1/1 LowViz Lurker

If they don't release it, I won't complain because I am satisfied with what they have released. It may come off as whining to some, but I like to call it "enthusiasm". Nothing wrong with complaining about the slow release of anticipated toys. It's free publicity FFS. I understand but to say they "don't care that we exist" is pretty heavy. If you are a fan willing to import a toy and buy multiples that's got to count for something. As mentioned the internet has made things global. I got friends who used to buy thier sega dreamcast games from canada because they would be much cheaper than getting them in australia locally. Modding systems to play imports is quite mainstream nowadays. There is no need to fark over your overseas customers since a sale is a sale and small companies (fat chance a small niche game like Ikaruga; in an unpopular shooter genre, made from a little known company, Treasure ...gets a local release here) need all the support they can get. It's for thier own good. I also have friends who don't buy region 4 dvds becase they would rather shop online to get R1s first and at discount prices instead of waiting. The money made from importers is still money and given how old the series is, they shouldn't expect mass audiences buying them up the way say, kids would buy up transformers in the west. They don't have to target the overseas fans and treat us any differently, just keep doing what they are doing and treat our advice/complaints/whining as if we were fans in japan buying up the valks. A sale is a sale.

Ok I gotcha. The US fans themselves have less weight (if at all) in any kind of decision they make because the masses in japan are where the money is at. I always thought that the actual toys themselves were sort of a tiny niche in japan too,(since I heard macross is a dying/forgotten franchise there as well?) and the idea here was that if both japan fans and us fans got together to support and give advice/complaints about the products, this smallish company has more chance in the mind of the hobbyist/toy enthusiast of becoming successful. I never thought it was that they literally couldn't care less whether there was fan feedback at all. Or was it just a sudden change in attiude recently? Like yamato got tired and started catering more to the masses as opposed to hardcore hobbyists like in the early days? (I wouldn't know I'm a noob) I always thought that if yamato was going to make macross toys at all they shouldn't necessarily expect huge profit due to how old it is. (20 years right? and japan is in recession) The most important thing they have ARE fans whether japanese or hardcore US fans buying them imported. Like with the monster release, it isn't well represented and only those who have played the game will even recognise this. You would think only fans and of the game and toy hobbyists would know this mech instead of a mass audience. (like gundam?) I get the feeling they do care what the fans think, and what they complain about, but it's just a time for slowing down. (who says releasing everything at once is the best way to maximise profits?) I dunno. The internet has kind of made things more global. Whose to say that there aren't fans out there now pimping yamato macross products through word of mouth and expanding the potential overseas toy sales? Sega just released a macross game and you'd think people like me who import games are not totally alien to an old anime series this game is from. All I know is money is money and there is potential profits to be made globally and to me it shouldn't matter where the money is coming from if the total fanbase is dying anyway.

But they are releasing Scopedog in the US aren't they? It's just HG getting in the way of sales... I bet if they had released 1/48 valks and repackaged them as robotech toys, things might have been different. Money is still money. And if they could expand into other markets they can get more.

This is an interesting debate. A good example of one man's trash being another man's treasure is in the buying up of toynami alpha fighter toys. Maaaaaaannnnn I soo want one, but damn if I am going to pay the full price for them. I know it's the mech design that I love and not necesarily the product that was made based off it, but I'm stamping my foot down and not taking any risks. They just don't sound like the money is going to a good cuase (ie in the quality of the product) and I so wish there was more competition in the toy industry instead of 1 company having the monopoly on a particular license for whatever reason. I could give other examples of products being worth more money than more expensive ones, but not being able to get a share of the market because of a monopoly of control that prevents people from buying... but I won't bother. I think that compeititon brings prices down and opens up the market so that more people can afford to buy things which in turn can be healthy for the economy (creates more jobs) when people start spending money. Once there is too much control under 1 roof, (that is only 1 company able to control the supply of any one thing) you get lots of high priced things that just aren't worth the money that is being asked for, but which people have no choice in getting because its all been agreed upon that such and such item must stay at a certain price no matter what regardless.(because in the past people were ignorant enough to pay that much so "why the fark should I lower it?" But imagine if you will, that there were 3 or 4 companies all scrambling to make Mospeada toys at once (yeah I know it will never happen, but just pretend) and competing against each other for customers. You would start seeing the crappier companies shaping up to higher standards of quality and service and value for money just to survive, while the consumer has all the power and the alternatives through the choices he/she has. But noooo there's only 1 company and you tend to have to bite the bullet and settle for something crap because that's all there is, right? Is it fair? Nope. Did anyone force you to buy it? No. But my point is that too much power under 1 company acts as a bottle neck for the industry and isn't as healthy as havng rival competition. The giants run in fear when they see competition and complain they are going to go out of business. Well that's too bad I say. Business needs to adapt to change and accept it like the rest of us. They should not have some special right to take away a consumers ability to look at alternatives to getting something just so that they can force high prices for things and make all the profit. Profits should go to the people underneath that helped make that thing possible so there is more incentive to continue. Everything in life is risky, I'm glad that changes force things to be offered at cheaper prices because there are many things I WOULD buy if only they were offered at a much chepaer prices. (and i would buy more of it so my money was spread out more evenly creating more jobs for people) The only thing that gets in the way is the bottleneck of big giants grouping together to decide what something is worth and not bowing to changes as technology allows. (as one poster pointed out) Entertainment is subjective though. If something is crap, and you are not willing to pay money for it, then voice you opinion by buying something else. If you have some underground band that you love and want to support them, (but they just aren't mainstream enough to be known) buy thier cds to show support. People tend to buy what they know because it's been marketed well not necessarily because they think it's the best thing out there. A fan should help promote those things he likes if he wants prices to come down for things and people see that there is more money to invest in things that you like. (which results in increasing competition and preventing all the power going to a select group at the top of the pyramid who are banding together to control everything and fix prices so that they'll stay too high for the average joe to afford more of. The effect is it means profits go mainly towards the greedy few at the top, not into the workers or into improving the quality of the item/service at the bottom.) Now.. it would be a different story if you were talking about something that really WAS worth the asking price for, because I would buy something that was expensive if I could see where the money went, but I think people are more worried about those things that just AREN'T worth the price and who are complaining that the industry won't change to reflect the times. Could it be 'they' want to maintain thier stranglehold/control/monopoly on the industry and are scared so they are preventing us all from looking at alternatives? As I said, if a vast majority of people just DON'T buy stuff that wasn't worth the price and only bought and promoted stuff that they thought was good, then more money would be distrubuted evenly acorss more companies, helping to break the power from those making all the decisions at the top. Without competition, consumers lose out in the end and have to pay high prices for things because in the real world ALL companies are greedy! It's a case of helping lesser-known ones on the bottom who are motivated to do well (ie satisfy thier small base of customers) and compete versus rewarding the greedy ones who have no incentive to listen to you because they are already too powerful to care and just want to maintain thier existing stranglehold.

I like to see a review of these. They look pretty damn good to me! I like how there's little portholes on the box to see the front and back of the toy. In the description it says: "The remake is on the left-side of the Alternators version. "

The robotech music had heavier sounding music for battle scenes and a real echo on the drums. (on the dvd they mentioned having recorded this in a church or something? I have this image in my head that there is actually a giant drum being beaten by a zentradi. ) I thought that conveyed a sense of danger when the zentradi giants started attacking and for when they were scrambled suddenly. I really liked this. But apart from battle music I thought the original music in macross showed much more range. Although the title music in robotech sounded more anthemic, (thanks to the echo.) the macross one sounded more catchy. Mak-u-rosu!! Mak-u-rosu! Like a jingle for an ad. The main thing people will probably remember about robo's music is how cheesy and repetitive minmay's song were. Even back then, they were funny.

I'm a bit worried about buying him because his gun was altered.(no pun intended) However I don't want the diecast binaltech. (paint chipping) What should I do if I want an alternator with a proper gun?

I'm not a huge transformers fan but I got my very first alternator today (sideswipe) and loving this. Both bot and car mode look good. I'm amazed by the poseability and have transformed sideswipe into a different form than the one on the box. (tyres are pointed on the outside of shoulders rather than behind) The only thing is the fact that no matter how ingenius the transformation there will always be bits and pieces of car parts sticking out at awkward angles on these toys but I'm still impressed at how good these actually are. I'm planning on trying to get one of each car whenever there are sales at various toy shops.

The two tubes on the chest = two detachable beam sabers

Maybe if it made a cameo apearance in gundam as a prototype core fighter.

if you look closely you can see 3 dots or something inside them.

It would would be so cool if Hasbro/Takara did a masterpiece Jetfire/Skyfire (like masterpiece prime) and released this as a transformer for the collector. I either want to see a binaltech jetfire with a valkyrie style transformation, but with the poseability of the BT. Or a 20th anniversary masterpiece jetfire.

It's a toss between yamato 1/48 lowvis and strikepack-equiped vf1s. I absolutely love the banprestos too because they are so tiny and small and easy to have around on display in any mode in any pose. (no long complex transformations like 1/48, and they can fit in your pocket!) With a bit of blutack helping to keep them from faling off the computer monitor on windy days, (damn they are light, but this just means no loose hips) these are great for creating a scene with teams of miniture valks. Now if only they somehow made a cheap mini transformable yf19 in this scale with the same nice sculpt they put into these vf1s? I'd buy up as many as I could to have them fight against the vf1s.

Easy: Holes for future GBP armor to lock into in battroid mode. Given the skinny anorexic look of the battroid, the armor would help prevent it from splitting in half if a zentradi got close enough to rip apart its skinny frame. As the fighters becomes smaller and more agile, battroids become thin and fragile. I used to think though that these might have been flame throwers for heating up giant chickens for zentradi soldiers to eat when there was no camp fire on the field. Similar to how the gunpod could be used to light giant cigarettes. Ones used for space would have the boobs removed. But if a one-to-one britai style hand to hand fight ever happened and ammo was scarce or the gunpod was knocked from the hand, the chest flame thrower would act as a surprise weapon for in-close combat to avoid being thrown around.

I still think Harmony gold is part of the problem because think about how easy it would be to just go to a shop and pick up a 1/48? Similar to walking in and seeing alternators and just casually buying them on impulse? Instead of people buying toynami valks on ebay for high price, they'd be buying up yamato ones. Part of the reason I even knew about yamato valks was through word of mouth not because I knew what I was searching for. I might have just settled for toynami vf1 toys because given the ignorance of other stuff, I wouldn't know any better. Now if somehow macross and robotech could co-exist in the same market side-by-side (lets say for example the ps2 macross game gets a local release, making it accessible for english speaking macross fans who understand the robotech universe but just want to play a SDF: macross game) it would boost awareness and sales because of easy accessbility. In my opinion it would be a happier world for fans if things were easily accessible rather than hard to get. There is hidden potential in macross if only people knew more about it apart from what they might have seen from robotech as the macross saga. (many newbies might not be aware of the differences in robotech and macross until they come here) Maybe if DYRL was released people could identify more readily with the valkyries and when they see a toy of it available and easy for them to get, they will fork up the money there and then become an immediate valkoholic convert. I know that for me, buying stuff the old fashioned way (handing over money over a counter, and immediately getting something, as well as just window shopping - browsing without looking for something in particular) can be more convenient than waiting for item to be shipped by searching all over the place. (I think laziness has a part to play in it too. Similar to how people like going to a fast food store to get a quick snack to save time) I think if promoted properly, sales will boost and there wouldn't be so much staggering of releases and delays because it would be easy to see demand increasing as awareness does, justifying the making of more toys. The more people that buy, the lower the price and more overall toys we would see being released. As it is when people are bottlenecked by not knowing enough, scalpers start raising prices, toys become out of the range of the average joe, and there is less overall toys sold save what hardcore fans are willing to pay. I think if support for new macross stuff dies, I will be turning a lot of atention to alternators/binaltechs TFs. To me the quality of them is there, they are affordable, accessible, and they are not necessarily only aimed for the hardcore fan only. (ie the kind of guy that is going to be buying multiples, leaving stuff MIB, buying stuff they already own to mod, having 1 of each toy to display in each mode etc - repeat customers) Now I remember when I first heard of news that the roy reissue was coming (I was pretty happy because I missed the boat, having not had a chance to get one) and there were a few who were complaining that this would lower the overall demand for the existing releases so they couldn't sell them at high prices. This to me is kind of a double-edged sword: on one hand you got those who keep the franchise alive by holding on to hard to get stuff, on the other it sort of alienates the mainstream from being able to afford to buy stuff, resulting in them turning attention away towards something else. Personally I think if something is within a certain price range, accessibility, and awareness (macross is dying because hardly anyone knows it and even the robotech people I doubt know much about the macross movie) you will see a growth in general for new toys, faster release, more attention paid to the franchise etc. Imagine if you will, if toynami vf1s were mass-produced toys (not sold only as an overpriced limited edition "Masterpiece" to crazy collectors who are more interested in the expensive box ) like you see for transformers that you can go into a shop to buy? They would be cheaper, people would be able to see them, kids would bother thier parents to buy them that toy, and there would be more impulse purchase pressure overall when you see something readily available on a store shelf.

Ah yes the mac+ game is awesome. The beams of death in GERWALK look more convincing in this game compared to the first. (BTW what weapon is it actually using when it is doing that?) And locking on your missiles reminds me a lot of Raystorm. Very good. Maybe they'll make a Macross Zero shoot em up next?

It him? Man I thought it was a random soldier. Love the expression on his face after he died.

Yeah it got to a point where minmay wanted to quit her carreer as a singer just so Hikaru and her could live in peace away from the war, and her fame which was getting to a point where she couldn't stand having no privacy and being busy 24/7 all the time which was depressing her. Especially considering after the holocaust there were FAR more important things and no luxurious living - it would kind of be like the people on Survivor who are all cranky and tired and hungry and overworked. The pop idol would still be famous but how can you sing happy songs if you are not really feeling happy and the world was gone? I think in the end when Kamjin was going to blow up the remaining humans and destroy SDF1 (which was one of the last non-"damaged-beyond-repair" advanced piece of tech the humans had left - with kamjins ship taking ages to repair before being able to finally get flying again) it sent a strong enough message that Hikaru had a much more important duty to consider seeing as him and and misa need to protect the culture that minmay brings to the zentradi (and also hope to the people living in a war ravaged world). Minmay then realised herself how important service to others was and when the sdf1 rose into the air 1 last time, (with everyone cheering from the bomb shelters, I guess that was the point she must have changed her mind about settling down to a quiet life and seeing what this protecting cultue thing is all about and how Hikaru has changed and matured. Yeah Hikaru loved minmay, but ever since the time they were stranded together under the sdf1 you got the feeling he was mainly attracted to her looks, (they are just kids) and as you get older you tend to break up with people for reasons that are not superficial. Like: are your interest matched together? Real life is not like the movies where you just kiss and declare your indying passion forever. I thought minmay behaved too melodramatically towards Hikaru in the part where she thought they were going to die together, and then after the rescue her attitude changed, making Hikaru feel as if he was used and that Minmay only acted intimately towards him for that brief period just because he was the only one there, not because she really loved HIM. (remember how suddenly happy she was being lifted out of there?) In some ways the Hikaru you see in the series illustrates the "WHY?" he picked Misa over Minmay, much better than the movie does - which just has him saying he chose Misa but gives no reason: Maybe Hikaru banged her when they were stranded in the PC ruins on earth and he got further involved than he did with minmay? I mentioned in another thread that if it weren't for claudia helping to unleash the vulnerable feminine side (the part that was hidden) of Misa, the story would be totally different and Hikaru would have assumed Misa hated his guts. I don't think he realised that Misa was being mean to him half the time only because she was actually jealous of minmay and wanted him for herself. OT: Also I thought it was really funny the way they handled post-sw I events in robotech's "robotech II: Sentinels" where minmay is STILL depressed about "Rick" choosing Misa/Lisa over her at the wedding. lol If anyone has the robotech dvd with the sentinels episodes, then watching this can be a good alternate universe retelling of what could have happened when they left on megaroad.

I don't know what the original was like (keep hearing it was fragile?) but I am happy with FP version of vf11b. For anyone out there who was worried about anything breaking on this toy: don't be. It's sturdy and I've transformed it many times and don't feel as if anything is going to come off. Actually the VF11b FP gets more love from me than the FP yf21. I can't stand the purple color they used instead of blue. grr.. Also the yf21 tends to have floppy legs and the backpack pops out (doesn't clip down as firm as I would like) when you have it in battroid mode sometimes. My head laser cracked when it fell off my desk while it was in gerwalk mode. It would have been good if yamato made the head laser part out of a softer, more flexible material like they have on this bandai 1/65 vf17 that I've recently got. Really light and safe to handle.

Don't know. I wish I could download it too. Priv message me anyone out there if you manage to find out. My favourite mode to kill stuff in was Gerwalk because you have like this miniture version of the sdf1's main gun that sends a massive beam that incinerates anything that gets in it's path. Man I love that game. All vertical shmups need to have a beam weapon just like the one in macross imo

http://www.klov.com/results.php ^ Hmmm...surprisingly I didn't even know there was a macross plus arcade game until I looked on klov. Has anyone played that? What was it like? My favourites vertical shooters are the strikers series and anything that plays like Raiden and Raiden2. (to me the raiden fighter craft reminds me a bit of a valkyries because of the psuedo-gerwalkish mode they go into sometimes. ) As for the old macross arcade game, I could never figure out how to get past the level where the enemy ambushes you frojm all 8 directions. Really annoying. The rest ofthe game was easy accept for that one part.

Just remember though: No collection will be complete without a 1/48 vf1. These deserve thier own shelf imo. yeah what arcade game is it? Is it the old Macross shoot em up?

I might start a collection of bandai chunky munkies. Actually I just bought a bandai 1/65 vf17s and I can't stop playing around with this toy. Bandai if you are listening: please release some more macross 7 stuff and maybe resculpt the old toys for adults - ie big kids. (a bandai 1/55 vf22 would be cool!)

..because they didn't release the vf19 fp yet.

So who was the company trying to get the mospeada license? With the possibility of a sequel apearing to that in japan (I think I read this here somewhere), maybe we can expect a line of legioss toys? As for macross toys: weren't some of you saying a while ago that the market for macross stuff is kind of flooded before? shame no vf19fp news. So many people would buy this. Before they completely abandon macross I would most want to see this released.