Fresh from the show floor today – from Delta promotions to VF-2SS, there was a lot of Macross on display at Wonder Festival 2016 Winter!
Category: Toys
Just over one year ago, Volks, a company that produces high end ball-jointed dolls, opened up pre-orders for a limited, and quite pricey, Dolfie Deam set of Sheryl Nome and Ranka Lee dolls with outfits from the feature film Sayonara no Tsubasa. After longer than a year’s wait, I was finally fortunate enough to receive both of these works of art.
Hot on the heels of the recent translation of the Kazutaka Miyatake interview from the SDF-1 book, comes yet another Miyatake heart-to-heart, this time the big man is talking about his work on Super Dimension Century Orguss, or as I like to call it, “Kei Katsuragi’s Adventures in Wonderland”. I hope you find it as fascinating as I did, giving an insight into the state of mind he must have been in during that entire 1982-84 period.
This interview is from a booklet that was included with the first edition of the Megahouse Variable Action Hi-Spec Orguss toy from earlier in the year. I chose to tackle it at this time since it would be perfect to brush up on our Orguss trivia as this year’s Macross World Convention will have a dedicated ORGUSS panel for all your Space-Time Oscillation needs!
The translation starts after the jump. Enjoy!
We’ve all thought about it, some of us more vocally than others, and on Thursday last week, the mysterious Mr. K from Arcadia — previously Yamato — took some time to publish a long blog post on the topic of why Arcadia’s products are so highly priced.
The really high quality transforming Macross toys have never been cheap. No, not even the Takatoku 1/55. But Arcadia’s recent offerings have finally broken the 30,000 yen barrier. Some of us in the forums felt that Arcadia had gone insane. Well, this here is a unique opportunity to peek at what actually goes into producing a Valkyrie toy and give a bit more context to the figures.
Original article:
http://ameblo.jp/arcadiaac/entry-12066413053.html
Feel free to discuss this in the MW forums!
Why are Arcadia toys so expensive? By Mr. K (Translated by Renato)
Why are Arcadia toys so expensive?
Our Macross items are currently on a Macross Zero boom (according to myself).
We’re putting out several UN Spacy birds in turn, but I (personally) want to do Anti-UN ones as well.
However, there is a growing difference between the way things are today and years ago, so the truth is that we cannot do things like in the old days.
“How can we make these products a reality…?” I’m constantly struggling with that thought.
Of course, the same goes for other projects, too, but it is a constant, everyday struggle.
Hello. My name is Mr. K, the struggling project developer of this company.
For years now the Chinese factories have been raising their fees and we have seen that influence the price of our products.
This is not just a hit on our company, but also on the manufacturing industry as a whole. So yeah, of course it’s a struggle!!
So I thought I would take some time to think about the reason for that struggle, which is the issue of high price point products, and how that relates to profit margins.
That said, it’s not like I can actually talk about the profit bottom line or anything, so let’s just think about it in the following way…
I will call it: “Why do people say our products are expensive…?” (And yes, as I write this my heart can’t help but feel heavy).
Tamashii Nations annual Summer Collection display opened in Akihabara today and offered Macross fans a closer look at Bandai’s new Hi-Metal R line, as well as unveiling Hidetaka Tenjin’s new box art for the VF-1J Armored Valkyrie.
The SpeakerPODcast Crew was on-hand and managed to grab a few snaps.
Enjoy, and don’t forget to share your thoughts on the new line in the FORUMS.
Categories
VF-2SS Transformable Toy ANNOUNCED!
The annual spring Miyazawa Mokei toy exhibit was held today, bringing with it a very unexpected announcement.
Scooped by the world’s most notorious Macross 2 fan SAVE, who was at the unveiling in person, Evolution Toys announced a 1/60 transforming toy of the VF-2SS.
Heres what we know:
Maker: Evolution Toys
Cost: 25,000 yen
Release Date: Autumn, 2015
SAVE noted that, given Evolution Toys previous releases, fans can expect a certain amount of die-cast in the toy. More details as they emerge.
Dengeki Online has since also picked up the story in their event report.
Categories
New Ichiban Kuji Figures & Merchandise
Dengeki Online has released details regarding the Banpresto’s latest set of Ichiban Kuji merchandise.
As in past Ichiban Kuji’s, this campaign will include new figures, art cards, phone straps, glasses and towels.
The campaign begins on March 28th at participating venues throughout Japan. One ‘draw’ will cost 900 yen.
Wonder Festival 2015 Winter was held yesterday (Feb. 8) at Makuhari Messe, and a couple of members of SpeakerPODcast were on hand to take pics and gather all the latest gossip and info.
Of course, the big news for Macross fans was the announcement of the VF-0A and VF-0S, both tentatively scheduled to be released at some point by the end of 2015.
The VF-0A and VF-0S are not reissues of the older Yamato versions but have been redesigned from scratch. More specifically, a lot of the engineering work that was put into the VF-0D was able to be applied to the 0A and 0S meaning that hopefully some of the QA issues that hampered Yamato’s earlier attempts will not be an issue this time around.
Pricing has yet to be announced although word on the show floor was that fans should expect a price range similar to that of the VF-0D, give or take a little.
The following photo gallery comes courtesy of Save and includes both the VF-0A, 0S, and 0D, garage kits, model kits and even a little bit of Orguss. Because Renato just wouldn’t forgive us if we left it out.
We also ran into original SDF-1 designer Kazutaka Miyatake at the show and had a little chat. But that’s a story for a future episode of SpeakerPODcast.
As part of the birthday celebrations for Sheryl Nome this weekend, a ‘Macross x Tamashii Nations Superdimensional Chogokin Exhibit’ was held on the 10th floor of the new Radio Kaikan in Akihabara from Saturday November 22 to Sunday November 23.
This was only one of several birthday events for Sheryl that occurred over the weekend, which I will be posting pics from later. In the meantime though, the following are some pics of the items, classic and new, and cool cool plastic that was on display at the exhibit, courtesy of forum regular and SpeakerPODcast co-host SAVE.
The bi-annual Miyazawa Mokkei hobby showcase was held yesterday (Nov. 18) and included a variety of new and upcoming Macross products.
Arcadia brought their A-game with a more complete looking prototype of the VF-OD. (An uncoloured prototype was previously displayed at the Spring Showcase) , while Banpresto turned up with some prototypes for the next batch of Ichiban Kuji figures.
Fortunately. SpeakerPODcast co-host and forum regular Save was on the scene to scoopda some amazing pics.
He also managed to get some clarification on the most important thing of all – the colouring of the VF-0D is still being tweaked. The final version will be shown at the next Wonder Festival in February 2015.
