Twoducks

Forgot about Abenobashi! Really funny spoofs and with an underlying plot. It’s very short (I think about 13 ep) and doesn’t over do it like Excell Saga does in some parts. As for Otakus in anime one can also try Genshiken. Really funny stuff and a light-hearted view of the otaku world. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genshiken And speaking about Otakus and Gainax There ‘s Densha Otoko, a live action Japanese comedy/drama based on a “true storyâ€. There’s an homage to the Gainax Bunnygirld short for Daicon IV in the opening. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Train_man Nice to watch but live action Otakus are scary

Nice elbows!... just a month of waiting left for MP SS... Cute idea of having the old SS weapons being able to be attached to the nose cone. Useless in my case (my G1 SS weapons where the first thing to disappear) but nice for those who have at least MP-01. What mould is Kiss Rodimus based on? If it turns out good I might fall for the “expensive gummy fetish girl†line.

Try their first work, Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honneamise. Beautiful sci-fi movie. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wings_of_Honneamise If you like high school drama + roll in the floor comedy there’s Kare Kano. And if you like Gunbuster 2 you can try FLCL. The animation is very similar to G2 but be warned: it’s very very crazy and weird. Some people are put of by this. Personally I liked it. This are the first things out of my head but there are more… Oh yeah, look for Ebichu. Adult comedy to laugh your ass off. Character designs is simple but it does the job perfectly. As you can see Gainax has done a lot of different genres with different animation styles. One of the reasons that make checking out their stuff worth it (you are sure to find SOMETHING you like).

The Twelve Kingdoms also known as "Juuni Kokki". The anime is based on a series of novels. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juuni_Kokki Very good character development and story. You'll be a little disoriented at first with all the weird terms they sling at you but after a while you'll understand how the Chinese inspired fantasy world works (very important for the whole of the story).

Cute as you can get. Congratulations man!!

Is the real script already available? Interesting in the sense that there is more than just a bunch of action scenes? Do the TF have decent screen time (in non action settings)?

Beautifull kit!! Love the VF-4g design. Thanks for taking the time to share it here (always wanted to see more pics of this awesome looking kit). How posable would you say the kit is?

"If I could describe the internet in one picture?" Sorry but since I saw the caption for that pic I always see that image when peole talk about the Internet

Any thoughts on them?

* @chrono* Go get a bunch of boxes, now wear them, now move and dance around and tell me how well you do it. If a piece of armour is in the way of another piece of armour the thing can’t move, look at the toys: pretty but they don’t have a wide range of movement. Sure, they can have alien armour that can “face out†when in contact with another part of the robot but it is just easier to not have it there in the first place. And I wouldn’t call “heavily armoured†just having some armour plates on the chest and lower legs while leaving the whole stomach, hip and upper legs wide open like your little Citröen friend does. I can sense a little resentment here. Be happy man, the world isn’t going to end (really, it isn’t). Better yet, turn off your computer and buy someone you like a present with the money you are going to safe from not seeing this movie; you’ll feel better. The cartoons basic premise was alien robots that transform into vehicles to hide so I don’t see your “damageâ€. The movie is about the cartoon, not about how the toys looked. BTW, If I was a "closed-minded idiot" I would not accept anything that went against the status quo. ok ... what are you trying to say? How does trying out something that looks plausible on screen get in the way of doing a well written, acted, and filmed movie? You can’t make a well written, acted, and filmed SF movie or tv program if you try to do implausible "basic designs" look plausible? No really, answer me that after your “open mind†cools down.

Wolfx, you got the money shot!! Now we can see the leg from the side! Looks great and impressive in all three modes. Hope this thing can do some nice poses.

^ An excellent example of how fans are delude themselves into thinking something new has got to be better just for the sake of having the movie available! 426773[/snapback] ^ An excellent example of how fans are delude themselves into thinking something old (or better put: cartoon magic based around toy vehicles that turn into robots, not the other way around) has got to be better just for the sake of Whining! Well… they are giving you robots that can actually move that disguise themselves perfectly so unless “Robots In Disguise†is German for “Robots that MUST have big chunks of vehicles hanging out and limited mobility†that says pretty much NOTHING… And when they made a cartoon to sell those toy VEHICLES THAT TRANSFORM INTO ROBOTS they made up the story of them being alien ROBOTS THAT TRANSFORM INTO VEHICLES. The concept is different (and this time they don’t have to chain themselves to toy designs), but hey, if you where expecting a movie based on some toys instead of a story about an alien race of sentient robots (like the original cartoon) then go right ahead and call Mr. Bay. Yes, he looks like a good conversationalist. His eyes have… wait he doesn’t have any… well his pretty mouth… no wait…. Oh yeah! He dances (just as anything animated to do so can)… guess if you can see sentience in that commercial then those designs won’t have such a hard time when animated and saying lines.

I'm all for robots that can actually move their joints on the big screen. The TF are supposed to transform into stuff, they are not stuff that transforms into robots (that being the case of alternators/binaltech). If they are so advanced they can travel through space and think for themselves surely they can have vehicle parts that fold on themselves and break into little pieces rather than having big chunks of vehicles hanging around. Limiting them to toy technology transformations would make them look more human made than sentient alien. Remember the transforming title on the teaser trailer? Bunch of tiny pieces moving around? That’s how these things are going to transform.

More MP SS: http://fantofan.jp/news/event/charahobby20...ahobby-2006.htm http://tformers.com/ig.php?mode=album&albu...ize=800&start=0 (Links taken from tfw2005) Really like how the back breaks up: http://tformers.com/ig.php?mode=view&album...ize=800&start=0 http://fantofan.jp/news/event/charahobby2006/rSANY0035.jpg

They're gonna be winging the toy designs. It's impossible to make them look exact, so they'll be cutting corners and making them "close enough". If you take a look at the Blackout toy and compare it to the movie pic, you can see what I mean. 426338[/snapback] Indeed. A pity though, as the new beastly, organic, alien robot modes is very daring, and much to my liking. Though I may be in the minority, I'm hoping that Hasbro releases some sort of "deluxe" large sized Prime with more intricate detail and poseability, even if it ends up being non-transformable, just to show-off the aesthetics of the design. A highly-detailed model would be even better, but somehow I doubt that's in the cards. 426340[/snapback] Same here. Can't wait to see this things transforming (couldn't care less about the rest of the movie though )

Thanks for the pics I like them. Those complex transformations are going to be fun to watch. Hollywood can't make a decent movie these days so at least I want to see some cool transformations (the few of them the movie will have if there are so many fleshy bots running around). Guess if you are an alien species of sentient robots you can have enough technology to have more complex disguises than shifting boxes. Poor Hasbro though; very difficult to nail those designs in little toy form. If a high quality version of that Decepticon chopper could be possible, I’d sure buy it.

The TF series from the US? Do you mean the G1 stuff and Best Wars stuff? That ain't much. You yourself leave G1 in nostalgialand. Beat Wars "maturity" was mainly due to the circumstances that gave birth to it (like the inability to have the legion of characters Hasbro wanted) and when it changed to Beast Machines it just continued that formula (read: sequel) with the same characters but with less talented writers behind it. Where do I find all those other truck loads of maturity from the last 20 years? The flipping CG cube thing edited in the old cartoon matured the show in a way in the early 90's? Did the American dubs of the Takara series upgrade the maturity level from the usual kiddie target audience of sentai/pokemon stuff to higher levels? Either way I could only stand two episodes of those recent shows, and I saw the American versions. Sorry if I sound harsh, but don’t associate TF with maturity. I can do that with Best Wars, but I prefer to associate it with a character driven show whose quality owned a lot to the circumstances that spawned it, not something that was thought out beforehand. What I see is that Hasbro TF are a Saturday morning cartoon franchise and Takara TF are an anime franchise. You switch countries and they magically look fresh when compared to all the usual stuff on TV. Because that would look extrodinarily stupid in western fiction. Affection for your vehicle perhaps, but crying? Ugh. 425277[/snapback] And yet in the real world some people are doing just that because of the colours or hip crap of a toy that nobody is making them buy. BTW, I would surely cry if my expensive as hell Gundam got scratched

Shintoism has animistic roots so the idea of a sentient machine wouldn’t be so hard for a Japanese to grasp, certainly not harder than it is for a westerner. Astroboy, the very famous robot boy, acted long before Transformers like a living being (he even had “parents†like a normal kid would) and even when you have robots only as soulless machines in anime they are treated in a special way. Characters (not only the main pilot) give thanks to their Gundams and Mazingers when they win the battle, cry when they get trashed or have other reaction that only show that those soulless “machine†mean more. You don’t see G.I Joe characters doing this with their vehicles. So all this “Tranformers being an alien concept to the other side of the pond†doesn’t hold much. If the franchise was turned into a sentai/pokemon thing it’s because, well, those kinds of shows are what has earned other companies truck loads of cash before out of kids; more than the exotic western property created to sell toys to kids. Some sentai and super robot shows still work as do other pokemon rip-offs so the writer and director choices Takara made are to blame, not only the genre selected (witch could have worked if done right). I love G1, but it mostly because of sentimental and nostalgic reasons, not because of the quality of the show. Seeing some episodes after years shows that time sure has passed and that I liked the cartoon because I was a kid and I liked robots; not because of an ingenious concept of sentient robots. Some things are better left of as just memories. In my memory some characters remain as great, but character development was very lacking and there were tons of flat robots walking around the scream, as you would expect from a cartoon made to sell toys to kids. And Hasbro didn’t have the brilliant idea of making Beast Wars a series that centres in a small group of well developed characters with witty dialog. Bob Forward and Larry Ditillio, the writers of Beast Wars did. And as they have said in interviews, it was mostly out of necessity. They didn’t have a clue about Transformers, had a tight budged and had the limitations of CG animation (water was a no at first). There was no money and time to make the legion of characters models Hasbro wanted for their toy line. They had to centre on the few characters they could have, throw some G1 bones to the TF fanboys and luckily for us (and Hasbro’s pockets), all that pressure spawned something very good out of them. You don’t need all the G1 references to see this was a good show. So you could say Hasbro got lucky with Beast Wars, the series that gave the TF franchise a new life.

Looks nice, specially the bikes. Any more info on this IMAI kits? Are they decent quality? EDIT Just noticed that the Legioss is 1/48 scale... One could play Robotech with this thing and the Yamato

Exactly. I'm into VF's because they do that transforming trick. 424538[/snapback] I was also one but after seeing that pic I have to… upgrade to being a YF lover too ! Damn that thing looks good.

Its stupid because not only does it annoy Takara's potential overseas customers, but it also annoys the customers in Japan. TF is almost dead in Japan from Takara's mismanagement of the line over the past decade.Rumours abound that 2006 will be the last year Takara is directly involved with Transformers, especially considering Hasbro is taking a much larger role in engineering the toys now (Beast Wars X Primal and Megatron are all Hasbro toys). Apparently Takara has very little to nothing to do with the movie line next year. They have jack all to do with the movie aside from a press release in 2005 saying they are happy that a movie is being made. 423737[/snapback] Don't know what the Japanese think about MP SS and nobody is saying what is going around in Japanese forums so what you say can only be guess work (unless you really now, if so please post said forums, I’ve been meaning to bookmark some). I do know that, like most people, they like well engineered toys. This isn't a cheap toy, even if you don't like it you have to admit that it's a well thought out transformer. And even some pissed western transformers fanboys that should be annoyed all their lives with Takara for this outrage say that the colours "aren’t that bad", "are great" or "are a good homage". In other words: they aren't selling a pink SS with neon yellow stars and olive stripes; they are selling a high quality toy in a more than decent colour scheme and people like it (people from transformer forums, not just collectors or Macross fans). Yes, I know of Takara's financial situation. That's one of the reasons I think they are doing something smart. Remember, they aren't here to make you happy, they are here to make money; if they have a bigger chance of making more money making you unhappy, they will do so: - This toy is unique, the only SS that comes close is this one. Quite a leap in quality wouldn't you say? How many other Transformers look as good as the MP SS? Not much. Are people tired of MP SS repaints? No? Well that's because there aren’t any MP SS to begin with. So we have a unique and fresh new toy here ready for milking. - Anime repaints are more popular than made up ones (everybody wants Thundercracker, Skywarp and SS). After making all of those, how many people are left that want to buy the same toy again (this time with no anime colours left, just made up ones)? Well, the answer is equal or less than the ones willing to buy the made up scheme right now. So, by doing this cheesy move on a unique, detailed and high quality never before seen product they artificially create a "cool scheme that people want to buy" (because it’s the only one easily available) and leave the real “anime cool schemes†in the freezer for later milking. They can sell equal or more units of a made up scheme, sell their club and sell all the other anime repaints later, including anime SS. More money in the short and in the long run for them this way, something they need.

So it’s stupid because they did something that didn’t make you happy. Glad you clear that up. And lighten up, you make it sound like the only thing that would be worth it about this toy is the anime colours. Even if it doesn’t have all those things you post about that F-15 have and nobody else notices but you, this thing is the most realistic, well engineered and detailed transformer in a long time. You can only compare this thing with the Yamato valks and the very few high quality Transformer toys that exist. So there’s more to MP SS than just red, grey and blue. So now you are starting to see my point. Good. They make the less sellable easier to obtain than the hot one. Now making people pay more money for the same toy, while also charging them membership for a club that helps Takara build a client database doesn’t sound so difficult to do. As you say, people will get the normal one if they can’t get the anime version. Takara has more to win this way. Later they can just throw the fanboys a crownless normal anime version and everyone would be happy (especially Takara). Or they can hold on to anime coloured SS until they are in a pinch. So if you need to use a negative term to define their marketing strategy to get all of your anger out, “risky†is more correct than “stupidâ€. BTW Read more carefully, there are people who like this scheme and some even prefer it. Your example is a little off. MP SS is pretty big leap from other SS toys, and also when compared to other transformer toys. If you want to compare to Yamato, you need to take the 1/48 when it first came out and dumb down the 1/60’s to cheaper toys (the VF-0S resemble the VF-1 a lot and so is less unique). Most MW would be just happy to have a great toy of their favourite transforming plane, even if it was coloured in a different scheme. Many MW have said that owning a Skyfire or a bootleg made them happy because there wasn’t anything else. MP SS isn’t just a decent substitute for anime accurate SS, it’s a very good looking toy. People would buy them if they are good looking toys. The YF-19 isn’t out yet and people already want the purple YF-21…

Yes, that’s evident. It just shows that people are willing to pay more for the same toy but with different colours. If a non-Japanese is interested in all the hassle of joining a foreign club, then Japanese residents that like the anime colours are very likely. Yes, that’s evident. No one has said they would. Their goal is to sell toys. If you want the exclusive and can’t get it because there aren’t any left, you can get the normal one. If you don’t want to pay extra for the same toy you buy the normal one. If you like the normal one you get the normal one. That toy looks very nice, it looks very well engineered and has the name of a famous personality attached to it. I think is safe to assume it will sell. Yamato is selling the same valks but with different colours (non anime existing colours to be exacts) and they aren’t slowing down. That menas people can buy a toy not coloured like in a cartoon and be happy. So your 90% unsold scenario is a bit exaggerated. In other words, please tell me why is Takara doing something stupid? Are you calling stupid what the company is doing because you don’t like it? Well, companies are there to make money, not to make you happy. If making you unhappy has a pretty good chance of making them more money, they will do it. I don’t like what Yamato is doing with all their repaints but I sure as hell don’t call them stupid for trying to make more money out of the same old mould. Doing the normal production run of a made up non anime repaint first will generate equal or more money that doing it after chucking out all the real anime repaints.

Stupid? Best marketing ploy they could do. People are asking left and right in other forums how to join this "club", of witch close to nothing is known, just for the more expensive anime colours of the same toy. So there is a demand to pay more for the same toy. People who want a MP SS will either buy the normal one or pony up more cash for the anime version. Best way to kick start a club$$? Promise something a lot of people really want. Even if they end up with some unsold normal colour SS’s, they can just release anime version (after making a very good profit out of the club thing) and people would buy it. If said club is only for Japan residents, Japanese Ebayers are going to enjoy some easy cash.

You couldn't have said it better. 422914[/snapback] So Kawamori's THS-2 Convoy is also a Masterpiece? Because he spots a kick ass accuracy to the cartoon over the Alt mode, great detail and it even beats the crap out of MP Prime in articulation (and it is just 4" high). It even comes with a cartoon accurate trailer full of the gimmicks the original toy had and more. The MP Prime is yet to do so. A MP is... a big and expensive Transformer toy; just ask non G1 accurate MP Ultra Magnus. 422936[/snapback] You'll notice i said "pretty good" alt mode. THS-02's alt mode was "pretty average". I agree with your point that a masterpiece should be a large scale toy which would rule out the hybrid convoy as an MP. My main point is that an alternator should tip towards the alt mode while a masterpiece should tip towards the bot mode. Kawamori's starscream is obviously tipping far too much towards the alt mode and unneccesary sacrifices have been made to achieve this such as the paint-scheme and positioning of the kibble. I'm not a hardcore fanboy but I have an impression of what GI starscream should be in my mind and it pains me to see someone mucking with it unneccesarily. The torture is that he nailed it with the first prototype and then botched it from there. 422961[/snapback] My whole point is that what people say a MP should be means crap in the real world. Takara makes the toys and calls them whatever it wants to. Liking it or not doesn’t have to do with it being labelled MP or not, it’s just a personal opinion the same goes for it looking G1 accurate or not (to me it does for example, but that is just me). If you want literal G1 accuracy this things stopped being accurate the moment they where given panel lines, pistons and other such details the cartoon never had. No, Magnus fits perfectly with my point. The box clearly calls it a Masterpiece Ultra Magnus, not “Repaintâ€. Does it look like the big hulking robot we all associate with Ultra Magnus in the original cartoon? Not at all, but it is still a Masterpiece because Takara called it that.