Graham

Both the reissue and the original release are excellent toys. The only difference with the reissue besides the packaging is that the yellow trim and UN Spacy emblems are painted on the reissue, whereas they are stickers on the original toy. For this reason I slightly prefer the reissue as on my 9 year old original VF-17S, some of the yellow stickers have developed some mis-coloring. Graham

The hands are just plugged into holes in the wrist. However, even in the anime, the VF-0's hands do not retract into the forearm they are extended at all times even in fighter mode. In fighter mode, the hands slot into cut-outs in the backpack. Those who have the Hasegawa kit will know what I mean. Graham

Here's a pic from the July issue of Dengeki Hobby, which shows which parts on the Yamato 1/100 scale VF-0S are removeable/swapable. Graham

I'm 99.99% sure that it fits in the Q-Rau. Graham

AFAIK, none of the SHE kits have ever been recast. Graham

I'm also one of the few people who thinks M7 was too short. I'd have loved to see more episodes . Graham

Heh, I've gotta be one of the few people who thought the first 12 episodes were great. Graham

US$29.00 is an excellent and extremely cheap price for a Bandai 1/65 scale VF-17S reissue toy. I've seen other online stores sell them for US$70. Consider that the Japanese retail price for the toy was ¥6,800 when it was reissued back in 2001. Graham

Is that Swindle just a repaint of a green Jeep that was released a while back. Sorry, I'm no good with TF names. Graham

Moved to the model forum, as er.....these are models not toys! Graham

Yep all completely true. Collecting out of product Macross resin kits (something I'm just getting back into) is a pretty expensive hobby. Fun tho Graham

Yep, the price that Noel (Blackaces) is offering on that auction is pretty good. I just came accoss the same Wave 1/100 battroid mode YF-19FP kit at a hobby shop in Mong Kok and the price was about 25% higher than Noel's price. Graham

I doubt the studio would have signed off on a movie with absolutely no dialog Graham

Yeah, I agree Event Horizon was an enjoyable and fairly creepy movie. Graham

The voice acting for the English dub of the Macross Plus OVA is suprisingly good (at least I think so). However, there is at least one case of bad translation. In episode # 1 when the dubbed Col. Millard is talking about the YF-19, he refers to it as being "made by Industries". Actually what he should say if the dub was correct is "made by Shinsei Industries". This has always really bugged me. Personally, I prefer to watch all my anime in Japanese with English subs as 99.99% of the time the Japanese voice actors will be far superior to their Western counterparts IMO. Graham

I for one am going to see AVP with an open mind. Also, I refuse to watch any 'making of' TV specials before I see the movie as I want to go into the theatre with as few preconcieved notions as possible. I think most of these 'making of' movies tend to give away far too much of the story and usually show all the best action bits. I thought Paul Anderson did a reasonable job of Resident Evil. True it wasn't up the stand of a Romero zombie movie, but I did like it enough to buy the DVD. I'm going to remain hopefully optimistic until I actually see the movie myself and avoid reading all reviews. Graham

No, no no. Everybody knows there are only 2 Alien movies Graham

You can see the VF-0D at the following sites: - Bandai Visual Macross Zero site. Big West official Macross Zero site (go to the gallery section). Macrossworld magazine section: June 2004 issue of Hobby Japan. Graham

Wave, B-Club, Yellow Submarine, TECT, Hobby Base Retppu & Studio Half Eye have all released YF-19 resin garage kits in various scales. Sadly these kits are long out of production. Personally, I think the Wave 1/100 scale YF-19 battroid mode kit was the best of the bunch. There is presently no manufactuer making a YF-19 battroid mode model in either resin or plastic. If you live in Japan or Hong Kong, you may still be able to track down these kits in some of the specialist hobby shops. If not, your best bet is either Ebay or you can try PMing MW members Blackaces, Monkey-N or Neova as they all offer a service to track down older kits for members. Hope this helps Graham

The VF-0B has been out for at least one month already. Old news. The single seat VF-0A is the next Macross Zero kit. No news of the delta wing VF-0D yet, but I'm 100% sure Hasegawa will release it sooner or later. Graham

What gets me about the F-35 for A2A is that it can't carry Sidewinders in the internal bays. I've read that the shape of the airframe partially blocks the seeker heads. Also, of course no internal gun on some varients. Which means with a standard load of only 2 x AIM-120, it would be OK for medium range or BRV combat, but pretty much defensless in a knife fight. Of course, I'm sure that with external pylons fitted, Sidewinders could be carried, but then the F-35 losses it's stealth advantage. Graham

Time to rain on everybodies parade...again! Just when I though Okawara had scrapped the bottom of the recycling barrel, he proves that there are new depths of unoriginality to which he can sink. I mean Zakus in SEED........sheesh!!!!!!!! Okawara have you no shame man? Actually, it's all probably just a marketing ploy to sell more models and toys. I can just picture the meeting of Bandai's Gunpla marketing executives: - Exec A: We sold a whole sh*t load of SEED Gundam kits, but the bad guy mecha, the Ginns and Mobile BBQs (or whatever they're called) didn't sell too well. What can we do to increase sales figures for the bad guy mecha in Destiny? Exec B: Well, the Zaku from the original Gundam is probably the best selling enemy mecha in the history of Gundam, so why don't we ask Okawara-san to slightly redesign it for Destiny. I mean most of Okawara-san mecha are recycled designs anyway, so one more isn't going to matter. Exec A: Brilliant idea. Heck, we can even still call it a Zaku for instant name brand recognition. We're gonna sell millions to the fans, as they'll buy anything with the name Zaku or Gundam on it. I just feel that for the past decade the Gundam franchise has been sinking lower and lower. I long for the days of 0080, CCA, 0083 & 08MST. Please Sunrise redeem yourself with a good UC OVA soon. If nobody else is bothered by the crass commercialism and striking unoriginality of putting Zakus in SEED Destiny, then I'll shut up I dunno, it just irks the heck out of me. Does Sunrise & Bandai really have such a lack of confidence in designing a good looking bad guy mecha that they feel they have to plagarise designs from other series? Here's betting we see Doms in the second half of Destiny Graham

Is this 'Investigating team' supposed to be a bad translation for 'Supervision Army'? The FX set is a poorly translated, as expected from bootlegs. The line is more like: "We haven't confirmed anything yet, but we do know that the enemy's machines seem to be of the type sent on an investigative mission to the 4th planet in the Varauta 3198XE system." UN Spacy VF-14s as shown in 'Spititia Dreaming'. Graham

Gotta agree that Mylene's face looks a bit monky-ish in those pics It's great that they are making a FB2012 Minmay though. Now all we need is a Yamato 1/48 perfect transformation VF-4 to pose together with it Graham

Time to close, this is supposed to be a Macross toy forum, not a real estate forum. Graham