Arcadia VF-5000G

[Phangry]

2 hours ago, MKT said:

It's not only quiet on the VF-5000 front, but they've also gone a bit silent on the other major release the Hargun that they've been previewing for a long time. Maybe all these re-issues they are doing now is really needed to amass more funds to take the new releases to the next level.

Hoping that's correct. Honestly, I hope these do well for them. (Now reissue the VF-11 and VF-17 🥺)

[Firefox21]

With the YF-21 DX pushes the price to 48,000yen, I wonder what the price will it be as Arcadia always has a much higher price tag.

[twich]

I know that Yamato is focusing on their VF-19Kai Fire Valk Sound Booster release, but it sure would be nice for a release on the VF-5000.

Twich

[treatment]

I predict 12,800jpy MSRP (excludes tokyo-tax), or 14080jpy with tokyo-tax.

 

 

 

 

[Sandman]

8 hours ago, treatment said:

I predict 12,800jpy MSRP (excludes tokyo-tax), or 14080jpy with tokyo-tax.

 

 

 

 

!

[no3Ljm]

23 hours ago, Sandman said:

!

Cue MGS Sound Effect.

 

[Mommar]

On 1/17/2024 at 9:52 AM, treatment said:

I predict 12,800jpy MSRP (excludes tokyo-tax), or 14080jpy with tokyo-tax.

 

 

 

 

That's $94...

[jenius]

That's what I just to ship a toy these days

[twich]

I have a feeling that this will be in the 25,000-30,000 yen range from Arcadia. Hope it is as easy to get as Bandai’s WWM releases.

Twich

[no3Ljm]

24 minutes ago, twich said:

I have a feeling that this will be in the 25,000-30,000 yen range from Arcadia. Hope it is as easy to get as Bandai’s WWM releases.

Twich

Don't worry. Arcadia preorders last longer than Bandai's 5sec preorder window.  

[rematron]

10 hours ago, no3Ljm said:

Don't worry. Arcadia preorders last longer than Bandai's 5sec preorder window.  

I'm sorry if this question has been answered a thousand times but why is this the case with Arcadia releases?  I have seen it myself since I started collecting a few years ago.  Is it because Arcadia releases are typically more expensive to purchase than Bandai? Or is it because they don't offer completely new designs very often?  I'd be tempted to be a little worried about the VF-5000 pre-order just because it's the first toy version of that model to ever be released.  It's not like a tweaked and remolded SV-51 or a VF-0D premium finish or a VF-4.  Is it that Arcadia will adjust their production number based on the number of pre-orders and just keep making them if they need to? 

[treatment]

6 minutes ago, rematron said:

I'm sorry if this question has been answered a thousand times but why is this the case with Arcadia releases?  I have seen it myself since I started collecting a few years ago.  Is it because Arcadia releases are typically more expensive to purchase than Bandai? Or is it because they don't offer completely new designs very often?  I'd be tempted to be a little worried about the VF-5000 pre-order just because it's the first toy version of that model to ever be released.  It's not like a tweaked and remolded SV-51 or a VF-0D premium finish or a VF-4.  Is it that Arcadia will adjust their production number based on the number of pre-orders and just keep making them if they need to? 

 

Nothing to do with any of that nor with Arcadia itself.

It's all just about Bandai.  They've been employing strict artificial scarcity on their toy lines since at least the DX VF-25 Renewal era. This tactic sustains the current ludicrous preordering shenanigans for their toys, especially on their various Chogokins (DX, SOC, etc) and their MetalBuild (Gundam or otherwise) lines.

 

[Big s]

53 minutes ago, rematron said:

I'm sorry if this question has been answered a thousand times but why is this the case with Arcadia releases?  I have seen it myself since I started collecting a few years ago.  Is it because Arcadia releases are typically more expensive to purchase than Bandai? Or is it because they don't offer completely new designs very often?  I'd be tempted to be a little worried about the VF-5000 pre-order just because it's the first toy version of that model to ever be released.  It's not like a tweaked and remolded SV-51 or a VF-0D premium finish or a VF-4.  Is it that Arcadia will adjust their production number based on the number of pre-orders and just keep making them if they need to? 

I think it’s a mix of issues. Bandai is a more popular brand for one. Sometimes even if another company puts out a similar but superior product, the Bandai will be more popular. That goes for kits and toys of a variety of franchises. The Bandai products are often newer even on rereleases. Arcadia is still mostly putting out Yamato products with slight updates and a different paint. Bandai has done the same with hmr, but that’s only for the vf-1 and those still weren’t as old as most of what Arcadia is usually rereleasing. Something like the vf-500 is new and Arcadia should be able to get some more sales because of it, but on the other side it’s not a popular design. Actually it’s kind of an obscure design. If someone were to go nuts over another og dx Valkyrie, it would be more understandable versus a design that has been hiding in the background. Gundam is an example of that. If Bandai were to put out a product of a main gundam from a show, it would be more popular than something like an oddball gm variant from a couple episodes.

[Slave IV]

I think the answer is simply that Bandai is one of the world's largest toy companies that makes thousands of different products and they need to allocate resources according to what is most profitable to them. Macross is not even a blip to Bandai from any of the few reports I've seen so it makes a lot of sense that they are limiting and likely making less Macross products in comparison to a similar Gundam product for example. IMO, it has nothing to do with them purposefully making Macross artificially scarce to piss off collectors and we can get an idea of just how small the Macross market is when you take that into consideration and see how fast some sell out and how long some stick around even at clearance prices. 

Arcadia on the other hand is a tiny boutique company that mainly focuses on Macross products out of their own love for it so pretty much every release they have is made to order and they can keep orders open for whatever time period they need to coordinate with their factories.

So basically, it's two completely different business models.

[Mommar]

Even still, the VF-5000 is NOT a mainline hero Valk.  You won't have a problem ordering this thing.

[Lolicon]

No, Bandai doesn't intentionally make Macross artificially scarce. 

Bandai tries to make all their products artificially scarce. 

I expect the 5000 to retail for at least 25k.

[MKT]

I've met some casual Macross collectors who are pretty averse to Arcadia products. They mostly form this opinion after hearing from other casual collectors that Arcadia products are just the same molds /straight reissues as Yamato's when coming to the 1/60 scaled ones. While this may be true of the VF-1, VF-19 & VF-4, many do not seem to realize other molds such as the YF-19, VF-0, SV-51 etc are entirely new at Arcadia, even if Arcadia's YF-19 mold is now already a decade old and having gone through multiple reissues. Since the earlier gen of Yamato products have all sorts of durability issues (of which Arcadia have remedied by redoing the whole mold altogether) they think Arcadia products are low quality and should be entirely avoided.

It is also difficult to tell the differences between Arcadia's and Yamato's molds, because they look very similar in pics when one casually look them up online. Of course, the first thing I do is point out the existence of Anymoon.

Bandai on other hand, have overall a much more solid reputation from their other non-Macross lines combined, so the same collectors I mentioned don't seem to have any hesitancy despite the well known issues of the Frontier valks (both v1 & v2). The trust in Bandai's brand is stronger, and I feel this adds up quite a bit to the demand & therefore shortages of their valks even if the shortages are artificial or intentional on the back end by Bandai themselves.

[Lolicon]

Some people like being in abusive relationships.

[Slave IV]

Haha, yeah all the better and easier for me to collect Arcadia, not that it is too hard based on what we just talked about. I still consider Arcadia to be top of the line when it comes to Macross figures. The reason they didn’t need to change some molds is because those were already that good that they still hold their own to this day.

[rematron]

To be clear, I love Arcadia products. Anyways, this is why I stated that Arcadia “tweaked” molds. While the SV-51 and VF-19 and VF-0 are not the same molds as Yamato, they are still based on Yamato’s molds and the transformations are basically identical. Arcadia just went in to try to improve them. That seems substantially easier than engineering and creating a perfect transformation from scratch. The VF-5000 is such a design. How many Macross mechs has Arcadia designed from scratch? 

[Slave IV]

4 minutes ago, rematron said:

To be clear, I love Arcadia products. Anyways, this is why I stated that Arcadia “tweaked” molds. While the SV-51 and VF-19 and VF-0 are not the same molds as Yamato, they are still based on Yamato’s molds and the transformations are basically identical. Arcadia just went in to try to improve them. That seems substantially easier than engineering and creating a perfect transformation from scratch. The VF-5000 is such a design. How many Macross mechs has Arcadia designed from scratch? 

In that sense, maybe all of them? Aren’t they basically the same designers and key people from Yamato? Plus, there is always T-Rex that seems to design for everyone doing high end transforming Mecha. 

[Mommar]

3 hours ago, rematron said:

To be clear, I love Arcadia products. Anyways, this is why I stated that Arcadia “tweaked” molds. While the SV-51 and VF-19 and VF-0 are not the same molds as Yamato, they are still based on Yamato’s molds and the transformations are basically identical. Arcadia just went in to try to improve them. That seems substantially easier than engineering and creating a perfect transformation from scratch. The VF-5000 is such a design. How many Macross mechs has Arcadia designed from scratch? 

They're based on the transformation engineering but not the molds specifically.  Arcadia's first, without any prior experience on the mold, will be the 5000.  That being said the 5000 is kind of a VF-1 and kind of a VF-11 so they're already pretty familiar anyway.

[derex3592]

Anyone who's actually owned or owns an Arcadia VF-OS or D can attest to how good Arcadia CAN be when they try. Bandai impresses me less and less these days honestly. Mainly the DX stuff. HM-R stuff is/was really good when it came out. 

[Slave IV]

8 minutes ago, derex3592 said:

Anyone who's actually owned or owns an Arcadia VF-OS or D can attest to how good Arcadia CAN be when they try. Bandai impresses me less and less these days honestly. Mainly the DX stuff. HM-R stuff is/was really good when it came out. 

The VF-0S and D PF are pretty much the best Valks ever made. Only with they had better hands or came with other hands but not a big deal at all. 

[Scyla]

On 1/19/2024 at 5:37 PM, rematron said:

I'm sorry if this question has been answered a thousand times but why is this the case with Arcadia releases?  I have seen it myself since I started collecting a few years ago.  Is it because Arcadia releases are typically more expensive to purchase than Bandai? Or is it because they don't offer completely new designs very often?  I'd be tempted to be a little worried about the VF-5000 pre-order just because it's the first toy version of that model to ever be released.  It's not like a tweaked and remolded SV-51 or a VF-0D premium finish or a VF-4.  Is it that Arcadia will adjust their production number based on the number of pre-orders and just keep making them if they need to? 

I think the issue is the scale of operation you are dealing with and some other commenters have already eluded to that. 

I assume the way Arcadia plans their production is totally different to what Bandai is doing. When Arcadia has decided on a new release they will open orders first and than see how many preorders they can collect from the wholesalers and individual customers. With that number in hand, they will go to an independent factory and book a production slot for as many units they want to produce. Hopefully the timing works out, otherwise the product is delayed (happens fairly often).

I would imagine that Bandai doesn’t operate on a batch by batch basis the way that Arcadia does. Because they have so many different lines and IPs they would allocate far in advance the production slot for a given item. Of course they will do a market analysis to get an estimate how much they want to produce. However, after the numbers are set this won’t change anymore. After that they will give the retailers the numbers how much units they can expect which is then sold off at preorder day. 
Bandai just has to plan their production differently than Arcadia since they are a gigantic company. And they have different processes in place and are not that agile compared to small operation like Arcadia. Bandai's releases are usually never delayed which is an indicator to me that they planned their production lines in advance.

Sure they have made to order items for their TWE releases but they also seem to have a predefined upper limit on how much they can produce.

To my understanding is that in Japan these items are not a scarce as we believe they are and you are able to go to a store and pick one up. So it is not like Bandai is super off with their estimates (there are notable exceptions like the Metal Build EVA-01 but that got a reissue fairly quickly).  Also big retailers like BBTS also don’t sell out quickly so I feel like Bandai thinks their production numbers are good especially since you don’t want to have big warehouses full of stock binding money.

It is just that smaller stores focusing on exporting those toys from Japan can’t get enough stock either from Bandai directly or from their middle men. 

The only thing odd about it are shops like Amazon Japan and AmiAmi ( to my knowledge the biggest specialty goods store in Japan). But here it could be the case of customers with a foreign IP address seeing other (more limited) listings compared to customers from Japan directly. Which has been the primary market for Macross items for a long time now.

 

[tekering]

11 hours ago, Scyla said:

To my understanding is that in Japan these items are not a scarce as we believe they are and you are able to go to a store and pick one up.

They are more plentiful in Japan, to be sure, but there's a much higher demand for them here; and yes, many of these items do eventually show up in stores...

...at significantly inflated prices, mind you. 🤨

The fact is, finding a new Macross product at conventional retail is next to impossible, even in Japan.  Arcadia's distribution is too limited, and Bandai's production runs are too limited.  Unless you manage to score a pre-order, you're stuck paying secondary market prices... no matter where in the world you happen to reside. 

 

[MKT]

Just to add to @Scyla's post, Arcadia has previously detailed how they handle orders:

https://ameblo.jp/arcadiaac/entry-12322090697.html

Bandai's TWE / P-Bandai items would be similar as well, except all orders have to be funneled directly to their website.

 

[Scyla]

On 1/24/2024 at 12:59 AM, tekering said:

They are more plentiful in Japan, to be sure, but there's a much higher demand for them here; and yes, many of these items do eventually show up in stores...

...at significantly inflated prices, mind you. 🤨

The fact is, finding a new Macross product at conventional retail is next to impossible, even in Japan.  Arcadia's distribution is too limited, and Bandai's production runs are too limited.  Unless you manage to score a pre-order, you're stuck paying secondary market prices... no matter where in the world you happen to reside. 

 

I appreciate your thoughts. To my knowledge Macross is also niche in Japan (with exception of Frontier and Walkuere during their heyday) compared to other anime franchises. So it makes sense that the Valkyries are not produced in masses and they tend to be rare.

I was more thinking about a photo someone postet on MWF during the height of the Renewal preorder madness  were they showed a stack of the newest Renewal VF-25 on day of release (might have been a Yodabashi Kamera in Tokyo).

It probably also depends were in Japan you try to buy one but I don’t live in Japan so all I can do is guess. 

Edited January 25 by Scyla

[M'Kyuun]

On 1/25/2024 at 3:50 AM, Scyla said:

I appreciate your thoughts. To my knowledge Macross is also niche in Japan (with exception of Frontier and Walkuere during their heyday) compared to other anime franchises. So it makes sense that the Valkyries are not produced in masses and they tend to be rare.

It's niche primarily because Harmony Gold held the Macross trademark hostage in most of the world for three decades while doing little with it and preventing the rest of the Macross series from proliferating and becoming popular. I was really hoping that would change when Big West struck their agreement with Harmony Gold allowing Big West to market everything Macross except SDFM, but from what I've seen, they've done very little to promote Macross since. Getting Macross onto streamers would have opened it up to a new huge audience and they could have subsequently pushed all sorts of merch, but for whatever reason, they didn't. The only positive for us collectors is that the valks can now be purchased through domestic vendors, a far better situation than the old midnight madness.

As to the Bandai vs Arcadia argument, I think both produce pretty good toys, although neither they, nor Yamato who preceded Arcadia, were free of duds. However there's an argument to be made that Arcadia, and Yamato before them, operated from a place of passion, and I think that shows in the toys they've made. But with such a dearth of companies making Macross stuff, I'm glad that a juggernaut like Bandai, with plenty of resources, is making them, although it's not lost on most of us that in some cases, like the upcoming DX YF-21, some design decisions seem poor or not as well-considered as they could have been given their acumen and level of resources. But, we Macross fans live in a nigh constant state of famine for want of merch, so perhaps a little good and a little mediocre is better than none at all. End of the day, you decide with your wallet.

Edited March 1 by M'Kyuun

[sh9000]

From Figure King # 314.

[rematron]

This thread is just a little over two years old now.  I'm so hoping this gets released soon and doesn't take the almost 5 years of teasing that the Bandai YF-21 has put us through.  I really like this design a lot.

[jorawar_b]

2 hours ago, rematron said:

This thread is just a little over two years old now.  I'm so hoping this gets released soon and doesn't take the almost 5 years of teasing that the Bandai YF-21 has put us through.  I really like this design a lot.

Saving up for this 

[jvmacross]

3 hours ago, rematron said:

I'm so hoping this gets released soon and doesn't take the almost 5 years of teasing that the Bandai YF-21 has put us through.

HMR Destroid Collectors: 5 years, eh? That was quick by Bandai's standards!

Lost track....is it now 8 years or 9 years since these were teased by Bandai'd?

[Mommar]

7 hours ago, sh9000 said:

From Figure King # 314.

Is this a new issue?  Wonder if it's the scan or if Arcadia are going with the darker green?

[rematron]

hahaha! Well, honestly, I'll be happy to wait if that means it's actually going to be made and not disappear into oblivion.