Graham

Opening here in HK on March 15th. Definitely going to see it. Graham

The green Gera Doga HCM-Pro is also great. Fantastic articulation and detail. Graham

I think we have to learn to accept that toys from the smaller companies like CM's Corp, Wave & Yamato are invariably going to cost more than toys from the big boys like Bandai & Takara. It's simple economies of scale. Graham

Just picked up the Takara 1/18 scale Scopedog today. It's pretty good, the most impressive thing being the weathered paint job IMO. Pros: Excellent weathered paint effects. Nice solid joints, holds poses very well. Good articulation = good posability. The rifle can be converted to short barrel version. Takara scores over Yamato on this point. Cons: The Chirico Cuvie Microman figure is a real piece of crap! The joints are too loose and the hands are constantly coming off, as is the holster for the Armor Magnum pistol and the chest canister and the right arm just below the shoulder. Getting him properly seated in the pilot seat and actually holding the Scopedog's contol handles took ages and made me so fustrated, I nearly stomped on the Chirico figure in a fit of frustration! I'm not impressed with the Scopedog's hand design at all. The plug-in non-articulated PVC thumb and finger parts for holding the rifle are not very secure IMO. The finger section tends to come off quite easily. With PVC I can see the problem getting worse with time. I would have preffered hinged ABS hands. One of the two cables that attaches to the front of the control column broke within minutes. The column is hinged to move up and down, but the cables aren't sturdy enough to take the movement where they attach to the column. Lack of accessories. The head antenas are very stiff with no flex at all and seem pretty fragile (easy to snap). The visor will not stay up by itself and falls right down again. Lack of any detailing on the insides of the skirt armor. Come on Takara, the much smaller and cheaper 1/200 scale Bandai HCM-PROs (especially the Sazabi) have an insane amount of inner-armor detail at a fraction of the cost. There's no excuse for this on a modern, larger high-end toy costing much more. Overall, it's good, but not quite as good as I was expecting. The Microman Chirico was a real disappointment. Also, I'd have definitely prefered the head antenna to be made of a slightly flexible material, such as POM or PVC. As it is, they are just too stiff and likely to snap if the toy is dropped. I find myself cosnstantly worring about this when handling the toy. I'd give it a 7.5 out of 10 all together. I'll probably eventually pick up a Yamato 1/12 version for comparison. Graham

Why odd? It's the 25th anniversery. You didn't seriously think BW would let it pass without something new did you? Graham

Wondering how the latest fighter-mounted AESA radars do against F117/F22/F35? Graham

Just added the Macross resin kits page and CM's Legioss+Tread pages to my Winter Wonder Fest 2007 report. More to follow soon. Graham

Just added the Macross resin kits page and CM's Legioss+Tread pages to my Winter Wonder Fest 2007 report. More to follow soon. Graham

Does the Red Shoulder Scoopedog (v2) also come with normal color parts or only the clear parts? I'm not really into clear armor parts. Graham

Looks like I'll be going for the Takara then if I can track one down. I was sort of leaning towards it anyway. Graham

As I've ordered the Votoms DVD set, I'm probably going to pic up a Scopedog toy in the near future, so I've got something to play with while I'm watching the show. I used to have the vintage 1/24 Takara Scopoedogs, but long since sold them on ebay. Anyway, I'm looking for a more modern rendition. I've pretty much narrowed my choice down to either Yamato's 1/12 scale Scopedog or Takara's 1/18 scale rendition. I'm not into small toys like the Actic gear Votoms toys, neither do I like PVC stuff like the CM's Votoms toys. Help me decide which should I get, Yamato or Takara? The Yamato version seems to get very good reviews everywhere and has lots of detail, good durability and some neat feature & gimmicks and I do have a certain loyalty towards Yamato products. However, it does seem to have a few strikes against it. Firstly, it's slightly larger than my ideal toy size thus reducing ease of handling and making it a shelf hog. Secondly, it's expensive and the cost is made worse by the fact that it doesn't include a pilot figure (a must-have) that you need to shell out extra for. Thirdly, it has at least four accessory sets available. Now normally this is a good thing, but being the completist I am, I'd have to track down all the sets and end up spending a huge amount of money. The Takara 1/18 scale I don't know much about. I read one review a while back (maybe from Drifand?) which seemed quite positive. On the plus side, it does come with a pilot figure and is cheaper than the Yamato version. I don't have any real idea about the detail, articuklation, features and durability. So from those that own both, what are the pluses and minuses? Graham

Why is sandman a giant? I always thought he was human sized. Graham

For a long term relationship, I'd choose based on the following criteria: - 1) Which one gives better head (or is willing to give head). 2) Which one is more active in bed (no dead fish please). 3) Which one gives a better massage. 4) Which one cooks the best. 5) Which one has the best sense of humor. 6) Which one has the most even temper (I hate bad tempered bitches). 7) Which is the prettiest (TV Misa definitely gets low marks here). Which has the best figure. I'd score each category on a range of 1-5, with 5 being the highest and 1 being the lowest. The girl with the highest score would be the keeper. Graham

If anybody wants to sell a unit 3 head or swap a unit 3 head for a unit 2 head, please PM me. Graham

Damn, gotta find time to get the rest of the pics up. Got about 150 poics still to post of non-Yamato stuff. I'm out 3 nights this week, so don't have much time. Hope to have some firm news on VF-0 & YF-19 fixes soon. Graham

I'd recommend the following books as an essential part of anyone's Macross book collection: - Macross Perfect Memory. DYRL Gold Book. Shoji Kawamori Macross Design Works. Tenjin Valkyries book. TIAS Macross Plus. TIAS Macross 7 Animation Materials. TIAS Macross 2. Of course there are many, many more Macross books, but they above is a good core start to a collection. Graham

Only having seen about 3 early episodes of Votoms, I've always wondered what are the Red Shoulders? Are they a special forces unit, or a mercenary group or what? Graham

Hey, leave off Blue Gender. It's one of my favorite animes and highly under rated IMO. As for Gasaaki, well at least it has some nice mecha designs and some good military mecha action. Now if only they'd stuck with that and left out all the weird mumbo jumbo. Graham

Ah, I see. Yes it seems to be the same. Graham

Saw a Manga DVD box set on Amazon. Which is better, the Manga set or the CPM set? What's the differences? Graham

Interesting question. Being at work at the moment I can't check, but I seem to recall seeing in the TV series one or two scenes of pilots sitting in the Tomahawk cockpit with the hatch open and I think their uniform was the same as a Valk pilot. of course, I could just be imagining it! Graham

Actually, I've always thought the YF-19 was quite lacking in missile firepower. Those leg missile bays are not really very big. The production VF-19F/S are supposed to hold a total of 48 micro-missiles in the legs (24 per leg), but again this is only micro-missiles which are short range only. Graham

M+ & M7 era VFs have such powerful engines with an insanly high thrust-to-weight ratios that I think technology has gotten to the point where the VFs thermonuclear engines are superior to the rocket engines of missiles. Unlike today, where contemporary missiles have an edge in max speed, acceleration and number of gs they can pull, I think by the 2040s or earlier the advantage has shifted to the VFs at least in terms of raw speed and acceleration. It seems that in Mac Plus and Mac 7 that as long as the pilot has warning of the missile coming he can out accelerate and out run or out manuever the missile, or try to shoot it down. It's interesting that the VF-11B/C, VF-17 & YF-21/VF-22 carry only short range micro-missiles for their missile armament and no medium range missiles, which implies that medium or long range missile combat is pretty much a thing of the past and large volley missile salvos at short range seems to be the norm. Saturate the enemy with many missiles at close range in the hope that one or two get through and hit before the enemy can escape. Graham

I also think the 100th MG will be an RX-78, it's a no-brainer really. I also agree with Sebastian that the RX-78 sucks. One of the ugliest mecha ever IMO. Graham

Will try to get the rest of the stuff up by Wednesday. Sorry, had a busy weekend and no time to work on it. Graham