Macross Newsletter #3
By Graham Parkes 09/14/99

Only three items of news this time. As most of the Macross stuff is happening in the US rather than Japan, I don't have much to report at the moment.
  • I have recently seen the cover art of the Macross year 2000 calendar and it looks to be a big improvement over the disappointing 1999 BOM calendar. The cover art features a picture of the YF-19 and YF-21 in space with the Earth in the lower background of the picture. The YF-19 is featured in the foreground of the picture in Battroid mode and the YF-21 is in fighter mode in the background. I hope to have a scan available soon. The calendar will retail for ¥1,800, will be B4 size and consist of 7 pages including the cover (as usual). Should be available around October/November time.
  • Attached is a picture(sorry-I lost the pic-shawn)of the prototype Banpresto High Grade ("HG") Macross figures. I don't have much information on these yet, but I think they will be released in October and will be made of soft vinyl (PVC). The figures will come already painted and probably stand about 4 inches high and be fixed pose (non articulated). Shawn Klueck shawn@macrossworld.com has some more information on these figures, which I'm sure he will share if you ask him nicely.
  • Also attached is a scan of the cover of the just released VF-X2 Official Visual Guide. Slightly bigger than A4 size this softcover book is 112 pages and packed with color character and mecha pictures, stills of the opening movie as well as a color game guide and interviews (in Japanese) with the games creators including Macross gods Shoji Kawamori, Haruhiko Mikimoto, Itano Ichirou and Miyatake Kazutaka. Sadly, there is not much in the way of black and white line art, although the VB-6, VA-3M and the new enemy ships including the Macross 13 are covered. The book retails for ¥1600 and the ISBN number is 4-89601-448-0.

Regards,

Graham