Graham

Here's my no punches pulled look at the best and worst of 2008. Best Anime TV Series: Macross Frontier, without a doubt. Simply blew away all the competition. Awesome in all areas, i.e. action, story, music, animation, mecha and character design). Worst Anime TV Series: Hmm....a toss up between Gundam 00 (simply crap) and Golgo 13 (hugely disappointing). Dishonorable mention also goes to 'Code Gay-Ass the Douche of the Rebellion', for having the ugliest mecha and silliest looking characters. Best Anime OVA: Only watched 1 this year and it was crap (see below). Worst Anime OVA: VOTOMS Pailsen Files. I'm a huge VOTOMS fans, but this sucked. Boring story and horrible, horrible CG that looked like it came from a PS1 cut scene. Best Anime Movie: Resident Evil Degeneration. The only anime movie I've attached this year. Thought it was OK, so it wins by default. Worst Anime Movie: Nil - only watch one this year (see above). Best Live Action TV Series: Terminator Sarah Connor Chronicles. Worst Live Action TV Series: Brothers and Sisters - my wife loves this, but I run screaming from the room whenever it’s on. Best Non-Japanese Cartoon Series: Star Wars - The Clone Wars. Worst Non-Japanese Cartoon Series: Transformers Animated - boring and ugly, ugly mecha designs. Even my 4 ½ son who loves classic transformers doesn't like this. Thankfully, he has good taste like his dad. Best Non-Japanese Animated Movie: A tie between Kung Fu Panda and Star Wars - The Clone Wars. Best Live Action Movie: Wanted. I actually enjoyed this more than Dark Knight Returns or Iron Man. Worst Live Action Movie: Didn't watch many this year, so no comment. Best Album: Macross Frontier OST 1. Worst Album: didn't buy any new albums this year, besides the Fronier OSTs. Bought lots of old stuff though. Best Game: Macross Ace Frontier (only game I've played this year). Worst Game: No Comment, only played 1 game (see above). Graham

Cough.........complete VF-25S page translation......cough......please! Graham

Is there any trick to getting S rank on the normal Sad Sniper mission. Can't seem to get higher than A rank. Dreading playing the Ex mission version if it's as hard as everybody says. Graham

Which only applies to those that have the skill, time and patience to build Hasegawas. The rest of us mere mortals (well, me at least), would like a reasonably priced, reasonble size dedicated fighter mode toy. Not diecast for me please. I've had terrible lucky with the paint chipping off the diecast after a couple of unfortunate drops. Graham

In the latest Japanese hobby mags released 25th November, there is no news of any new Macross Revoltech figures. Graham

Most of the people repsonding to that thread were quite negative to the idea IIRC. Graham

Watched up to episode 6 at the weekend with my 4 ½ year old son at the weekend. We are both really enjoying watching it together, especially the episodes that feature Clone Troopers. While it’s obviously aimed at kids, it’s nice to see they don’t shy away from portraying deaths. Explaining Clone Trooper Heavy's sacrifice in the episode 'Rookies' to my son was a bit difficult. I’m glad the Jedi are not uber-powerful here as they were in the Tartakovsky cartoon (Mace Windu & Yoda, I’m talking about you). Although we are seeing some extremely creative uses of the Force in combat, which is good. I especially liked seeing the Destroyer droids being used as bowling balls to knock down other droids. I’m just wondering where Lucas is going with the show, as he doesn’t seem to be portraying Anakin as angsty, whining, angry or frustrated at all. In fact, Anakin comes off as quite content and very respectful of the Jedi Council so far, even if he doesn’t always obey their orders to the letter. I wonder will Anakin be showing getting angrier as the show progresses, or will Lucas perhaps do a retcon (or make it an alternate universe), where Anakin doesn’t become Vader? Definitely prefer it to the 3 prequel movies overall and my favorite episiode so far is Rookies. Graham

Throughout the series we see numerous shots of cannon fodder VF-25 in fighter mode in the SMS hanger. IIRC we also see the tan cannon fodder VF-25 in action when several of them launch together with Ozma after SMS turns pirate. And of course there is the final episode as already mentioned. Graham

Easy. We see how it works in the anime. There is a scene in one episode, where the VF-27 is show parked or taxiing in the hanger in fighter mode and we see the the gun barrel splits open down the middle (just like when it is firinging a high power shot) and the front landing gear fits between the two halves of the barrel. Graham

There's an update on the DX toys on the official Frontier blog. First the Japanese: - Then the Google translation, which makes very little sense at all : - Make of that what you will. Graham

Am I the only one that actually thinks those latest set of pictures look really cool. I'd love to have larger hi-res versions for use as wallpaper. Graham

I was under the impression that the mecha you are given in EX missions were completely untuned and you did not get any tune points fro playing the EX missions and could not add/transfer any of your existing tune points. Graham

The recent issue # 130 of Figure Oh magazine, also had plenty of pics showing the crotch armor. IIRC, scans were posted a few pages back. Graham

Anybody here got the big AT TE? I'm interested to hear some comments or a mini-review from our members. Graham

Hasbro does love their shooty missiles! Graham

I'm still upset that they changed the name of the Brontosaurus to Apatosaurus. I refuse to call it Apatosaurus, silly bloody sounding name IMO. Brontosaurus sounds far cooler. Graham

Says the person with a Yamato VF-0S for his avatar. Graham

Looking good. I like what I see and the price is not too bad. Overall, the proportions in all three modes lok peter than the 1/60 DX IMO. Hopefully, the finished product will have full tampo printed markings. My only concern is that in the second picture that Mickayesou posted above, the gunpord appears to be warped. I hope it is not PVC. Can't wait to see the vF-171 in this line. Graham

I'd never say never. Bandai like every other toy make in the world puts out it's fair share of lemons. Graham

Haven't been following the news. Has a non-FP Hikaru VF-1J been released yet? If not anybody know when is the release date? Graham

I don't think you have to worry about those 2 points from Bandai. While the paint application on their lower price toys such as MSiA or mid-range toys such as GFF can sometimes be a bit iffy, the higher end toys such as the SOC and Soul of Spec usually have flawless paint jobs. As this is a high end toy, I fully expect it to have an excellent paint job and use top quality plastic. Graham

No more bitchin' and moaning from me from now on about this product. What we are seeing is what we are getting. I've accepted that and I'm slowly growing to like it (but not love it yet). Looking forward to getting it and doing a review. Graham

As well as the specs you have translated above, do any of the other paragraphs provide any new insight? Graham

Was considering getting the big AT TE, but I've been reading online about how the legs fall off too easily. Anyboday have it and have this problem. Graham

Never heard anything about the first release of the game coming with any extras. Graham