Renato

Yeah, I remember this was posted previously but most of all I remember the inexplicable bashing in this thread. I thought she sounded great. She hit all the right notes spot on, with style -- remember this is a very difficult song. In fact I have a little problem with Maaya Sakamoto's singing on this, so there are times where I felt this girl sounded even better than her. There is a hell of really embarassing ultra-over-the-top-cute crap that's come about because of these kinds of shows, but I'm glad to say that this is amongst the finer karaoke/cosplay out there. Certainly better than the zombie-esque warblings of the Mandarake cosplayers in Osaka.

So, the main character is the son of Yui and Shogo? Huh.

Great prices. These Garlands are really nice toys.

Couple of shots to rival that "GNU balancing on the edge of a table" thing a few pages back".

Why? That's not necessarily a 3D model. Actually, I don't think it is.

Fire Valkyrie stats: HP 2100 (?) Protection from fire 20 Protection from combat 19 Speed 57 Boost 52 Balancer 60 Maneuver (maybe? can't really see) 66 Radar capability 32 EDIT -- Argh, sorry, bluemax, didn't notice you'd already done it.

1/48 TV MAX!!!!!!! IT ONLY TOOK THEM 26 YEARS!!

Hey, the narrator said it, not me. I'm just putting two and two together. The line was something like: "This is the limitation of all humans, no, all civilizations derived from Protoculture." So I'm assuming that the implication is: the Vajra have accomplished something neither Protoculture or humanity managed. What the hell do I know, Kawamori will probably change it halfway through. The line IS in there though, and I can only assume that it is for a reason.

One more thing. The Yamato guy told me there was no difference between the 1st edition Ivanov and the reissues. "But what about th--" "NOPE!! No difference!!" "Uh-huh..."

OK, it gets better. I've been trying to phone the retailer for two days, it seems like the number is no longer being used even though it was on the invoice and the website. Then I phoned Yamato yesterday, and some random guy answered. Guy: "Yeah?" Me: "Er... Is this Yamato?" Guy: "Oh, yeah, yeah." Me: "O....kay. Right, I bought an SV-51 from you a couple of days ag--" Guy: "Ha-hang on..." Me: "Ok..." Hold music (Home on the Range) Guy: "Hello?" Me: "Yes?" Guy: "Yeah. We're off today, so..." Me: "Off??" Guy: "Yeah, we don't work today." Me (checking the customer service hours, which clearly say they DO work on Mondays): "Right... So, should I call tomorrow?" Guy: "Yeah, yeah, tomorrow". Me: "OK, then. Bye." Guy: "Yeah". That was yesterday. So, today I call and explain the whole thing, but obviously I cannot physically show them the piece, so I'm having a hard time trying to convince them that it broke where I'm saying it did. They were like "I don't get it, that part is supposed to be held together by a screw. Unless the screw holding itself fell out, the two halves CANNOT separate. You can SEE the inside? How is this possible??". But I'm like "look, the thing broke from the inside. I can see, because the whole thing split!" They just couldn't get around it. So they told me to send the whole thing and they'd send me another. Same thing happened with MP Starscream, which came with parts missing. It's funny, because last night I was looking at my mangled-up brand-new SV-51 worth 22,000 yen drawn across my desk and I turn my head in the other direction and see a flyer for prostitutes which came through my mailbox, with "10,000 yen for 90 minutes" written on it, and all I could think was "You know, I could really use my money more constructively..."

He's talking about the shading style used for metals. It's definitely old-school 80s all the way, you just don't see it anymore. The Japanese perfected it, it could never be copied by anyone, but now they've lost it (except for this one pic!). Dreamwave tried to mimic it for their Transformer comics, but it's not quite the same. Watch Megazone 23 Part II or Dangaioh for good examples of this technique.

So, why not just send the brand-spanking-new copy instead of the antique? I absolutely have no idea what they're gonna come up with. But it might have something to do with bending space-time, thus incorporating the whole fold faults thing with the purple crystals and the Vajra queen. Speaking of which, remember the narrator in one episode mentioned that the fold faults were the limitation of all cultures derived from protoculture? So, this strengthens the theory that the Vajra may not be derived from the protoculture after all, and that they came from some other part of the galaxy that humans or zentradi have not been able to reach because of the faults. More evidence (kind of) to suggest that the Vajra folded the Macross over here for some reason. Have those Zentradi dudes even noticed that it's there? Or are they too busy bickering?

I was thinking the same thing. They should do that with the valks, screw CG. Seems obvious that they used this for reference though:

Not sure if this has been posted before. http://www.yamato-toys.com/dev/movie_004/movie.html Bit of false advertising, methinks?

The thigh just fell apart. I posted a few pics in the Sv-51 thread.

Mine fell off the shelf, and one of the shoulder FAST pack connectors broke off. Not a good week for toys, what with my SV-51 breaking right on the second transformation.

I doubt that will make a difference... rather, make sure that the lower part of the thigh is not the problem, because mine became loose for a bit and then just fell apart. See my post here (with pics): http://macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?show...mp;#entry618532

Monster!! Awesome. OK, I also wanna see Mylene, the SV-51, the Konig Monster, Guld, etc. And one interesting thing -- It looks like they've taken the DYRL designs... but then instead of having Max defect over to the Meltran side, they've brought Millia over to the UN Spacy. So it follows TV continuity with DYRL designs! (she's wearing a DYRL flightsuit)

I got the SV-51 (the reissue) and on my SECOND transformation to Battroid, this happened: It's not even a joint! The bar holding the two halves of the thigh snapped and they broke apart. No idea how this happened, I put no pressure anywhere near it. Has there been any issues like this before? Graham? Since it's not a joint, I just superglued it together. I'm gonna leave it to dry now. Sigh.....

I picked the Konig. I like pretty much all of them, though, except the VF-0.

Graham, I'm pretty sure those scans are from Figure Oh.

First of all, WTF. OK, now that that is done, yeah, there seems to be some kind of monster/Vajra queen thing around, and it may be producing those purple crystal things. It may have single-handedly brought the SDF to Gallia 4 last time it awoke. Which was WHEN? Now, perhaps Ranka's singing will re-awaken it, making all hell break loose. And then they and the SDF-1 will fold somewhere else altogether! Hmm. I'm intrigued. Last week sucked but it seems we're back on track now!

Yep. Also, the speakers which are built into the valks themselves only ever open within the atmosphere. You never see them opening in space, Basara uses the speaker pods only. This is because the internal speakers are JUST speakers. The sound boosters came after the development of the song energy convertor device, so they are mainly used to transmit sound energy.

But I'm sure I remember seeing it a short while back. Didn't they show CAD pics or something at some toyshow, or..? I know this is not the first I've heard of the Defender!

Yeah, I completed the game on a Japanese PS1 but I honestly can't remember what it was like. I know that there is no cool animated ending, the only anime scenes are the opening sequence and the scene just before the last mission which shows the Macross 13. As some have already said, you just get Aegis going "oh man" or something and scrolling credits over a black screen for the "bad" ending, and for the other one yeah, there may have been a gravestone or something, I can't remember. Anyway, it does have more closure than the other one.