1/1 LowViz Lurker

Yeah I surprise myself sometimes with how long I can make my rants go for.. Lucky I have no large sigs or the server would crash.

Ah.. the internet and forums. But you got to love complainers for keeping talk on the new stuff active. I find that within all the bad there is also good too. Without knowing all the little bits that are worth complaining about, how can you make an informed decision? Take console game machines for example. I remember having bought my Xbox as an early adopter who was excited to be able to get one early paying a good price for it. Then I realised that early machines had a faulty drive that later, reduced-price machines didn't. Sometimes it pays to be patient and wait. By expecting the worse, you protect yourself from more pain on occassions when you actually have bought the thing and are stuck with something you may not be happy with. (like all those who got the faulty alphas but can't be bothered returning them ) At least with a pair of good shoes you can try before you buy. If you get stuck with ones that may feel uncomfortable the customer will be unhappy. I believe the attitude of a company should be that "the customer is always right". Even if other customers think that one whiny guy is wrong, they are still right. The reason being that any criticism should be taken in a positive way to improve the relation and if possible try to make everyone happy, not just the loyal fanboys, yes men or apologists, but everyone. To give an honest review you have to seperate your own bias or your own pet hates from the review and be able to give the facts so others can make the informed choice. "Does this thing move?" "will this last if the joint looks like thay may break if you are not extra careful?" "How does this compare with other toys in what it does?" etc Personally I had always set my mind that I was going to get one, (and still am, but I'm not a "preoder guy" not even with games) but I don't think there has to be a crowd for complainers fighting a crowd of "complainers who are complaining about the complainers. (this always happens in forums) We all have our own reasons for liking or not liking a certain thing but it's good that people are voicing them in the end. I think what's important is that people know the difference between a review and impressions. Impressions give a quick summary of your first impression of the toy without as much detail examination (it's mainly: "So as a fan anticipating this, what are your feelings now that you;ve bought one? Does it have that new toy smell?" - these feelings can then change over time or with further examination of the toy) whereas in a review you got to compare it to past efforts that have been done before and say what things could be improved upon without making it seem like a personal complaint or fanboy wishlist. Kind of like comparing one olympic athlete to another athlete's performance, where there can only be one winner in a race) Then hopefully in the review you have some kind of rating system as a guage for those who buy lots of other things too. (Take pc benchtests for a good example, it helps seperate the company-generated hype from reality) Some may have a broader knowledge from other purchases they've made in the past, and need a standard of some sort. When comparing two very good competitors you need people with an anal-retentive attitude towards things. If something can be improved then it should be taken as a good thing because if the advice is taken it means the product can be ones step closer to being better than every other product that came before it. The more people you make happy, the better reputation and more profits are made. (Remember there are some people who won't buy a good quality product just because of the color) If people didn't have a place to complain on a forum, would HG have buckled under pressure to accept returns of thier toys? If it weren't for complaints, feedback -both negative and positive - I probably would not have ended up buying any yamato vf1s because I would have just accepted that toynami vfs were good enough and as fans we should be happy that these toys exist - even if it meant that newer, uninformed people who are not toynami fans are led to believe there are no alternatives. I, and probably many others who are a silent majority probably would have been ignorant that there were much better stuff out there. Some of the complaints may be valid, others not. But it's reasonable for customers to be able to research as much as possible about the toy (including tiny faults) before making an informed purchase. What angers me more are those that listen to complaints, but out of weakness buy the thing and complain afterwards. "Boohoo, I wasted my money on this! Now I want to be compensated!" I say to them: Then why did you buy it?! Ignorance is no excuse when you could have done your research first, right?" It's like they were given a warning, they knew the risks, but didn't heed it, and then blame the company for selling it to them instead of themselves for buying it. If you take a more laidback, common-sense safe aproach you will always win in the end. (even if an item sells out they will make more to address the high demand - companies are greedy) When enough see the complaint to be valid, such that people are withholding thier money, what happens is prices get reduced, the competition hears the complaint and tries to address it by making even better stuff to muscle in on the market, and everyone gets happy in the end because the stakes are risen and the bar is raised again, creating a new standard to measure others with. The only time this doesn't work is when there is some monopoly and you don't see any improvement because the company has too much leverage and no longer needs to listen to the complaints or suggestions and peope are forced to accept lesser standards.

As I was saying a while ago in the roy reissue thread: "looks like harmony gold's plan to sabotage yamato is working brilliantly.." Maybe there are toynami people working there. Maybe the joke about parts being assembled backwards wasn't so funny after all? Joking of course. I'm going to wait for more impressions/reviews/complaints/nitpicks about it before doing anything. The knees not bending comment in the review is strange. Was that picture some kind of custom (of a toy that hadn't been released yet??) or something? I want this thing badly so I;m just happy these are finally here. I've already made up my mind on whether to get one, but I still will wait for more info about it. How about joint stiffness? The good thing about the 1/48s is how light they were meaning you needn't worry about them crashing so hard to the ground if they fell. (I had an accident with my yf21fp a while ago, cracking the head laser) No major things like floppy legs or anything which some had problems with on the 1/60s and yf21? If this thing can balance a little better by fiddling maybe with the knees (or something like the strategic postioning of the tiny yf21fp feet in gerwalk) maybe this might help ease some of the complaints about the forward leaning of the toy? Maybe the monster should have had a sawn-off mode (portion of gun barrel splits open and rectracts back?) in its design where the cannons are short in battroid mode so it doesn't fall over so easily? I don't see it being able to walk very safely in that mode unless it fought in space or something They could make it so it's accuracy in battroid mode is lessened and that it only needed to change to that mode for close up fighting. While Gerwalk can act as the long range mode with barrel extended? (it would be the monster equivalent of the extendable gunpods ) Gerwalk seems to be the main mode for me to display this thing in. If this can't balance that well (either due to floppy limbs like yf21 or because of the way it stands in general) I probably won't display it in battroid as much unless I had some sort of a stand; like how some have set up displayed with the Qrau as if it were flying around fighting as opposed to it standing on flat ground) The thing that disapointed me about the red qrau was how easily it fell backward because of the loose legs (also I wished the kness would bend just a little more) and the design of the mech itself where there is a lot of weight on its back. I liked the sculpt (both qrau and this) but these nitpicks are worth mentioning since for some of us, paying import prices for these is killing our wallet just enough so that we can't buy up as quickly, and for somebody like me who is a casual fan I'm not used to paying so much for toys - even though I think it's money well spent. (But wouldn't it be cool to just walk into a non-import store and pick these up off the shelf like any other toy, and if it sucked enough you could return it and/or complain because you could examine it in detail for yourself instead of hearing other people's impression?) This is why I am still nervous to want to get a Toynami alpha because I am so used to having something in my hand when I part with my money rather than paying up and waiting for things or worrying about flaws in the thing you weren't prepared for. I'm old fashioned but its just the way I like to do things so I will take a laid back attitude to any new release toys, no matter how awesome.

Yeah, I was only kidding when I typed that out.

Somebody email the guy to see if he comes to macross world... I'm curious to know if it's godzilla? heh

Thanks. Will look right into it. Err... soon as I have my monster, paid for a super pack, saved for an upcoming gbp, a green and blue qrau, a cannon fodder etc etc Not used to paying for imported toys and games so regularly. The wallet took quite a beating on christmas.

A friend of mine was just telling me about these as he has been a fan of them himself. Given that right now I've blown all my cash on yamato macross stuff, I like to think of myself as the macross guy and him the transformers guy. If I had enough cash to get it all now, I definately would be buying them. sigh, I'm still playing catch up to other ppls toy collections.. I haven't been following up on new stuff since the 80s you see...

Looks like harmony gold's plan to sabotage the yamato factories is working. hehe Soon there will be limbs falling apart, parts assembled backwards, missing heads etc There are probably hackers trying to screw up how the robots put the toys together as we speak. jk

Yeah but the kite symbol (not the "un spacy" words) was printed on the 1/48s (on the wing). So if something small like that can be printed, I would hope that the eyeball marking was at least on the monster instead of needing to apply a sticker. Not holding my breath, though. It's like they have a limited amount of detail to print and the rest MUST be stickers?) The eyes would probably be the most important and distinct marking to have printed imo since I find it is the most recognisable.

Yeah but the 1/48 roy has at least the un spacy kite symbol on its wing and the "001" marking on the other wing right? So I'm thinking the least yamato could do was at least give us the eyeball printed on and maybe the unspacy on the arms or something. (and the rest as stickers if they are that stingy) I see the eyeball peeling off over time with handling/transforming. And it just wouldn't be the same without the eyeball you know what I mean? Even if what those pics showed were of stickers, I would hope they'd at least print something. (not that I'd refuse to buy it if it didn't or anything ) The photos they show on most websites don't seem to even have any eyeball printing.

Stickers: does anyone know if it will have stickers or have tampo printing? If anyone knows, some pics of the sticker sheet would be nice. (the pic of the monster standing next to the yf19 showed some extra detail) I hope that the eyes on the cockpit are tampo printed at least. I can tolerate a combination of print with stickers but I would prefer the whole thing with printed on details.

I have to agree with this. I like my robots skinny and sleek while my destroids fat and sturdy. Planes should be sleek and sexy while tank-like mecha should be robust and tough. I've always thought that because the valks need speed, thier body in battroid mode should suggest a tall athletic body type. Fast runner, gangly limbs, poseable shoulders and hips etc. When they wear the gbp or put extra armor on, THEN they start to look just right. (the armour makes them look more destroidy and chunky) But when not using that, they should be thier skinny selves where the lack of meat only adds to thier flexibiliy and ability to perform fine movements. (no chunks of bulky armour clumsily getting in the way of thier poses) Oh yeah, and I support the "perfect transformable at a large scale" crowd. Having something that you can touch and transform and pose (well at least once a week ) while at the same time retain good detail is the key to making the toy more desirable. I think this is why I have ignored the bandai valk because it doesn't have an attitude in robot mode. I don't care too much about diecast and am quite happy with plastic. (banprestos are great when you can get them to do all the poses in robot mode without worrying if it is going to fall over. It is cheap but it looks much cooler in battroid than bandais.)

I used to really like TF when I was a kid. (I still have Grimlock) Back then the transformers were mainly robots who only transformed to disguise themselves (no out of control colour schemes) and the autobots were mainly automobiles and civilian vehicles (often they were more about rescuing innocent people, not just soldiers) while the decepticons were more heavy military vehicles. (this to conquer and oppress others with) Autobots couldn't fly but the Decepticons could. My memories were that decepticons often had the advantage over the autobots but thanks to optimus prime the tide would change. (the autobots just seemed like an underground resistance who played by the rules while the decepticons had cheated, and this resulted in prime's loss in the duel against megatron, since he had to honour his word in the contract) Thier design was simple, weapons having unique functional purpose, and everything was effective. Each bot had it's specialisation (like that ambulance guy for instance, can't remember his name) unique sounding voice, and personality. When they worked as a team you coud spot your fave one from a distance. (each had a distinct colour, like sound wave's blue, optimus prime's red, megatron's white etc) But nowadays....meh. I would love to see a G1 remake. I can't stand the new characters in the all the new series. It just ain't the same. And I just had a look through a toy catalog the other day: man those toys are ugly! I think I was looking at "omega supreme" or something. There were so many bits and pieces hanging off its body and so many garish colours mixed together that it wouldn't look out of place in a macross 7 show. Sorry this isn't a bash tf thread but I just had to get that off my chest. I dunno maybe my nostalgia is clouding my judgment but I think the old school simple transformers just seemed more cool to me than the newer generations. (I was just watching the TF movie the other day. Again very memorable design: Who could forget bumble bee, soundwave, Starscream (the Rocker-style scream for his voice was cool ) and Devastor? They ain't souless mechs, but memorable characters to me.)

Here are my suggestions: (completely made up of course ) -Longer legs allow for easier movement on slightly uneven terrain? Taller robot = bigger strides. Crouched robot = more balance but since it can't jump or anything like the regult, it is slower. -Battroid mode can see objects hiding behind buildings/trees/hills easier? The higher angle to shoot from, makes targeting enemies low to the ground easier since you can see more from above like observing from a tower. In the far off distance where things touch the horizon, shooting from a higher vantage point may mean more accuracy. -Devastor was so cool in the transformers movie. Like the transformer Devastor, the crew may want to get into a fight with other mechs to see who is the strongest robot of them all. No more Zentradi giants thinking they can just punch through armour or lift the battroid over thier heads and throw them around. A monster that can transform to human form is a psycological advantage. Normal battroids are only the size of a giant zentradi soldier but smaller than a zentradi mech. Big is scary. -The monster could be used in a team of battroids as heavy weapons man. One thing about the regults and glaug is they kind of look cool when you see them together as a team with each man speciailising in a specific task rather than all being generic and having the same ability. I imagine that this battroid-moded monster would be able to run maybe? It could be a mech that provides long range support so the other smaller battroids are covered from enemies that can shoot them down from afar? This happened in the tv series when a group of MK II monsters had the zentradi pods surrounded and they couldn't really fight back. I just think that if the monster could be used to fly in shuttle mode/bomber mode along with other variable fighters on missions, then it could be an advantage in a team where the monster is used in various modes. (one for ground as a mere cannon that just sits there in defense, another for ground attacks that moves around in battroid mode like any normal variable fighter in battroid mode, and one for air to move about quicker.) I also think that a monster by itself would have a hard time against a group of smaller, faster, mechs attacking it from up close. It would be slower than say a Qrau, and have a hard time trying to hit anything, which is where the smaller variable fighters could come in to help so that the monster can focus on targets further away and letting the heavy armor absorb damage from close attacks by enemies too fast to hit. But if the monster is used in a team, I can see this as being useful since most of the time the monster just sits on its ass. The Battroid mode would make it like a long distance attacking mech that can also move from one area quicker on foot as opposed to just being a defender of an area in Gerwalk mode. All the Battroid would have to do is bend down on one knee for stability to fire the 4 cannons instead of transforming to Gerwalk. In this sense, I find the gerwalk mode to be less useful than battroid. -Space. If it had to fight in space all the disadvantages of being in battroid mode in a planetary surface would disapear. Just fly from point to point in shuttle/bomber mode, change to battroid and fire the 4 cannons. No worries about losing balance or stability or anything. All the cool humanoid Zero G acrobatic maneavers you see other battroids performing can now be done, (max's mech duels) only on a larger scale. Previous monsters may have been too simplistic in controls to perform complex moves, but a battroid mode form of control adds a more 'powered suit' feel (complete with head, arms and legs all independantly controlled by a single pilot) than a slow tank (gerwalk mode) which is suited for heavy ground attacks and limited by its own weight.

Just recently got mine. -Slightly crooked seat -1 slightly loose wingflap But am happy. So is yamato going to release a tv roy vf1s (or maybe have hikaru as the skull leader pilot since roy died early with hikaru taking his plane ) with tv fast pack combination? (similar to what they did with tv super max and super miriya?) I would love to see this. Who else is with me on this? TV vf1s with hikaru pilot? So far I have -a low vis 1A with normal pilot. -a tv super max 1J with tv max pilot. -DYRL Roy 1S with DYRL roy pilot. (need to get fast pack for this) (I've tried to get one of each different mech head: J, A, and S. Which is why I want to see a 1D in future.) ..now I want a tv 1S (roy's skull 001 that hikaru uses) with tv hikaru pilot complete with super fast pack in a box. I don't see why they couldn't milk this. You guys have soooo much money. The most memorable scene in the tv series was when hikaru almost dies and has to eject his whole super pack and armor after being hit with minimissiles. I think that episode was one of my faves because the animation in it was done well. For the completist collectors and displayers, it will look good to have tv super max and miriya displayed next to tv super hikaru. And for those who want a tv roy pilot with grey flight suit, they could just release the same tv 1S again but repackaged without the tv fast pack that will come in the hikaru set. (roy never used one in the tv series did he?)

I say we send a spy into yamato hq disguised as an employee. They probably have the finished stuff like yf19fp lying around somewhere for graham to review but are hiding it because they are scared. From now on it's only toynami stuff for me. that's going to teach em. just joking! Those pics of the monster looks good. After this I probably won't have enough money for anything else for a while. Because of a lack of yf19 for me to buy I'm tempted to go and get a bandai mac7 fire valk. Are these any good? They look pretty good in battroid mode but I hear the poseability in the legs is crap? My standards are pretty low. (I love the banprestos which everyone hates )

I'd probably buy 3 if I could but I spent all my cash on toys, games and christmas presents. Glad I fially got to own the whole of MAK-U-ROSU (ah love the theme song )on dvd. I paid full price for mine. If I'd have known the price would go down I would have waited. Now that dvd's are going to be superceded some day (well in the not too distant future) by a new format, there's always a chance they'll rerelease this again.

I liked robotech when it first came out. Then I got into SDF: macross. I didn't think the 2 other series within the robotech name were done as well as 'the macross saga' for reasons that relate mainly to characters. (I still loved the mecha in mospeada though, and as a little kid I was hoping toys of these mechs would come out) Today I remain a casual anime fan, but a big transforming robot lover. I just thought that the idea of the modular tranformations in macross make the robots kind of believable and that's truly what got me into the original macross. Knowing that the design has some functional purpose as well as looking cool helps to keep me hooked into the tv series. When I saw DYRL, I thought: Fark, those explosions are beautiful, but I didn't think the story did justice to all the things that happened in the series. (yes many will argue DYRL was presented better but the tv series grounded us inside the world of macross rather than taking us on a short trip) years then pass.. Now by the time of macross plus, the idea of the variable fighter was no longer fresh in my mind anymore and given that the meat of my memories was space war I, I thought nothing could really top the ideas within the original series without just adding to, and giving us more of the same... But the overall attention to detail in the animation got me back into macross again. At first I couldn't care less for the cocky character Isamu (he is no hikaru) because he has no reason to be so single minded and flat. Yeah yeah, we get the idea he is young, full of come, loves to fly, and is a good pilot, but what else? (why should we care? I saw this in top gun ) Most of the skills he has will go wasted now that there is no war, right? And focusing a whole story on testing advanced valkyries didn't seem that interesting a concept at first, since no one will be fighting real enemies and not much interesting will happen on a mass scale. (of course in top gun towards the end only, they DID get to fight real enemy/enemies, and in true style of that movie we the audience will predictably expect to see this happen at the climax of mac plus.) Then after viewing all 4 ova in one go I finally CAN apreciate that this is just a side story and I can relax and enjoy it for what it is. I can now just sit back and enjoy the cool mech fights and valkyrie upgrades and the climactic scene where he rescues the princess.(the overly depressed myung) But I can't help but feel that after that ova ended and the lack of a bigger and much deeper story that: I just want more. I still view macross plus as primarily focused on the action. As a matter of fact, I actually liked the story ideas in macross II better, about the independent coverage of an alien attack by a new race of aliens and how the government's need to look good and not let the people know the truth gets in the way of common sense. I was more interested in Hibiki, than either Isamu or Basara since the two former characters just come off as being too full of themselves and unnecessarily hotheaded jerks if they had been real people. So naturally, given that the original aging tv series I feel was the foundation amoungst which all the rest of the future of macross stands on, I sense that the best is passed us. I liked macross Zero and all, but to me it is just an 'origin' story and merely aimed for fans of the original with a narrow scope (those who wish to know more about the anti-un) and again, it won't hold the same fondness I have for the original SDF:Macross. Mainly because the tv series covered a lot more ground, had the most characters that were a big part of the central story, and there was a lot of varied mecha in that series that just seemed fresh and new at the time of first viewing. (there was a sense of wonder about what they were all capable of doing) Everything else after this merely being an extension of what was great in the past and just presented in a newer and more interesting way - ie more detailed mech fights and filling in the stories with too many characters with bad "attitude" who are stand-offish ) Give us all a new series on the scale of SW I or remake the original, so that the name macross can come back. I feel that although purists do not want more of the same, the great majority of us do. As much as I didn't care for macross 7 (yes it did answer questions about this 'supervision army' thing without me needing to read on online compendium but this could have easily been tacked into the original series had it been more than 36 eps imo) I feel that centring a whole story on a thin origin story (mac zero) or stretching a series to be sooo focused on the lives of civilians (mac7) and not padding it with enough strong characters, drama, detailed mecha battle scenes, interesting moral dilemmas and generally: real meat, then you will see people gradually losing interest. I don't mind the humor of macross 7 though, but usually I prefer something serious, where you can integrate that humour into the background of a realistic story rather than have the characters make fun of each other or be a parody of themselves. (here's a good movie example: compare something like lethal weapon 1 which had characters who could still be funny by what they say and by being themselves but still be in dangerous situation, versus the later lethal weapon movies, ie post LW II; where the movies started taking on an almost action-comedy tone) I think the problem I see in a lot of anime is the main character sometimes takes on the "I'm the central character of the universe, I can afford to fold my arms and be distant from what everyone else is doing or feeling", is the thing that gets me a little pissed off because it just doesn't feel natural. People in real life are full of different variety of feelings and moods. It's hard for me to sympathise with character like basara (there was no change or modification in his own behaviour, this whole series was him preaching to us all) or Isamu or anyone in macross zero because they aren't being themselves until the end of the show/series. If somebody like Isamu or Shin had to fight in a team in space war I and left his mates because he wanted to be the lone wolf, they would probably end up killing too many good people. They might seem like great characters to have in a flashy action flick, but I'm more interested in more grounded characters like Hikaru and Hibiki because they do not fit the typical mold of being try hards. (they have lives out of thier main job, career, or role throughout the story which adds depth) The jist of it is that: SDF:macross didn't try to put the focusing lens on any one person or thing. (we saw competitive behaviour, fear of death, fear of killing people, love, ambition, depression, greed, grief, sorrow, suffering, death, revenge, conviction, sacrifice, jealousy, etc pretty much everything under the spectrum was covered) It had equal balance compared to all the other series which got carried away and didn't let the audience decide what was important to them rather than, dare I say it, have a central idea or main character "marketed" to people with a specific taste. (Zero being for fans, Plus being mainly for the dogfights and action, 7 for the masses.) If they got back to basics I'd be happy. The valkyires and giant robots do take centre stage but it is possible to integrte all this cool stuff into the story and with deep characters grounded in reality as opposed to comic book heroes. You don't need to neglect one just to focus on another. In fact it would be possible for them to have say 3 episodes in a row dedicated to just a long drawn-out mech battle (kind of like how battles happen in DBZ ) and have the drama played within it as oppossed to "lets have a battle at the end of each eposode" and wrap everything up in 30 min chunks. (there doesn't even need to be a strict structure ie "let's have the main character always play some music" or "let's have a certain amount of action in each episode" - totally unecessary imo All this can be integrated together rather than seperated form each other like you usually see: action only here, talking only there, drama only in this particular spot, backstory revelations ONLY towards the end etc - with it all seperated)

The grey area in mac+ was in the use of the bio-neural chip. If sharon was more than a program and had this living thing connected to an electronic device, you could say that she was conscious when they used it because robots/ai could be programmed to not harm humans (like the ghost?) and so long as the humans create the programs they are completely safe. Real people have emotions and will lash out and do stupid illogical things. It's a battle between logic and emotion for control. My guess is Sharon was a combination of this organism that could truly 'feel', AND the failed program which only synthesised the feeling, such that the organism was able to project it's emotions into the electronics (like that brain in DYRL controlling the ship) and control and manipulate the program that was created by the humans and overide that programs restrictions. Otherwise it would not have gotten out of control and that mad scientist would not have had to murder the guy who was ringing to have the concert cancelled. The mad scientist knew what he was doing and what would happen. The program would be the connection to SDF1 to bring it back to life as if it were a living being, but the emotion in the bioneural chip would be the catalyst to bring death through the weapons; through the history of Myung's past memories feeding it the information it needs to bring the logical-but-unethical solution: kill Isamu or just scare the poo out of him to give him the adrenalin rush he so desires when flying recklessly. The horrible singing of sharon is like that of a dying moan I thought.. (more like a chanting used to annoy the pilot and stop him from focussing) Note for the future: never agree to accept a biometric makr of the beast style chip under your skin! You would think that after seeing aliens with brains stuck into giant ships (DYRL) to control them, there would be some sort of governement standard to try and restrict this like the restriction on reaction weapons usage. Becuase it would be seen as inhumane, immoral, and unethical by the majority, not to mention repulsive. (this doesn't stop the use of an external system of braincontrol of a flying machine like the one guld uses. But safety first! ) The mad scientist was doing something illegal and probably hoped to make an impression on society with his creation - a truly living breathing organism with feelings and ability to think for itself and form a unique identity of its own. Not just a mere program that synthesised the behaviour of a human. But one that could be left alone to work without programmers maintaining and supervising it. (I guess the military were expecting that the AI program was going to do all thier tasks for them and they could eliminate the need for humans and pilots, little did they know "it" wasn't just a program.) IF SDF1-style battlship could be used to run completely by an AI to make every decision on its own, imagine all the money they'd save paying people a salary? It's all about cost-saving and downsizing. And is it just me or does the stretchy skin of the yf21 seem a little too far fetched? I know the machine is supposed to be cutting edge technology of the distant future, but why don't they explain to us how it is able to do this? Does the morphing of the armour help to explain the "anime magic" that goes on sometimes?

When the time comes for them to cross areas that require bridges they will be doomed. Then we will see the grasshopper variants with rocketboosted-assisted jumps complete with legs to absorb the fall and arms to carry items and open doors. Then later will come the giant spidermechs from appleseed which have no need to run over and flatten every building just to get to an area, and also the FuchiKomas from Gits. (hey, maybe even give them grapplinghooks to scale vertically, and maybe optic camoflage) And of course transforming cars for times when these robots need to disguise themselves innocently to the enemy in case there are some sensitive spots. (think of 'Kit' from knight rider but with the transformers transforming ability) Hell forget the bloody vechicle style machines, we'll probably develop full on androids to replace the flesh and blood killers. (the one that beats up harrison ford to a pulp in blade runner - they'd be so dangerous for humans themselves to hunt, that we'd have to hire other android/reploids just to take them down) Face it, if these noisy things have to get inside an area to rescue people, (ie climb the steps, push the button on the console to activate the elevator etc) they will do as much damage to the good guys and themselves as the bad guys. (you all know what happened to poor old ED209 in Robocop don't you? think about what he did to the inside of the building when fighting Robo?) Oh and Fu, if aliens saw these they would laugh since they would be so far ahead of us technologically they would have progressed into far much cooler things (flesh and blood robots with a psychic mind control link and remote viewing capability, containing more intelligence than a machine robot) due to thier superior intellect and access to strange and precious metals they could easily mine from other planets given thier use of UFOs and mastery of antigrav which is more efficient than our crude forms of ass-hauling. Thier armoured warriors would be equiped with a Lord of the rings style Mithril (as light as a feather, but tough as poo! ) which would outclass anything we had on earth. The governments of the world wouldn't even know if they were being attacked since for all we know, they may have time travel and teleportation mastered so that the conventional battle tactic used against them would be inapropriate.(beefy machines whose parts malfunction over time and can't repair themselves without us)

I saw gubaba once in the Yugioh cartoon as a monster called "kariboh" if that counts. hehe joke post. http://store1.yimg.com/I/yugioh-card_1822_390524357 ^ picture of gubaba while possessed

They look just like the hunter killers from terminator. Or really cool toys that we might be able to buy in the future. Now imagine if these bots were to be able to work in teams through some sort of central network to communicate to each other or hooked up to a Skynet type worldwide network. If something were to go wrong with the network and the bots go crazy, humans will need to fight them. Scary yet, what if in the future we replace AI programs with strict rulebased commands and branches with neural network 'learning' robots with fuzzy logic that train themselves to be smarter and more efficient over time the more a task is performed? Combine this story with the lasers one and you have the scene from terminator. Picture the scene in T3 where they show the cars driving themselves, because the terminatrix hacks into them, contorlling them wirelessly, there is the scary possibility that these machines might mistake humans as the enemy and turn against them. If someone hacked into the network Yang Neuman style, chaos would erupt and we would need to send somebody back in time to fix things.. Your living room could attack you. Think about your videogame system neworked to run everything and sony using that machine networked to every other machine in every other household. Robots - you can never trust em.. always been turning against us and trying to replacing us I say.

Awesome. Can't wait to see the toy itself. Never owned any 1/60s so now I feel justified devoted solely on 1/48 valks and thier packs. Now I wonder whether we will see a clear edition of the gbp? hehe Imagine being able to see all the missiles under the the hood without opening, and the valk naked while it was wearing the armor? Just to show off the toy of course. The nosecone must morph into shape or disappear altogether in the anime while wearing the armor. Similar to how roy was able to make hikaru and minmay's detached cockpit of the vt disapear mysteriously when rescued in sdf macross. You see the nosecone goes all soft when the valk's skin gets cold to help it in harsh environments (ala guld's yf21 morphing skin trick). And when it gets hot and the valk wants to impress others with its manliness, the nosecone extends. Think of it like the snail retracting and extending into and out of its shell. [/end absolute bs explanation.] imo I think they should later combine the strike and super parts set with the gbp set as 1 big-ass package as opposed to having them seperate. Maybe somehow they could fit all that stuff in a single box and save us some cash? I would prefer that to a valk+gbp pack.

One interesting thing about them is that they've had the flow of information controlled and in some respects the minute they've been born (or grown from the cloning chamber) they've probably been conditioned to believe that what they were doing was right. Not that they were evil or bad or that fighting and destruction is just a tool used by the people supplying them to gain the right to have something. That would only make thier masters look bad to them. Nope: the leaders would pimp the idea that "fighting is the very reason for living". If anything I think zentradi are victims of disinformation. I use that because the pc relied more on the lack of the zentradi to be able to check what they were being told was true and also the fact that we were forgotten about by the pc so there was no campaign to paint us as being bad. The music and culture we humans had would have seemed alien to them and very very nice, to thier senses, our structure of living not something they would want to willingly destroy. The only reason they react so funny to the music is because of the conditioning they've been given that everything is related to being a weapon of some sort. It's not so much that they are dumb, but that they were victims of disinfo. If the alien enemies knew our way of living they would finally realise the lies the pc had filled thier minds with. (that is why they were given the legend that the micrones would destroy the zentradi, if they didn't leave them alone) The must have interpreted the word destroy to have meant something to do with a hidden power or secret weapon we had. No wonder exedol was so paranoid about everything in the tv series. I think in the future once people's views on cloning is relaxed, biotech companies will try to push the idea of clone super soldiers with abilities taken from people where it would be advantageous to survival. Biotech companies = todays pc. Face it we are already at the stage where people can have designer babies. In sci fi movies like alien ressurection where ripley kills her own baby (ok so it is a monster) it could be seen as a silent conditioning of the masses to accept abortion. What might seem humane to some, can easily be flipped to be inhumane to others. If you were an alien and your GF were pregnant with an alien baby would she destroy it? Contrast the scenes in alien ressurection where ripley kills her clones and the alien baby to the scene in macross where miriya and max are happy to have an alien-human hybrid daughter. They both stir the emotions, but the alien ressurection one is more blatant imo because the baby wants to live and even showed it could express love. If they wanted to make macross really realistic, I would say there would be a number of groups in the macross world who would be totally against that. The child would probably grow up abused and teased by other kids, discriminated against, and maybe in danger of being beaten up. Maybe even teachers would reject the politcaly correct need to teach history that satisfies both accounts of the war and make the zentradi out to be only monsterous and the humans culture perfect. (ommitting the teachings of past wars in our human histrory from the zentradi - don;t want to give a bad impression now do we? ) This is why I proposed a new macross series where the zentradi revolt against the un be made so that there could be another space war. It would be more like macross plus with action and lessed drama, where the attention was focused on earth again. Without a big war, and reason for split, it loses the epic scale that the original series had. In this story the humans would be the one experiencing xenophobia and fear from sw I survivors, while the zents struggle for equal treatment but don't get it. This then brings a need for independance from the un by pureblooded zentradi. Obviosly the anti un wouldn't be a threat forever, but a force as large as 50% of the population being lead by a dictator who had enormous power to command his own army, buy the media, influence votes would justify a massive war. In that sense it would take the ideas from macross II from the point of view of somebody working within the media as an indy journalist who nobody listens to because they've been led to believe war has ended forever after sw I.

From what I've gathered -Anti-un want bird to awaken (but more likely because they think they can control it) -UN want to capture bird for themselves, but will destroy bird if anti-un manages to get control of it. They are probably worried that the anti-un are ahead of them in the use of transforming mechs as it is. The legend about how the heads get close and closer as more people fight, could probably be interpreted as saying: "as the world is split into two sides and they fight against each other, the chances of both head and body coming together increases as the race for better technology speeds up and certain men gains knowledge of the bird human legend." (this happens when sara gave hasford all the secrets when she was a kid, which she shouldn't have done) -Hasford probably doesn't care and wants to awaken bird since he is a little nutty and irresponsible. He doesn't differentiate between the song of destruction or song of creation because he tells sara that creation and destruction are merely the two faces of god. Whatever happens, according to the prophecy the world should be recreated and reborn from the ashes of the destruction. (a new age will begin after everything is cleared first - kind of like a biblical flood which kills off the bad influences gaining too much control, but saving a few) Maybe he believes the song will evolve the race or something, because of the 'pc made humans' theory he holds. (although it is only a theory, right? with some still believing in sdf:macross it was a little genetic manipulation and not creation. We are still intelligent apes but the aliens may have changed a few things) But I theorised that all these prophetic events are not going to happen in zero (thanks to shin saving the day) and really took place in sdf:macross. This is all based on the idea that it is during the end of sw I when the earth comes to an end and the earth is destroyed by the zentradi. The afos leaves in m0, sparing us for a time but it is a foreshadowing of events for what will happen in the future. Others have mentioned that the afos is more like a machine that can be controlled by sara so it would help explain why it just vanished instead of fully completing its task. (possibly because of the radiation would endanger more people?) Shin manages to postpone what is inevitable by preventing sara from using the bird to wipe out everything. In the paintings which hasford shows Aries in episode 4, Hasford tells us the full story: The bird human cut its head off because it went against orders from Procacha: the god of the heavens, to destroy us. It prevented the destruction from happening in earlier times, giving the human race some hope and an extra chance as the next race to succeed the pc. I guess you could say, this is exactly what sara did: Sara did NOT listen to her father, did NOT pass the test of taking bribe from Hasford, and did NOT keep the secrets of the legend from the outside world, otherwise why would hasford say: "you broke the rule to tell me that sara don't you remember?.." and this is why she is so obsessed with petty rules. She secretly feels guilty about having broken the rule given to her and now has to except that she screwed up big time. Sara broke the rules like the bird human did, and through love maybe forgiveness for our imperfections is the reason why we still survived? It is not stated exactly why the bird human cut its head off in the legend so I say: It's love. Remember too, that Sara's dad asked hasford to test her. Maybe her dad knew that thier civilisation was reaching the end times and wanted a sign, knowing the prophecy would come true one day. Thier secrets couldn't remain secret forever. The God Procacha probably knew better than the bird human and wanted this experiment to end quickly knowing that humans will never stop fighting and chances are slim. But the bird human clinged to the hope there were enough good guys still, so it beheaded itself. I still don't know what the first human Rooy Kanu and first female Rooy Waka is all about. We hear the voice of a ghost in an earlier episode where Sara is being spied upon by aries to record any strange phenomena, so it's probably a spirit of some dead guy.