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tekering

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Everything posted by tekering

  1. tekering
    I'm sure a lot of us are in the same boat... and since we paid up front over three years ago, we're certainly not likely to get our money back now. 😒 So what's the solution? Class-action lawsuit? An ineffectual boycott? DNS server attack?
  2. tekering
    I don't even have the space to display the 1:48 DX Valkyries I've bought over the past couple of years... I certainly wouldn't have space for a 1:18 VF-1! Heck, my 1:18 F-14 hangs from the ceiling above the stairwell, 'cause that's the only possible place I can display it... And to be honest, I still have no idea where my PLAMAX 1:20 VF-1s will go once they're painted, either. "First-world problems," as they say. 😅
  3. tekering
    What if Bandai came up with a larger scale than the Arcadia? Say, 1:48? 😝
  4. tekering
    Ooh, never seen one of those. Is that a custom-painted 1:60 Yamato VF-19 Excalibur? 😯
  5. tekering
    Actually, it's ¥35,200. 😐
  6. tekering

    Arcadia VF-5000G

    tekering replied to daBlah!'s topic in Toys

    They are more plentiful in Japan, to be sure, but there's a much higher demand for them here; and yes, many of these items do eventually show up in stores... ...at significantly inflated prices, mind you. 🤨 The fact is, finding a new Macross product at conventional retail is next to impossible, even in Japan. Arcadia's distribution is too limited, and Bandai's production runs are too limited. Unless you manage to score a pre-order, you're stuck paying secondary market prices... no matter where in the world you happen to reside.
  7. tekering
    That's just it; they're translations. Robotech, being in English, has always had established spellings for all the proper nouns. Macross, being Japanese, has established phonetic katakana readings, but not many consistent Romanji transliterations. Even accepted spellings like "Regult" and "Nousjadeul-Ger" are way, WAY off their proper Japanese pronunciations, and yet they've been standardized for marketing material and packaging art (so we're stuck with them). Thanks to the Internet, however, we now have consistently-applied spelling conventions that are easily referenced across a variety of Web sites. On the contrary, most online sources use the "Milia" spelling.
  8. tekering
    Very clean work, Goodman.
  9. tekering
    Oh dear... has my past finally caught up with me? 😟
  10. tekering
    Well, this is disturbing. Mike's photography is so crystal-clear, I can make out the granular texture and telltale layering of a 3D-printed prototype... ...on a mass-produced factory figure. 😒 Why would steel molds have this layering evident? Exactly what kind of molding process are they using in Vietnam? 🤨
  11. tekering
    So while Mike's gushing on Reactivate, let me introduce my favorite new Arcee figure. 😘 This is Flame Toys' Furai model version, and it's in keeping with their IDW-style modern take on these designs. It's also exactly the same height as the other Furai models, meaning Arcee's definitely not to scale... 😒 ...but if you collect MMC figures, she fits in perfectly with their scale and aesthetic. Being an officially-licensed figure means she's non-transformable, of course... ...but just because she doesn't have a vehicle mode doesn't mean she can't haul ass... 😊 ...or kick ass, for that matter. 😉 Most third-party Arcee figures tend to be retro G1, hyper-sexualized, or hyper-moe... I think this one is a nice blend of all three aspects. As you can see, she's finely articulated... ...and extremely photogenic. 😍 In fact, I've never photographed a figure so much before... ...at least, not from the back. 😅 Being a model kit means she needs to be assembled, but no glue or paint is required... Even that Autobot symbol on her chest comes pre-painted on. And the level of detail is remarkable. Note part E1_1 here, that fits behind the hubcaps: They're brake pads! 😯 Some parts even have metal inserts. It's a really high-quality kit. Of course, there are optional parts you probably won't make use of... ...but they're entirely superfluous. So's her chest piece, incidentally. 😶 She makes Ocular Max's "Azalea" look super old-fashioned... ...but fits right in among MMC's "Reformatted" line. 😎 So what if she never appeared in More Than Meets The Eye?
  12. tekering
    Dragonball featured some significant digital alterations to censor content for North American audiences... Sailor Moon was slightly edited (and at least one character was gender-swapped in the dub)... but neither example compares to Robotech. I mean, forget cuts or name changes; Southern Cross was set on a whole 'nother PLANET! A more accurate comparison would be Battle of the Planets, or the infamous Captain Harlock and the Queen of a Thousand Years.
  13. tekering
    Where's The Marvels? Or No Way Home? 🤨 I realize Agents of SHIELD is a grey zone (despite how hard they tried to work around the Phase Two films), but don't the Venom films (and Morbius) count, at least? Certainly, their inclusion on this timeline would make a helluva lot more sense than including What If... 😒 IGN, your timeline sucks. 🙄
  14. tekering
    The very same.
  15. tekering
    Online pre-orders are your only chance to get DX Chogokins at retail prices. They don't show up in Japanese stores. Not, that is, until they hit the secondary market: So yes, I have to face the preorder madness along with the rest of you... although it's a different kind of crap show for Japanese collectors. Unlike HLJ, Anime Export, and the other specialty shops, most Japanese retailers could care less about collectors. Bandai tells them they can't list a product until after 4pm on a certain date, so they list that product a half-hour later, an hour later, several hours later... and unlike AmiAmi or Nin-Nin, they don't provide any indication of when exactly the preorder will go up. Amazon.jp had their listing up at 4:06, but their stock was superseded by third-party sellers asking ¥12000 above retail (!), making it impossible to access Amazon's own listing in time; I got close, but was cartjacked before checkout. Yodobashi Camera listed at 4:26, BIC Camera hadn't listed until after 5:00, JoshinWeb didn't up up their listing 'til nearly 6:00, and it looks like Edion didn't add the YF-21 to their site until sometime the following morning! The only shops that respected the 4pm schedule were Akiba Sofmap and Bandai's own Tamashii store, and both of those only offer lottery sales, so... practically useless. 😒 I've tried telephone enquiries before, to no avail. Online preorders are the only option I'm aware of. In fact, I remember seeing a sign at the customer service desk at BEST Denki turning away any customers trying to order a Metal Structure Sazabi.
  16. tekering
    On sale? 😟 That seems highly unlikely. 🤨
  17. tekering
    Pretty impressive detail, for 1:144 scale... 😶 Especially the waterslide decals. 😯
  18. tekering
    Great concept, but AI has difficulty understanding perspective and foreground scale. That pic makes your cyclone look as big as an Alpha. 😅
  19. tekering
    I can't believe you guys don't like Keiko... 🥺 I'm becoming a big fan of Mari Yamamoto, thanks to her portrayal of Keiko Miura. 😋
  20. tekering
    Awesome, thank you! 😊
  21. tekering
    The execution's a little sloppy, but the concept is brilliant. He even incorporated the revolver in the leg! 😮
  22. tekering
    Wow! Congratulations on 20 years, Cap'n! I may want another Pinky myself, if only to make a blue-eyed Battler variant. 🤓 You can mount them on brackets attached to the back (as originally intended), or you can simply drill holes in the head and connect them with brass rods (as pictured above).
  23. tekering
    3199? 🤔 Kodai and Yuki look surprisingly good in that trailer, seeing as they're both over a thousand years old. 🙄
  24. tekering
    It's all "Robotech Remastered," I'm afraid. The original mono audio tracks wouldn't sync up with the re-edited episodes anyway. None of the original commercial "bumpers" are included, either. 😒 Worse yet, the new opening sequences created for the "Remastered" DVDs didn't even get recreated in HD, simply upscaled from the DVD source. The openings are therefore of substantially lower quality than the episodes themselves. 🤨
  25. tekering
    So, I was initially excited when Robotech was announced for Blu-ray, because it meant the first time Southern Cross footage would be available in HD. We'd had Macross on Blu-ray for over a decade (and Mospeada for nearly that long), but Southern Cross barely even got a DVD release in Japan... and it was shovelware at best. Of course, as soon as "The Macross Saga" BDs came out, it was clear how little Funimation cared about image quality: I mean, compared to what we'd got in Japan ten years earlier... ...Robotech looked as grainy, high-contrast, oversaturated and blown-out as ever. 😒 Comparisons with Mospeada fared no better. So, with expectations at rock-bottom, I was in no hurry to see "The Robotech Masters" in HD... but my initial curiosity never entirely faded, and I did finally acquire the Blu-rays a few months back. The masters for "Masters" are just as poor quality as the other series, of course, but are they at least better than the DVDs were? As you may be aware, the ADV discs had terrible color timing, giving the whole series a heavy blue tint across the spectrum... Surprisingly, the color timing is a major improvement on Funimation's HD masters, with more accurate blacks and distinct color definition evident in every frame. In fact, there's a whole new magenta tone introduced to the image: It doesn't replace the blue, but rather adds an additional color layer. I thought this difference was profound, and felt compelled to show other Southern Cross fans... ...although I realize very few people will actually care. I mean, they're mastered from the same ancient 16mm prints Tatsunoko provided Harmony Gold four decades ago... ...and still show all the same flaws. If anything, physical damage to the film is even more evident in HD. Still, the improvement is undeniable. I thought it was worth sharing, anyway. 🤓
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