Graham

Yep, Japanese R2 set is great. Beautiful Tenjin box art as well. Graham

Hmmm.............I'm not sure what's the hidden meaning behind Sebastian putting a photo of his wife's head between the legs of a naked mecha? You are a naughty, naughty boy Sebastian. Graham

Those underwing things only appear in the TIAS Macross Plus book from 1995. AFAIK, they are not shown on any later drawings of the VF-5000 in other later books or magazines. They were not on the VF-5000G or VF-5000GT in the Dynamite 7 OVA. Neither were they on the SHE VF-5000 perfect variable model or the Yellow Submarine VF-5000G 1/144 scale fighter mode kit. They were also not used in the 3 console games that the VF-5000 has appeared in (M3 for DC, MPGE for PS, VF-X2 Special Edition for PS). I can only presume that they were an early concept idea from Kawamori that he later decided to drop. BTW, what is the Corydoras kit? Pictures? Graham

Pics are on my camera already, just haven't had time to upload them yet. I actually didn't buy a full set. Instead, I bought 2 x Vipers, 2 x Cylon Raiders, 1 x silver Cylon, 1 x Basestar, & 1 x Battlestar Galactica. I decided not to buy the Gold Cylon or The Battlestars Atlantia or Pegasus. Graham

You mean season 1? Already out a few days ago. My set shipped 4-5 days ago and should be arriving from amazon.co.uk any day now. Graham

Actually, I don't know why so many people dislike Macross 7. This attitude of "I haven't watched Macross 7 and I'm not going to watch it beacuse member XYZ say it's bad...blah....blah...blah" really irks me. Form your own opinion guys! Try it first before you make a judgement based soley on other's opinions. I accept that some of you have seen the whole series and didn't like it. Fair enough. However, some people have only seen a couple of episodes, but seem to be stuck on a couple of issues and unable to move past them. Most common of all the 'Valks with faces' issue. I first started watching Macross 7, what over 10 years ago. Yes, the Valks with faces annoyed me at first as well. I felt betrayed by kawamori for sullying the classic VF design. But then I realised it's only the Sound Force Valks that have faces. They are not military valks. The are customised civilian valks used by a rock/pop band. Of course they will look different. Musicians are eccentric. Look at Glam Rock bands. Think of the Sound Force Valks as Glam Rock Valks if you like, designed to be easily identifiable and different from the military valks. If you are a fan of military Valks, there are plenty of reasons to watch M7. There are lots of cool looking military Valks in Macross 7, such as the VF-17S, VF-17D, VF-22S, VF-11C, VF-11D, VF-11C Full Armored. VF-19S and VF-19F. A lot of the Varuta mecha looks very cool and menacing IMO as well. A1, Max wears an officers dress uniform with a cloak for a lot of the show.....so what? he's still Max, he's still cool. He commands the Battle 7 and kicks ass at the end of the series in a VF-22S. He has all the Bridge Bunnies after him as well. Personally I think the military uniform looks fine, certainly better than what HG had Max wearing in Sentinels. I don't recall seeing Max wearing a dress in M7. Max also dresses pretty smartly when in civilian clothes. Millia, great character. Mayor of City 7 and kicks ass in her classic VF-1J, a VF-17S and a VF-22S. Another reason to watch M7. M7 has Mylene, one, one of the cutest anime girls ever IMO. Gamlin my favorite character. I always think of him as the star of the show, not Basara. Yes, Basara can be annoying. But you have to admire his uncompromising pursuit of his ideals. M7 has a great intro and great endings IMO. I love Fire Bomber's songs, have all the CDs. It's pretty catchy music. I think I'm one of the few people that thinks M7 is too short. They should have had more episodes! I actually prefer M7 to the SDFM TV series. I disagree that the first 10 eps of M7 are too slow. I think lots happens and there are a couple of real classic eps in the first 10 eps. Ep # 7 is one of my all time favs. Mylene in a bikini and Gamlin kicking ass in a borrowed VF-11C. Graham

A little bit OT, but I picked up a set of the Konami TOS trading figs last night and very cool they are. Will post some pics later. Definitely recommend getting these if you are a fan of TOS designs. Graham

LOL....maybe he borrowed the Active Stealth system from the YF-21 for his personal use. Graham

Look at the white part of the right shoulder & the thruster on the center groin, pretty sloppy. Graham

Hopefully if it does sell well, it will encourage Yamato to make more Macross products. Graham

Like Macross II. Love Macross 7. Graham

Nah, saw the Cosmic Region Force Impulse in the shops yesterday and I'm gonna pass on it. Sculpt is quite good, but as Howard said the paint job is a bit iffy on many of them. Anyway, I consider the MMM GQ toy the ultimate version of the Impulse, so I'm gonna stick with that. Besides I've spent far too much on models and DVDs this month already. Oh, the HCM Pro Force Impulse & Gunner Zaku Warrior are also out and look very nice. As I have no money and no free shelf space I'm gonna pass. Graham

Yep, think this thread has outlived it's usefulness. Time to close it. Graham

IIRC it came out at the same time or shortly after the other two PS2 guidebooks. I haven't looked at mine for ages (they're not the most exciting of books), but I'm pretty sure it's just got basically the same stuff in as the other books. Graham

24th or 25th April. Graham

Loved the original Guyver, although I haven't watched it in years. Hope this new version is a continuation from where the original left off. And I hope it is a full length TV series of at lest 26 episodes. Oh, and it better not be all CG. Graham

2,500.

The grey color 'Low Vis' FAST Packs are kinda neat though. Graham

This is a topic that seems to pop up fairly frequently. FP ver. is a lighter shade of grey. Gunpod is a lighter shade of green. FP ver. has a pilot, regular ver. does not. FP ver. has metal reinfoced hips. FP ver. has FAST Packs. FP ver. has Tampo printed UN Spacy emblem on the wing. FP ver. has pre-cut heatshields (regular ver. you have to cut them yourself). Graham

The price is TBA, as is the release date. As a very rough guestimate knowing the speed Yamato work, I'd say we'll see it by Christmas 2005 if we are lucky or perhaps first quarter 2006. It hasn't been announced how it will be sold, but there were rumors flying around a while back that two versions are planned, the armor by itself and also sold bundled together with a Hikaru VF-1J, just like he 1/60 version. It would not surprise me if this were true. Graham

I completely agree with that. Maybe Yamato should make un upper arm adaptor as well to make him look more pumped . Graham

Take a look at your 1/48 in Battroid mode. Now imagine it is wearing GBP chest armor. Even if the chest armor was made out of very thin plastic, it is still going to partially obscure the Battroid's already fairly narrow shoulders. This would mean that in order to add the shoulder GBP missile pods without adaptors, the missile pods would either have to be disproportionally thin, or would overhang the sides of the shoulders. Graham

GBP groin armor has always been a tricky issue. You either have to have a short nosecone on the VF-1, like on the 1/55 to keep the length of the GBP groin armor reasonable or if you have a longer more 'fighter mode' accurate nosecone on the VF-1, then you end up with overly long groin armor on the GBP. More than a year ago when they first mentioned the possibilty of a 1/48 GBP to me the plan IIRC to keep the length of the 1/48 GBP groin armor a reasonable length was that you would have to remove the nose cone to attach the groin armor. However, there was also talk of having a hole in the bottom of the groin armor, so that those who wanted to maintain perfect transformation could still leave the nose cone on, but the tip would stick out the hole on the bottom of the groin armor. I have no idea if they still intend to follow this idea. Graham

Nope, no news of the 1/100 VF-0S. It's been 6 months now since any of the hobby magazines had any new pictures or info. Add to that the fact that Yamato did not have the VF-0S on display at last month's Wonder Fest, then I have a nasty feeling that it has been dropped from their production schedule. Graham

Don't speak too soon, we haven't seen the 1/48 groin armor yet! Graham