eriku

SOC Fatty with his buddies

The figthing poses you can put these two in are great!

Fatty

Black Ox

Monster

This one is particularly cool with it's forced perspective, blast lighting and shadows.

My crappy camera doesn't do these things justice, but here are some pics!

On a different note, does anyone know where I could find some episodes of the Tetsujin 28 anime that was released this year? I've looked for fansubbed episodes, torrents or even raw episodes, but there isn't much of anything out there regarding the show. I'd even buy a subbed DVD if I could find one.

Just got fatty in the mail! He's absoultely gorgeous! I can't find one single thing about it that I don't like. The sculpt is great, the articulation is wonderful and I love the ingenious crotch mechanism Bandai came up with for this guy, although I can see what BoB was referring to. All the joints are perfect, not too loose and not too tight...the deep multi-toned metallic blue paint is really quite fetching too. There is one thing I would change, though, which oddly enough is inspired by something else I got in the mail today.... Glico's T28 gashapon sets! If anyone hasn't checked these out, and is a T28 fan, do so NOW! These are hands down the best gashapons I've ever seen, and not just because I love T28. I actually only got 5 of the 9, but I'll probably try to pick up the rest later. There are 4 figures and 5 mini-diorama scenes that have to be seen in person to be believed. The figures are T28, Black Ox, Monster and T28 in mummy wrap. The mini-dioramas are basically battle scenes involving T28. I got the T28, Black Ox and Monster figures and two of the sets. The T28 and Black Ox figures, while tiny, are articulated almost as well as a SOC figure! Better in some ways, which brings me back to what I would change about the SOC T28. On the gashapon T28 figure, the neck is on a sort of pivot that allows it to look left and right without sacrificing the classic look of the character. Not only that, but his whole upper neck/chest piece (the part contained by the curving line of rivets) is jointed so it can move up and down! On top of that, his midsection has an angled ball joint so he can slouch forward or lean back. Add that to cut shoulders, hinged elbows, rotating biceps, rotating wrists, RATCHETED hips, hinged knees, rotating thighs and double-jointed feet and this is one hyper-articulated gashapon! It really is incredible how poseable this guy is considering the tiny size. Black Ox has nearly identical articulation, and Monster has a ball jointed head, rotating midsection and cut joints at the wrists, shoulders and hips. The quality of all of these is fantastic, too. Even the itty bitty 3/4 inch T28 in one of the dioramas has a spot-on perfectly detailed paintjob. Amazing. I know it's rather cruel to hype these things up and not provide pics, but I'll have to wait until I get home before I can upload some. In a weird way I'm almost more impressed by the Gashapon sets than the SOC. Maybe it's because I wasn't expecting the gashapons to be that great. Oh, each set comes with tasty Glico heart-shaped caramels in their own seperate and stylish T28 box. Yum!

Is that what it is? I was just going by the 2005 boards who listed him as Jet Rock. He does have Jetfire's head, so Jet Rock seemed to make sense. Also, I just noticed it now but Vector Prime looks like G1 Scourge mixed with a Tie Interceptor from Star Wars...

Wow, I'm liking this Cybertron line so far! I think it's better than Energon in the same way that Energon was better than Armada. Still, it is in no way comparable to Bin/Alt. Prime looks great but I hope they nix the yellow paint on his head for the production release. Megs looks alright although the colors are sort of pukey. And Starscream & Thundercracker look downright awesome. I think Vector Prime and especially Jet Rock look pretty damn cool, too!

Heh, it still sounds more interesting than most Transformers series.

No kidding! After watching it I can't help but feel like they had planned all along to take a break after episode 17. The ending, the song, the credits, the "to be (or not to be) continued" at the end...they obviously tried to set it apart from the other episodes. My hopeful speculation is that they're using the extra time to work on a Champloo movie. And I've yet to see any sort of news at all about toys, goods or any kind of product for this series. Come on, I'll take a gashapon set or even a freakin cell phone dangler...just give me something! As for the ending, I think they must have thrown that together at the last minute when the decision to cancel came. And with regards to merchandise, there are a number of CDs out already. Well, one speculation is as good as another I guess. As for the CDs, I know about thouse...I need something more tangible than music!

Gotcha, thanks man!

I've never seen nor heard of one. Got a link to the one you saw?

I think Hound is still my favorite overall, although Streak and Meister are damn near tied with him. Really the only one I haven't been interested in is the Corvette, in any of it's incarnations. There's just something about the overall aesthetics of the bot mode that doesn't appeal to me.

Damn, grimlock is looking better and better! I just wished I liked the new Mustangs a little better. I don't think they're terrible or anything, but there's just something a little too tame and domesticated about the design. Sort of contradicts the namesake. Anyway, has anyone seen how the sword stores on the underside? It's pretty clever.

No kidding! After watching it I can't help but feel like they had planned all along to take a break after episode 17. The ending, the song, the credits, the "to be (or not to be) continued" at the end...they obviously tried to set it apart from the other episodes. My hopeful speculation is that they're using the extra time to work on a Champloo movie. And I've yet to see any sort of news at all about toys, goods or any kind of product for this series. Come on, I'll take a gashapon set or even a freakin cell phone dangler...just give me something!

The Toynami SDs are OK if you're desperate for a super-deformed valk but not able to afford a Joke Machine. Oherwise there is absolutely no comparison. Toynami's are very small, have pull-back motors and a very simple transformation. They feel a tad cheap, but oddly enough they seem to be constructed of a more sturdy plastic than Toynami's expensive MPC line.

Episode 17 of this Anime is out, and although it seems like Forever the word on the street is that episodes 18-26 will begin airing in January.

I would drop everything if I was presented with the opportunity to take part in a Mario Kart 64 all-night tournament.

I can only speak for myself of course, but for me making fun of Lucas and SW is sort of like teasing a beloved old cat for being too fat. It may not completely fit my ideals but it doesn't make me stop loving it. I've never been one to criticize Lucas for the prequels or even the changes to the OT. He could digitally replace Harrison Ford with a Rob Schneider or a giant carrot (or Rob Schneider playing a giant carrot) and I wouldn't really care, they're his movies. My enjoyment of Star Wars, old and new, is equateable with my enjoyment of Mountain Dew. I'm not always in the mood for it, and I know it has no nutritional value, but it sure is tasty. And the whole Jar Jar thing...I've never been ashamed to admit that I like him. He's a bumbling and nearly worthless fool and everyone seems to hate him, and for some reason I find that a really valuable element to have in the SW universe. And like him or not, you have to admit that he had the most personality and best delivery in Phantom Menace. At least more than Jake Lloyd. Back on the topic at hand, that banner is very nice, it's going to be great to have Vader on the screen again. Has anyone heard a concrete statement about just how much screen time Vader will have?

I think we need to shoot you and the Gungans. Gungans are so stupid. The only cool they ever had was the submarine. And that was pretty much it. They are a useless species. In the SW battlefront, it was easy to wipe them out. Yeah, well you just wait until 2015 when you're watching the Super-Special-Special Extended ++ DVD of ESB and Vaders mask on Dagobah dissolves to reveal a certain familiar toothy Gungan...and of course when Luke removes Vaders helmet in ROTJ who should be inside? "Oh, mooey mooey master Luke-sir, yousa be helpin me take dis mask off? Let meesa look on yousa with meesa own eyes!" if jar jar never said anything, and carried a "ol painless" he'd be kinda cool. if jar jar was vader, they could replace all of james earl jones's voice acting and replace it with jar jar's voice. the best part is that they could also add in audio from silly music that jar jar is listening to inside the suit. that way when ever he talks you hear the silly music crackling over the vader intercom in his suit. its just so great because finally, lucas will have fulfilled his artistic vision. Yes! And then there would of course be the scene where Jar Jar lets a terrible and echoing fart in the suit and nearly asphyxiates himself! "Peeeyusa!" Ah, if Lucas could only somehow realize his true vision for Star Wars.

I got my whitey Meister yesterday. The transformation style is definately an improvement over the Subarus, but I'm still not sure if I like him better than Streak. I'm glad I went with the classic white, it has a very Stormtrooperesque look to it. I'm curious to see how it would look with G1 style decals, but I've also got this urge to Fokkerize it with some yellow and black stripes and turn it into a Macross-mobile. My only complain is, as others have pointed out, the right arm really likes to pop out. It's too bad there isn't a rivet in there or something to keep it in place. Oh well, at least it pops right back in!

I think we need to shoot you and the Gungans. Gungans are so stupid. The only cool they ever had was the submarine. And that was pretty much it. They are a useless species. In the SW battlefront, it was easy to wipe them out. Yeah, well you just wait until 2015 when you're watching the Super-Special-Special Extended ++ DVD of ESB and Vaders mask on Dagobah dissolves to reveal a certain familiar toothy Gungan...and of course when Luke removes Vaders helmet in ROTJ who should be inside? "Oh, mooey mooey master Luke-sir, yousa be helpin me take dis mask off? Let meesa look on yousa with meesa own eyes!"