Renato

Charming. Care to be a little more tactfully subtle in undermining my advice next time..?

Listen to mah swing!

Buy it, you won't regret it.

Hmm... Not to me, it doesn't. It just looks like a bunch of squares instead of a "webbing" pattern. But, whatever, I don't expect I'll be going to watch this anyway.

Gunbuster is out. The transformation is a bit... hmm. You really only use a few pieces of the robot mode to form the spaceships, with huge chunks left over, including the torso, upper arms, thighs, etc.. It's OK, I guess. I imagine this is what the VF-100 25's felt like. Not sure how many times I want to bother with all that. The figure itself is OK, pretty much what we've come to expect from Revoltech at this stage. WYSIWYG.

Ah, but "Basara" IS the "Vajra"... I partly agree, but I always wanted Macross 7 to have gotten the proper DYRL-style movie re-telling treatment, with some mind-blowing visuals.

I heard that the commercial failure of Macross Zero and overall lack of confidence in the Macross name circa 2007 was so intense that there were few backers for Frontier, right up until the Deculture Edition aired. When it proved a hit with unexpected ratings, then Bandai et al joined the game big time and marketing hype kicked into full gear.

I saw those today, actually, while I was getting my Gunbuster Revoltech. I dunno, I think they can go even lower. 5000 is still not that cheap IMO.

Yeah. They were about 4,000 yen or so at last month's Yamato Showroom event, so you definitely have to keep an eye out for crazy prizes on these things. EDIT -- I got mine at Amazon, I think, for about 8000 IIRC.

I imagine so. If the first movie is any indication, they started off the release in large urban areas then proliferated out into other smaller towns across the country, and this pattern continued until around May last year, which is when areas of Hokkaido and Okinawa got it, IIRC. So that's a full seven months on release, but of course, it all depends where you are in Japan. Perhaps due to the limited number of prints, the first movie was not a huge "at theaters everywhere now!" kind of release, it was more like a tour. The sequel may have a wider release from the get-go, who knows. But if it does, technically the period of release will likely turn out to be shorter.

Yeah, I have that book somewhere and I recognized the image, that's why it was so shocking to see the cel, it's so iconic to me. Congratulations on the find.

In a way, I suppose they DID "have" to make them, as I imagine they took mold-milking into account when they were at the design stage. Logically, the VF-19 may be more expensive than the VF-1J even though the VF-1J comes with more accessories for this reason: they simply expected to make and sell more VF-1 variants. After a while they realized the may not recoup their costs if they release all variants in the same numbers, at the same pricepoints through the same avenues. Then they take the exclusive route to maximize profitability on otherwise shelf-warmers. Yes, they were probably seen as more profitable than not to be made at all, but perhaps initially they expected to sell them all at retail, and had they done so, it is doubtful they would have turned a profit with the current market trends. That's what I mean when I say they probably were not considered profitable. And did they ever even make the Miria Hi-Metal? Perhaps that one will be the last exclusive after the Skull squadron? Right. I don't expect anything but Hayao Kakizaki Hi-metals piling up in bargain bins if they hadn't been exclusives. Oh, and IIRC, the Hayao web exclusive is the one that comes with the case to hold all the skull squadron boxes, so they felt they needed to add even MORE of an incentive for people to buy him! Come on, Jenius, you can't tell me that is the symbol of a particularly "profitable" product. They are trying their best to make it profitable, yes, but it is not so by default. Wow. I really want to see this, now.

That's interesting. I find it really odd that this hasn't (to my knowledge) surfaced online after all these years. Instead we get ADV (shudder).

I would say it has everything to do with whether or not a product is deemed profitable at general retail after careful assessment, weighing in all the mass production and distribution expenditures. With the market flooded in VF-1's, I speculate Bandai was left with no alternatives but to sell the Max and the others as effectively "made-to-order" to minimize losses as well as being available only through their online sales arm, cutting back every middleman except the to-your-door delivery service. I can assure you, they aren't that lucrative when they're brought over here. After proxy fees and import taxes and whatnot, they end up priced at about the same as a Hi-Metal Bandai toy. That is, if you can find a place that stocks them, since they are by no means easy to find either online nor in physical stores. However, I expect that once word gets out of these new ones, Japanese fans may be clamoring to get these simply because the designs are so rare. I know I will be among them! However, I hope demand doesn't end up throwing the price off whack so that we have to pay Yamato prices for much inferior product. Either way, I strongly doubt Toynami is outright depending on Japanese sales, but who knows for sure. I was talking about the current potential in the market as of this moment, though. It's not enough to say "the market is bigger in Japan". The market has potential only when there are still resources left to be tapped. Now that Yamato et al have flooded the market, consumers have more choice, yes, but the potential has been exploited. You cannot have infinite growth. That is why I think we are entering a period of stagnation. The products are there, but there is much less potential for companies to launch similar product and compete. This isn't the electronics industry, for example, which is based on innovation and evolution of user's needs. Also, as the exclusive licensee of HG Robotech merchandise, Toynami effectively operates a monopoly on VF-1 toys, which means they can take advantage of some niche in the market (people who want Elintseekers) whose void they can be confident will not be filled by some competitor. It is precisely because they are producing product based on merchandising rights to a movie that effectively no-one is allowed to watch that is what impresses me, and makes me wonder about both their market research and the US market in general. I'm guessing the demand is there for Super Ostriches, since there is absolutely no alternative in the US market unless you import Yamatos, but I do not know how much. Toynami must have measured this demand, and somehow their number-crunching reached a result that viewed it as more viable than Bandai must have done. Of course, this is all speculation, but when Toynami makes a VE-1 as standard, and Bandai can't even put Maxes on store shelves (or at the very least, does not dare to), you know we're in some intriguing situation. Heh, it will be funny if all this turns out to evaporate into nothingness like those 1/55 reissues they promised all those years ago. And by funny I mean downright heartbreaking.

Yep. And Facebook.

:o :o All of your cels are amazing, but how on EARTH did you ever get hold of that Hikaru/Misa cel?? That is beautiful.

Nnnng!! For the first time ever, I'm excited about a Toynami product. I have 1/60 versions of the Elint and VF-1D, but I really want small playable versions, too, plus the Ostrich. Argh. Wonder what hoops I have to jump through to get them over here.

Whooooah. Since apparently none of the Bandai HiMetal VF-1 toys other than the VF-1S Roy and VF-1J Hikaru seemed profitable (Max's VF-1J and the rest of Skull Squadron are all web exclusives), I would say Toynami's market research is either dubious, or the US market itself definitely has much more potential than the Japanese one. I think the truth is closer to the latter. The Japanese Macross toy market I would call rather stagnant, partly because VF-1's are everywhere now, partly because moe statues have all but taken over the aisles. I really doubt we will see any company attempting VF-1Ds, VE-1s, and VT-1s again soon, like Toynami is doing, and I really find this intriguing. Call me a backstabbing Khyron if you want, but if I can find them cheap, I might be down for all of these. I love tiny valks. Although the thought of buying a product with the Harmony Gold logo emblazoned on it sends shivers down my spine, should I even have one left. Really?? The whole show? That's the first I've heard of this. I know that China enjoyed a straight, no-Robo dub of SDF Macross way back in the day. I used to see the videotapes in London's Chinatown well into the 1990s.

I haven't seen the show yet, will try to do so online, as it certainly seems intriguing. Anyway, for those interested, this week's issue of TIME magazine has a feature on "The Singularity": the moment when cognitive machines will take over and become the prominent sentient species on Earth, which is predicted to occur in 2045.

I heard it was like that for the last movie too, because Kawamori kept changing the storyboards even at a late stage. Oh, and IIRC, I heard one of Michael Bay's Transformer movies also finished editing hours before its premiere! Man.. I don't know what I should do, Ikebukuro is gonna be packed as hell, no matter what time we get there. I wish movies didn't open on Saturdays instead of Fridays over here. I might just go to film the huge crowds lining up in the freezing cold, even if I don't get to go inside.

I was all set to watch this on the 1st of March when movie tickets are much cheaper, but if Tochiro and Gubaba et al are organizing some gathering to see it on opening night, I might tag along for the ride. So, any plans?

"Fly, metals! High, metals"!

Oh dear. Must... resist... joke!!

But only the game-original characters and Frontier characters appear in Academy mode. Even then, I thought that only "your" original student character was the one whose stats you could raise.

What's a puff stick?