crazysteve

The old Arii variable valk models came with pilot figures. You can track down one of the Bandai reissues relatively easily nowadays. If you buy a 1D you could also get a bonus Minmay. I don't think they look particularly good by today's standards but they're officially licensed Macross products intended for that purpose and scale. Old Zoids drivers may also work.

I also felt bad about the idea that Kawamori was tainted by Hollywoodthink and ended up second guessing himself based on those meetings. Minmay worked hard to get where she was and that was one of the things I admired about the character. There was no 'chosen one' plotline-she just busted her butt to get where she was. But maybe that's a hard sell to American sci-fi audiences who have been spoiled by too much Star Wars. Ever since Luke we just want to root for the shiftless whiny goofball who is somehow magically a great pilot destined to save the galaxy. Hikaru was nowhere near that, but it looks to me like Hayate may tun out that way. I can see some marketer trying to get Kawamori to use Hostess fruit pies as the mcguffin that saves the day instead of a song. The Zentraedi don't stand a chance against our fruit filling! Let's make Minmay a baker instead of a singer! We'll sell a million cherry pies with Minmay on the wrappers!I wonder what US company would have handled the manufacture and/or distribution of the licensed toy product circa 1992. I can kind of imagine what Toy Biz figures of Ace or Maria would look like based on their 5 inch Marvel stuff from around that time. It would be horrible. Maybe Hasbro/Kenner would have done it and we would have gotten beefy bodybuilders in 3 3/4 inch scale like the '95 Star Wars line. Maybe Playmates would have been involved and it would have been similar to what they did with ExoSquad.

Wow this is coming along incredibly. The amount f work you are putting into it is superhuman, I built mine as the no frills, stock version in Attacker mode and it took me 21 days of the most grueling cutting, folding, and pasting work I have ever done in my life. You are taking this to a whole new mind blowing level. When you're done it should be put in a museum!

31b was wonderful-my favorite episode of any podcast ever! Did you ever go into further detail about Kawamori commenting on how you won passes to all three events? I don't think I caught it but it was mentioned early on. I'm sure I'll find it on the meany repeat listenings I am going to do over the next few days. I am just delirious with joy at how great this episode is. It's great stuff to be listening to as I build models, although I feel unworthy given that the master has a low opinion of them! wish I could go to that exhibit but you guys really are the next best thing to being there.

Every time I see that scene of J.J.'s X-Wings flying low over the water I think about how Kawamori did it first with valks in DYRL.

I was watching the latest episode of the Collection DX show and Adam says the yellow and black Skull Leader valk is getting reissued the same month as the Macross. I haven't heard this elsewhere. Here's the link to that exact part.

Was the Bandai 1/55 DYRL Super VF-1S Hikaru (the one with red accents) ever reissued either as a fighter, super or a strike?

Allspark member Nevermore found Yokubarion's gallery of pictures from Wonderfest. All the images are in zip files. I looked through them and there's no Macross: http://briefcase.yahoo.co.jp/yokubarion And fantofan.jp has put up a small gallery of the Transformers Hybrid Style 02 Convoy from Takara's Wonderfest display here: http://www.fantofan.jp/news/event/won-fes-win2006/report.htm Tformers has a TF centric gallery of Wonderfest 2006 here: http://tformers.com/ig.php?mode=album&albu...ize=800&start=0