MSW

What defective disks?...Just wondering what problems have been reported, mine seem to work perfectly appart from some menu speed problems (but on my computer they work great, just an occasional slow menu transition on my stand alone DVD player..a rather cheap one at that ).

Looks nice ... but sorta "incomplete" might just be the lighting and phot quality but both models look like they are drying while awaiting final weathering... On the Raider very few of the details pop out...a light subtle drybrushing over the surface with a slightly lighter color combined with some darker washes in the heavy kibble areas would definetely help give the model much more "depth". Course the same done more agressively would definetly help the Viper as well...

Mmm...where is it written that Takara can only produce MP Transformer figures?...Why not a MP Gao Gai Gar (or any of the other Brave saga bots)? they are practicaly transformers anyway A MP Cho Ryu-Jin would absolutely RULE! ... erm...even though Takara's toy of him already is almost as big if not larger then MP Prime. course a MP Great Exkizer would be mucho cool too, not to mention a MP J-Decker But if it's gotta be a Transformer then either a MP Soundwave or MP God Ginrai (woah, this one would be pretty easy as they already have the MP Prime/Convoy...just cook up a MP Ginrai trailer and your done )

Drifand is right about the lion head sculpt needing to be better... Here is a little photoshopped "resculpt" of the Toynami red lion...the original is to the left, while my "improved" version is to the right... I moved the front body section back to expose a bit more of the neck, which also in a way "fattens" the body up a bit...this would be super easy to do on the toy as the front body section (the red area with the front legs and number 2 on the back) just needs to slide back a bit in lion mode exposeing more of the lion neck and covering a bit of the robot mode elbow joint...this sorta "bulks" the body up a bit, move the front/rear legs a bit closer together, and yet still allows some poseability due to the only partialy covered elbow joint...simple enough...second thing I did was to bring the top of the lion's head down so it is almost level with the nose area, thus makeing the eyes not so tall and giveing it a bit more of that fierce cat look...the lion head is still a bit to large porportionaly with the body but not much can be done about that without the robot "hands" becomeing too small...overall it's somewhat subtle but a definete improvement I think. here is the image with the "resculpt" on the right:

I'm no ST fan...but I just want to clear up some misconceptions Erm...If the film was shot with an anamorphic lens then it must be projected with an anamorphic lens else the image will appear very distorted... There are basicly two types of 35mm film (actualy more, but I wo't go into the details as it pretty much boils down to these two for movie production anyway)...the normal basic type...and super 35mm...difference being that the super varient doesn't have the sound recording strip on the negative so a larger portion of the negative can be used ... 35mm film aspect ratio is almost 4:3 (with super 35mm being something like 4.3:3) not square (1:1 ratio), which is about the same as a normal TV aspect ratio... an anamorphic lens acts sort of like one of those fish eye lens...it crams a larger viewing angle onto the film by refracting the light coming through it...thus the image on the film looks very distorted unless it is projected onscreen through an anomorphic lens... yeap...that is correct if the film is ment to be shown in 2.35:1 ratio...then changeing it to 2:1 or 1.85:1 will force hard matted subtitles higher in the frame... film ratios are always in width to height format so a 2.35:1 ratio means the intended image width is 2.35 times wider then it is tall...2.0:1 means it is twice as wide as tall, etc...4:3 ratio works out to 1 and a third times as wide as tall (or 1.3333333333333333333333333:1 course the 3's go on to infinitety as such it is often expressed as 4:3 for simplicity sake

Pretty much every hand drawn cell animated TV show of the last 20-30 years or so has had the bulk of the animation work done in both Japan and Korea ...Disney's Duck Tales, Rug Rats, Simpsons, Batman, you name it...the bulk of the grunt work (animation inbetweens, ink and paint, background painting, even camera work) has been outsourced for decades now...Even Japanese animation companies outsource such work to Korean facilities...it's just the way the industry works.

Knight Rider 2000 - the actual car used in that TV movie was a Mitsubishi 3000 GT with modified fiberglass body work to make it sorta resemble a Pontiac concept car named the Banshee ... One of the model companies actually made kits of the Banshee concept car, which forms a good basis for modifying it into K.I.T.T. as seen in that movie... course a model of the third generation Pontiac Firebird/ Trans Am can be modified into K.I.T.T. rather easily...there may be some resin detail kits out there you can purchase for this purpose, check general sci-fi and automobile specific modeling web sites and web boards and you could find those (if they exist, I assume some enterpriseing modelers are produceing them)...

I can only recommend Viewtiful Joe and possably Ikaruga ... I playied VJ over at a friends house, fun game...I don't have a cube, PSX2, or (ugh) X-Box ... my Dreamcast still works wonderfully, thank you very much I only possably recommend Ikaruga depending on how you like the gamecube controler as it might make it even more difficult (but I haven't playied Ikaruga on the cube yet to be sure...I just find the cube controller rather funky to use ) ... Ikaruga is a old school type shooter (like R-Type, forgotten Worlds, Einhander, etc..) made by the game design gods at Treasure and first home released on the dreamcast (gotta import it though) ... it's a fantastic game and sort of the spiritual sequel to the other Treasure classic shooter Radiant Silvergun. I'm sticking with my dreamcast for now, there are still some cool little games comeing out for it as it isn't completely dead yet ... However, I'll even buy a X-box (or any of the other consoles) if treasure decides to produce a sequel to the greatest game of all time (IMHO) Bangai-O!

Naw, this is what happens when people try to define the complex in simplistic "cut and dry" terms... Some time ago, I was buying the Aeon Flux DVD when a couple of other customers stopped me saying that Aeon Flux didn't belong in the anime section as it wasn't really anime ... "It's an american made anime rip off!" they had said ... Of course these guys were there to buy a copy of the then recently released Red Hawk anime It just isn't that simple...Even the most base and simplistic use of the terms anime and manga covers a LOT of grey area.

cough that up to the explodeing popularity of the internet...not only in the number of people online, but also in the cost of bandwidth to maintain a graphicly intenseive website... I know it's frustraiting, but if you do wade through the results of a web search for a particular anime like Southern Cross, you will find that there are still many fan sites out there...take a little time and read up on how to best perform web searches with Google, Yahoo, whatever and you can search more efficently. Also take the time to surf...If you find a fan web site for a largely ignored anime, then take a look through the web site they link to...interesting stuff pops up all the time this way...I got my little Cruse Chaser blassty avatar this way...and Cruise Chaser Blassty is even MORE obscure here in the states then Southern Cross is.

Japanese animation comes from Japan (Okay so a lot of the work is actualy done in Korea, but anyway) and the term anime is a shortend form of animation...In Japan even the works of Disney is considered anime, while Japanese animation is often called manga...But in america anime is used to describe Japanese animation (and some Korean, and asian animation in general)...so to get to the true root of the issue of the often missuse/missapplication acusations of the term anime, then we should consider it's origin. If thats the case then anime can only come from France

That was only in the initial release of the Voltron toys...Go Lion quickly became very popular and Matchbox reordered the toy line for later releases dropping Albegas in the process That is mostly correct... The albegas Voltron toys came out at the begining of the launch of Voltron...Go Lion quickly became the most popular of the toys and Albegas never even aired as part of Voltron and was quickly dropped from the line up and forgotten about... At the time Matchbox was mostly associated with Hot Wheels and seemingly thought that mechanical lions wouldn't exactly fit thier product line up...so the more hard edge industrial (more car like) Voltron designs initialy got prefered numbering treatment as Go Lion seemed more of a risk...but as Voltron wasn't a serialized show (it was largely episodic unlike Macross, Robotech, etc .. basicly the voltron episodes could be shown in any order) The Go Lion portion of Voltron reached kids first and took off...Albegas was dropped and Diarugger became "Vehical Voltron".

No, Takara owns it as well as the rest of the entire Brave Saga line ... the only thing close (largely sentient transformable robot anime and toy lines that arn't part of Hasbro's Transformers) that Bandai owns is Machine Robo.

The delux insecticons all came from a toy line called Beetra and most of the colors are the same...Roadbuster (jeep) and Whirl (helicopter) came from the anime Dorvack and are mostly the same general color... Most of the G1 toys came from Diaclone and are largely the same colors... *cough* Takara not only produced but basicly owns Gao Gai Gar....actually it's kinda funky how all this came about... Gao Gai Gar is the most popular of the takara produced "Brave saga" toy line and series of anime shows...which were spin offs of the japanese Transformers...the Japanese TFs were spun off from the American TFs (largely after the first couple of toy generations)...And the American TFs were largely spun off from diaclone....and Diaclone is a spin off from Microman which is a spin off from Henshin Cyborg which is sort of a spin/inspired off of the old 12" G.I. Joe toys Diaclone came about largely because of the popularity of transformable robot toys at the time...due in no small part to anime mecha like Voltes 5, Ideon, Xambungle, even Macross...lots of toy companies jumped on the bandwagon, not only produceing small toy lines (like Beetras and Diaclone) but also one-off figures (toys without any clear liniage to a particular established line)...Omaga Suprime IIRC came from Diaclone (as diaclone featured "micro" micromen figures that could fit into little cockpits...such as the seemingly strange little seats on G1 Dinobot Grimlock and such)...Shockwave, I think, is just one of those one-off designs not really belonging to any established toy line until Hasbro included it in thier Transformers line.

Yeah, I can really see that happening. *cough* Sure it seems that it is unlikely now ... however, DYRL came out in 1984 which was before the Robotech premire ... well before the current popularity of anime in America...It is entirely possable that HG scooped up a DYRL merchandiseing license from BW back then as well as scooping up dozens of other Macross related licenses over the years... You may remember that a few of the little transformable Bandai tooled 1/100 scale DYRL Valky model kits that were released here under the Robotech label...

Just a note on the legality of the HG/Toynami DYRL licenseing question... It's entirely possable for HG to hold a license granting them the rights to produce toys from DYRL without actually holding the license for the film ... this sort of thing happens all the time...and in fact Robotech likely never would have existed if Revell didn't hold a license for Macross kits while HG held the license for the animation...licenses for merchandiseing (toys) are often seperate then licenses for media (animation) Supposedly the license for American distribuation of the DYRL film is tied up in legal limbo without anyone knowing exactly who holds it...However HG could have picked up a license from BW themselves to distribute and/or produce toys from the show without ever haveing a license for the animation itself. Put it this way yamato has a license to produce Macross toys...but yamato doesn't have a license to distribute Macross films... Just trying to clear that up as legaly a license to distribute films and one to produce and/or distribute toys are often two seperate things

You doubt there was much praise...but are certain my eyes are closed and that I possibly wasn't here on the old board back when the 1/48 was released...yeah, whatever dude And this just screams lion to you?

Christ, you guys crack me up...If Voltron here were marked as Go Lion from Yamato or Bandai you would be all over it...praiseing it's sculpt as a great compromise between the combined robots form and individual lions all while throwing jabs at all previous Go Lion toys fugly lion forms (with out of proportion heads, legs, and bodies) But here you have both the individual lion forms and a combined robot form that is a much, MUCH better proportional match to the animation then every previous Go Lion toy...something you lavish praise on Yamato for doing with thier 1/48 Valk...but you rip this toy to shreds simply because it comes from Toynami. Of course none of you will ever admit such a bias "scrawny lions", "legs to thin", etc... - have you actually seen the anime? Good god, at least this black lion doesn't resemble some mutant overweight grizzly bear, unlike the previous toys

Okay...guess that was too hard Answer: the Amondull Stack was damaged while Daba and crew captured it, and thus was repaired becomeing the L-Gaim mk2. Mmm...I'll make this one much easyer... What is the name of a rather recent somewhat western themed sci-fi anime TV series that featured "Grappler Ships"?

No they didn't! read that link you provided... This is NOT a prototype bike for production, isn't even ment to be... it's a concept bike, and just like concept cars that the auto industry spits out every year for thier industry shows, the larger motorcycle companies do the same ... it is very unlikely that this bike will ever see production, so don't get your hopes up ... Some images of other concept bikes can be found here: http://www.bikemenu.com/photosconcept.html

Opps. forgot about this thread...sorry about that Okay...this might be a tough question...but here goes anyway What happens to Amondull Stack in the anime L-Gaim?

I just watched it again...the hermit guy isn't in the first episode (damn my failing memory for bringing it up ) guess I got it confused with hitomi meeting Allen...most of the first episode deals with Hitomi's life on earth...her crush on the track team captain, her friends, etc...Van only shows up at the end to kill the dragon.

I dunno, never seen the edited episode...in the original Japanese episode everything happens on Earth with Hitomi and Van arriveing in Gaia at the very end...one minute they are in the track stadium, Van shows up chaseing the dragon...Hitomi and friends flee to some sort of shrine, Van kills the dragon takeing it's heart...Hitomi and Van get transported to Gaia...when they arrive it's night...Hitomi is alone and stumbles upon that old hermit dude (what was his name?) who becomes interested in her pendiant, Van shows up to fight him off and the episode ends sorta on a cliff hanger as it seems the two of them are surrounded by monsters that come out from the nearby woods (as episode 2 starts it turns out those "monsters" are the friendly wolf/dog people (I can't recall what they were named) who end up takeing Hitomi and Van back to his castle)

I am one of the "first generation" of anime fans...I was into anime long before Robotech aired on TV...Robotech only really introduced me to Southern Cross as by 1985 I already had seen much of and had quite a bit of knowledge about both Macross and Mospeda (as well as other series like Orguss, Dougram, and Xambungle)...heck, back when Robotech first aired I remember scrambleing around the snail mail anime clubs looking for L-Gaim and the then new Zeta Gundam series (not to mention the forever elusive Galvion)... So you have to forgive me if I don't share your enthusiasm for Robotech as that twisted knot of a show is still something us long time anime fans are trying to set the record strait on

...say what!? Thats like saying "super space wars" is an offshoot or another version of Star wars episode 4, Star Trek 3: the Search for Spock, and Battle Beyond the Stars because "super space wars" uses footage from all three of those unrelated movies to tell a new story... In short Robotech is NOT an offshoot or even another version of Macross, Southern Cross, and Mospeda... As for your original question...supposedly another robotech TV series is in the works, that and there was a recently released line of comic books...your best bet for Robotech information is on the official web site, not here...this site is dedicated to Macross not Robotech...