That’s a fair point. I do generally prefer the feel and engineering of Bandai over Arcadia though. Though I may get their Nora when the time comes

 

Interesting.

Not really sure this "waiting for distribution outside of Japan" thing will somehow alleviate the starvation and aggravatiion for Bandai Macross DX or HM-R canon releases...

 

It won't as far as the original series is concerned. I wonder how will that be handled.

 

We shall see when this things unfold over here in the States and Canada as well @treatment. There are a fair amount of us Macross Die hards (like peter, Paco Grande, angesdad, mw choi et all from MW that you know of including myself) are from the North of the 49th.

Hopefully that we don't have to result to getting Macross Valks from overseas (unless necessary) and that we can get it at or local hobby shops.

 

For me it is a start to allow me to not have to sit up till midnight pre-ordering a Macross DX toy. I always wanted a VF-25 so this will fit the bill nicely. Yes it isn't a Hero Valk, but at this point I can either pay for a second hand one or get a model. Plus I want to let Bandai and US vendors know that there is a demand for them here so we eventually get the ones we want.

 

Lost in all this is the fact that it seems only Bandai is allowed to do this worldwide macross thing.

Complete radio-silence on Arcadia's Macross valks from Big West.

Regardless of the mystery on SDFM/DYRL valks distribution, I really would like to have the 1/60 Macross Zero line offered domestically here without the high markup and high shipping fees!

I'll be so damn friggin' pissed if ET gets to release their crappy 1/60 VF-2SS line domestically before Arcadia's valks...

 

I think it will happen with Arcadia. It's not Bandai that distributed internationally first after the agreement was announced. It was Megahouse with their M7 statues. Bandai just did it with fanfare.

 

Going to guess since the agreement is with Big West and Harmony Gold that Arcadia probably could work things out with their Valkyries as well.

Ha! What @Flapjacks said.

 

Megahouse is a subsidiary of Bandai.

 

Oooooh I didn't know that but there's also the Macross Delta/Frontier cockpits by Max Factory. They're not Bandai and IIRC, they came out almost the same time as the M7 statues.

 

Sold out. Huh.

and nothing at TCP or BBTS?

 

TCP never had Bandai Macross stuff for sale @OptionZero. BBTS... Unknown for now.

 

Model kits were/are usually exempt from the HG embargo, iirc. Not sure why or how, actually.

 

Damn. Was too preoccupied with watching Cowboy Bebop after MNF.

 

To give another perspective of what worldwide distribution could bring, my local retailer just put the VF-25 on preorder for 199 euro. The VF-1J and D were between 350 and 400 euro. Considering that I paid the 1J twice than the MSRP and I wasn't able to get the Roy 1S, to me this can be a game changer. Now I'll look for some reviews of the VF-25 to get an idea if it's worth the price.

 

The VF-25 is a nice release if you’re familiar with Macross Frontier. But since that hasn’t been released outside of Japan officially (yet), the only people who might be interested are fans who have already gone out of their way to see Frontier and have been following Macross in the grey market. In that case, I don’t think there’s actually a lot of “hype” around it as a figure, aside from “maybe we can finally buy this without preorder nonsense and import prices.”

If it’s got the same improvements they made to the YF-29 reissue from last year it’s a pretty good figure in general, too. So that helps.

Macross Plus otoh was already well known outside of Japan, so if they wanted to catch some nostalgia buyers who haven’t thought about Macross in… 25+ years I agree the YF-19 would probably have been a better choice to lead with. I assume there will be actual marketing for that one before it goes up for sale.

 

Toydojo had it last night, but sold out now. Look out, other stores should have it soon.

 

I’m just impressed that Toy Dojo had it for MSRP (or something close to it). I was afraid we’d still get gouged even with the iron curtain out of the way. I consider the DX Macross figures to be a decent value at MSRP compared to a lot of other premium collectible lines.

 

BBTS has it up now, thought I’d probably wait for Entertainment Earth if you didn’t land a preorder already
https://www.bigbadtoystore.com/Product/VariationDetails/186531

 

Considering I've seen this go from $199 to $230 shipping included from different US retailers, I'd think they're gonna put themselves at a disadvantage when people find out they charged more than MSRP if they did that. The only thing that will determine where to get it is the taxes.

Yes, there are other places that have put up preorders