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Except Arcadia's M&Ms will be pink glow-in-the-dark. I'll take the HMRs.

Looks great. Loving it.

I'm not a consistency nazi, but those M&M fast packs WOULD look better in a shade of gray. Usually I cant tell the difference between a VF-1 TV and Movie version.

Yeah, that's one thing I don't understand. They never made an Ozma, not even in HGIF.

Bandai also showed Breetai, Nos, and the Launch Arm. Do it Bandai!

Bandai seem to be going through with everything they displayed at the first Tamashi event. Only the Spartan is left from that diorama. Then Bandai followed up at the second big diorama by adding the 3 Destroids, the VT, and the VE at the later events. All in all, this is looking good.

Color scheme looked different at Tamashii stand before. Maybe not final?

I assume Big West would have to approve the color schemes, don't they?

Melts in your mouth, not in your hands.

The Bandai VF-25 and the VF-1 are about the easiest kits to build, with no modeling skills needed whatsoever. I never built a Hasegawa because I understand it takes a lot of knowledge and skill and paint. The VF-25 is by far superior to the VF-1. It holds together nicely and is pretty sturdy. Just gotta be careful during transformation to treat it like a model, not a toy. A While the VF-1 is a floppy mess in all modes, with easily broken tabs,

Looking at them side by side. I didn't realize how different they are. I wonder what will be the next Delta valk. The 30?

Amazing crowd at the mini-concert. It amazes me how much kids go for Gundam, though. I believe its purely from the marketing and merchandising effort behind it. Come on! Macross is so much more fun! Thanks for the response. Please elaborate when you have time. Your perspective is valuable because I think most people on the web who have written hundreds of opinions about Japanese Culture and Anime have actually never been there more than a few days.

My idea for the poll was for age group interested in HM-R, not the whole site. I wonder if HM-R is trending a bit older, and how much of the younger audience has been brought into SDFM through Frontier and Delta.

I don't hate Mac7. I just hated having to watch it. Fire Bomber rocks. Somebody give us a MAX-L already. I need a pink valk!

Lots of old school SDFM fans for HM-R. Feelin' right at home. I would be interested in a survey on the age groups interested in this line.

Patlabor not getting a lot of love.

Hmmm...Thanks for clarifying.

That reminds me of the original Hi-Metal line. It started well, but then after a couple Macross 7 valks, it went belly up. So I would stick to SDFM if I was them.

Ok. So show us yours!

Renato, i think it is hard for us who have never visited Japan to actually understand this issue. We always hear and read that anime is a sub-culture and not really part of the mainstream in Japan. We read that anime fans are called derogatory names, etc. At the same time, this seems contradicted by images we see of Japanese youth and adults carrying their manga on the subway and akihabara scenes. And everyone I ever met from Japan loves Heidi, Totoro and Yamato. So, it seems to me there is fine line between what is mainstream and what is not which we cannot understand from afar. So my question is, what would qualify as really sub-culture in Japan? Is it any type of mecha sci-fi anime like Macross, or is it something more like Moe, etchi, loli, or Hentai which is clearly looked down upon in the mainstream? Even my question seems contradicted by all that we hear about nudity being TOTALLY NORMAL in Japan, which I find hard to believe given its conservative society. I'm sure you've heard that response on the web hundreds of times, when someone questions nudity or etchi in anime, and the response is, "You clearly don't understand the cultural differences". Would be good to hear actual feedback from someone on the ground.

I'm an Ozma and Roy fan, so I think Arad is my vote here. VF-31S.

crazysteve, thanks for those Factory images. I will probably do a mix of some of those ideas, aiming for darker colors. If I had more skill, I would try lighter anime colors, but I don't think I could pull it off.

Except for the old Takatoku's, there hasn't been a complete set of Destroid toys. So I am really psyched for the full range in HM-R after all these years.

Every good valk needs at least one idol figure posed with it! I'm thinking I don't need every Delta repaint. And I'm sure there will be new better valks introduced, not just the VF-31 and the SV. So maybe a Benpresto Walkure idol group set, with 3 valks, will do me for Delta. HM-R takes priority.

New year's resolution?