mpchi

Yeah, and the Gungrave:OD only going for a $15 MSRP brand new. An amazing deal for a good shooter. And I think they improved the gameplay quite a bit with more moves, more levels, and more playable characters. But I like the cel-shaded look & art of the original, and I know the OD dub will really get to me. The original also ties in better with the anime. So I picked the old one instead. But for people who wants more game & doesn't mind the dub, you can't go wrong with Gungrave:Overdose for $15! Looks like not many stores carry it, or they are sold out since they didn't get a whole lot of copies. But you should be able to find them at local EBgames or stores online.

Is this guy even in the Trigun anime? Or just in manga? Don't quite remember seeing him in the anime show. Looks heck of cool though, but 7800yen is very pricey for a Kaiyodo figure.

I think VF-0S FAN meant the dead Gold Saints who wear Sapris(Hades armor) in the Hades chapter, like Saga, Camus, Shura, Deathmask, & Aphrodite in Sapris.

Recently picked up the first 2 Geneon DVDs, and man, was it a big surprise! Gungrave turned out to be a VERY GOOD show so far. Saw it came out a couple months back, knew about a little of the original game, but didn't expect a very good show from a game-to-anime translation. Turned out the show has very high production value with very nice character design (Nightow ), nice consistent animation (very good for a TV series, not choppy like some said), and very good story telling. You can really feel for the characters. Music is good too. While some tunes are less memorable, they are more than enough to get the job done. Ending song is nice, and love the scene in it when they show Harry & Brandon running facing the sky. Also, I don't get why many people didn't like episode 1 either. Things were staged well, good animation, some pretty cool action sequences, and a good intro layout of the whole situation, since they are using the Berserk-ish long flashback to tell the backstory of the 2 main characters. Even though you may not get a very clear picture if ONLY watch 1st episode, it was far from crap, and was done in purpose too. It just give viewer a glimpse of the fight between Grave & the Millenion syndicate to set a premise of the situation, before go to the background with extensive episodes telling the back story. As I go back and rewatch the first few episodes again, I realized they try hinting a lot of key characters or info here & their for the future plot. But you may dismiss them the first time viewing as you may think they aren't very important. This shows even have more depth in the planning of the story. Often times, I find myself discovering more things like "wait, this is that character in the first episode!". And even though the majority of the early episodes cover mob stories with no high-tech machinery or genetic engineered beasts we see in episode 1 or in the PS2 game, there are a couple scenes here & there that hint something is going on in the background with the genetic technology stuff. Just not very obvious. So even though the focus is on Brandon & Harry, and the people around them, they staged it nicely for the more hi-tech stuff as the story develops more. Really good stuff! If Gungrave keep being this good in the rest of the upcoming DVD releases, it will be my favorite recent show. I liked this show so much that I even went out to hunt down a used copy of the original Gungrave! Very cool stylish game with awesome cel shaded FMVs. The game is short & gameplay rather simple, but heck of fun! It even has Japanese dialogue with english subtitle, which is perfect for a sub fan like me. Great fun for $17. I also just ordered my Gungrave figure from Twin Moons as well. Guess I'm in a Gungrave frenzy right now.

http://www.rakuten.co.jp/atmart/475213/548612/ From this link above, it listed Spector Sapris Ladamantis will be the next Seiya Myth entry around 2005 January. Very interesting. Looks like we'll not only see Gold Saints down the line. Cool!

I agree as well. While the 1/55 is still a great toy, it would be so much better to have the retooling you guys mentioned. In fact, just the painted on decals already improved this toy so much from the Takatoku stickers. If there are recast heads, reshaped nose, and some added articulations on arms, this thing would shine so well. Too bad Bandai missed such a great opportunity. All it takes is bringing these out a year or two earlier than the Yamatos, they would have such a big crowd of old timers & new Macross fans that would snatch every single "the only good transforming valk toy available" in the market. The 1/55 GBP-1S valk is still my favorite. Then the Super with a 1J. The Yamato 1/48 may be 3rd. Awesome display piece, and looks even prettier with the Yamato Stand, but its sturdiness still doesn't encourage me to handle it a lot. Not that it is falling apart either.

The manga mask does look a lot better than the anime helmet. Cool pics.

Man! I am lucky enough to be home today flipping channels and bump into this showing. Boy, was I impressed! This is the best Star Wars stuff I've see bar none. Gone are the cheesy acting, boring dialogues & outdated kids appeal. Its all about great fights after great fights non-stop, with just enough story elements to keep you interested to crave for the next episode. This cartoon really showed how powerful Jedis should be, and really really nice animation. Very cool. I am not a big Star Wars fan, but have been feeling the new movies never quite fit in with the old Trilogy. While all the Jedis seemed overpowered in this cartoon, it really brings them to live, and showed how powerful Jedis should have been. Luke & Vader looks awfully weak compare to any of the Jedis in Clone Wars. Hope they'll make a DVD release sometime. I'll definitely get it.

Finally got my Shaka last night, but I was shocked by the sight of my HLJ shipping box being crushed out of shape, even though big-arse HANDLE WITH CARE was printed all over it. Luckily, my Shaka survived, but part of the box got messed up. Shaka is cool, and the way its armor locking mechanism is designed a bit different than the other Gold Saints. And I thought the waist armor plates are going to fall apart very easily while I putting them on. But to my surprise, after you finished, everything locks in tight and very secure, with multi locking tabs. Awesome engineering! His head is very interesting too. Instead of having 2 heads, you get 2 swappable faces instead (the painted eyes on the open eye face look pretty jacked up though ). And in order to fit his helmet, you get an additional hair piece that is like a cap to put on normally, while take it off to reveal a much less hair looking Shaka that would fit the helmet. The Helmet is not snug tight, and can move around if you force it, but not loose enough to wobble. There are some not so cool aspect of Shaka. His large shoulder plate. Its not only just plastic, but not moveable like Seiya's, making Shaka's upper arm cannot extent forward at all! The lower leg armor doesn't have enough clearance at the back of the knee joint. I hate the leg armors to wobble, so I always tug it up so that it fits tight with the leg without any wobble, just like for Shiryu's leg. But for Shaka, the clearance is not enough for you to tug the leg armor up & bend the knees for more than like a 60 degree. They'll pop loose. So you constantly find yourself fixing the leg armors whenever you bend the legs much, or just try to avoid bending at all. Upper arm armor seems a bit loose in this release, as they also get loosen and wobble if you move the arms around. Again, you'll constantly go back and push those back up to sit tight. Good things though is the waist articulation. You can't twist as much like Aiolia (which was awesome), but not as stiff as Camus (doesn't move a single degree) either. And the head can move around a significant bit, as long as you have his back hair piece sticks up (which can look kind of awkward sometimes depend on the pose). But is moveable at least unlike Camus. His heel is also significantly taller than the other two Gold Saints, making him less balance for posing or standing. One really awesome thing about this release though is the additional Shun head. It is by far the most anime correct looking face in this entire line. Very pretty eyes & proportion. The best Myth head sculpt by far! Overall, Shaka is pretty good. He may not look as pretty or ornate as the other two Golds, but this is mainly due to the Cloth design itself rather than the toy sculpt. While there is some good engineering in the torso armor & the head/hair/helmet, its non-moveable big shoulder plate is a let-down. Its overall poseability is not as good as Aiolia, but better than the stiffy Camus. And I don't find any particular loose joint in this figure, don't know if I am just lucky. With all its merits & flaws, its still a good addition to the Seiya Myth line.

The shoulder was meant to be able to pull out a bit, though it was rarely stated clear. I think in Hyoga(Cygnus)'s instruction sheet, it tells you to pull out the shoulder of the figure a bit to do the Aura Thunder Attack pose, so that there is more room for the chest armor to not get in the way near the upper arm/armpit area.

YUP! A darn good book for Gundam lineart.

Beat me there on the shipping. Still waiting on mind. Wouldn't be surprise if its not taller than Camus, as he is very tall among the rest. Taller than Aiolia quite a bit. Too bad u got a loose shoulder. Seems like the way they make these figures are prone to some defects in some of those metal hinge. My Camus was fine mostly, but one of the ankle is quite loose. So I really have to be careful when posing him, or just have him stand. Very unfortunate. But I think Shaka is cool nonetheless. Hope mine comes soon.

The one I have is an encyclopedia. Kind of thick, large format, paperback, with a big monochromatic beige colored RX-78 mug shot on white background as bookcover. Came out a few years back, with very comprehensive lineart (both color & black & white) of pretty much all the UC, MSV stuff... even some Alternate universe stuff like Wing & X. Cost kind of cheap, like $30+ for a book this packed. Picked it up at Kinokuniya long time ago. I think I saw an updated version of that same book like a year or two ago, with some added info of more recent shows. But can't really remember the full name of the book. I have the old version at home, but I am at work right now. So thats all I can recall from my memory. There are tons of Gundam books out there, but this encyclopedia one I bought seems to be the most comprehensive one, without being too pricey. Won't have info on Seed, but plenty of UC & older shows. Hope you can find it.

Not yet. Still crawling here from HLJ. Maybe in a couple weeks. Patiently waiting.

Same here. Not so much of a sense of being closed minded, but it just the way its sculpt doesn't have the fine Japanese touch like you normally find in and SOC or high end Japanese toys. It doesn't look bad, but not particularly great either, with very very little detail or panel lines found anywhere. For the price of $150, I would rather go for a SOC Zambot 3 that has far more detail in sculpt & construction.

Sorry dude. Looks like the chance for you in getting one of these is pretty slim. It is a sweepstake sort of thing. You mail in a bar code of your prevously purchased Micropet, with your name, address, age...etc. info to the given Japanese address on that link you provided, and the 100 lucky winners will get the Gold Silver version(I am assuming you get both) of Micropet! My Japanese is not very fluent. But thats the general idea.

Was Golion being edited in storyline, script & music in the Voltron incarnation? Maybe this can explain why I didn't like the show when I saw it much much younger in HK in the late 80s. The music I remember felt very non-Japanese, as if its an American cartoon. But yet I saw these huge diecast toys of it in stores that is clearly Japanese made. End up didn't like the show much, as I was too used to the Japanese flavor of all the robot animes back then. Up until this day after reading this thread, that I may realize that HK might have been broadcasting the Voltron version of Golion the whole time! Now I think of it, even the credits were in English, which was strange to me at that time. While the Dairugger VX & Albegas I watched back then is the Japanese version, just with a Chinese dub. I liked Albegas quite a bit, and the toy was very cool, having the 3 robots stacking their body parts differently to form 3 modes. Man, after all these years... I guess you can say I don't like Voltron very much if my above assumption is correct, just like I don't like Robotech.

Thanks for the awesome tip. Save me a lot on my Zeta preorder! I've only read comics of Zeta (which is a super condensed version of the story as it only has 3 volumes), but have always love the mech design & really want to watch the full TV show. Especially when many have said that its the best Gundam show yet after all these years. Almost went for the crappy HK bootleg a year or so ago, but decided to wait. Patience does pay off. And now I can get a perfect DVD set with less than $120 shipped. YAY!!

I enjoyed both Evangelion & Rahxephon TV, and don't really feel like Rahxephon is a sort of "Eva Rip-Off" like a number of people say. They just both have an apocalyptic theme with giant robots as one of the main focus in the show, and they both can get confusing towards the end of the series in their own different ways. But they are both very good shows. Eva rank a bit higher on my list as it was very original at the time it came out (1995), but Rahxephon TV is a very high quality show with beautiful designs, animations, great music, and good storytelling. Whether you will enjoy the Rahxephon TV really depends on your taste. And unlike the Eva movies, Rahxephon the movie IS a compilation of the main story in TV, so you pretty much know & saw the major events of the show. At least in Ayato & Haruka's point of view. You'll see these events in more details and more robot fights in the TV. The fights are short most of the time, but animated very nicely. And some parts of the show can get a bit confusing unless you re-watch it like a couple more times. But since you saw the movie, it kind of spelled out for you already. To me, Rahxephon is a great show with high production value, but not one of my top favorite shows. I don't mind the confusing part of the story towards the end, but I find the main character Ayato (and some sub characters as well, like Quon, Itsuki, Maya, the Commander guy...etc.) really distant & hard to relate to. And when he is the main character of the show, it doesn't grab you in as much emotionally. Haruka on the hand is great. Very down to earth, and very likable.

But on the other hand, I felt like the movie did help me to understand the big picture of the series a lot more, since I did see the TV series first. This movie can't really be seen as a stand alone to be very enjoyable, but a good suppliment material for someone who watched the TV before hand, while some story elements & character has changed a bit.

Woooow! Amazingly entertaining!!

I came across a mint Takara Slash Dog on ebay like $50 about a year or two ago, but ended up didn't get it, cause it was the time I was not that into Votoms anymore. No one even bid on the thing when auction ended. Kind of regreted it now, but oh well. Just got the regular Takara Scope Dog, & the metallic version of it as well. But always wanted a Brutish Dog more than any other Votoms design. Hope Yamato will make one then, as that would be a very easy one to pull off. Just a new arm and different color plastic.

Now that you mentioned it, is it likely that Yamato is planning on releasing a 1/12 Brutish Dog? Was there any info regarding that? I am still undecided on the 1/12 Scopedog, but would get a Brutish Dog in a heart beat. Really like the gattling arm design, but wasn't lucky enough to score a Takara Brutish Dog back then.

Think Virgo was out a like a week ago in Japan. Got a shipping confirmation from HLJ late last week. Athena actually has a full on Athena Cloth that looks really cool. Appears in the end of the Hades Chapter in manga. So don't underestimate the mighty goddess. Here is a link to the pic: Athena Cloth

Just picked one up in Kinokuniya in San Jose, CA. Cool toys. Megatron is a bit on the weak side. It got good transformation, but the proportion is kind of wacked, and parts fall off easy because they are too tiny. Prime on the other hand is great. Simple, but solid. The legs for whatever reason weights quite a bit. Thought they have diecast for a moment, but checked they didn't. Thought of buying these sometime ago, but got too lazy to hunt them down. Now they come for free. The content of this magazine issue however was not too thrilling though.