mpchi

Cool! Shaka is a great runner up. His Virgo Cloth has a full helmet too! Interesting to find out how Bandai will pull that off. Probably a very big chunk of removable hair. Wonder if it comes with 2 heads, one with eyes open & one with eyes close. It would be awesome if it does! Having the beads as accessories would be even more awesome!!!

While most of you guys gave great suggestions on how to retrieve data or backing up data, I think CaptRico is more concerned about finding Macross 7 & Outlaw Star theme songs. Sorry to hear your loss, just be more careful next time.

Heard there is some QC issues on their first run and have a major recall, stuff like loose teeth and super tight hips. A second run suppose to be due around June. Maybe you want to wait until then before spending the $200+. Heard its a really cool toy though.

Moose, The Saint Seiya Myth Cloth series is not really an update of the 'Target' figures, but more of a higher end Bandai Seiya toyline that is exclusively for Asian market, mainly Japan & Hong Kong. They are more articulated figures with diecast + chrome plastic armor parts. They cost around $35 - $50 each, with the Gold Saints more expensive than the Bronze. Read the previous posts of this thread for pics & more details. As for where to get it cheap, HLJ.com usually is the cheapest if you go for the 'snail' SAL mail. But they don't have all of the figure in stock at the moment, and you have to be really patient to save those few bucks. Otherwise, AnimeQuest.com have pretty good price for U.S. online stores, especially if you buy a few at a time as they have a flat shipping rate. They probably have most if not all of them. Dealt with them once and they ship pretty fast. ImageAnime has them too, but cost a bit more. Definitely go for Aiolia and the other upcoming Gold Saints! Then collect the Bronze if you have extra cash to burn.

Got my Aiolia today. Got to say...WOW! It has to be the best looking Seiya Myth series so far. Very nice, deep, multi-shade gold and LOTS of diecast. Other than the inner waist belt piece, front chest piece & the head mask, everything else is metal(including all the skirts, upper arm, upper leg pieces that the Bronze don't have), making Aiolia weights quite hefty for its size. Mine came with a very loose hinge(arm pit) on the chest piece, making me very disappointed for a moment. But fortunately, because of the genius design behind it, everything locks in tight once I put everything together. This time around, the chest piece has multiple locks from other armor pieces like shoulder attachment and chest front, making everything stays securely. Also, even though the design of Leo's Cloth totally closed off the waist joints, it still allows the figure to rotate its waist freely underneath. A much pleasant surprise! The only obvious flaw I find in this figure is the back skirt armor attachment, which is just a peg that allows the armor piece to swing side to side, rather than a hinge that allow it to swing back & forth. The peg seems a bit weak and you have a tendency to loosen it too much every time you try to grab the figure from the waist. And there are still occasional small scratches here & there right out of the box. But otherwise, Aiolia is truely a thing of beauty! And the Gold Cloth just looks amazing!!! You just don't see gold depicted in a diecast toy to look this good in person.

Cool pics!!! Now THAT Camus pic got the colors just right!

Got my Ikki a few days ago...finally. The way they designed the chest and shoulder armor surprised me a little. In one way, the connection of the shoulder armor to the chest(at the back of the neck) could be more secure, but seems to function okay so far. Don't like the 'screws' between the double shoulder pads though. And the prototype on the box cover obviously doesn't have that! But the shoulders are diecast for once, so I guess is a fair trade-off. I wasn't bothered by the purple color either. I didn't even notice the difference until you guys mentioned. And I loved the belt of Ikki's. Nice fit and very tight. No more loosen belt when twisting/posing the waist joint like Seiya's. My Aiolia just shipped from HLJ too. So I should get it in a few weeks. That Camus pic looks cool, but seems everything looks a bit light. The hair could be a shade or two darker, so is the light gold. It looks somewhat pale compare to Aiolia. Wonder if its just the pics, or did they actually went lighter on Camus. This line finally pics up with fewer QC problems and better upcoming line-up. Yay!

Yeah, I've heard the same thing. Looks like GGG & Betterman shares the same universe. As of the GGG Yujin figures, I got those too. The small ones(GGG, GFG, Genesic GGG) feels just like MSIA, but with looser joints and slightly less advance design, but the sculpt is cool. The DX big transformable GFG's transformation is not anime accurate(need to swap a few parts), but heck of cool and much nicer proprtioned than Takara's DX GGG. With the Goldion Hammer(accessory that sold separately), the DX GFG is one of the best looking big robot toy in my collection, with some minor design flaws here & there.

I still never get the Naruto = DBZ thing, yet I own the manga of both titles to their latest volumes in Japan as of this day... Naruto is pretty cool. With characters with a bit more depth than the DBZ's, and the story is less straight forward than obvious good vs. evil. It based heavily on the unrealistic but cool ninja techniques and packed with funny/interesting characters and big fights. Very addicting, and is most enjoyable when reading the manga without waiting for one episodes every week or two. As the events of the show really happened in a short period of time. Stretching it by watching just a little bit in a long time span is not so fun. Same thing with DBZ. Reading the manga with no bad dub or long wait for weekly episodes is the way to go. DBZ is getting old, but was really cool a decade ago when I read it. Naruto on the other hand feels very refreshing with good story & fun characters & packed with lots of action. Making it just as addicting if not more than DBZ even for older audiences other than just young teenagers.

Man, my co-worker forwarded me a big French Saint Seiya site with some pics of the new movie, showing Seiya & Saori(Athena) naked in a scene! Not in a perverted way, and it looks like its in their final battle, but it was quite a shock for me. From those couple screenshots, either the private parts were left undrawn or covered by hair or cropped off from screen. But Seiya never had nudity before as I recall. And this time we at least see Athena's butt cheek, if not more. I guess time has sure changed...

Got a few dud here. Kubricks(early ones) - my cool looking Votoms set plays like crap. The PVC armors were so flimsy and thin that it bends so much and doesn't even stay on the body. It got really cool guns, so do my other S.W.A.T. guys, but guess what? None of them can hold their weapon, period. I am not even talking about not holding it securely. I really don't get Medicom designing the weapons that can't be hold by the figures...don't know if they finally learn from this mistake after years as I am not wasting any more money on these. HCM Z Gundam - Thought it was really cool when saw it about a decade ago when start collecting Jap. toys. Cost me like $50+(which was quite a bit for me back then). Turned out its a blocky brick, and the transformation is not so cool. Without as much knowledge about toy collectingback then, I still couldn't find much redeemable qualities in it. If I remember correctly, it has been sitting in the box in my room for at least a decade now without seeing the light even once after I put it away. MSIA Gundam ver.1 - Weird looking head, skinny sculpt, arms & legs falling all over the place. If it wasn't the only available Gundam MSIA back then, I wouldn't have got it. Now I just use it as back-up scrap parts for toy mod. Seiya Cloth Myth series - I love these figures! But they have so many flaws in the execution that it really bugs me. The concept of these are cool. A new generation of Saint Seiya figures to go with the revival of the series, with a much more anime accurate sculpt & have diecast removeable armor/cloth like the old originals. But the first 3 release(Seiya, Shiryu, and Hyoga) all plagued with some or all of these wobbly armor, loose metal hinges, loose pegs, loose ankles, scratched paint, very rough diecast finish, big heads, not so anime accurate facial features, stupid designs that hurts articulations, belt buckle falling off, hands too hard to swap...the list goes on. Its not until the 4th release Shun that I no longer need to pull out my super glue & tiny screw drivers to attempt to fix something. As if Bandai is totally using all the early releases as a test beds, rather than doing that before hand to ensure customers getting quality products. But with all this said and the disappointment they came with, I still love these figures.

Just got my Shun from the mail, and I have to say it is the most satisfying Saint Cloth Myth figure yet! NO MAJOR TECHNICAL FLAWS at all!! YAY!!! No more wobbly chest armor, falling belt buckle, loose head mask, loose ankle joints...etc. Shun does hurt a little on the poseability on the waist (bend forward) due to the cloth design, and the neck due to the same hair design as Hyoga (but a little better than Hyoga though) but is fantastic overall. The double jointed shoulder armor is awesome, making the seemingly very big shoulder armor very poseable and almost never in the way. The 2 pairs of nebula chains (one short, one long, all diecast) and the circular soft plastic one (chain defense) is really great! Making it so fun to pose with. Visually, Shun looks really good in proprtion too. May not be as cool looking as Hyoga, but the most accurate looking for the toys so far. If any of you may have been disappointed by some of the previous release, this is the saving grace! Let's hope that Ikki would be even better. Unfortunately, as Bandai fixed many technical issues on these figures, the QC (paint job particular) hasn't improved much. My Shun comes with more than 10 small paint chips on diecast in various pieces. Places like the green hair (close to the swapable hair piece), and left arm armor has a big enough area with not enough paint, making the plastic/chrome show through quite a bit. I wouldn't even have used those parts if I were a worker in their China toy factory assembling these figures...But other than the paint job, Shun is fantastic! Go get it now!

Yeah, didn't look that great... Looks more like one of those not so good looking cosplay robot outfit. Just a lot bigger. And the sad part is that it already cost the guy $1000 bucks...

Man! Just checked Software Sculptors site and found out the release date on DVD vol.3. Its 6/8/04!!!! I am pretty excited, as I might end up getting the DVDs afterall, just to relive the cool yet cheesy 80s robot goodness. But that is taking A LOT of time to release another volume! Volume 2 came out like August 2003?! So there are 49 episodes total? Are the DVDs really worth it? That is a pretty big investment.

I used to love the show when I was a kid. And happy to see them make a few appearance in the recent import Super Robot War games. But when I picked up the VHS tape of the first volume last year and watched it again, it didn't aged too well. I don't mind the 80s anime style, and the chessy Ganbare! stuff. In fact I dig all those. But the fights on the first 5 episodes were so short that it always take just a couple hits and a couple of combinations to end them all. Wish there is a lot more dramatic good fights in there. If so, then the DVDs would be worth it. The episodes almost always follow this pattern in Episode 1-5: Devil Satans hit Rom once. Rom: They are too powerful! Kenryu!! Devil Satans: He combined with Kenryu guys! Let's combine!!! Devil Satan 6 hit Rom once. Rom: I can't be defeated like this. Vikanfu!!!!!!! Kenryu combines with Vikanfu(with cool music). Vikanfu hit Devil Satan 6 once. Devil Satan 6: He's too powerful, let's retreat!! Narrator: Ganbare Rom! Ganbare Kenryu!! Ganbare Vikanfu!!! Do the later episodes get a lot better drama wise? Its been too long since I watched it, like more than a decade ago.

Don't like either. I am a big anime fan and is always drawn towards Japanese character designs. While some of the environment in Xenosaga Ep1 is pretty cool, the proportion of the characters are quite odd when presented in 3D form. The face may look cute on the ladies, but their bodies looked too small for their age, yet they have very well-developed chest. The men on the other side have almost too realistic proportions, like the begining FMV with the archeologist, the workers, and many male characters you encounter in game. Character designs really looked out of place when all put together. The pics of Ep2 seem a bit more appropriate, but really is a wrong move to change the design that drastically when it is a trilogy game. Very very bad. As if seeing Peter Jackson recast almost everybody in Lord of the Rings in Two Towers..... I love Xenogears, and love the 2D character designs the most out of these. Heck, I even got the Japanese artbook. With the style and 2D presentation, those designs totally work! And I thought the director of Xenogears were not happy with how Xenogears turned out, so that he can remake the true form of his game. Turned out Xenosaga is not even good enough to last 10 hours for me. It did bored me quite a bit until I stopped. On the other hand, I played through Xenogears and loved it a lot.

I really like this series, one of my favorites. Its story may not have a whole lot of plot twists and surprises, but it really depicts the characters' emotions in minute details, especially when facing tragic events one after another. It also portrays the imperfections in pretty much all characters. Showing them making wrong choices, doing wrong things for the wrong reasons, or just chickened out when they were supposed to be brave. Makes them very believable. And yes, the ending wasn't as depressing. Rather, all the events in between. Unlike some of you that find the earlier episodes boring, I think the storytelling is genius. Just the very first episode has tell us A LOT about both Chise & Shuji. And none of the following events later on were unnecessary. They only deepens our knowledge on the main characters, and the people around them. Even though some of their friends & classmates plays a smaller role with very few dialogues, you can totally feel what they were going through. Down to the very character that you barely know his/her name. If this is not great storytelling, I don't know what else. The pacing is slow, but very appropriate. Definitely not boring for me. Heck, I was so glued to the series that I have to finish the whole thing in one seating until 3 or 4am in the morning.

Guys, one note on Cygnus Hyoga. For those who have him, beware of the back of his round shoulder armor pieces. I occasionally pose him here and there, doing Aurora Thunder Attack and all. But not until today did I realized that the shoulder piece's inner edge at the back often rub agains the diecast chest hinge area if you are not careful, causing those chrome on the plastic to chip and crack(not the plastic, but just the chrome on top). Be really careful with that unless you don't mine yours having some 'battle damage'. Too bad i didn't realize it until its too late. Which totally deepened my 'love-hate' relationship with these guys. And once again I doubted if I should stick with investing so much $$ on all the upcoming Gold Saints......But minutes later after fiddled with the 3 Bronze I have, they just reminded me again how cool they are, regardless of all those flaws in them. Come to think of it, its pretty funny to go through all these emotions as a toy collector. As of that pics, there's actually a scene in the anime that was pretty close in the Sanctuary Chapter,

Cool. I was thinking of doing that, but the Walmart closest by is about 10-15 miles away, while ToysRUs and Target is about 5 miles in the opposite direction. If I choose to go Walmart & they sold out, the waste of gas will probably get me closer to $24.99. So I went with ToysRUs, and luckily, they got a lot, so I was able to pick a pretty nice looking one out of the bunch. About the quality in general, they tend to vary from figure to figure. From the few that I've seen and the one that I own, the tightness of the joints vary from one to the other. On mine, the elbows, hips, and knees are very tight, but the left hip is a bit looser than the right. But the couple other ones I've handled, the hips and knees are looser than mine, while all the elbows seem just as tight. One has a neck that can't pose straight, while another has a very tight ab joint. Fingers were fine on all, with some looser than the others. I personally prefer tight than loose, as it hold poses better and last longer, but you need to work on the poses more each time. The hips of mine are so tight that my co-worker thought they can't even move. I guess you can't ask for too much when it comes to $24.99 or less.

Can't help you with the plates there, as I've never seen any seller selling the plates only. And most of the figures that have the HK plates are from HK sellers showing up on ebay. I would love to get the plates too, but figured it will take too much effort to hunt them down everytime I get a new release. Is the plate diecast? That would be sweet. On the note of Shun, looks like he got the most articulated shoulder since the shoulder armor leave the arms a lot of room to move around. And his Nebula Chain looks cool. But I probably won't get my hands on mine for a while till HLJ ships it with my Ikki.

Nerv. If the problem is bad enough, you can always exchange for another one even if you have opened it. No worries there.

Not quite sure if Toy Biz will make other hero characters, as this is part of the "Spiderman 2" movie toy line. But who knows. If the reaction to this 18" figure is really great (which sure does from MW ), they might just make more.

Just minor correction. DVD Vol. 2 of Season 2 is not out yet. Its release date should be 3/16 from AnimeOnDVD, if they are correct. I like the show and watch the DVDs. It is not one of the very best shows I've seen, as the animation, designs, storytelling...etc. are good, but not top notch. But it has a lot of style, and a nice blend of giant robots & Gothem City, with some mysterious elements of the 'lost memory' thing going on. I'll probably rate it a B+ or an A-, depending on the ending of season 2. (Yeah, only have season 1 & the first DVD of season 2)

Do watch out for sore fingertips if you play too much with Spidey. You really need to work on some of the tight joints for posing and the texture on the Spidey suit can make your fingers worse after a while. I do find that this guy is very stable for many standing/action poses, mainly due to the good weight balance, tight clicking/ratchet joints, and great articulation. The big feet helps too.

Just got back from ToysRUs with this thing. AMAZING! After opening it and fiddle with it a bit, its an awesome toy! Very tight clicking joints, so tight that I almost hurt my fingers a little to break-in the joints a bit. Really huge, really heavy for a plastic toy, and amazing posebility. So amazing its beyond believable. The paint looks good overall, with some minor overspray in a number of spots. The tightness of the joints are not perfectly even in some case, like the left hip is tighter than the right...etc. But the toy feels very solid overall. Man! This thing for $24.99 at ToysRUs & Target, its just too good of a deal. Do yourself a favor & go get one now!