Graham

Them's fightin words, saying the lovely armored VF-0S looks like one of them ugly Gundam thingamybobs.

An Alien quadrilogy must be a figment of the imagination, as everybody knows that there are only two Alien movies. Now everybody repeat after me "there are only two Alien movies". Graham

I'll have to have a look again tonight, I didn't notice another VF-0 or Ghost coming up behind Nora. I think at least one other SV-51 made it through as we only show two being destoryed, although nothing is seen of him again. Perhaps he's off shotting up the other ships. Graham

I strongly doubt that. I don't think they would have failed to show such a major event. Anyway, if all the other VFs already launched, why was Roy the only one left behind? Graham

Milia's kill in DYRL, when she uses her Q-Rau's arm guns to shoot that poor Zentradi point blank in the face. Graham

Heh, one of these days I'll work up the courage to attempt an anime download, but all this talk of codecs and bittorrents sounds awfully complicated (and scary) for a non-technical old-fart like me. Graham

Could be, but that would mean that flares can only be launched in battroid mode, as the chest holes are covered up in fighter and gerwalk modes. Graham

So WJ, any theories as to what the two large holes (muzzles) on the SV-51's chest are, as they are clearly not related to the hip guns? As I mentioned above, if you study the fighter mode line art of the SV-51 and look carefully at the position of the hip guns in fighter mode and the placement of the large bore chest muzzles, they are clearly offset from each other (although the chest muzzles are hidden from view in fighter mode). Graham

I hope Shawn is still coming, but I'm not sure. It's quite difficult to get in touch with him these days Graham

Yes, when you see the Ghosts launch, there are VF-0s on deck, but later in the episode when the flight of 5 x SV-51's attack, the Asuka II's deck is completely empty. So maybe all the VF-0's apart from Roy's launched immediately after the Ghosts to go on a mission somewhere else. Even if this is true, it is incredibly stupid of the UN forces to leave a multi-billion dollar battle group consisting of one aircraft carrier, several Aegis cruisers and other ships(?)so lightly defended with no air cover, when you know the enemy is in the area and has Variable Fighters. Whoever is in command should be court martialed and shot. Graham

Actually, was that Nora in the enemy destroid at the end. I'd just assumed it was another female Anti-UN soldier piloting the amphibious variable mecha. Graham

I noticed in episode # 3, when D.D. Ivanov forces his way into the Asuka II, he uses two guns mounted on the hips of his SV-51 Battroid to shoot the crew inside the hanger. Prior to watching episode # 3, I'd thought that the SV-51's internal gun(s) were mounted in the battroid's chest and that the parts on the hip were only the flash hider/muzzle break assembly for fighter mode, not the actual gun itself. However, unless it is an animation error, episode # 3 has clearly shown us that the whole gun is actually mounted on the hips and due to the small size they are obviously designed for anti-personnel use against ground troops rather than against enemy VFs. Also, today after studying the line art of the SV-51 battroid and fighter more carefully I noticed that the two large bore muzzles in the SV-51 Battroid's chest do not line up exactly with the hip guns when transformed into fighter mode, so they are obviously independant of each other. Of course, the large bore muzzles in the chest might not be guns, they could be verniers for reverse thrust in battroid mode. Anyway, the evidence of two hip guns clearly shows that the stats given on the Macross Compendium are incorrect as they only list one internal gun, a 12.7mm minigun. Although to be fair to Egan Loo, he is only translating from Japanese source material, which is probably incorrect. Anyway, the compendium says: - ARMAMENT: One fixed Gsh-231 12.7 mm mini-gun. One standard Gsh-371 55 mm gun pod with 120 rounds and one standard spare magazine stowed in unit's special aft gun pod rack. Six underwing hard points with two micro-missile launcher/auxillary tank composite pods (with 18 Turopov SA-19M I/IR-guided micro-missiles) mounted on wingtip hard points. Capable of mounting most former Warsaw Pact military standard aviation weaponry. Graham

IMO, the 1/48 VF-1J looks far better without any FAST packs. The FAST packs from my VF-1J Super have already gone on my VF-1S Focker. Graham

Does anybody else think that the UN forces displayed amazingly bad tactical sense in episode # 3. I mean the Asuka II and it's support ships are operating in an area where Anti-UN forces are known to be operating, but they do not keep any VF-0 on standing Combat Air Patrol. They should have had at least 2 VF-0 in the air at all times. Neither where there any 'ready' VF-0 on deck for immediate launch. Was the UN fleet so complacent or just overconfident that their air defences of Destroid Cheyennes and Aegis crusers would be able to stop an attack? Well, they did manage to shoot down 2 out of 5 of the attacking SV-51s, with the loss of one Aegis cruiser, several Destroids and minor damage to the Asuka II. We know from the Compendium, that the SV-51 has active stealth, so I'm guessing this was how they got so close to the fleet before being detected. Hmm......I'm wondering does the 2008 era active stealth work against Cyclops radar or only conventional radar? Anyway, just where were all the other VF-0 pilots when the attack was taking place? I mean if Roy had time to get into his VF-0S, why didn't any of the other pilots? Or were they off somewhere else? And what happened to the 2 Ghosts we saw launching? I'm curious as to where they were headed. Anyway, despite the UN's tactical blunders, this was still a fantastic episode. Graham

Nice job as usual. Graham

As we know from the Compendium roughly how many SV-51 (30 units) and how many VF-0 (34 units) have been manufactured, somebody should try to carefully watch each episode and keep a running count of how many units of each type we see destroyed each episode. This way, we can keep track of how many units each side has remaining by the end Graham

Next year is technically less than a month away Although IIRC, I seem to remember reading somewhere that ep # 4 is scheduled for release at the end of February, which is not too far away. Graham

WJ, hope we can see a page from you soon (today?) of screen grabs of the VF-0S armored battroid. Graham

Great job as always WJ! Very interesting design. Judging from the pics, as well as the large main gun, it looks like there could be a total of 4 secondary guns not 2 as you have listed in your description. Looking at the 5th pic from the top, 2 smaller guns can clearly be seen below and to the front of the missile pod and main gun. However, what could also be 2 additional guns can be seen to the front of the mecha just above the sea surface. Two things I really want now, a TIAS Macross Zero book, so we can have some nice line-art of all these lovely new mecha designs and some toys so I can recreate some Octo vs Cheyenne battles Graham

If you still love Macross, then find some way to store your toys with a relative or trusted friend. If you have lost your interest in Macross and don't think you will regain it, then by all means get rid of your toys. However, trust me, if you do still have a love for Macross and you give them away or sell them, you will regret it later. You don't want to get into a situation 10 years down the road, where the only way to buy a Yamato 1/48 is to spend US$1,000 to get one on ebay. Graham

WJ, How about some screen shots of the mecha the Anti-UN forces use to attack the Mayan village?I really want to get a closer look at those. Graham

Only had time to watch ep # 3 once last night. Will watch it again tonight. Anyway, here's some thoughts, observations and questions: - 1) The blue glowing thing looked quite phallic! The APHOS is going to be really pissed if they have stolen his dick 2) Was the Anti-UN submarine that Shin attacked underwater the same type of mecha as used by the Anti-UN forces on the beach to destroy the Mayan village or was that a different type of mecha? 3) When Mao was unconsious near the end of the episode and being examind by Aries, didn't it seem that Mao's breasts had gotten much bigger? There's a scene which shows Mao laying on a examination table from the side view and there are some very large bumps there 4) I'm probably the only person who doesn't like it when the use traditional cell animation to animate the VFs. I think it looks really jarring and out of place. Either keep them all CG or all cell animated, don't mix the two styles! In ep # 2 when they cell animated Roy's VF-0S battroid, I thought the animation was terrible, like something drawn by Anime Friend. In Episode # 3, the cell animated Armored VF-0S and SV-51's (inside the hanger), really didn't work for me. I think the CG animation in Zero is excellent, so I'd rather they kept the VFs CG all the time. 5) Lots of wing flapping by the SV-51s in battroid mode in this episode. What's the purpose? I don't think it can be to create additional lift. I know we discussed this before, but I forget what the consensus was. 6) I'm guessing the reason the Anti-UN forces attacked the Asuka was to steal the APHOS, as despite the spirited defence by the Destroids and Roy, it looked like the SV-51s could have easily sunk the Asuka if they really wanted. 7) Seemed like both Shin and Mao were diving too deep and for too long especially as they weren't using any SCUBA gear! A great episode and makes me want to have some Macross Zero toys even more! 9) Am I the only one who is pissed that they never have any next episode previews? 10) Anybody have a link for a site that has the episode # 3 script? I don't want to download the the whole epsode as I already have the original DVD, I just want the script only. Graham

Yes, they are verniers and the bar is a hook-handle for attachment of chains for tying down or lifting the valk. Graham

Recon, Guppy is joking with you, because you forgot the decimal point. You should have written either 1.6m or 160cm. Graham

Guys, Please note the following points regarding the polo shirts: - The polo shirts are being made in black, short sleeve only. Please PM me with your required quantity and your chest size in inches. The final price is to be confirmed, but will probably be between HK$50 to HK$100 (US$6.41 to US$12.82) each. They will be good quality. You can pay me when you come to HK. I can't stress this enough, I need to know quantity and chest size in inches. Just telling me, "S, M, L, XL" etc is no use to me. You are all coming from different countries and a S, M, L, XL size in the USA for example are very different from S, M, L, XL sizes in HK. Graham