One thing I gotta say, BBTS has been upcharging the hell out of Japanese figures even with fully American releases, you should definitely check out some of their soul of chogokin prices for a laugh! I know business is business, but still!!
Since you have a VF-31 on the way just know that the YF-30 predates it by a few years and while they have similar design aspects, the VF-31 is designed better. When going from fighter to gerwalk the hinge works better on the shoulders on the VF-31 for example. I’m glad we got it from the Macross 30 game but it would be cool to see it rereleased with the better design enhancements(in build quality) of the DX VF-31 toys. DX VF-171EX Alto is the greatest Macross lemon I own. I paid more than $200 for it and this was after staying up late on a preorder night where the window was 17 seconds or less. Definitely study the manual and/or watch a video by Wotafa if he has one before transforming as the lower legs are unlocked a certain way(oddly enough on my mass production VF-171 on 1 leg it unlocks in reverse or something). The worst thing about it is that the hip bars are supposed to lock into place but they don’t. You’ll hear it click into place thinking it’ll stay but it won’t. If you buy it you’ll see what I mean in battroid mode. It made balancing and posing in battroid mode incredibly annoying(makes it easy to fall over). The hand retraction and overall transformation is over engineered and counterintuitive. This I found weird considering that Bandai made a DX 1/65 VF-17 maybe 15 years prior with a similar transformation, yet the complete opposite(intuitive and simply engineered). Yes the DX VF-171 was aimed at older collectors but there was no reason to make it as over-engineered as it was, given the shared elements of transformation. Oh and be careful with the wings as they’re attached using caps that are easy to inadvertently pop off. Why? The wings are swappable….clean wings and wings that have hardpoints to mount the missles from the FAST pack set. I don’t know why Bandai didn’t just use the wings with hardpoints and have them screwed/pinned/riveted on as the existing connection is weak. The DX VF-171 has a great sculpt, I have no issues with the sculpt, it’s photogenic and looks awesome. I guess that’s a big reason I was disappointed with it, as I loved it in the anime and eagerly sought out a preorder but it doesn’t handle as good as it looks. As far as Bandai DX Macross releases go I just rank it better than the version 1 DX VF-25s, which are the worst Bandai Macross DX releases to me.
I don’t think I’ve ever bought an SOC from BBTS. Now that they charge tax and no possibility of free shipping, there are only certain items I’ll buy from them. Even so, they get a lot of my business because there are a lot of “certain” items I want that end up being easier to get there without paying much more or at all.
Love the designs of both in the shows, I feel they’re underrated and deserve better modern toys than the ones Yamato and Bandai made in the last decade. A redesign with simpler transformation and less moving parts ironically and better hip bar locking mechanism for the DX VF-171 would actually work wonders to improve it.
Thanks for all the info on the 171. It's not high on the want list just yet, but it is one I'm considering. I watched the Scorched Earth review of the 30. The need for the brace was kind of shocking. Still, I'm not that bothered by it, and it looks really nice, odd missile pod aside. Anyway, will likely have to wait til next month for another hefty Macross purchase. The 30A cost as much as FT Omega Supreme did...
I think you could fairly level the “huge oversight” criticism at every Bandai Macross release between the old 1/65 Macross 7 DX VF-19 and VF-17 and the DX VF-31. the 31 was the first one they’ve done that hasn’t seemed like there was some kind of glaring QA issue. Loose ball joints, questionable plastic quality, overly complicated transformation (171 and 262), etc. I’m not a huge fan of the design of the VF-31 - I don’t like the big backpack or the accordion torso - but it’s startlingly screen accurate and it’s a solidly built figure in all three modes. It’s probably as close as you could get to a perfect representation of the mecha. I got a 31 first, before going back and picking up earlier releases to see if they were as good. the further back I went the more underwhelmed I was. Be careful reading some reviews - remember the “renewal” 25, for instance, was reviewed with only the v1 and the YF-29 as points of comparison at the time. That makes the renewal 25 sound like an amazing figure, and it is, compared to what came before it. But it doesn’t stack up to the later releases.
HLJ Summer Sale Macross items including the Evolution Toy VF-2SS that’s always there: Search results for: 'macross'
I was checking this last night to see if there was any good deals. I noticed that the Arcadia Max and Milia VF-1Js (the premiums and the lone Milia regular version) have not been in the last two sales so guess they're down to the last few for all of them.
At this point, those have been out for a while. Might as well buy them now if anyone wants rather than risk FOMO. There’s no guarantee there will be another run of those(and who knows if they’ll make it to a sale) since demand seems to have stabilized now(for Arcadia VF-1J Max/Milia). 2 cents more and it’ll be $3 off, just 2 cents more!
Oh, I wasn't looking for myself but someone on another forum I'm on was asking about the newer stuff and I pointed them to the Arcadias on HLJ and told him that they've been on sale before. So the universe thwarts me and they haven't been on sale since then. I luckily already pulled the trigger a few years ago on Milia's regular VF-1J and have been happy with it since. I agree that people should just pick them up since I doubt they'll remake them.
I picked them up when Arcadia put them out after missing out on the Yamato versions. Didn’t want to go through missing out all over again as the prices for those went up rather high before Arcadia released them. Now if they could release the VT-1, VF-1S low vis and VF-1S Max I’d be happy. Also the mass production VF-1J, I regret passing that up.
These have all been relevant points about the PF VF-1J Miria, so I just ordered the one on Jungle since I want that to be my 1/60 representative for the VF-1 series. Planning to display it with my VF-31C after I move next month
You got my wavelength @borgified, it also works for me that Miria’s VF-1J has been portrayed onscreen with newer VF from its appearances in M7, making it the natural choice for a 1/60 rep if I’m otherwise favoring the Bandai DX line.
I only collect robots/mecha as a rule, which does help rein my collection in. That said, those Basara and Mylene statues look great and would be tempting otherwise. Having seen a friend's anime figure collection recently, I can appreciate how tasteful the Mylene statue is versus the alternatives.
The rules exist due to previous experience I used to buy more generally, but after buying the full Toybiz Galactus wave (yes that long ago), I just wasn't feel the joy so I purged. The rule used to be Transformers only, but that band-aid got ripped last year with SoC Daizyujin and continues through Macross.
