Roger

Wow, my thread has hit 50 pages, 90% of it is bitching and it looks like a whopping 3 people are actually going to buy it. Wheee!!!

Wow. Sometimes I lay awake nights wondering if we're headed into another recession, and I think I'm weird.

Because they're making it. There was a red one in Robotech: The Sentinels, you can pretend it's that one.

Takara and Bandai might own a few of their factories, but not all. They also contract out other Japanese companies like Marusan and Marukoshi from time to time to produce certain items.

I don't get it, are you complaining that they're making three color variations of a toy instead of two? Usually it's the other way around.

Sorry, nothing to report.

Just adding something that doesn't seem to be addressed in any of these posts... Toynami's factory is not owned by Toynami. Aoshima's factory is not owned by Aoshima. There is no vertical integration at the low level that companies like this operate. They use independent factories in China that are hired on a project by project basis to produce items at a certain quality level by a certain date. And it's sad, but these factories will always try to screw their customers in some way. Witness the current chaos in the toy industry to see what I mean. It doesn't excuse the quality (or lack thereof) that we experience with our toys, but it should explain it.

Those are cool. That sheet with the Inbit in the corridor looks like it's from the final episode.

One late night, about fifteen years ago, I was standing around drunk in a Dunkin' Donuts. While staring at the board, trying to decide what to order, my friend leaned over to me and whispered, "Dude, don't get a variety of donuts, get an assortment." I just flashed back to that moment. Thank you.

That's okay, because fiberglass is urine-resistant.

http://www.honkyproducts.jp/03as/index.html - no official images yet, but the last time I saw it they had the forearms, chest, and head done. It's going to be fiberglass. Economies of scale. Do you want to bet up to a hundred thousand dollars that you can sell as many Legioss reissues as Macross reissues, or Soul of Chogokins? If so, good luck.

I like how you use a racial slur in one sentence and then call someone else a "moron" in the next. Classy.

At Wonderfest I was talking with Yaco about the dearth of MOSPEADA merchandise and he said it was partially due to the fact that MOSPEADA is considered an obscure failed show over there, but also because (and you can file this information under "rumors") Tatsunoko has not been easy to deal with regarding the license. He mentioned that he knew other hobbyists and professionals who were trying to get their own MOSPEADA-related stuff off the ground and hadn't had much success working out the details with Tatsunoko. Who knows what it means. Maybe they just don't want to deal with smaller operations, but this issue with Aoshima's Legioss toys isn't one of quantity, but quality. The responsibility for this rests entirely with them and it's very disappointing. No, YOU can keep saying that.

Kaiyodo, who had been selling VOTOMS toys for a few years at that point, Takara, who was still reissuing their Dual Models, and Yamato, who released their Scopedog three years ago this month. And that's just what came out toy-wise. You had reissues of the manga, DVDs, the Playstation games, etc. You really can't compare VOTOMS to MOSPEADA in terms of popularity. So far all we're getting for MOSPEADA is a handful of new toys and a reissue of the DVD sets. No new mecha designs, no new anime, and after 2008 is over the companies and the otaku will be moving onto the next nostalgic property.

Yep, the first issue is coming out this month. I think that's unlikely. I'd buy the back issues you want before they sell out. Once they sell out of them they get hard to track down.

Yes, and to be quite honest if circumstances were different I never would have gone public with it. But that's water under the bridge now.

When I was writing the Super7 article, he said that I could mention that he handled the protos in case anyone followed up on the subject. Well, you can generalize and say that Japanese folks tend to be private people, but if I had this stuff I probably wouldn't show it off too much, to avoid people pestering me about it all the time.

Yep, that's the kit. I think it was bootlegged to high hell over the years, too, but the original manufacturer was Monocraft. EDIT: And I see you posted the box, too! There's the foil license sticker that says "legitimate." ;p It sounds right. Factories that make injection molded styrene stuff won't bother with orders unless they're in the thousands, and it's not cost-effective in small numbers, either. I think Matt Alt may be one of the people who you're referring to, and IIRC he told me he saw a red and a black TLEAD. I'm skeptical that the black one was supposed to be a "Dark" version from the final episodes. Tommy Yune told me that the model packs for the Dark Legioss designs were delivered very late in the game, very close to when the final two episodes of MOSPEADA were being animated. I think at this point, it's unlikely that Imai or Gakken intended on producing any more toys from a show that lost so much money for them, and if I had to speculate, I'd think the TLEAD protos that Matt saw were shot in those colors because that's the plastic the factory had on hand (as is the case with most test shots), rather than by design. Matt also saw a box mock-up for the 1/20 Blow Superior, and two die-cast Inbit toys (Gurab and Igaa) that he believed were to be sold alongside the teeny non-transforming ride armors. We tried to find the person who owned these to get pictures for the Super7 article, but unfortunately he is "off the grid."

Ah, that's what I was wondering about. Thanks. By "sold," I mean actually sold in Japanese toy stores to children. We all know a couple of these walked out the back door at the Gakken offices, but I've never seen one for sale in a store in Japan, or on Yahoo Japan Auctions, with or without Japanese packaging, so for now all we know is that they were sold at retail in France, nowhere else. No updates, sorry.

Because it would look cool in the background. Consider this, too: that garage kit is pretty small, making it relatively easy to set up that shot. If the Legioss/TLEAD combo in the picture is 1/35 scale, it would have to be a few feet behind the toys in the foreground to look like that. And I'm not sure what would make the garage kit illegitimate. The book gives pricing information and contact information for a shop that sells them. I really doubt that an outfit like B-Club would have highlighted an unauthorized item like that.

I saw Carl's article here: http://www.macrossworld.com/mospeada/tread_toy.htm It doesn't seem to go into detail about what indicates that this was made in Japan. Does it have a different maker's mark than this one? http://www.macrossworld.com/mospeada/lansa...y_tread_toy.htm Given the way those factories usually operate, I would say "a bunch" would be in the thousands. Yeah, the difference in canopy colors was pointed out to me before and I think the orange color is a result of the light shining through it. Look at it this way: if it's a completely different item than the garage kit shown on the following pages, why didn't they show more of it than just relegate it to a blurry background image?

That Legioss/TLEAD combo in the Artmic book is a garage kit. They show it assembled on one of the following pages. In the same book, you can see paintings for the 1/72 battloid and fighter model kits that Imai was planning, but never saw the light of day. I've also never seen any convincing evidence that the little TLEAD in the auction was ever sold in Japan, and I have a feeling that there are many more of these scattered throughout France that enterprising collectors could probably dig up with a little effort.

I'm not sure why the credit may have been omitted, but the interview was conducted by Egan Loo.

LISTEN TO MY VOTE!!!

Alan Letz and Tom Bateman, who were both involved with licensing for several years, are no longer with the company. Okay, I'll buy that.