jenius

I've been taking pics of mine... things are coming along well. Pretty sure the tail fins are supposed to be collapsed when combined but I noticed HG didn't do this in the instructions either. EDIT - when the ALpha is in fighter mode you're not supposed to make the hood with the winglets, the winglets are supposed to be splayed out in the back.

1/60 完全変形VF-1S マックス機 does that Mean VF-1S max? If so, it's about time!

Not really... Yamato sets the MSRP, not the retailers like HLJ. Retailers that don't play by the MSRP don't get to continue selling the toys by that company. Sure, there are mark-ups beyond MSRP occasionally but the competitive nature of the industry normally prohibits that.

I'm definitely not a fan of the CMs Legioss' design. At the very least the head had to be able to twist left and right in soldier mode and it feels sloppy in fighter mode and looks poorly thought out from any angle where the bottom half of the plane is visible. The details are nice though and from above the fighter mode looks very aggressive (and usually that's the angle most people would be looking at it). The connection of the CMs Legioss to the Tread is bad, plain and simple. The tread toy itself, especially in soldier mode, is a lot of fun.

Alright, so I'm an idiot with nearly no torrent experience. I've got this bad boy (and am seeding) but I have no idea how to use it. I got two IFOs, two BUPs, and 7 VOBs. How do I watch the show now with the subs?

I've got one

Sqidd, lemme make this easy for ya Pics primarily of the CMs Legioss here Pics of the CMs Dark Legioss here Pics primarily of the CMs Tread here Pics of the CMs Legioss and Tread in various colors here Pics of the Aoshima including comparison to the MPCs here I'm a little let down your search didn't just start with my site

Cool pics, this stuff is fine on MW... but it's supposed to be in the "other anime" section. Edit - Do we have a dedicated MPC thread any more? Maybe we should resurrect it since the Cyclone is also coming up?

Sounds like you need a good "TOYNAZI" and "WHOREMONEY GOLD!" moment.

Well, I guess that settles it, you guys are all way more interested in the pose than the fact the head looks terrible in that shot so I guess the head isn't such a big issue after all.

Scott's blue MPC Alpha is sold out everywhere. There's some conspiracy theories that Toynami never made 15K of them and may some day release the rest. For now though eBay is pretty much your only place to find one and expect to spend way too much.

Not sure on the RT license vs. the Mospeada license but I've heard Tats isn't too generous with their Mospeada license.

Oh God, a LOLCat reference.... nice. The latest update regarding the Inbit toys (and I think the style of toy you're thinking about is approximately the type of toy that was planning on being made) is still under consideration but looks extremely doubtful at the moment due to the economic crisis at hand. It was almost impossible to convince Japanese investors to make a bad guy toy right from the onset when times were great. My Beta should be arriving any minute (I hope) so maybe I'll see something in it that will convince me it ought to cost $150. That said, the economy of scale issue I'm kind of tossing out the window. Toynami is making about 40K Betas. CMs probably made less than 10K total for all variants (some say they made about 5K total). I think I even read somewhere that the CMs was made entirely out of POM and even if it's not the plastic feels super sturdy. So, if the CMs Tread represented about $150 of the cost of that combo I would think, given the 4 to 8x larger quantity Toynami is producing, there's some cost savings there. But it is pretty pointless trying to figure out what goes into the numbers like that, maybe this toy will really bowl me over.

Are you looking at the photoshopped picture or the actual Jason? The actual picture is properly transformed... (at least, I'm pretty sure it was).

That certainly seems plausible... and it would have been very interesting for HG to somehow get Japanese rights to a show and then license it's odd adapted sequel back to a Japanese company. I thought that's what we were going to see with Shadow Chronicles and Mospeada II (glad we didn't). Robotech Art or something like that probably has an article about why the mechs were adapted but they don't seem like they were adapted enough to really come off as unique. Then again, this was the era of Space Gandam.

I think intellectual property laws and their enforcement (in regard to such things as what HG was trying to do with the Sentinels) was still very murky waters at the time. HG seemed to sense there were potential legal issues so they were doing redesigns already in an effort to avoid any potential mess. After the advent of the Internet intellectual property laws have definitely become better understood/fleshed out and HG now seems to understand that they need to steer very clear of anything that was in the original works (barring some miraculous rights change brought on by WB or something).

There really shouldn't be anything wrong with that pose... it should look somewhat intimidating as it's a straight shot with the legs and arms somewhat flared kinda like cowboy/wild west style. ff95, I like what you did... although it could now be considered anime magic since to get that head position the nosecone would have to shimmy downward.

Yes Roger, because materials are the only cost of a toy, you're smart and stuff. I'm with DND, world's simplest toy currently selling for $150. Roger, wanna make a bet that I'll be able to buy it for $80 some day?

It seems like your observation about the Invid fails to consider several points. First, the Invid are pretty prominently placed in the Shadow Chronicles. Second, every "generation" of Robotech has a new enemy. Third, the Haydonites were shaped up to be the next enemy way back in the Sentinels days. Fourth, it's wouldn't make sense for any Macross or Masters enemies to return as their chapters are pretty nicely concluded by the generations they appeared in. Fifth, the lack of reference to previous alien species is evidence of the very rulings referenced here, mainly that HG has no intellectual property rights and can thus NOT use anything from Macross in an HG original production. Their legal claims are no longer dubious. Their legal claims WERE dubious when they claimed to have rights to EVERYTHING Macross related. Since then it has been established that they have the international rights to the original show and its merchandising rights and NOTHING beyond that. Do I sound like a broken record yet? EDIT - HG is NOT selling Mega House products. Toynami is selling Mega House products in the US by way of a license agreement with Harmony Gold. Of course, the Ride Armors have very little to do with this conversation since Big West has nothing to do with Mospeada. Tatsunoko handles Mospeada licenses in Japan and Tats has a long-standing and decent relationship with HG.

Here you go, tell me that head position doesn't throw you off...

Now that I've owned the 1/60 2.0 for a while, and have a couple, many of its charms have worn off. I still think it's the best VF-1 yet but the head placement seems to be bothering me more and more. I'm now think I prefer the 1/48 in Battroid mode.

I see Radd has already answered why Yamato doesn't have a deal with HG. As to HG's stopping of the Mac+ valks years ago, that was sort of the pinnacle of HG's dickiness. HG was trying to assert rights it didn't have due to the ambiguity of the rights it purchased from Tatsunoko. Like I said, the contract HG has may literally be "You have all rights to Macross" written on the back of a cocktail napkin circa 1983 (or whenever it was). HG initially seemed to understand that they really should only have the rights to the original show, and merchandise for it, and that's likely why MacII and Mac+ (the animes) were brought to the US without HG involvement. Then it seems like HG hired new legal staff when they were trying to resurrect their brand and that legal staff said "Wait a minute, this contract is vague enough for you to claim rights to EVERYTHING Macross related!" That's when the poop hit the fan. They railroaded Toycom who was planning on releasing what later became Yamato's 1/72 series, helped start Toynami, and fought a legal battle with BW over their more and more bold assertions. The Japanese court put them in their place limiting their rights to just the original film and its merchandising rights but the damage was done and BW was bound to hate them forever. Edit - Just FYI - I was writing when Radd wrote his response so pardon the redundancy. Will this affect HLJ? In all likelihood no. People actually exporting stuff from the orient are probably well out of HG's reach.

Not dumb at all on BW's part. BW ONLY makes a cut off of every Yamato valk sold in Japan. If Yamato were to establish a deal to sell the Valks outside of Japan they would not have to pay BW a penny for those valks, instead they'd have to pay HG. BW hates HG and BW only has control over the Japanese market so it'd actually be smart for them to word their licensing agreements in such a way that forbids companies from pursuing sales relationship beyond BW's scope. The only way that'd be a stupid move would be if Japanese companies were only willing to make the toys provided they could also sell them outside of Japan... but Yamato and Bandai (and others) have proven that there's a big enough market in Japan alone.

It's all too soon to tell. Hopefully we'll have answers some day. Here's to hoping Graham gets a phone call from a slightly inebriated Yamato employee who spills all the beans... barring that maybe just a phone call from yamato that references the few pressing issues right now.

HG reportedly tried to get Yamato selling their products in the US and Big West objected. If this thing with Bandai ever gets rolling it will be because Bandai has the clout to tell BW what to do. It's also possible, as AcroRay said, BW's license with Yamato had a provision about only selling the product in Japan so when Yamato tried to deal with HG BW countered that it would invalidate the Japanese rights.