AcroRay

Mortar Headds are fairly large, so a 1/144 scale kit will stand about 6-7 oro so inches tall, I think. (Haven't built my KOG or Led Mirage 1/144 kits yet. But I did build a 1/100 Led Mirage.) I don't believe Bandai ever made any FSS kits. You'd be getting them from Wave or Kaiyodo. The plastic kits are very nice. Excellent detail and tooling.

If humanity makes friends with the Vajra, I picture larger Vajra - the Big Reds, carriers and the like - giving human ships a lift, or piggybacking them. I do have the impression that we're to understand that the Vajra are capable of instantaneous - or near-instantaneous - folding. Hence their appearance simultaneously over the skies of Earth and at the faraway Macross II fleet during the concluding episodes of Frontier. My impression is that Mr. Briler also wanted to acquire that ability from the Vajra, so he could catch up to the Megaroad fleet and find Minmay.

I was under the impression that the Vajra left their planet for 'parts unknown' after Frontier freed their queen from Grace and landed the planet. Ai-kun just stuck around with Ranka. Wouldn't that be quite an upset to the 'status quo' of the whole colony-fleet thing, if the Macross universe suddenly developed instantaneous fold technology? That would make all the fleets moot, and would probably really eliminate a lot of story possibilities...

Looks like the CMs Dark Bartley/Shinobu isn't very popular at YahooJP right now. I just scored one brand new for Y2000 (before fees & etc), and there are a couple of others going for Y3500.

Of all the mecha I've seen and loved, I think I'd choose to pilot the Zoids Gojulas Mk II , although the fuel bill would be pretty scary. Either that, or I'll take the one with the prettiest co-pilot...

Wow, that's horrible. The thing looks like my 9 year old built it. Proof the factories are using child labor? (Just kidding...)

If you absolutely must have a YF-1R in your collection, I'd say just look for a Super-Posable. I like to have at least one example of every style of Valk toy in mine, and it suited that need nicely. Plus, I kind of like it. I think the style of head and the colorway gives it a sort of no-nonsense Destroid feel.

Drone: Too cool! The wallets of Mospeada fans continue to cry a river of tears...

I don't have either CMs Stig or Ray, and wasn't planning on picking them up (unless I score one dirt cheap). I was just curious about the Shinobu in particular. Since I'm a both a videographer and a Mospeada fan, I was hoping to add her to my cubicle collection at the studio. They're going kind of cheap at YahooJP.

Has anyone actually released the Shinobu (videographer girl) Ride Armor yet? I thought CMs had one in the works, but in the flurry of show exclusives and delayed product over the last quarter I've lost track. I'd like to get one, even if they're a little rickety. EDIT - Duh - answered my own question via eBay and YahooJP. So, CMs Shinobu "Dark Bartley" is out. Any reviews? How bad is it? Is Megahouse planning one as well? If so, what's the ETA?

If you're wondering how he eats and breathes And other science facts, Just repeat to yourself "It's just a show, I should really just relax...

Late to the party - but I wanted to say: Nice stuff! I like your 'vintage' pieces as well: "No putty, no sanding, simple-action sprayer... I only paint the plastic tree, then I cut and glue it together." ...Oh, does that bring back memories of building my own kits back in the 1980s! All beautiful!

There's nothing like a truly GIANT giant robot. Toynami's Beta seems to fit that bill nicely. Hope to get one myself this year.

Looks like a lot of parody going on. The bit with all the pantsu shots looks like an Ikkitousen parody. Not that I'm complaining...

Wow - VERY nice! These are great for the kids, too!

"Linear Actuator" = scientific term for Anime Magic!!!! With that in mind, no one should be complaining if Bandai's toys & models don't transform quite as they'd prefer. The VF-25 can't actually be kanzen henkei, since it takes its own parts off and puts them back on in different places! (Or - as Micronaut/Microman collectors call it: "Magno Power" or "Magnemo".)

I notice Toynami's "Scott" has a much more pronounced frown on his face. That seems in keeping with Robotech's adaptation of Stig. I think he came across as a much more unfriendly, negative person in Harmony Gold's adaptation than he seemed in the subbed version I eventually saw courtesy of ADV. Beagle's sculpt has the typical soldierly stiff upper lip. Toynami's has more of a pi55ed-off frown. "My name is Scott Bernard. You killed my fiancee. Prepare to die."

I'd like to take a moment here to just say that all of you people who have your Beagle Ride Armors completely and utterly suck, and that I'm consumed by envy.

Danth pretty much has it right. QC is your main issue here. Every time a blot of glue gets in a slider, or a set of plastic parts are misshapen because they were demolded before they properly cured and stabilized in the tooling, or every time someone doesn't screw two parts together properly, or forgets to trim a little bit of flash off of the peg fitting into a socket, or pulls off a mask before the paint is fully dry - then you get things that don't interact (transform) properly. That would only be called bad 'design' in so far as you might consider your choice of materials and your workpersons' assembly instructions are part of the overall design. I think Toynami's Legioss is wonderfully designed. Its just a potential nightmare to get built properly on a short timetable. I'd venture that if you gave a kit of all the parts for the thing, instructions and a good set of tools to just about anyone here to build over the course of a weekend the result would be optimal. You'd have no trouble getting the design together and it would work fine. But if I told you to get 6 or 7 of them built before the end of the work day... then the results would probably be a little sketchy with some of them. Time is money.

Keep in mind that if your Legioss has joints, sliders and other elements that aren't working properly, you might be lead to think that you're not transforming it properly even though you may actually be doing it correctly.

There are legions of Takara transforming toy products that are symmetrical, have tight gaps and tolerances, look great and work fine. Dozens of them were designed long before CAD was a tool for manufacturing. Most were designed before the invention of the laptop... H3ll, there are plenty of older model kits that would fit your CAD indications.

In all fairness, there's a certain set 'failure' percentage in any product run that's acceptable before you offer a full recall. Usually a couple percent is acceptable, and can be largely ignored as isolated anomalies. Anything above that is usually dealt with as individual returns and refunds by the retailers, and the loss is theirs. They can then take it up with the distributors they got the product from, who will then take it up with the manufacturer. The 5hit - or the IOUs - flows uphill. Every manufacturer deals with it in a slightly different way. If your customers are unhappy they could sue you from whatever level of the retail chain they stand at, or at the very least just not buy your future stuff - which would be more painful in the long run. Not completely off-topic about the Yamato toys: I don't know if they're too expensive relative to what it costs to make them. What I do know is that they're generally too expensive for me to buy new. The give-and-take between the two thresholds to determine a price at which I will buy their product can have a very strong impact on the product's level of QC. You can see that happening - often in the negative - in both Yamato and Toynami products, I think. As well as MegaHouse, CMs, etc. Niche-interest products might be a successful endeavor in terms of retail price and QC control for simplistic vinyl toys, action figures of Harvey Birdman or the Futurama gang, or Head-Knockers of Star Wars characters. But when you start serving niche interests that require products that have hundreds of parts per unit, in dozens of materials and a dozen different paint applications per unit, then you're walking in a realm of very expensive, complex endeavor - one much more likely to involve failure.

That's really amazing, what Toynami is doing. The expense of that could easily put a company out of business. I hope they haven't paid the factory that made those messes in full, and that they've successfully taken back their tooling. After Palisades' first factory for Micronauts screwed up the line, Palisades refused to pay them for the remainder of their charges due to the obvious violation of QC agreements, and ordered their tooling released for pickup by another company. The factory fought them on it, and the Micronauts molds 'disappeared' when the new factory tried to get them, and the tooling wasn't seen for nearly a month (were likely stolen by the crooked subcontractor the factory sent the job to), and when they were retrieved they had acrylic glue injected and dried in all the mold channels and cavities. See what you gotta deal with?

About 8 or so pints of blood sold at the nearest bio/hemo-tech company should get you enough to buy it!

Gakken + Mego = Beagle!!!!