Apollo Leader

At least do some research before saying that. Its not like its a difficult thing to find out. Not to be an ass, but what you are talking about is a Garfish with its Figher Hangars/Containers dropped. Has nothing to do with boosters/FAST Packs. Let me reword that. One of the ships that originated from Mospeada has been redesigned so that part of the rocket booster gear can be detached and it can now operate in the atmosphere. This vehicle has been posted online, including at rt.com (I just can't find the pic right now).

This pic will probably hack a few people off, but here I am with one of Robotech's most infamous fans and now current Harmony Gold staffer... BAAAAANNNNNKKKKYYYYY!!!!!!! Pics from Saturday coming tomorrow! (this should be the last of the higher rez shots)

Here is Richard to the second power (I'm a Richard, too)! I had the chance to talk to Richard for a little bit and it turns out that he did the voice over for one of the flight instructors in Aero Elite Combat Academy for the PS2 even though they didn't credit the American voice actors for their work. Richard, along with some of the other voice actors like Scott McNeil, were pretty enthusiastic to be there and I was quite impressed by how they hung out with the attendees at the convention all weekend.

Richard Epcar and Kevin talk over Richard's involvement with Robotech and his other voice acting jobs. Pretty soon it was time to hand out prizes... I managed to win an MPC Ben because I a answered a question I thought any of these Robotechies should have beaten me to! (This is my third one and at the rate I'm going, I'm going to be start getting paid to take these things! ) I got Tommy and Richard to sign my other MPC Ben which I already had with me and I got Tommy to sign Robotech issue 0 which he did the cover.

There was a Lisa/Misa (Macy) and a Max cosplayer at the con. The glasses made "Max" look more like Elvis!

I THOUGHT MEMO WAS BIG, BUT I NEVER REALIZED HE WAS THIS MUCH TALLER THEN TOMMY YUNE! HEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHE

Tom and Kevin mingle with the crowd.

Richard Epcar talks with Backstabber and a few others.

This past weekend, I attended the Kunicon that was held in St. Louis, MO. This was the very first anime convention I have ever attended. Since I knew that a fair number of people on know online (Macross World, Arcadia, and Robotech.com) were going to be there, I made sure I was going to be there! I left Omaha, NE Friday morning and made a 7 hour drive down to St. Louis. After checking in, I had some other business to attend to and came back to the Millenium at about 9:00. I found Steve Yun at the Harmony Gold booth in the dealers' area and we talked for a while. Eventually Kevin "Bankofkev" McKeever and Tom Bateman showed up. The first Robotech panel, which included the showing of Codename: Robotech, was held at 11:00. Richard Epcar (who has voiced Ben Dixon from Robotech, Guld Goa Bowman from Macross Plus, and has been voicing Bataeu from the first Ghost in the Shell movie onwards) was there in attendance. Here's some pictures from Friday night. First of all, here's Tom and Steve at the Harmony Gold booth. I had the chance to talk to Tommy Yune about the Minmay poster and what it took to design the artwork. The short mini skirt was inspired by the ultra short skirts worn by the Macross 7 Bridge Bunnies!

Guess I had missed that announcement or just spaced things off. Thanks. I really wanted these guys to add to my collection, but unfortunately, they were only to be given out at the 2:00 Robotech Panel and I had to head back home before then.

Here's a better shot (albeit a bit blurry). Again, these were the preliminary CG models just used for test purposes and not the complete textured models.

You can make out the command deck of the so called SDF-4.

There was a one fully rendered shot that was shown at the show depicting one of those Mospeada type drop ships with it's space boosters/FAST Packs jettisoned off (I know I butchered that word!). I did take a few pics, but unfortunately my auto mode white washed the screen and my night vision moe blurred the image! Tommy mentioned that what was shown at the panel and what he privately showed some of us was representive of work from 3 or 4 months ago. Anyway, here's some pics I took.

Back of the boxes.

The other two Legioss. I just noticed that Houquet's Legioss still has a reference to it being an "Alpha"... oops!

I was at Kunicon all weekend in St. Louis. Before I left early this afternoon, Kevin McKeever showed me the Mospeada Legioss versions of Toynami's Super Poseable Alphas. Here are some of the pictures I took (I will be posting a separate Kunicon thread later Monday)

Actually, I was thinking about this today and wondering if HG preventing Yamato selling in the international market has really hurt Yamato's sales or not? Even if Yamato had been able to sell in the US and elsewhere at the lower prices they proposed, the toys are still not cheap mass-market toys by any means and so would not really appeal to the casual toy buyer. It's my opinion that Yamato's transforming Macross toys are only really of interest to Macross and RT fans. And let's face it, if those fans who are hardcore enough to want to buy Macross toys (i.e. most of Macrossworld ) will always find a way to get them regardless of any interference by HG or not. And we all know, it's hardly difficult importing Macross toys through online stores. Graham If you read these boards enough along with robotech.com, you will see that there have been quite a few people who have had to limit their spending (or not buy anything at all) because of the price of importing the Macross toys from Japan not to mention Toynami's prces for their goods. The last 1/48th scale VF-1 I bought was Hikaru's Super VF-1J. Spending almost $400 to get Max and Millia's Super VF-1J was too much for my wallet to handle a year ago so I pass those two over. I recently decided to suspend my purchase of the Konig Monster simply because that is $150 I could use elsewhere right now. 5 years of buying all these pricy imports has really burned me out. Back in 2000, Kevin Lam was going to sell the Macross Plus toys for about $40 apiece (depending on how many you bought). I remember sending him a check for like $81 to pay for TWO YF-19's. When all was said and done, I ended up spending well over $200 to get two of these. Trust me Graham, it would have been a huge relief on our wallets if these could have been sold domestically. More Macross and Robotech fans would have been buying up their stuff, but also it would have drawn interest from curious and more casual fans.

If this looks like it will turn out good, I might pick up one or two. But be warned everyone, when John was trying to get people interested in his Legioss, Harmony Gold laid the smackdown on him so who says it won't happen again, even if he doesn't actively promote it on his website or on the front page of Macross World?

If this is the end for Macross, that means I can finally get a life! The one thing that would really, REALLY help is if this whole licensing crap would be finally resolved and Yamato could actively persue the US and international market like had been planned back in 1999/2000 and that would mean further continued development of new Macross goods.

BTW, has anybody seen the latest issue of Toyfare magazine? The VF-1J Rick Hunter is now valued (according to them) at $110! Roy's VF-1S is $220!!! On the flip side, all 4 other VF-1's are valued around $50 to $60.

This looks like a time to whip out my childhood raping thread from not too long ago. As for Destro, in the Larry Hama GI Joe comics of 1982-94, Destro was shown multiple times without his mask and he was quite white; when he was a teenager during the Vietnam War he was blond, but when his appearance was finally revealed I think in 1990, he was a brunette. In the current GI Joe series, which is pretty much a direct sequel to the Marvel Comics stories by Larry, Destro had fathered a son with a black woman.

Bump!

My friend Travis, who was an engineer where I work for a fair number of years, went to Japan to teach English as part of the JET program. Here's a link to his website: http://www.travisheermann.com/ Since he hasn't updated his site since last July, I'm not sure if he's still there or if he's come back to Omaha. The last time I heard from him was a year ago. He's got a lot of great pictures of all the places he has been to in Japan, so check out his site if you get the chance.

I thought Graham posted a loooooonnnngggg time ago that Yamato was going to save the Macross itself as the honor of being the last Macross toy that they do under license from Big West. I think he said this all the way back to 2002 or even 2001. Considering all the Macross toys of the last 5 years (including Toynami's stuff), it's been very disappointing that the SDF-1 Macross has not got a transforming toy to its name. When Graham and Shawn did their "unofficial" survey for Yamato to gauge what Macross World members wanted for future Macross releases, the SDF-1 was like the number 2 over all choice.

One problem that shouldn't exist with the Shadow is its hands. The much more robust claw looking hands shouldn't fall apart like the fragile ones from the first three Alphas.