Bandai 1/60 DX Chogokin Macross Plus YF-21

[Lolicon]

Oh man that is the one thing I've wanted most of all from Arcadia's releases: either make them all "premium finish" and just print the markings on, or include a sheet of decals for those of us that do want all the aircraft markings. Not this sticker crap. This isn't the freaking 1980s! These are supposed to be expensive high end toys.

Stickers and styrofoam trays... ugh! Get with the 21st century, Japan!

I wonder if there's some legal/contractual obligation that prevents Arcadia from including waterslides. A sheet of decals would cost practically nothing in relation to the overall cost of the toy, and when we're already paying 30k+ another 500 yen ain't gonna make any difference.

[Anasazi37]

2 hours ago, Lolicon said:

I wonder if there's some legal/contractual obligation that prevents Arcadia from including waterslides. A sheet of decals would cost practically nothing in relation to the overall cost of the toy, and when we're already paying 30k+ another 500 yen ain't gonna make any difference.

I've often wondered the same thing. My best guess is that there's an assumption on the part of the manufacturer as to what the consumer will want to work with. Toys, theoretically, should be ready to interact with right out of the box. Stickers are easy to apply, and historically decals have not been included with toys, so it might be that simple. I'd happily pay a little bit more to have sticker and decal versions of the markings included.

The Plamax 1/20 VF-1 kits are an interesting anomaly, though. They are most definitely a model that you have to assemble, and I think we all assumed that decals would be included, but we got stickers. Really crappy, profoundly disappointing stickers. If I'm correctly remembering their marketing material, the point was to make the kit easy to assemble and decorate for novice builders. Given the price tag, I wasn't looking for easy. I was looking for quality. They eventually released a set of decals (DX version that more or less matched the sticker sheets for $60) for it. Including both sticker and decals with those kits might have been too costly for Goodsmile/Max Factory to consider, but I would have been fine with it.

Edited November 27, 2022 by Anasazi37

[MacrossJunkie]

5 hours ago, Anasazi37 said:

I've often wondered the same thing. My best guess is that there's an assumption on the part of the manufacturer as to what the consumer will want to work with. Toys, theoretically, should be ready to interact with right out of the box. Stickers are easy to apply, and historically decals have not been included with toys, so it might be that simple.

I'm sure it's mostly this. At the very least, Yamato had shown they were capable of of making waterslide decals. They included them with the kit versions of the VF-1 and SDF-1 which had to be essentially built like a model which is for a more specific subset of the fanbase. Also decals are more delicate than stickers.

That said, the stickers look like crap, especially if you just peel them off as is and apply them without trimming the clear parts away. It wouldn't kill them to include both stickers and decals so people at least have the option. OR just sell them separately if they want to be greedy about it and let them be available through online stores like HLJ, Anime-Export, etc.

I'm already paying $12-20 for 3rd party decals sheets when available, but that's just it... "when available" and they often aren't for most things.

Give us the frickin' option, Arcadia! I like your stuff, but knowing there's no waterslide decal alternative to those crappy stickers makes it harder to want to buy your non-premium finish editions (if there is even a premium finish version available).

[Mog]

You know it’s bad when you stare at the stock Toynami stickers that came with the Beta and realize they’re infinitely better than anything Yamato ever came out with.

[Chronocidal]

Yeah, there's a reason I've never touched any of the sticker sheets on any Yamato or Arcadia release... with one very specific exception.  When I was looking for a Max VF-1S, I found a cheap copy of Max's VF-1A, and a broken Roy, and kitbashed them into a Max 1S.  I used the sticker for the head arrows to make Roy's arrows blue.  

I'm still really looking forward to the PF Arcadia YF-19, though also internally cringing at having to disassemble the wings to replace the wingsweep arms with my redesigned bracket (I still have a metal set from before Sculpteo stopped offering them).  I would really love to see them do a PF YF-21 to match it.. whenever it happens.  

[Lolicon]

Yeah buying third party grey market decals isn't cheap, and the quality varies wildly.

[wsna]

Has there been any pics with the Bandai w/ the landing gear down? I get the feeling (or at least I am hoping) that they're still doing a lot of fine tuning on the sculpt. 

[Lolicon]

Bandai painting the landing gear now would be a tacit admission that they screwed up on all their previous releases.

In 2082, for the 100th anniversary of Macross, Bandai will release a fully auto transforming & flight-capable VF-1 with working ejection seats... and the landing gear will still be plain unpainted metal.

[Ignacio Ocamica]

1 hour ago, Lolicon said:

Bandai painting the landing gear now would be a tacit admission that they screwed up on all their previous releases.

In 2082, for the 100th anniversary of Macross, Bandai will release a fully auto transforming & flight-capable VF-1 with working ejection seats... and the landing gear will still be plain unpainted metal.

I'll be 106 years old by 2082.

Hmmmm, I won't.

[no3Ljm]

9 hours ago, Ignacio Ocamica said:

I'll be 106 years old by 2082.

Hmmmm, I won't.

Ouch. I'll be 108 by then.  

Who knows, maybe by 2082, Bandai already entered the coffin business inspired with their franchise. 

[nightmareB4macross]

22 hours ago, no3Ljm said:

Ouch. I'll be 108 by then.  

Who knows, maybe by 2082, Bandai already entered the coffin business inspired with their franchise. 

They have already started catering to the older crowd. Remember the Machinder inspired walking canes.😂

 

I think we’ll end up getting coffins shaped like cockpits of our favorite Mecha when the time comes.

[no3Ljm]

7 minutes ago, nightmareB4macross said:

I think we’ll end up getting coffins shaped like cockpits of our favorite Mecha when the time comes.

Dibs on Evangelion Entry Plug. 

[Mog]

If you blink, you’ll miss the preorder window.

The coffin will have misspelled tampo all over it.

And instead of being in the 1/1 scale they show off at their 2081 Expo, the coffins will only be in the smaller 1/1.3 scale.

Edited November 30, 2022 by Mog

[M'Kyuun]

On 11/29/2022 at 2:25 AM, Lolicon said:

Bandai painting the landing gear now would be a tacit admission that they screwed up on all their previous releases.

In 2082, for the 100th anniversary of Macross, Bandai will release a fully auto transforming & flight-capable VF-1 with working ejection seats... and the landing gear will still be plain unpainted metal.

That is indeed an odd feature, for lack of a better word, of Bandai's DX line. In truth, Arcadia outclasses them on a lot of those small but meaningful details. I do love Bandai's penchant for tampo, but they go a bit overboard with it. I wish Arcadia would do more tampo, especially when the prices are in the $300 range. As a bare minimum, the intake markings, Macross kites, and nose and tail numbers should be tampoed. 

Part of me thinks it'd be a good thing if Bandai was to buy Arcadia and give them autonomy to continue doing their Macross products. Imagine what they could do with Bandai's resources. Too, the toys would come down in price (hopefully). Not sure Bandai would be willing to let Arcadia do things their way, though, so I guess it's better that they remain separate and a competitor in the Macross transforming toy market.

[MKT]

I think it's just Bandai resolutely sticking with metal / silver for landing gears, rather than unpainted per se. If we look at their HMR VFs, the gears are painted but they are still painted silver. What a wasted opportunity.. 

But unpainted intake fan details are still something of a head scratcher. Some DX's are, most aren't. The new HMR VF-0S's intakes are painted though, with the intake molding in sharper definition than the bigger 1/60 DX's. 

[MacrossJunkie]

I think it would be hilarious if they started making landing gear out of hard white plastic, but then painted them gray or silver.

[Chronocidal]

42 minutes ago, MacrossJunkie said:

I think it would be hilarious if they started making landing gear out of hard white plastic, but then painted them gray or silver.

Honestly.. I kind of wonder if we're at a point where someone with a very broken understanding of English is browsing these forums, and thinking all of these "DON'T DO THIS" statements are actually the opposite, and forwarding them to Bandai as feedback on what they should be doing.

It would explain a few things..

[Pontus]

On 11/30/2022 at 2:35 PM, Mog said:

The coffin will have misspelled tampo all over it.

And instead of being in the 1/1 scale they show off at their 2081 Expo, the coffins will only be in the smaller 1/1.3 scale.

And "no step" printed on every available corner/edge.  Ironically, they might finally remember to put the ejection warning on tho.

On 12/1/2022 at 1:22 AM, Chronocidal said:

Honestly.. I kind of wonder if we're at a point where someone with a very broken understanding of English is browsing these forums, and thinking all of these "DON'T DO THIS" statements are actually the opposite, and forwarding them to Bandai as feedback on what they should be doing.

It would explain a few things..

It's probably more along the lines of an AI/algorithm that scours the internet for hits on particular subject matter, then reports the amount which then registers them as mentions instead of complaints.  I bet they probably just pay google to do it, but don't want to pay for the deep dive details.  So the more screw ups they include, the more people talk about it, so it counts as a win.  Honestly, it goes with the double entendre, "No publicity is bad publicity."  If you had nothing to talk about, even bad things, you wouldn't be talking about it, and thus they would sell less because less people would hear about it in the first place.

Edited December 7, 2022 by Pontus