TheLoneWolf

I personally like it better than the original. But, nostalgia aside, I was never a big fan of the original opening. Just a bit too cheesy for my taste

So who's going to be the character designer in this series?

That VF-2 is indeed the 1/100 Bandai version. Though whoever built it appears to be using B-Club's non-armor parts. It's an average kit, thought it looks like a million bucks in those pics because whoever built it put on a fantastic paint job! Sadly it'll never be made in toy form. Yamato is too close to Kawamori to touch it and Bandai doesn't care about Macross anymore. Our only hope is Toynami!

Hehe, don't listen to me kresphy. I'm just a pessimistic fan. Thanks for the continuing updates, we appreciate them!

You're right on that one, it was refreshing to see Shin develop as a character. It just seemed cliche' that he grew out of his shell, then died (at least in the physical sense) shortly thereafter. It was definitely a satire, albeit an enjoyable one. Valkyries that look like rockstars Instead of rounds, Basara fires stereo speakers Instead of a HOTAS setup, Basara uses a guitar to pilot his VF Battle 7's main cannon was actually a gun. A gun that it needed to point while holding it in its hand In order to fire Battle 7's main cannon, Captain Max also has to hold a little gun in his hand and pull on its trigger Sound boosters that, inexplainably, just had to be launched seperately and then attach themselves to Firebomber in the midst of battle The gunpod Gamma One of the best pilots (Basara) ever featured in a Macross series, and he absolutely abhors violence One of the first pilots to get knocked out in episode 1 (Docker) returns from his coma and is suddenly put in charge of Battle 7's elite squad, Emerald Force. Did UN Spacy forget that they have several other more qualified pilots? Namely all the pilots who survived past the first episode? The list could go on, but Macross 7 definitely parodied a lot of the elements from SDF Macross. This comes as no surprise since Macross itself was originally envisioned as a parody and ended up retaining some of those elements when it finally aired.

To be fair, I will admit that Kawamori does tap excellent songwriters and composers. The soundtracks to Dynamite, Zero, and Arjuna were very well done.

After accepting that Macross 7 was supposed to be a whimsical satire, I actually enjoyed watching it. Now let's look at some other projects that Kawamori had a heavy hand in. Macross Dynamite 7 - No real parody here, but the story was terribly bland. With the exception of Liza (who got precious scant screentime), the new characters were forgettable. In the end, the story was pointless and contributed nothing valuable to the Macross chronology. And oh yeah, there was oodles of nature loving going on. Macross Zero - A very serious setting with a bland, and at times absurd, plot. Again, the characters were typical of what you'd find in any other generic anime, yawn. In a surprise to no one, the ending was pointless and contributed nothing of value to the chronology (the events of Zero were apparently swept under the carpet in the Macross universe). And oh yeah, there was oodles of nature loving going on. Arjuna - Only saw the first episode, but the story was absolute drivel and featured even more oodles of nature loving. If Kawamori is heavily involved with the new Macross series (which I imagine he is), I expect the first two episodes to show tremendous potential, then it'll all fall apart under a predictable storyline, cookie-cutter characters, and tons of nature loving. Can't Kawamori just put out a new mecha artbook and leave it at that

I agree with Keith on this one. Ivano (Invane, Ivana, depending on the translator) Gunther is a woman who became posessed by a male entity, Gepelnitch. Since Gepelnitch is male, he still refers to himself in a male tense when speaking through Ivano's body. If I remember correctly, in PsychoKorp's translated script, when Gepelnitch frees the imprisoned Gavil he explains "I have possessed this woman's body." Most of the confusion regarding Ivano's gender stems from the finale when Ivano's body begins to take on male attributes. However, in this scene Ivano's body is becoming that of Gepelnitch's, complete with wings, tentacles, and a slew of other deformities. I've yet to see any published material that states Ivano Gunther is actually male. If anyone comes across any, feel free to post it.

I really hope that the price of the replacement parts was set by HLJ and not Yamato. If these prices originated from Yamato, then it totally stinks because they're now profiting off of their own mistakes. There would no longer be any incentive to "get it right" the first time.

Sometimes people forget that it's a free website. Now if we paid membership dues...

Interesting, they'll be releasing Orguss on DVD 5 discs along with the English dub. If they were using DVD 9 that'd be fine since you wouldn't have to worry about the video quality taking a hit. I also hope that they're using Taiyo Yuden discs, or at the very least Verbatim. What's also interesting is that they say Orguss was originally in mono. I'll have to check my LD's, but I'm pretty certain that Orguss was in stereo. Tokyo Movie Shinsha produced remarkably high quality anime for it's day and Orguss was no exception with it's audio. Again, I'll have to double check. Regardless, I'm picking these up. Anyone who puts Orguss subbed on DVD gets my cash.

Given that the YF-1R is, for the most part, an original HG/Toynami creation they may feel more pressed to protect their copyright.

Those are bootlegs. The most visible giveaway is the missing Bandai logo. They've replaced it with Docker and Basara's portraits. Each usually runs between $15 - $20.

Thanks Chowser! I was worried that I'd have to rebuild my entire friends list from scratch. AL, you can add my gamertag to the list: MarkOfTheWolves Since I don't have a 360 yet, I'm still playing Halo 2 on live. MGS4 will not see a simultaneous release on the PS3 and the 360, but you can bet that Konami will port it to the 360 within a year of the PS3 release. Same thing happened when MGS2 came out on the PS2, it eventually got ported to the xbox. To top it off, the xbox version was superior to the ps2 version. With the hefty development cost associated with MGS4, Konami would want it on as many systems as possible in order recover their costs and make the largest possible profit.

Hopefully the movie will eschew Falcoon's flamboyant character designs and stick with the Shinkiro's down-to-earth designs, but knowing live-action films they'll probably get Elton John to design all the costumes.

Just curious. I currently have an Xbox Live account on the original xbox and I know that when I eventually purchase a 360 that I'll have to buy a Gold account to play online. My question is whether I'll be able to keep my gamertag from my old account or will I be forced to make a new one?

Not right away, I'm going to wait 2 - 3 months and wait to see what problems (if any) turn up. If it turns out to be solid, I'll buy 1. NEVER again will I preorder an expensive Yamato toy.

I agree. It seems like new sellers are treated as guilty until proven innocent.

The VF-1SR doesn't have arm or leg armor, only boosters, that's why he's using 1.0 legs. I like the GBP shoulder armor with the FAST pack arm armor, interesting touch.

With the exception of the pilots and strike cannon, the differences between the movie and tv Valkyries are noticable to the point that they could very easily "pass as canon from the TV series." If you were to make all the changes that Graham mentioned, 99.9% of Macross fans wouldn't even notice But the elbows thing caught me by surprise, I never knew about that one. Can anyone post some comparison picks. While we're at it, the display screens are also different in the TV and movie Valkyries. I don't think Yamato's sticker sheets give you the option to choose which one to use, I believe they only give you the DYRL display screen sticker. But like I said, don't sweat it because no one will notice or care

FANTASTIC job on the Komilia figure!! Is it a scratch build or did you modify an existing figure? Good work on the VF-1SR head, but don't forget the gunpod & armor

Don't forget Max & Milia's Super VF-1J's. And if you have modeling & painting abilities, you can use John Moscato's conversion kit to make an amazing VF-1D.

Talk about nostalgia! When I get home I need to see if Xenesis will play Time Gal. Anyways, here's a link to the Time Gal booklet for the Mega CD.

The small Matchbox destroids are approximately 1/144 scale IIRC. The larger ones are about 1/74 scale. If you have to choose, go with the larger ones.

Maybe sales of the most recent 1/48 reissues weren't as high as Yamato expected, so they decided to can the M&M reissues. I'd imagine that the M&M's would've been a harder sell as they're more expensive than non-fast packed 1/48's. Hopefully Graham can shed some light.