let them angle up correctly, but it seems that isn't the case.

The wingroots not pegging into the leg armor though.. that's just fricken stupid lazy on Bandai's part.

Edited by Chronocidal
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Anyway,I have to say, I like this toy so much that I just bought a second one locally at a retail store, so I can keep one in Fighter mode and one in Battroid mode.

This toy just does it for me and screams to be handled, played with and touched.

I thought the Arcadia YF-19 would do the same, but it was just underwhelming to me and sits untouched, unloved and unplayed with.

I think though that given that Bandai directly copied several of Arcadia's gimmicks, such as the removeable head cover, leg missile bay and hi-speed mode wings, I'm going to call call this a 'Bancadia'......hahahah!

Graham

LOL on the "Banana bend" and "Bancadia."

I'm going to start calling the gunpod as "banana-pod" cuz of the bending functionality

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Despite my earlier misgivings, I decided to put the packs/armor on mine in battroid, including the wing packs. I kept them on overnight unsupported, and there was no apparent droop on either side this morning, so that's a plus. Today, I decided to transform it back to fighter with all of its gear on. What a Pain. The two major issues were 1) trying to keep the hips tabbed into position while manipulating the legs into position to accommodate the armor, and 2) those little grey pieces that tab into the calves fall off with the merest provocation. I finally managed to get the arms into fighter position, and then get the legs into their position, and then ever so carefully reattach the grey calf pieces for the 50th time. Not the best design, since the little white flap in the shoulder pauldron has to be pre-positioned so as to slide under the grey calf part. I absolutely could not get the shoulders to go into fighter position without their knocking the calf parts off, so I spent a very frustrating hour or so trying to get them into place with tweezers and my fingers. I have small hands, and had trouble, so you guys with sausage fingers, good luck! The only other issue I had after that was getting the left aft wing shroud to tab into the leg armor. I finally got it, but not without some finagling. However, after all the handling and invective, the final product is beautiful. Once everything was lined up and pressed into place to close the gaps, it was quite sturdy. I have to admit, those wing boosters, which are indeed a challenge to attach, look great on the fighter. I wish Kawamori could have found a way to get them to swing behind the shoulders, as they're just too bulky and awkward looking on the battroid, esp if the wings are left extended. I managed to get them to attach with the wings in their normal battroid config, but they fall off very easily. I also wish the designers had made the gunpod hinge from the grip; IMO it would have looked better and been more effective at keeping the gun level with the underbelly. I think they could have also simplified the canard rotation joint.

I have to concur with some of the other folks concerning the tampo; while I'm extremely appreciative that they went so far, it's almost too much. I also agree with Chronocidal about inappropriate markings, although I honestly haven't looked at all of them closely yet. I wish they'd just done the basic intake marking and made it a little smaller. Compared to real aircraft, the font on some markings are a little large. I think it's funny that there are 4 jack pad attachment points on the nose and 2 apiece on each leg. Most fighters only require 3, sometimes 4 jacks. The B-1B only requires 4 jacks, and I'm pretty sure it's much larger and heavier than a real world VF-19. I think they got carried away with the "cool" factor, and practicality went out the window. :D

Still, no regrets. Overall, it's a fine toy, and I think the transformation will be much smoother with the armor and packs removed.

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You do have to admit it is a little much though. I do like that they can do it, but maybe scale it back a little.

I just treat this as a "ver Ka". (Similar to their Gundam line )

Tampo away Bandai.

Edited by F360
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19109315836_a964cd64bc_b.jpg

This is a lovely photo! :)

Im kinda getting really pissed that one of the super boosters just doesn't want to stay attached to my one.. I really love this thing but that booster not staying put is driving me mad.. It just won't clip on and the more I try it the worse it seems to get. Im going to attempt a modification. Hoping my 2nd will be ok.

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I heard Bandai wanted to release this toy a long time ago and it caused bad blood when Arcadia released their YF-19 toy. I don't know who actually designed the VF-19Advance for Bandai but nobody should think the Bandai folks played with the Arcadia toy while designing the Bandai product. The Bandai product design was done before the Arcadia was released. That's not to say that the Bandai folks couldn't have seen the CAD work done for Yamato and lifted some elements from that, perhaps under the impression that that toy died with Yamato.

Sorry, I'm not buying that at all. The Arcadia YF-19 was released 15 months ago. Photos of the gimmicks were shown in hobby mags and online several months before that.

In all that time, there was never even the hint of a whisper of a rumour that Bandai were working on a competing 1/60 scale 19.

It's interesting that the gimmicks that Bandai blatantly copied (removable head cover, internal leg missile bay with single large missile and high speed mode using flat metal hinged bars) are Macross Plus anime specific (not shown in the Frontier movie appearance) and have only ever appeared in toy form on the Acadia toy.

This is clearly a case of Bandai cribbing from Acadia.

Graham

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they said a bug in their system allowed an order button to appear when that item's page was accessed through a "secure.hlj.com" URL. and vf-19adv was out of stock so my order was cancelled

It's not too late to buy one now. It's a regular link so they will definitely fulfill the order. Well, there's at least a 70% chance.

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From the pictures posted I think I like the Arcadia fighter better. I thought for sure I was going to like the bandai better. The Arcadia does look plain side by side with the bandai though. Still waiting on my 19 advance to show up and in hand might be a different story.

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they said a bug in their system allowed an order button to appear when that item's page was accessed through a "secure.hlj.com" URL. and vf-19adv was out of stock so my order was cancelled

The link posted is the regular link, , you should be good to go...

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Sorry, I'm not buying that at all. The Arcadia YF-19 was released 15 months ago. Photos of the gimmicks were shown in hobby mags and online several months before that.

In all that time, there was never even the hint of a whisper of a rumour that Bandai were working on a competing 1/60 scale 19.

It's interesting that the gimmicks that Bandai blatantly copied (removable head cover, internal leg missile bay with single large missile and high speed mode using flat metal hinged bars) are Macross Plus anime specific (not shown in the Frontier movie appearance) and have only ever appeared in toy form on the Acadia toy.

This is clearly a case of Bandai cribbing from Acadia.

Graham

Cant agree more. Let alone the gimmicks were copied, the mechanisms for the gimmicks were also copied (read : high speed mode bars, head cover). One of the reasons why Im not supporting this particular Bandai endeavor. Did purchase 25F, RVF-25 and 25A as those were Bandai's original & beautifully designed.

But its good to know Bandai did not disappoint and buyers are generally happy with their purchases, despite the minor gripes of looseness, tight tabs and slight transformation messy-ness.

Might consider getting one if Bandai ever decided to do a different repaint/scheme (and no Itasha!).

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Just got back into macross as of late so been playing catch up with bandai's dx chogokins (got renewal vf-25f and its myriad of armors, yf-29 Alto and yf-30). My vf-19advance just left japan (went the way of of yja since i have less chance of being hit with customs). Cant wait since i never got the arcadia yf-19 :D.

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this seemed like a no brainer to me but the only way to have the gun sitting as correctly as possible when in fighter mode whilst fully utilizing the gimmicky bending gun feature is to make sure the arms are not clipped to the shield. That will allow the arms to drop down a bit and the gun then tucks up under the body better. I figure this wont effect the look of the thing in fighter mode much at all as you can't really tell that the arms are not in their correct position but I think its a worthwhile compromise. And the gun sits where its meant to.

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It lasted a good 1 1/2 hours. I'm sure those who got their PO cancelled would be extremely upset since HLJ's prices were so much lower than amiami.

I'm upset because I wrote to parts@hlj.com about my defective head laser and they replied that couldn't get replacement parts and they had none to do an exchange with. Then here they sell some more a couple hours later... wtf?

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