AcroRay

Speculation: Toynami is apparently releasing a 9" vinyl Golion/Lion Force Voltron. I'm hoping they'll expand their vinyl offerings to Inbit/Invid...

I wonder if TLEAD, MOSPEADA and the rest of the show's wacky naming style comes from the period fascination with things like the AWACS back in the early 80s. Remember those?

Perhaps if the blind-boxed DORVACK PVC powered armors they're selling this spring (like the pair included with their Brave Ghokin Mugen Calibur) do well, they'll expand into PVC items and offer Inbits/Invid. I think they would lend themselves well to PVC treatment with basic articulation.

Like Macross Perfect Memory's CONBAT ACTION section...?

Is that a Tatsunoko design from their work on Robotech Sentinels?

I think they're just attracting a bit more interest lately because of the swell of other Mospeada products out there. And they do scale nicely with the CMs Ride Armors, I believe. (At least, I see them photographed together rather often at some Japanese boards.) A little more demand an a little higher price. They're nice toys - stressing the toy part of it - from a past era. They're not very accurate, but they're sizeable, just like a big mech should be. Kind of like Jumbo Machinders, but not as big.

There was a guy who was selling his own resin-cast Eagers (the little red guys) via eBay a while back. Can't find my contact info for him, though. There was also someone selling a couple of recasts of several rare Japanese Invid/Inbit kits on eBay last week. Might still be current....

Maybe Yamato will offer a 1/60 Glaug.... Although I think sofubi Zentraedi spacecraft would be nice.

Nah, this is too important for that. It needs to be decided by a drinking contest! I'll represent "Stig" over "Stick", and chose Guiness as my weapon. Whoever meets my challenge has to cover the cost of the ammo....

Acronym, yeah. Sigh... worked two jobs today - the second being a very busy NCAA basketball broadcast. I should be in bed, not discussing an anime's naturalized and translated romanized nomenclature. But I love it! Now that I'm broke after buying that Monster off of you & all the Mospeada junk my YahooJP proxy has been scoring for me, collecting Mospeada information is all I can do for a while!

Wow, Ravenhawk - we both asked the same, painfully obvious question at the same time!

I believe Roger found Mospeada printed material explaining it as an anagram of Transport Legioss Escort Armored Dreadnaut: TLEAD While discussing the weirdness of Mospeada's name-styles, what the heck is LEGIOSS supposed to be derived from, anyway? When characters pronounce it on the show, it sounds like "Leggy-oss", so I'm not inclined to think it was supposed to sound like Macross. But then "Stick" sounds like "Stig" when the characters say it to my old ears, destroyed back in the 80s by my Sony Walkman...

According to ADV, its "Stig" - a Nordic or Finnish name. "Stick" is the romanization of it, along the lines of Mospeada's other fine examples of Engrish... like Blowsperior. Given that his red-haired backwoodsman buddy is from north or south America, "Ray" doesn't seem like an improper translation of it. Were he of obvious Japanese origin in the context of the show, I might say there was a strong case for a straight "Rei" from the kana. It would depend on your rules, and the context - just like any of the arguments we've heard again & again in this hobby. On base intuition, none of those names ever sounded right to me since I first heard or read them back in the middle of the 80s. So ADV's justifications and their results ring nicely to me as more than simple localization. Mospeada's tangle of tonug-twisting terminology and painful stretching toward colorful multinational names is - I think - the show's single very difficult to swallow point of style. Like DIVERGENCE EVE's ladies' ginormous b00bs (and that's coming from a Sano Toshihide fan...), or SOUTHERN CROSS' mecha. And I had the opportunity to talk with Matt Greenfield at length (like over a weekend, over dinner, etc) about it, and he loves this 80s stuff as much as or more than any of us. I think the whole package is a real labor of love, because there really wasn't much money to be made in it from the get-go. Dedicated, multi-lingual professionals developing a subtitled release for the English-speaking world in the year 200X sorting their way through romanizations cooked up from writer's notes two decades before primarily for toy and model packaging by marketing copywriters and graphic artists for consumers who didn't speak English. I'm OK going with Stig and Ray, I think....

That's how I prefer it, too!

If I recall correctly, since its been a couple years since I read the booklet (spoiler):

The mecha are nice, and I've always loved powered armor, but its the character chemistry and the travellogue element that I enjoyed most. Hopefully this isn't too off topic - I did a review of ADV's Mospeada brick for a web site called "DVD Vision Japan" a couple of years back, which promptly folded after I was brought in as a reviewer. They seem to have reorganized somewhat, but this review isn't in their mix, so I'll just reprint it here for you all: Genesis Climber Mospeada review Title: Genesis Climber Mospeada Volume: 1 of 1 Reviewed by: Ray Miller Company/Studio: ADV Films Running Time: 625 minutes (25 half-hour episodes on 5 disks) Region: 1 Rated: PG (bloody violence, extensive gun play, some nudity) Summary: Future Earth has been subjugated by the insect-like Inbit, who have devastated human civilization and forcibly returned much of the planet to a more ‘natural’ landscape unspoiled by man’s industries and pollution. Under the bio-mechanical heel of the Inbit, the dwindling remnants of mankind now live in an uneasy peace where military and industrial activity is subject to merciless, lethal reprisal. Earth’s colonies elsewhere in the solar system have remained untouched by the Inbit, even after a disastrous attempt to free their mother planet. A second assault from Mars Base leaves only one survivor - young fighter pilot Stig Bernard. Heartbroken by the deaths of comrades and of his fiancée aboard the assault fleet, Stig nonetheless continues with his mission: find and destroy the Inbits’ home base, the Reflex Point. Stig embarks on a long trek through the American continent to the Inbits’ stronghold in what was once Canada, finding friends and traitors, survivors and victims. Along the way, Stig and his newfound comrades are forced to question again and again their friendships, their places in the world, the survival of their species, and the true motives of the Inbit. DVD Vision Test Video: This is certainly the best this show has looked in Region 1. It is clean & sharp, with good encoding and minimal cross-coloration. Some aliasing might be visible on certain setups. The original material comes from film stock that is occasionally rather grainy, so it does show its age in this sharper format. Clear, well-written dialog and song subtitles are available in English, although the font is intrusive and unappealing. Audio: The audio is simple stereo, true to its 1983 original. The single audio track is the Japanese track, which sounds clear and well-mixed. Edits: No edits here! This edition restores the original open and close, as well as a number of cuts and shots which were removed for the show’s presentation in the ROBOTECH series. Extras: A clean open & close, and a slide show of line art set to music (much of which will be nothing new to most viewers). One gem of an extra is a dense 22-page booklet featuring interviews and articles from most of MOSPEADA’s key Japanese staff! Review Story: GENESIS CLIMBER MOSPEADA’s 25 episodes are essentially a travelog. In the tradition of the classic stories of great journeys, it offers opportunities for its characters to reflect on who they are and how they live their lives in the face of the different challenges and people they encounter along the way. The world of their journey is particularly difficult. The Inbit have destroyed much of what human civilization would consider ‘normal’, depriving most of the remaining population of a power grid, telecommunications, heavy industry and large cities, leaving many communities as little more than agrarian small-towns blighted with paranoia and deprivation. Stig and his friends meet all manner of people in this world, but more often than not they encounter the types who are unable, unwilling or genuinely opposed to standing against the Inbit. Some even hunt & kill soldiers, lest their military presence attract the aliens’ wrath. Others are happy to sell out anyone for a better opportunity in a world with little left to offer. In many cases, this new dog-eat-dog society even forces our heroes to question mankind’s right to survive in the face of the powerful, highly-evolved Inbit. Stig, Ray & our band of diverse, engaging heroes each offer strong personalities and a good mix of chemistries that result in a wide range of adventures in each episode. At times it is a bit difficult to recall where this troop is along the route of their journey due to the array of different stories and the jumbled picture of North American geography, so MOSPEADA suffers somewhat from a lack of cohesion. They do, however, keep to their mission northward to Reflex Point, which is easier to follow in multi-episode screenings. There are also several instances of rather dated design, particularly in the musical concert scenes. MOSPEADA offers something rather unique in SF TV series: an environmentally aware storyline that offers the strong argument that Earth may actually be better off in someone else’s hands than in mankind’s. For anyone who might have wondered if the world just might be a better place if there were fewer people around, this is a good possible look at such a world. Responsibly, however, MOSPEADA’s world doesn’t fail to offer the other side of that coin, showing that mankind is still a resident of the world and Earth iteslf also suffers when the balance is upset. Comparison between MOSPEADA and its corresponding ROBOTECH entry is unavoidable, and speaks volumes. MOSPEADA’s Stig is arguable a very different person from Scott, the ROBOTECH alternate. Stig (noted as of Norwegian descent) Bernard comes across as much more socially comfortable than Scott. Stig is no less driven, but not so obsessed with his mission that he’ll rub friends the wrong way. He is mature and goal oriented, but friendly. On the other hand, Scott Bernard is portrayed as generally sullen, inflexible and often unlikable. Robotech viewers who haven’t seen MOSPEADA may also note that the Inbit are far less ‘chatty’ than the Invid. The Inbit generally go about their alien business in creepy silence with only the occasional inhuman grumble, whereas ROBOTECH's Invid constantly babble their plans and motives to one another in clear English as if the audience isn’t bright enough to figure it out themselves. Similar added dialog peppers many of MOSPEADA’s scenes of intense yet silent cross-cutting when seen in ROBOTECH. These different approaches to script and dialog make MOSPEADA a very different and genuinely more mature viewing experience in terms of tone and storytelling than with ROBOTECH’s NEW GENERATION. Acting: Mospeada features a fine cast, offering clear, dramatic performances true to the characters. None are bizarre or cliché with the possible exception of young Mint Rubble. In the case of Yellow Belmont, a man and a woman share the role! Fan Service: MOSPEADA offers tiny bits of tame fan service typical of the era, so nothing particularly dramatic. Unless you’re a ROBOTECH viewer who was fortunate enough to catch the oversight in ROBOTECH’s earliest syndication run, you’ll probably be surprised to see a nude Aisha [aka Marlene] floating about in the show’s finale. Conclusion: MOSPEADA’s high quality attracted a small but strong following in both the US and Japan, and is certainly a classic of the 1980's “mecha opera” genre. The Tatsunoko Pro staff of MOSPEADA included many talents who would later become key players in some of the most popular and well-known works in the genre today. These include Yoshitaka Amano of VAMPIRE HUNTER D fame, mecha and toy designer Shinji Aramaki, world-famous Studio Ghibli composer Joe Hisaishi, and TENCHI MUYO screenwriter Naoko Hasegawa. MOSPEADA features a solid array of appealing mecha designs that have delighted fans across the globe and made toys and models from the show particularly sought-after. Airing in late 1983 during a maelstrom of similar shows such as DOUGRAM, VOTOMS, XABUNGLE and L-GAIM, MOSPEADA suffered from a painfully early Sunday morning time slot which nonetheless attracted a following that kept the show alive for years in VHS recordings and laser disk releases. Vocal fans even inspired the show’s creators to develop one of the industry’s first OAVs as a sequel of sorts: the extended music video epilogue MOSPEADA: LIVE, LOVE, ALIVE. One of the best things in this collection is the thick booklet of articles! The details in this booklet are a wealth of intimate and revealing material about the show’s development and the creative influences that went into everything from casting to toy & model development to the recording of the rare “Live At Pitt Inn” concert. There is even a wonderful short story by MOSPEADA’s director which contributes a surprising - and dare I suggest - canonical epilogue the MOSPEADA stroy. One downside of this booklet is the rather poorly-edited text, with inconsistent character name romanization and difficult grammar that seems to come straight from a Bablefish translation. But written MOSPEADA material from Japanese sources is rare, making this booklet alone extremely worthwhile. This box set is an exceptional, long-desired addition to a small but very strong property. MOSPEADA fans are finally given their due in this package thanks to the refreshingly insightful new marketing activities of North American license holder Harmony Gold and the “old school anime” founders of ADV. ROBOTECH: NEW GENERATION fans owe it to themselves to pick up this set as well, as it offers not only crisp video and uncut material, but it provides an excellent example of the subtle differences in storytelling style between ROBOTECH and the material’s Japanese origins.

Hey! This thread's title stole my material! I'm calling in royalties! http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?...st&p=707964 Seriously, though - Don't forget the upcoming Mospeada art book, due in March, in our list of topics: http://ariuf.co.kr/shop/shopdetail.html?br...&sort=order

Pine-Sol will affect some plastics, making them sticky or degrading their surface. So be careful - don't leave it to soak any longer than it has to. Automotive brake fluid has been the most reliable method for me.

Ah, HA! Yeaaahhhhh!

You mean Shinobu. Great review, though - as always! I should have mine from Japan in 2 or 3 weeks. I'm fully expecting to do a lot of 'tweaking'...

I agree. I hope its a plastic kit. While a toy would be nice, a plastic kit would go nicely with my old SDF:M kits. Ya know?

Would it have been the Mospeada issue of the OUT anime magazine?

The Ohsato stuff is SOOO hard to complete! (I still need a bunch of ORGUSS cards....)

I second that motion.....

Yeah. And her face is really ugly, too. I plan on trying to improve her face a bit, and do some highlighting on the black and panel-lining on the lighter parts to bring out the details.