Sumdumgai

The YF-19 and VF-0 are a similar size at 1/1 scale. They're both big planes. I dunno for battroid mode, but you know you could always go over and compare stats on the Macross Compendium.

You are correct Lowviz! I even got him to autograph the (at the time) brand new Blue Mary doujinshi he was releasing. He was really nice.

Maybe that's where magnets can come into play, holding the wing roots to the torso in gerwalk. Just a random idea I had, not to be taken with much seriousness.

1/6 scale Q-rau to stand around in your living room, not unlike the t-800 series Endoskeleton that you can get.

you'd have to mod or make from scratch: -nosecone (bigger and thicker) -chestplate (larger hump, extra details) -heatshield -upper arms (rounded like the VF-0) -head -wings (VT-1 style) -intake section and upper leg -lower legs (larger, bulkier, even without fast packs) -feet (pointy like later generation valkyries) and that's just the base valkyrie without the fast packs and weapons! I hadn't realized there were that many differences until I took a close look and compared the various VF-1s with the stampeed. The difference is like comparing the YF-19/VF-19A to a VF-19F/S/custom/P.

Maybe it doesn't have tv hands because you never see it in battroid. And because it's that much more money they make by not including it. (joking)

Awesome, that made me laugh hard.

I'd say mistransformation. You can see through the cracks easily there, where as in other pictures of it in fighter mode, that area is flush against the main body with no room to see through. In fact that's the same picture as in the grey YF-19 info sheet that Graham let us see.

Oh man. That thing looks awesome even from behind.

Watched the beginning of the first episode, but the lameness burned too much. I never liked ppg to begin with, so no surprise.

I have a manga UK disc of Death and Rebirth, as usual everything could have been better. At least I only picked it up for a few euros from Book-Off Paris (I don't recommend buying most things from there because they over-price things in general and sell used bootleg cds at full price). edit: clarification about the cds

A large number of female otaku in Japan love Yaoi. Not just in Japan though. Man, one of the Mandarake stores in Tokyo got converted to Yaoi only, an entire Mandarake. Then at comic market they have a day that is devoted to yaoi (there's still hentai doujinshi, but a lot less). Most of the same generalizations of male otaku apply to female otaku, with the addition of yaoi. Although my wife and I have met some doujinshika that defy the generalizations though, and if you're a doujinshika you're damned close to being an otaku if you're not one (whether or not they fit the stereotypical generalizations). An example for a guy doujinshika that defied a bunch of stereotypes was Koh Kawarajima. He was thin, not creepy, dressed like a normal person, didn't smell, and looked like he had good hygiene. Another one was Saigado, which really threw me off because I didn't realize the guy at his booth was him (I thought it was an assistant or a buddy of his). He was tall, dressed very well, no aura of creepiness, no killer BO, and was very thin. It was really strange, because a great deal of the doujinshika there at the convention fulfilled a great deal of the stereotypes (especially fat and creepy). A female doujinshika that defied stereotype was Yonekura Kengo. She was really thin, wore trendy clothes, had high-lighted hair, wore these crazy blue contact lenses, no BO, and no creepiness aura. Funny thing is that she does hentai doujinshi as well as yaoi, which used to be not so common for female doujinshika, but it's increasing more and more. Good point on the sport-otaku in the US. The jock ones in general annoy me with their constant need to prove their masculinity while putting everyone else down because they're too insecure about their own sexuality, with the whole: "I'm so manly, I play football and I wrestle, you're gay because you don't like mainstream sports". Which is more or less a quote I pulled from real-life from high school. Of course the look on his face was priceless when I pointed out that he thought it was manly to put on skin-tight clothing and grab other men and roll around on the floor with them. Don't get me wrong, there were some jocks I knew that were good guys and didn't need to pull that crap, and I respected them for that. But the general jock sports otaku, man... Damned annoying that society promotes people like that. Yes, the line between fan and otaku is a blurry one. But lots of things in life are like that, including the line between sanity and insanity.

Tachikoma! I love Tachikomas, and so does my wife.

Nah, it's not anime. Look in the US and you see hardcore Trekkies, which is just another form of Otaku-ism. The fat guys that dress up as Klingons, learn to speak Klingon, smell as bad as real Klingons probably would smell, and are in such good shape that they'd collapse after jogging a quarter-mile (yes these are just generalizations ). Or the Lord of the Rings hardcore fans that dress as elves, learn to read, write, speak, and comprehend Elvish. Or the Star Wars psycho fans that think they're TRULY Jedi, can feel the force flowing through them, come up with insane ideas of how to build a real lightsaber, try to use force powers, and get hurt trying to teach themselves how to fight with a lightsaber (in this case a wooden or bamboo rod). While I may be guilty of swinging my FX lightsaber around I'm no Jedi. Besides, that thing lights up and makes lightsaber sounds! But I'm getting off topic. Then again the US has some things scarier than mere otaku. You have things like M-F. I dare not utter the name, I shall only use the initials.

I still don't think that Claudia is Aegis' mother, no matter how many theories are thrown out there. Yes, nature can be weird and on rare occurances make kids that should be black, white. Or make children have blue eyes when their parents are both brown eyed without recessive genes for blue (rare but possible), or have blond hair when both parents are dark haired. But those types of occurances are extremely rare, and I don't put any faith in such far-fetched theories to put Claudia LaSalle as Aegis' mother. Yes, it's possible Aegis took the Michael Jackson route with advanced medicinal knowledge in that time period. You could explain it as he smears himself in special lotions to make his skin white, or he has some kind of birth defect from clone Roy or just a plain old birth defect. I'm just don't find these far-fetched ideas to be very plausible (about Claudia being the mother). I felt sorry for Claudia, but I wouldn't jump for joy if she was included in a new series. I wouldn't feel let down if she was left out either.

But Claudia was black with brown hair, and Aegis has pale white skin and blond hair. It just doesn't work. Maybe Aegis is the son of cloned Aries and Roy. (I'm not serious)

Although I am not born in Japan Japanese, and wasn't raised there, I brought up that subject from conversations with some Japanese people that lived in Japan all their life (a mangaka, some university students, etc), and some gaikokujin that have lived and worked in Japan for a little while. This by far isn't a good random sample that would stand up to intense scientific scrutiny, but it's varied and general enough for me. And I agree with you, sketchley, that the trick is to not publicly flaunt abnormality. You can be as screwed up as can be as long as you keep the facade of normality in front of society. Otaku that fulfill the stereotype are probably the same in any country like you pointed out, give or take some behaviours due to cultural differences. GutsandCasca, the squeeling pig in mandarake was thankfully the worst example of otaku that I ran into in Japan. Although you can spot otaku in Akihabara really easily, look for the slouching guys that wear plaid shirts and are carrying lots of bags. There was this really creepy otaku that helped guide my wife and I to Akihabara from the nearby metro station, and wound up asking us for a couple hundred yen (which surprised us because up until then all the Japanese that helped us did it for free). So we paid him, since he did help us, and he ended up walking off while spasming and talking to himself about needing more money to buy this and that... When we came back to Akihabara another day for shopping, we saw him spazzing out in front of one of the metro ticket machines, going all psycho and raging at it for some reason or another. And another time (I liked going to Akihabara, nice good selection of stores), we saw him in the metro station creeping people out and latching onto the tourists and creeping them out. And he was always wearing the same plaid shirt, had that unkempt look, was kind of smelly, and was really creepy. All the Japanese women that saw him would give him a really wide birth and stay as far away from him as possible. If you watch Otaku no Video, when they're standing in line to see some movie and one of the group comes up showing off stuff they got about DYRL, some drunk guy walks by and harasses them. He gets pissy at them and comments on the way they use "otaku", translated as "thou" I believe. A fun watch for a mockumentory with a lot of truth in it.

"Otaku" has been bastardized in the west to mean "I'm a crazed fan that worships and adores anime, and proud of it!" without keeping any of the negative connotations held in Japan. It's actually somewhat appropriate that "hardcore fans" self-brand themselves as otaku, because they tend to uphold the negative stereotypes that the word brings up. Fat, smelly, hairy, socially inept, creepy, and unhealthily obsessive to name a few. It's not appropriate just for the cases where it upholds the stereotypes, but also because most western cultures are individualistic. It's just a label. It has negative connotations in Japan because Japan is a country that's society based and not individualistic. The nail that sticks up gets hammered down, and otakus are not the norm, thus they are to be shunned. They don't act the way "normal" members of Japanese society should act, and those that really don't want to be rejected by society go to greath lengths to hide that they are otaku, or not even otaku but fans of this or that. If you say "I like anime", if you're an adult, people in Japan will look at you funny and wonder if you're an otaku. You bury yourself if you say "oh, but I'm not an otaku!". The Otaku-killer blew things up and made it really bad. Because when the stereotype is reinforced in a society that is naturally prone to reject what's different and scared of it, good luck in trying to overcome this reinforcement. They already saw otaku as deviants, this case just reinforced the stereotypes and/or created new ones. My wife is friends with some mangaka in Japan, and at least one of them is downright horrified of otaku. That particular mangaka gets creeped out by them, and see's them as sick and demented. They're not right or proper in the Japanese view. Especially adult guys that are obsessed with shojo series and the girls in them (especially young ones). That mangaka was quite shocked to find out the way the word "otaku" is used in the west, and quite horrified. We had an interesting conversation on that subject (we were able to converse in French, because I don't speak Japanese really). I've met Japanese otaku in Japan. For the ones that fulfill the negative stereotypes, oh god I am scarred for life. The particular instance was having a giant squeeling hairy pig, hopping from foot-to-foot and clapping, before diving between my wife and I to get at some toy of some sentai series... He stank so bad, he literally squeeled like a pig, and it was just horrifying! Comic Market was really interesting to see the wide range of simple fans to otaku, to OMGWTF-SCARY OTAKU! There was one really creepy, smelly otaku that was going around with a special jacket that had fans mounted all over it, so it would constantly fill his jacket with circulating air to keep him cool in the summer heat. The air coming out though practically killed everyone around him. The general fans and people that western fans would call "otaku", were fine by me. The stereotypical ones stuck out like a sore thumb though and were creepy like all hell. Overall I have to say that I find the western self-proclaimed otaku to be far more annoying than the Japanese hardcore otaku. The western ones have all the bad sides of the Japanese ones, plus a lot of times blind worship for all that is Japanese, fan-boy/girl Japanese (with horrible misusage of Japanese words), and are loud and irritating. At least the Japanese are much more silent. God, Comic Market was truly amazing in many things, but most of all in the organization and rule-abiding attendees, completely different from Anime Expo or any of those puss-bucket-piss-poor-excuse for conventions in France. I consider myself to be a fan. Besides I'm already lacking in one of the major criterias. I'm married. Otaku guys stereotypically can't talk to girls, much less get into a relationship with one. Plus, I'm thin. Although I have been accused of looking like the serial-killer type...

One word: Miria. Thank you. And by the way, the female deleter dolls have squishy boobs.

It's probably going to go the way of Macross: Final Outpost Earth, or whatever it was going to be called.

This is just a JOKE. Delux two-seater with spring-loaded ejectable seat with Yang figure. I'm not serious. I don't want a gimmick like that on the 19. I'm fine with it either way being a single or two-seater. I just don't want a permanent black plate for post-ejection two-seater. I like the full canopy. addition: imagine if someone lost an eye because they shot themself with a Yang.

Uh, Saint Seiya G has 10 tankouban volumes out in Japan, and something like 8 or 9 in France. It's in the monthly magazine called Champion Red. Saint Seiya Next Dimension is monthly, but it's in a weekly magazine, Shonen Champion Lost Canvas is weekly in Shonen Champion as well. Here's a link to a place that has raws: Saint Seiya Next Dimension and Lost Canvas It's updated as soon as each chapter comes out.

It's tha man! Eh? You- 've- been drin-king!

Good stuff! Oh man, the one with Sagat biting Guile.

Oh I am quite aware that artists' styles change with experience, like looking at Nobuhiro Watsuki's early artwork before Rurouni Kenshin, and watching his style evolve then de-evolve during RK. But I disagree that the characters look nothing like they did 15+ years ago. It is still Mikimoto's style, it's just been refined over the years. But when I look, I easily recognize his style, it's quite unique, and the characters are recognizably themselves. Comparing an older illustration with Roy versus a more recent illustration like in the Innocence artbook, the dvd box art for Macross done in 2000 versus one done in the late 80s or early 90s, colored with gouache, it is still recognizably Roy with the same facial characteristics, it's just the minute details that are different. And the illustration from 2000 was done only a year after VFX2 came out, and Aegis does not share the same facial characteristics. Roy's chin and jaw is much more pronounced and chiseled, plus his nose is bigger. My big point is that Aegis is not a clone of Roy. Let me emphasize that I think he's related, but not a clone. And he can't be the child of ORIGINAL Roy Focker by natural means, the one that died in SDF Macross (unless they stole his balls and sucked the juice out of them, or he was a frequent donor to the sperm banks and had them cryogenically frozen for future use). Yes Aegis has the blond hair. Yes he has a certain glint in his eyes that Roy had. He could very well be the son of a Roy clone, or a nephew of Roy. The description of Aegis in the gamebook is standard "he's a pilot, blah blah blah" but doesn't say if he is or isn't related to Roy. clarification: balls jokingly meant to get sperm for artificial insemination down the line, which would be able to explain Aegis being Roy's son being so young so long after his death. Cloning, yeah blood samples from the infirmary is a perfectly fine theory.