Renato

It might be wishful thinking, but I expect at least the first couple of kits to be revealed as soon as tomorrow. Bandai, Hasegawa, Wave, bring it on!

Thank you for all the kind words. Regarding who "wanted" the comedy show, the way I understood it, Nue shifted the tone to a comedy show so that it would appeal to Wizu, and they could actually get somewhere, since no-one was on-board with hard sci-fi... Often in interviews, even now, Miyatake calls it the "dummy" project. It was always supposed to be a pitch that they could just drive through, and then they would make a few changes later. It's not like they "wanted" it, I thought it was a compromise. So much is going on at around this time period and it was such a long time ago that the details are very blurry, though. We could ask! Anyway. I already have another translated Miyatake interview from this year all set and ready to go, but I'm postponing putting it on the front page because these need to be spaced out a little more, especially right now that we are in the middle of a major news burst regarding Delta. Tomorrow there will be a talk show featuring Kawamori at the modelling show in Odaiba where there will no doubt be more announcements and so please be a little more patient. I will wait for a few more days, but I don't want to leave it too long either, because this next interview is about Orguss and it will hopefully be a worthwhile read in preparation for the big Orguss panel with the US Renditions guys, Distotek guys and special guest Run Sasaki-san at MWCon 2015. I'm just so gutted that I won't be able to go this year..

Thanks for the info. However, I think at this point, we're all like:

As Tochiro said in the Delta news post on the MW front page, to celebrate the new series, all of the theatrical Macross movies will see another release on BD! But these are not simple reissues, they all come with brand new staff & cast commentaries and brand new Tenjin/Ebata/Mikimoto artwork! Also, they will come with special bonus items depending on where you preorder from. 5000 yen each, except for M7: The Galaxy is Calling Me, which is 3800. Bandai Visual has put up a preview of Mikimoto's new cover illustration for DYRL, enjoy :

You're *hoping*..?

Comparison with Roy Focker type.

Caption me.

Oh wait, no, I forgot my biggest pet peeve so far! It's this: The chest armour only seems to attach at the top of the breastplate, as far as I can tell. That means that the bottom is always loose, and I can just swing it up and down with my finger. I hope I'm doing something wrong, 'cause.... That's pretty lame.

First impressions. Equipping the armour is simple enough. The hip armour is a bit of a cop out, since the intake guard pieces attach to the back plate, which means that any leg movement is severely limited. The rear boosters are OK at the moment, but with time, I can totally see the backpack joint start to give way and the whole section will eventually just plop down. And it's not like it has a clip to keep the backpack attached to the backplate behind the head, like on the Yamatos/Arcadias. The whole thing has a satisfying heft to it once it is all armoured up. Regarding die-cast joints -- I don't get it. The joints that are now die-cast never had any issues when they were plastic, and the joints which are plastic but had durability issues with plastic cracking, such as the main swingbar hinge and the Gerwalk joint -- which have developed cracks on my Himetal v1 -- are the same. Also, the diecast feet on my old 1J are now useless floppy pieces of junk (which is what invariably becomes of all modern Bandai stuff I own) which means it cannot stand on its own unless I'm really lucky in posing, which I was to take this photo. Overall, it is pretty much what I expected so far. I haven't actually transformed to the different modes yet, so we shall see. It definitely feels good in the hand, but this being Bandai, there's this dagger hanging over it, or ticking clock, pick your metaphor. For the record, I decided to get this at the last minute (literally the day before yesterday) because other than the 1/55 version, the only armoured valk that I have is the 1/48, and I wanted to try something new. It's both. There is definite yellowing, but it looks worse on these photos because I have ambient lighting with a yellowish tinge. Regarding the grey colouring -- it's possible that having two Armoured 1J's in the market so close to each other, Arcadia and Bandai were told to differentiate the colours as much as possible. Just a guess, based on what Mr. K has said in the past, regarding the Fire Valk. For the Arcadia re-release, he wanted to make it a more metallic red, but he was told that that would not be possible because it would look too much like a competing product. Food for thought.

First impression -- it's grey. Molding differences, very minor, but they are there. The nosecone is indeed removable. There's not much detail inside.

Got mine; will open it later.

It's still there for me.

Are they not on there? Huh. I thought they were.

But your phrasing of "Big West would have to draw/animate additional material" might lead people to believe that BW is an animation studio, which it is not, so I wanted to set the record straight. As I have said many times, all it takes is one incorrect statement to set off an internet-wide fallacy. It is especially bad when it comes to Macross. I want to take every opportunity to correct, and make sure that there is no confusion. Also, I can't leave them in the other topic because it is locked. Lastly, I wouldn't say "we have no way of ever knowing". It would most likely be Satelight.

The first batch of photos from that "Macross Totsugeki Deculture" unofficial fan-run live event is in! This is the same one that Tochiro mentioned and posted the photo of in the previous page. First up it's Kakizaki (who sang the Macross theme), Minmay and Ishtar. Fire Bomber and Sheryl/Ranka will be featured in a forthcoming blog post. http://ameblo.jp/totsudeka/entry-12073169868.html Also, I should remind everyone that we will talk about this in depth on a future podcast! Spoilers: It was totally awesome. My one regret is that I should have gotten a photo of the entire line-up, since they are all in their special anniversary costumes from the Crossover illustration. They looked fantastic.

Hey, they got rid of the links to the different series! I was just on the page yesterday. And none of the actual links (for Plus/Seven/DYRL etc) that are there work. Sigh.. Anyway, here's some news. There will be a Macross model talk show featuring the project managers of the various models next weekend at Big Sight: http://macross.jp/news/?id=72&category1=2

As this bleeds into the other hot topic that's going on right now, let me take this opportunity to point out that Big West does not draw/animate anything. It is an advertising agency that only serves as the rights-holder and license-manager for Macross, it doesn't do any hands-on production.

Studio Nue is a design agency that handles settings and illustrations for SF works (novels and TV series). They are not an animation production facility because they do not have the equipment or manpower to do any of that. Think about it this way -- If you are just a scriptwriter, you cannot make a live-action movie by yourself, right? Without a cameraman, actors, boom mike operators, etc., you have no show. Kazutaka Miyatake worked at Studio Nue. Macross was Nue's first original project, and they needed an animation production company to handle the actual animating. So they got together with the advertising agency Big West, which is also not an animation studio, made a deal with Takatoku Toys to provide funding, which is also not an animation studio (I have to cover all my bases just in case), and signed on Tatsunoko Productions, a famous animation production company famous for Speed Racer, Time Bokan, Gatchaman, etc. Animation work was shared chiefly between Tatsunoko, Anime Friend (a subsidiary of Tatsunoko), and Artland (the animation studio where character designer Mikimoto, action choreographer Ichiro Itano, chief director Noboru Ishiguro worked -- It should be noted that Mikimoto was fresh and had only just started working there as Macross was in pre-production, since he was a longtime friend of Kawamori). Further outsourcing was made to the Star Pro studio in Korea, which is where all those awful episodes come from.

It matters quite a bit, considering Studio Nue is not an animation studio. It is a design agency.

It started in 82 so there's a number of seconds you're missing.

So what "theory" are you talking about? This is what you wrote: "Despite the fact that Macross newbs get all weird about it having supposedly no input from Studio Nue (I don't believe thats the case regardless of whom is the main rights holder) it still somehow magically has Haruhiko Mikimoto at the helm of character design so there goes that theory out the window." It sounds like an implication that he worked at Studio Nue to me, at least, and apparently it sounded like it to Seto, too. So if that's not your point, what is it? What's the "theory"? That the character designer is important? OK, fair enough... So why bother bringing up Nue?

Umm.. Mikimoto was never a member of Studio Nue, so there goes that theory out the window.

Define "optimized to the max". I have the Madman set as well as the Japanese BD release. The difference is night and day. Apart from the obvious difference in resolution (which means that DVD will never be "optimal" for a HD display), those Madman sets are way, way dated and the colour is over-saturated most times. They (and the Animeigo sets) are worthwhile for two extras, though -- the Ishiguro commentary and the pilot film test footage.

Did you listen to the podcast? I directly compared the latest release of MP-10 Optimus Prime -- which I love, because it's just so much fun, don't get me wrong -- with Arcadia's and Yamato's stuff and it is like night and day. And it's not just me, there are complaints all across the board by Japanese users on Amazon.jp -- the reissue appears to be far worse than the earlier versions. Compared to the precision and internal mechanics of the YF-19, MP-10 is a blocky, ill-fitting red cube. Add to that the fact that the market is tiny for Arcadia since they cannot cater to anywhere outside Japan, thanks to You Know Whore. Seriously, I wish these comparisons with Transformers would just stop, I understand that they are almost instinctive, but come on, we all understand why a pound of caviar is more expensive than a pound of bananas.

Tell that to Kenichi Matsuzaki, then. Shall I get in touch with him for you?