jenius

Yes, a review of this and the GNU VF-1 will eventually make it up on the site. I had some old posts I wanted to get updated in the meantime

Someone should do a fan dub of AstroPlan and use Robotech music. Make it a download phenomenon and Robotech will finally have a sequel. A fan dub is perfect, Robotech didn't have a whole lot of voices involved back in the day anyway.

I actually just did this last weekend. You're right, the Gnus are similar in size to the 1/100 Toynami toys and look much better.

To be fair, that was back in the V1 days when Yamato was strutting a 1/100 VF-0 toy that looked terrible and was a big partsformer. Now Bandai is making 1/100 toys that look good and aren't nearly the parts-formers the Yamatos were. Go figure there'd be lots of praise.

I believe the in-universe explanation of Protoculture goes like this: 1) The Masters create "Protoculture", a bio-fuel that when used in concert with other sciences makes just about anything possible. 2) The Masters tell their ignorant slaves the Zentraedi go fetch them Zor's ship and all the Protoculture therein but be careful, Protoculture makes whoever has it very powerful. 3) The Zentraedi don't really know what Protoculture is, just that it's dangerous and they need to get it back. Anything beyond the realm of their understanding could thus be Protoculture. 4) The Masters seek the Protoculture on Zor's ship but find it's too late. The ship has been blown apart and the biological aspects of the fuel source are just thriving plants. There's some problems here... as in when did humans learn how to use protoculture, where did they get their supply (all off the SDF1?) and if they were aware of it as this omnipotent power source how come they didn't figure out a way of isolating it from the SDF-1 wreckage. Also, if they looted the SDF1 of this power source, then they knew it was there, wouldn't they immediately suspect when the Masters showed up that that was what they were after? 5) Since the humans had apparently looted the SDF1 of protoculture batteries, that's what all the new gen and REF mecha work off. Meanwhile, the Invid take the flowers that form protoculture's biological aspect and are able to reap the bio-fuel directly from them thus making them incredibly powerful (don't make me go Phoenix on you).

I know you don't buy a Lamborghini for the interior but that interior looks pretty hideous.

Wow Vic, great job, thanks!

If they're going alternative wings thing, they should go the next step and include stubby wings for battroid. Personally, I think alternative wings sounds kinda lame.

Someone above already mentioned the difficulties the smaller scale represents. We should also note that Yamato failed. They had more room to work with and they still screwed up the tolerances on the shoulders. So, Bandai has much tighter tolerances to deal with and thus will be more prone to being fragile. If they can make their toy look THAT good and still be playable than they'll have pulled off a major coup. Of course, some people are just going to hate this toy for various reason (landing gear you have to put on, heat shield that's not integral, etc.). I think what we need to do next is have someone put up a piece of line art in that same pose... but that probably doesn't exist. I suspect if that were done people might be a little less prone to praising the V2... which is beautiful no doubt but has some compromises of its own.

nice work. The HM 1J does seem to have a gap from front to back of battroid (although the side covers make it a bit harder to tell how bad it is... but they do make that V2 look sweet). Note, nosecone placement in battroid is pretty much the same but the HM has its head in the right spot (which probably means fighter mode of the HM looks much more squat).

uh... that head is definitely not where it's supposed to be and those pictures just make it that more painfully obvious. You see the top of the chest piece? That's where the neck is supposed to start. I also don't the low hung nosecone is a huge issue. First, the 1/48 had a somewhat elongated nose which makes the problem worse. Second, there's plenty of line art that shows the nosecone beneath the wings.

This thing has hard points on the wings right? If so, it looks like you might be able to leave the missiles on for battroid mode.

The HM looks fantastic in battroid. Just having the head in the right spot is a huge step forward. The lower head makes the battroid look so much meaner. Otherwise, yeah, the seams are more obvious on the 1/100 but that all comes with the scale. The fact we're even seriously comparing a 1/60 to a 1/100 is pretty amazing for the 1/100. Now we just have to hope the 1/100 handles well... fortunately for it Yamato set the bar pretty low.

Is this a toy or a model? I'm hoping it's a toy since it's in the toy forum. Is it like a joke machine? 'cause it looks like a joke machine and that is friggin' awesome.

Special = Ranka Guard GIGGITISH!!! That's my guess.

With that much going on, I'm just praying the thing is durable enough to handle. We saw what happened when Yamato tried to do too much with a smaller scale (shoulders on the V2) and it seems like Bandai is doing nearly as much with an even smaller scale.

Didn't one of the boys remind Locke that he couldn't hurt Richard? I seem to recall that happening which I believe would support the theory that the boys do represent Jacob... but that leads to wondering why Jacob wouldn't just appear as himself (as we saw him) like he does to Hurley. Desmond also saw one of the boys though (again IIRC) and Desmond has no history of seeing dead people. It's a strange little mystery and I'm curious to see how they'll develop it.

What's with the boys that keep popping up and haunting MIB?

Damn... that's an extremely fitting critique on a Macross board.... since it sums up every Macross series very nicely.

Does anyone remember when Claire found out Jack was her brother? I think I remember Jack figuring that out but I couldn't recall Claire being brought up to speed.

Yamato made some silly comments (passed along to these boards) that the original VF-0A toy they released was really what Kawamori intended Shin's paint scheme be in Macross Zero. The thinking was that Shin should have been flying the same VF-0A that everyone else would have flown. So, people on these boards nicknamed it the "CF" VF-0A even though there IS a CF in the anime and it is NOT that paint scheme. Then Yamato released the Shin variant as it was seen in the anime with white stripe and slightly different scheme. Then Yamato laughed at us all.

What's really sad is that Yune & Co have just about nothing going for them. It's a total amateur shop and bringing Macek back in brought a true professional into their workhouse. While Macek's talent was more for recognizing good anime than creating it he had enough industry experience to maybe guide Yune & Co toward making something that could be recognized as good. His departure from this world brings us back to an HG we can only prays sells all of its rights to WB.

PURE.WIN

I didn't notice who that was but I thought "Hmm, that extra must know somebody" at the beach scene since she was in such a prominent position. EDIT - on the whole boat conversation, the great thing about LOST is they'll probably make a Lost-pedia book at some point to cash in that can easily go through every obvious WTF moment and give us a better understanding of why things worked out the way they did.

Your own sentence illustrates why the flying indestructible boat is something peculiar. Everything else you mentioned has a surreal explanation... the boat doesn't really get one. Did Jacob make the boat indestructible? Why did he call it to the island by way of bashing it into the place he hung out? I don't get how an island can travel through time and space so the writers are free to make their own rules. If they're going to tell me that something happend with rules I understand... like a wooden boat smashing into stone, I'd at least like them to do the courtesy of giving me some reason why the rules I know didn't apply. Anyway, what I wrote was just an observation of what appeared to be some pretty lazy "hmm, we have to give an answer to why a boat is in the middle of the island AND why Jacob's statue is ruined... let's kill two birds with one stone" writing and hardly something I'd say I'm hung up on. But, since you're the guy who can make a mountain out of "I really don't care" I invite you now to make this into something WAY more than it was ever intended to be.