AcroRay

Two Minmay = pretty basic symbolism. Young Minmay, leaving home [her parents] for a new life alongside the SDF-1 Macross (I really like the presentation of this bit of her backstory in Flashback) Mature Minmay leaving home [Earth] for a new life onboard the Megaroad. You see the second, younger Minmay on the ground during the launch ceremony, an echo of Minmay's past in her recollections, bridging her life in the start of this new era and her life at the start of the previous (SWI) era. "Cloning"? "Background characters"? C'mon, guys...

Probably because the piece on display is a pattern hardcopy, not an actual injection-molded sample. I'm really pleased with this. Most of my SDFM stuff is either 1/55 or 1/100, so it'll fit in nicely. (If I want something bigger, I'll build the papercraft kit.)

Quite an honor!

My other Meiya Mitsurugi figures, which live in my cubicle at the studio: Meiya from Muv Luv Extra (the first game). I think this is from an Akane Maniax figure set. I just got her last week via eBay, loose with no packaging. She's standing in a group of Gokin and Revoltechs! The Rumbling Angel CCG mascot Meiya. She's a tiny 'bottle cap' style figure. The base has a bit at the back to hold a card. That's it for my Muv Luv stuff. I'd love some A3 mecha figures, or some A-brand or M.O.E. Burning character figures. But the former are too expensive (damn Volks!), and the latter would probably not be appreciated by the waifu.

Meiya's the only Figma I have, and the only Revoltechs I have are the Regult and Dougram mecha, so I can't comment in much detail. Her boots aren't removable, but Meiya' feet are joined to her lower legs with a very tiny revoltech-looking joint that looks to be removable. There's also a rotation point in the toe area to assist a natural foot positioning in A-stance. The upper portion of the boot is molded into her lower calf in her leg. The boots (used to help interface with the robots they pilot in the game, sort of like Frontier's EX-Gear) makes her really stable, and she'll stand just fine without a Figma stand unless you want her in some sort of leaping pose - which would be out of character for her, anyway. I was surprised Rob Bricken actually offered a reasonably positive review of her in his typically caustic, lame excuse for a column at ANN. (Astro-Toy: 'Send me a free collector-market toy I'm absolutely not the intended market for, so I can savage its inability to satisfy my needs as an otherwise utterly uninterested consumer.')

My impression of Mari re: Minmay - after what I've read and what she said when I met her - was that she was a bit sick of her "Minmay" typecasting for some time, and has only recently come to amicable terms with the character's place in her life. It reminded me a bit of how Leonard Nemoy spent some time struggling with the public's perception of him only as "Mr. Spock" rather than the more-widely capable professional and artist that he was, and only relatively recently came to better appreciate that part of his life, and utilize it to its fullest while still maintaining a separate identity. I think this is a series of phases that many professional entertainers go through if their popular success is defined primarily by a single role or work early in their careers. I'll add that I firmly believe that ADV's respectful inclusion of her in their MACROSS dub production probably did a great deal to soothe her toward Minmay. She had the opportunity to work with younger people who alternately didn't know her has Minmay, and older experienced people who knew her very well as Minmay but were professionals themselves.

I'm a fan of MUV LUV, so Figma Meiya was a recent must-have: Cast-A-Way Toys' Mego-style classic PHANTOM is to her right, and Bandai's Motion-Revive Series KOS-MOS is to her left.

The molds used to manufacture Matchbox's versions seem identical to Takatoku's tooling, from my own personal comparisons. It seems as though only legal lines were re-stamped, and a few tiny changes made for reasons of safety (sharper points removed) or economy (parts removed from Spartan for Gladiator).

Very nice work! Did your Monster still have its original cannon barrels? The closest I've found for replacements are Evergreen Styrene Products EVG 230 .312 (5/16) inch round tubing. It still requires a little carving to narrow out the mounting areas (unless you widen the part on the Monster itself).

There is the Matchbox/Playmates toy, which might give you a good customizing source to work from. It may actually be rather close to 1/72 scale.

Hoping they'll do Klan in Valkyrie armor next....

I checked with him the other day, and he's still selling all six variants - assembled or in kit form. Kit form is a little cheaper. Now if only I had the cash to spare for even one... gah.

Those elements also sometimes bind up a bit, because inner rubber grommets might not be installed cleanly, or glue and paint can bind them up, keeping them from sliding into and out of position as they should.

It was so nice to NOT have the narrator, or the dummy dialog the Robotech production added. I waited 2 fecking DECADES to watch it without that crap ram-rodded into the show. [Although otherwise I do think the Robotech dub has some great talent, and I did like the Robotech music tracks as much as I like the original Hisaishi Mospeada tracks.]

I'm thinking of taking my 11 year old daughter (who likes Macross Frontier, Miyazaki's films, & other anime) to see it. The story does sound a bit shallow... But I wonder if she'd find it to be enjoyable? Can anyone offer an opinion?

Oh, Man! That's too sweet! No school like the Old School. Thanks for showing off the fine justice you've done to these classics!

I think its a great idea, and a wonderful rendering! Basically an elaborate papercraft. Bandai and Kayiodo (and Yamato?) both offer similar diorama/base-hangars for download with some of their products. You're filling a need for the Macross community! Personally, I'd like to rescale it for use with my 1/55 & 1/100 Macross mecha.

Cheap as Mospeada is, actually buying it and funneling some genuine Mospeada profit back up the chain is an option.

You should buy ADV's Mospeada DVD collection. Its cheap, and the booklet that comes with it is great!

Hoping for another Zentraedi solder kit of some sort. Perhaps the post-SW1 dead one with the Minmay doll in its hand...

I've already got a broken 1/72 YF-21, thank you. I recall watching a kid back in the 80s gleefully smashing a large Gakken Legioss to pieces on the pavement outside his house in my neigborhood, and asking him why on earth he was destroying it. His response was "The wing broke off already, besides - its MINE!" Of course, he was 8 years old.

True - but they will contribute significantly to discoloration of your plastics, so you'd best keep them away from your toys.

I'm just amazed that some of you folks have so much money and so little regard for things that you can just "throw away" an expensive, complex toy. Like it never even occurs to you to offer it to someone for kitbashing for the cost of postage. Or you even lack the imagination to mod it into a 'wrecked' Valk for your display. Regardless of some persons' disappointment or frustrations at the quality - or lack thereof - of the product, it strikes me that one would simply be an incredibly spoiled-rotten, irresponsible and thoughtless person to simply destroy it or throw it away, especially when you're a member of a community in which many of your peers could make far better use of the item than sending it to your local landfill for a couple million years. In a hobby that is perhaps essentially childish, some displays of childishness are simply irredeemably negative.

Mine's on the way from HLJ - thank goodness! "Backordered" is usually pretty scary. But I'd have missed it completely if it weren't for this thread!

Not as bad as what happened to the amazing model of the CYGNUS from Disney's THE BLACK HOLE. It was left outside in a crate to rot, then was run over with a forklift. Employees made off with chunks of it. "According to an ex-Disney employee, the model was stored in a crate in the 'Boneyard', where old props and such are stored on the Disney lot. It was rained on a great deal, and, one day, smashed to pieces by a poorly-driven forklift which accidentally backed into the crate. Pieces of the model were taken by various folks as souveniers." http://www.starshipmodeler.com/Other/js_cyg.htm If you've ever seen the film, the ship is spectacularly beautiful - hand-tooled brass, steel and glass, 12 foot long, 175 pounds. Each of the two (one destroyed for FX) cost $100,000 to build. Amazing.