Graham

Haven't seen it yet. Keep meaning to as several people have said good things about it, but the design of the main mecha puts me off. I'm the sort of person that even if an anime has an excellent story, characters, music etc, I still don't like to watch it if it has what I consider to be ugly mecha. Graham

Interesting articles, although a bit out of date now in some areas. Also, the author seems a bit misinformed about the capabilities of modern European Fighters (Typhoon, Rafale & Gripen) or Eurocanards as he refers to them. It's my opinion that he is severely underating them by placing them in the same league as US teen series fighters. Also, the author seems to rate the JSFs air-to-air capabilty far too highly IMO. Is he even aware that the F-35 can't use Sidewinders from internal bays? That's one advantage that the Boeing JSF contender had over the F-35. The author also makes reference to the JSF being used in the CAS role, a role for which I still think it is poorly suited. Graham

I love the VF-22, but I really wouldn't like to see one based on Yamato's existing YF-21. While not as bad IMO as Yamato's YF-19 in terms of accuracy of the sculpt, it could still benefit from a complete redesign. The YF-21's stubby plane nose really gets to me these days. The VF-22 is such a cool plane that it really deserves a nicer looking more accurate sculpt. And don't even get me started on that abomination that is the Yamato YF-21FP Of course what I most want to see is the VF-17D/S with FAST Packs in Diamond Force and Miria colors, probably won't happen tho Damn you Bandai, you had the Miria VF-17S ready to go, why did you cancel it.....Grrrrr!!!!!! And yes, like most fans, I'd also love a Macross 7 color VF-11C with FAST Packs and removeable Full Armor. I feel that the VF-11 is another VF that really deserves a total resculpt from Yamato. Will it happen, sigh I don't know. Graham

I'm a fan of Orguss, so if Yamato or any other Japanese toy manufacturer made a decent transforming toy, I probably buy it. Heck, I'd be happy if somebody just reissued the old Takatoku toys as I missed them the first time around and I'm not willing to pay ebay prices for the old toys Graham

Heh, there's no pilot in that VF-0S in the second pic. Beautiful wallpapers tho. Graham

Some if not all the Japanese Battletech designs are by Studio Nue / Kawamori. His destinctive style is easily recognisable. Plus, you can see the word 'Nue' and IIRC Kawamori's signature scrawled next to many of the designs. Graham

Looks like a Hasegawa 1/72 model kit. In fact next to the kit you can see the scale mentioned. I think what is being advertised and sold is not the YF-19, but the High-Manuever missiles mounted on the wings of the YF-19. Graham

I think rather than Yamato, I'd prefer Bandai made a non-transforming, prepainted snap fix, light up model kit of the DYRL SDF-1, similar in design to their Star Trek kits. Heck if Bandai released two kits, one in Cruiser mode and one in Storm-Attacker mode, I'd definitely buy both. However, being Bandai, we all know they would never make that sort of effort for Macross.....sigh. Graham

1/24 line........bah! It's all about the 1/12 line Graham

I don't think Yamato are really aware of the Battletech community. Also, doesn't Battletech in Japan feature completely different mecha designs by kawamori? Graham

Getting back on topic, the problem with an SDF-1 toy (either DYRL or TV ver) is as others have mentioned, there is only one paint variation to release. So given the reletively small fan base Macross has and the reletively small number of toys sold it is doubtful that Yamato could sell enough to recover the design, tooling and manufacturing costs, unless they sold it at an insanely high cost. Graham

Me too, a really bad taste. As a result in future I'm thinking about not publishing reviews until the product has actually been out for a month. That way people will already have the product in hand when my review comes out. Graham

Wow, looks great. You hardly ever (never?) see the Sound Booster mounted in fighter mode. Graham

Personally, I have a feeling that a Yamato SDF-1 toy would not sell too well. I think it's a bit like the situation with Max DYRL toys in that regard. When there were no Max DYRL toys, everybody always used to say how much they wanted one, but when Yamato finally released a 1/60 and 1/48 VF-1A Max toy, they didn't sell that well. Graham

Britney Spears.....no thanks, not my cup of tea. Change that to Faye Wong, Karen Mok, Bobo Chan or Nanase Aikawa and I'd definitely buy one Graham

It's true that most if not all military campaigns in the last decade have featured very little or no air-to-air combat, the emphasis being almost completely on air-to-ground missions. While this has been true in the recent past, it may not necessarily always hold true for future conflicts. What worries me is that the US military and by extension most of the militaries of the Western world seem to be planning their aviation procurement mostly based on the assumption that future conflicts will be mostly air-to-ground and there seems to be somewhat of a neglect in the desire to improve or even just maintain present air-to-air and fleet defence capability. Also, as I've mentioned several times, the US military seems to be placing all it's eggs in one basket with all these expensive stealth planes (F-117, B-2, F-22 & F-35). Radar defeating stealth is fine until somebody goes and develops a long range passive detection system that will render it obsolete, which will probably happen sooner rather than later. To be honest, I'm not sure what the right answer is, but I really don't think the F-35 is it. Graham

These are the three This Is Animation Special (TIAS) Macross TV series books. Good books to have. That's the first time I've seen that sticker set tho. I wonder if it originally came with the first issue of the books. IIRC, these books have been reprinted at least twice. Graham

the posibility is -- 0.2% You should modify your picture by removing the nosecone and shortening the length of the groin armor. the armor would look much better that way. Graham

IIRC, Tomy decided to cancel these bofore they were released. There's a bit of a history behind these figs, which unfortunately I can't reveal. Graham

LOL...he said 'tampon printing' A new Toynami side business? Graham

According to one of my F-15 books, the F-15 has something like 90 documented air-to-air kills so far with zero losses IIRC. Of course this includes Saudi and Iraeli F-15s, not only US ones. No idea how many kills the F-16 has racked up so far, but I presume the IAF must has some. Graham

Comparing the price point of the Masterpiece Convoy/Prime to the Q-Rau is a bit unfair. Transformers has a far bigger fan base than Macross and it's a safe bet that Takara/Hasbro's production run has been far, far larger than Yamato's. The larger the production run, the lower the per unit cost and selling price can be. Takara/Hasbro have probably made at least 100,000pcs of the Convoy/Prime (if not more) and while I can't reveal the actual production run figures for the Q-Rau, it is considerably smaller quantity by a huge margin. Graham

Can I add your photos to the MW custom toy gallery? Graham

Just added many new pics to the MW Custom Toy gallery. More to come later. Graham

Guys, I've just uploaded the scans from the new April 2004 issue of Model Graphix Magazine. It features two non-canon VF-0S paint schemes and also the biggest photo so far of the Hasegawa SV-51 model. See it here. Graham