Renato

Delivery guy came but I was out. I'll receive it tomorrow instead.... To be honest I have no idea when I'll be able to start this thing, let alone finish it. One thing is for sure: Kye-kye's step-by-step build up will no doubt prove INVALUABLE. Too bad mine will not look anywhere near as good.

Yeah, remember back when the WAVE resin kit was our only option? All those ambitious plans. Now we're spoilt for choice with Kai toys. Oh, as for the loose ankles thing. Mine is not so bad yet, but as I say, it is a primary worry. It's funny how much this toy feels like a Bandai... they should have stopped at the shiny texture and greasy residue, but they go all out and copy the flaws, too. If it becomes as floppy as those terrible DX-25s and 27s I will be really pissed off. It even seems like taking the foot apart will be really bothersome. About the Sound Booster, my only vain hope is that somehow it will connect in fighter mode....

Yeah, in the show the 17 has a very odd Gerwalk. Not only do the arms not come down, but also the legs do not seem to bend forward. Later iterations of the 17 seen in the PS1 video games, etc. all showed a more traditional, arms-out, legs-forward Gerwalk mode, though. Note that the 171 has a normal Gerwalk mode.

I think he did have an active interest. After all, he did plan the live-action movie in LA back in 1996. Unfortunately that fell through. HG was nowhere to be seen at the time, though.

Update...

I have to re-iterate my disapproval of Yamato's choice to replace the traditional ratchet joints in the ankles with die-cast ball joints. The ankles are getting looser now on mine and others' too. I really don't want this thing to become a floppy mess like the Bandais.

You never know, it might come out with the BR of the second movie.

As Jasonc said, development budgets get higher all the time. To make a PS3/360 game look any good competitively I imagine they would need to invest at least the equivalent of the cost of production for the Shadow Chronicles movie.

Yeah, the box is horrible as ever. At least it's not a freaking enormous black hole vacuum of nothingness like the first-issue YF-19's. I had to throw that one away, and I usually keep everything.

Seriously, if you hold one in each hand, you would never believe they were made by the same company. And I'm not knocking the 22, I love it. But this is just a whole other level. The 22 has all these little fit issues which are unthinkable on the 19 if you even just take a glance at it.

Thanks for the scans. It really does look like Bandai are improving pretty much everything for this release. I still can't justify buying this, though. Sucks about those FAST packs being exclusives, too. I wonder if they intend to make more versions using this mold. They only made a green variant of the VF-27, which was a web exclusive, and there was only one version of the VB-6.

They stopped putting the rainbow tint thing on the valks because it began to peel off over time.

Yamato has been putting features in gunpods for a while now, with most of them having removable magazines, etc. So I think it would not be out of the realm of possibility to have the gunpod open to install that beam add-on thing. Looking forward to it. EDIT -- I don't see the spring-action gimmick happening, though.

I think this is new... http://www.yamato-toys.com/dev/cont_096/index.html?infolnk=index_pickup Part 1 of a "How to" for the SDF-1. Looks to be a long one...

Technically it wasn't the first time, it was on my second or third transformation cycle. It still takes me ages to transform to Battroid and get everything to line up properly, I have to lock the chest, check the gaps, open the chest again, see what I've done wrong, look confused, lock it again, then adjust little things here and there. All this at a snail's pace because I don't want to break anything else. Despite all this, it is much, much better than anything else Yamato has brought out, and even makes the VF-22 look like a cheap knockoff-quality toy in comparison. The VF-11 feels light as paper after handling the Kai.

I would say it is much better than the VF-1.

Didn't stop Sunrise giving Gundam characters ridiculous names like "Full Frontal". I wouldn't mind if the characters at least snickered when they said it. "Why so serious?" indeed.

Argh. Of course there will be more, but it will be in another magazine. That's the point. That is the very reason why we're speculating the end of Mac Ace:

Thanks, good to hear. I'll try to fix it when I get some time. I just hope that tiny plastic piece hasn't disappeared, now.

Don't forget drummer Souichirou Asou! You might be thinking of "Ride on the Night", that was the City Hunter song. "Dreamjack" was used in Ergheiz. They both rock, though. Fantastic!! Just two nitpick, there are a couple of romanization errors, though. Songs 12 and 15 on the second day should read: 12) Masshiro ni kaware 15) Towa no tobira That is actually almost exactly how I read some Japanese comments on the net describing Hummingbird's performances a few years ago. They said that Furuya was the anchor that kept Fukuyama grounded and prevented him from just taking off uncontrollably. Since Fukuyama went solo, they argued, he has lost some of the balance that was the hallmark of the Hummingbird sound. I seriously cannot wait to buy that DVD. There'll be no hesitating on that one, I just hope they include both days of the performance so I can see what I missed on Saturday. Re-reading that now... I can't believe it's already Thursday night. Where the hell did my life go?? Hummingbird broke up ten years ago already. I remember the exact moment I read the news that they disbanded... I still haven't recovered fully from that trauma, but last weekend was certainly good therapy to treat the wounds.

Song list for the two days is up on Fukuyama's site. 57 songs in total! 21日 01．Party　（横田EG） 02．俺は今日から宇宙人　（横田EG） ------- 03．Dawn 04．こだわりハリー ------- 05．昨日見た未来　（福山AG） ------- 06．雪の日に　（福山AG　てつろうAG） ------- 07．逃避行　（福山AG→EG） 08．透明人間 09．境界線 ------- 10．混沌の中をさ迷って（福山ギターリン) ------- 11．Nightingale　（福山AG　てつろうAG） ------- 12．風と木と光の街で　（福山AG） ------- 13．星の手紙 （福山AG） ------- 14．Jungle Lady ------- 15．悲しみはどこから ------- 16．ワクガイ!! 17．獣になれ！ ------- 18．マイ・ブラザー ------- 19．MAD MACHINE ------- 20．ガラパゴス　（福山AG　てつろうAG　横田B）　　 ------- 21．祝福と涙　（福山AG） ------- 22．寓話 23．DREAM JACK ------- 24．DYNAMITE EXPLOSION　（福バサラギター） 25．STARLIGHT DREAM　（福バサラギター） ------- 26．MY SOUL FOR YOU --アンコール-- 27．ねここしゃん 　　～キミノミカタ （てつろうVo） 　　～ドラムソ\ロ 　　～いてくれてありがとう （横田Vo） 　　～キングゲイナー・オーバー！ 　　～ねここしゃん ------- 28．この空の下に君がいるから 22日 01．始まりの日 02．RED DATA FRIENDS ------- 03. Oh Yeah！ 04. 突き進め　MY LIFE ------- 05．MIRACLE SKY 06．水玉のカバ 07．しあわせの涙 ------- 08．白い森 （福山AG） ------- 09．夜が来て 明日が始まる （福山AG） ------- 10．複眼 ------- 11．BINBO BLIZZARD 12．真白にかわれ 13．ゼロになれ ------- 14．NA NA NA　（横田EG） --ハミングバード-- 15．永遠の扉 16．ロング・ロング・タイム ------- 17．PARADISE ------- 18．住宅用火災警報器戦隊 ジュウケーレンジャーの歌 ------- 19．今を生きる人へ ------- 20．月のささやき　（古屋Key+synB) ------- 21．海をこえて 22．君は来ない 23．MAKE A MAP ------- 24．魚つりの歌 25．FLY AWAY　（古屋Key→B→Key+synB) 26．まだまにあうさ --アンコール　福山バンド-- 27．真赤な誓い 28．一週間 ------- 29．ハッピー・バースデイ （古屋AG）

OK, I'm sorry to have caused all the commotion. The attachment points on the back are for the Sound Booster (I assume). For the FAST packs: no visible slots; the legs do not have magnets in them like the YF-19 because of the missile bay gimmick. Also, I don't that cardboard idea happening somehow.

Yes it does. What, should I quit my job?? The guy's over-reliance on onomatopeia to convey the intricacies of transformation steps.

Copying and pasting my comments onto this thread as ordered by General Tochiro of the Gaijin Brigade.... FOR THE TOO LONG / DIDN’T READ CROWD: IT WAS A F***ING AWESOME CONCERT!!!!!! Thank you, you may move on. OK, let's see if I can do one of these. Not to be outdone by Tochiro and Gubaba, I shall try my hand at doing a concert write-up. Firstly, sorry for resurrecting this thread. The main reason I felt this was the best thread to post in to do this write-up is because I had already introduced the band Hummingbird in my first post here, and that's quite relevant here. Yesterday (Sunday) was the second day of Yoshiki Fukuyama's 20th Anniversary concerts. On Saturday, there was also a Chie Kajiura concert, for some reason scheduled on the same day. You can read Gubaba's excellent write-up of that one here: http://www.macrosswo...ndpost&p=911067 I bought my ticket back in February, if I remember correctly. To be honest, even though it is the 20th anniversary of an excellent performer, I had this feeling that going to this concert felt more of a chore than anything else. I have seen Fukuyama live many, many times over the past ten years, and I know his basic routine. And he often misses notes and screws up lyrics, or mess up some riffs (though this one is quite rare). The last time I saw him was in Osaka over a year ago, and to be honest, it was the worst performance I'd seen, I was quite disappointed. I went to that one because it was the Revival of Fire Bomber gig, which would be the first time I saw Chie Kajiura and Fukuyama together. It was OK, music-wise, not bad, but he just looked beat from the day before in Tokyo, which I heard was pretty good. We got a shorter song list, a few mistakes, and the lack of coordination between Chie and Fukuyama showed quite a bit. And I’d seen most of the songs done live already anyway. There were only a couple of songs from the new album and I was expecting more. I decided to go anyway since I heard that Toshiyuki Furuya, the stray ex-Hummingbird bassist (and leader, technically) was going to be a guest performer. Well, after all that, I am happy to say yesterday’s performance was much, much better. Fukuyama looks, sounds and plays better, healthier, more confident. He used to cough a hell of a lot between songs, even between lyrics, during a performance, but not anymore. He didn’t do that once. He used to sound quite worn out, unable to hit high notes towards the end of the concert, but no more. He sounds as fresh and SHARP on the last lyric of the last song, as the first shout of the first bar of the first song. And he even noted this himself. A number of times, he said he was surprised at his own performance, where he used to struggle he now makes it look effortless. You can even see it in the Long Long Live DVD: halfway through he is collapsing over himself, barely able to stand, really having a hard time playing and singing, his voice almost a whisper at times. This… was something else. Fukuyama re-born. So OK, who went to this concert. From MW, Tochiro, Save and myself. Save came fashionably late. There were also the usual suspects of Japanese Macross fans. I got there early and spoke to them for a while. Apparently one of them won a backstage pass, one of two that was mixed in with the prizes in the Gachapon machine. Not bad for 500 yen, huh? Yamato had their shiny new VF-19kai toy on sale in the lobby, amongst the CDs and T-shirts. They also had a life-size, real Basara guitar on display, which hopefully will be a proper product soon. I spoke to Tochiro and his friend Richard from the videogame podcast that they do (who has the worst concert luck ever, for reasons I will let Tochiro explain), for a while, mostly about bottled water, Jack Black’s 1999 scrapped TV pilot, derogatory surfboards and other shenanigans when I decided to go to the bathroom before the show started. I took a million wrong turns before I found it, but I’m not complaining, for if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have bumped into this guy, sitting on the ground against a wall. This is Toshiyuki Furuya, Hummingbird’s bassist, today’s special guest – best known to Macross fans as the guy who wrote Dynamite Explosion. After more than a decade, at last I was able to meet and speak to the guy, and he was really happy to find his music had an audience overseas. Right, on to the music itself. The concert was made up of three main sections, the first was typical Fukuyama numbers, made up mostly from his solo album material, which was great. It was a good mix, and many songs I’d not heard live before, in particular that “Fukugan” operatta, which we talked about earlier in this thread, Fukyama’s own “Bohemian Rhapsody”, was great. I didn’t know he had written that while recuperating after breaking his collar bone. After a short break, the four Fukuyama Band members became the three, Hummingbird members – which means the keyboardist (whose name escapes me right now, since they’ve changed him THREE times already) and the bassist (Tetsuro Maeda) left, and Furuya came on stage, to give a powerful rendition of “Towa no Tobira”, thus elevating this hitherto “pretty good” gig into an epic performance of godly proportions. I am serious, the raw energy unleashed would have been visible if only they had had their patented Dr. Chiba Song Energy convertors equipped. “1,000,000 Chiba song units!” Every Hummingbird song was absolutely fantastic, and it was then that I felt, man, this is what I’ve been waiting for. When I lived in Japan for a year in 2001-2002, it was just after HB broke up. I have felt gutted ever since then, not to have seen what I thought was the greatest band in the world perform live (for which Furuya-san profoundly apologized when I spoke to him!). I had to make do with my albums, which I listened to each and every day, and to this day I am not bored of those first two albums. They are masterpieces in rock history. I love Queen, the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, the Who and I put Hummingbird right up there with them. But this really blew me away. Fukuyama’s band is great and all, but, man…. This was just testament to how incredible this band was and is. And the in-between-song banter with the three of them was great, too. They were taking potshots at each other, reminiscing about their old gigs, old radio shows, laughing like they were at a class reunion. Fukuyama: “Remember “Hoshi no Tegami” [beautiful song from the “Timeless” album]?? You hated recording that song! I’d look over and you’d be making that horrible face!” Furuya: “Yeah, ‘cos those harmonies were a nightmare! I’m sitting down, one hand on the keyboard, another playing bass, and at the same time I’m supposed to do backing chorus?? Screw that!” Or even, when Fukuyama is off on one of his infamous tangents, Furuya would just cut in and say, “Jeez, you talk a lot! Shut up and let’s play!” to which the audience went wild. It was really great to watch. There was more great banter which I remembered up until a few minutes ago but I forgot now, oh well. After the HB section, the concert was technically over but the 4-piece Fukuyama band came back to do a few powerful encore numbers, and finally bringing back Furuya on acoustic guitar to close the concert proper with a rendition of “Happy Birthday”, Hummingbird’s debut single. On the way out there was a camera rolling which you had to give a short message to, and apparently will be on the DVD. It seemed like the perfect opportunity for embarrassment, and our MacrossWorld reps did not disappoint. All will be revealed in the inevitable DVD release. After that Save, Tochiro and I had some drinks, where we discovered that Save can’t tell his left from his right. All in all, this was a million times better than I expected just because of how incredible and solid Fukuyama’s performance was, and better than I expected by an incalculable power of ten due to Hummingbird’s one-night-only revival. They honestly were a really, really great band. But don’t take my word for it, AT LEAST check out their first album, right here: http://forums.macros...topic.php?t=403 (It’s out of print, so this is your best bet) Here I am with Furuya-san: Yamato’s Basara Guitar: Attached thumbnail(s)

Hmm. Interesting how he mentions at the end that during the Shizuoka Hobby show, attendants broke three of the display samples at that same joint...