mpchi

Woooooooooooow! I am not too big of a Spidey fan, but this is too good to pass. I always want a nice super poseable Spiderman figure, but never end up buying one somehow, but this sure dismissed my doubt. Target, here I come! Later guys.

Not the same thing in anime as well, as Shiryu & Ikki was always the tall guy out of the 5 Bronze, and Hyoga is always in the middle, while Shun & Seiya are the shortest. But looks like the numbers doesn't totally reflect that. Gold Saints are supposed to be taller as they are older in general. Come to think of it, if Seiya and company are only around 13 to 15 years old, they can still grow taller. But I do find the age in general is a little too young, as their voices and look don't quite reflect their age. More like 17-19 years old, and the Gold Saints at least early 20s if not older. I just can't imagine a 13, 14-year-old can act as mature as Seiya & company does, being so loyal, just, and hard working....I know, they are just fictional characters.

Hmmm....... I think I slowly get the deal why Seiya's head is so big, so as Shiryu's. Seems like Bandai had it all planned out from the beginning, changing the proportion/height of different characters by only extending the legs, while the head, torso and probably arms remains the same so that they can reuse the same mold, also assuring the Cloths can fit interchangeably between different characters, like Seiya wearing Sagitarius, Hyoga wear Aquarius...etc. And since Seiya is one of the smallest character, his head looks exceptionally big. Once you take off his head piece with just the hair, he looks a bit better proportion wise. Ikki looks cool with Leo on.

Man, I somehow always end up having this Love-Hate relationship with these Seiya figures. I just received Shiryu & Hyoga from the mail yesterday, and was very excited to open them and put them together. But 30 minutes later, I find myself with 2 more cool looking figures that have a bunch of QC/design issues. Both has different eyes from the cover pictures, just like Seiya did. But Luckily, Shiryu actually looked better. Their ankles improved, not super loose like Seiya, but the connections of Shiryu's chest and shoulder pieces are not too intuitive. They don't even put any grooves on the pegs to prevent them from falling off, and one of the hinges on the chest piece are quite loose, making the chest armor wobble around all the time. Hyoga on the other hand has the improved chest design that actually secures the chest armor by the front piece, but again the pegs are so small and no grooves that it pops out easy, especially when posing Aura Thunder Attack, even with the shoulders pulled out. The buckle on Hyoga's belt is more of a joke, as it fall off on its own, let alone securing the piece. And Hyoga's neck joint is much more limited than the others, and the shape of his hair doesn't help, making his head can't turn sideway more than 20 degrees or so. I got so frustrated at one point that I almost consider cancelling all my preorders and stop collecting the series....almost. But as I posed them side by side with Seiya, they do look super cool. I do have to spread out Shiryu's shoulder armor more like a V shape to give him a cooler, broader shoulder for him to look right. His head is pretty big, like others, but his hair is cool. Hyoga looks good, but his neck articulation really hurt his poses. And I have to bust out my super glue to thicken some of those tiny pegs, while I may have to live with the wobbly chest & loose metal hinges. To me, it does look like all the Bronze Saints are still the test bed of this line, since they could have eliminate Shiryu's wobbly chest if they designed it like Hyoga's. But looks like they couldn't think of that early enough. And many of those pegs were not very well thought out or sized right either. Hope these issues get resolved by the time we get to the Gold Saints. Excited still, but quite disappointed at the same time.

Yeah, I think Hyoga looks the best, while Shun has the most anime accurate proportion. Some legs do look slightly longer than others though.

I kind of felt the same with RahXephon. Its a good show with great art, animation, and an interesting story. But something just didn't click for me to consider it as one of my favorites. But definitely worth checking out. As of Last Exile, how was the last few episodes got messed up? Can someone explain a little without giving out spoilers, as I haven't seen the show, but was about to check out the DVDs. Thanks.

Keith & Panon, Can you elaborate a bit on the quality of this Korean DVD set you mentioned? How is the English subtitle, picture quality, video quality, chapter breaks...etc? Like a lot of you guys, I have been waiting for the R1 DVD release for years. But if this set is a legit Korean release with top notch quality (not like those crappy VHS rip Engrish HK bootleg), it might just end my wait. Its All Region right? Is DVD Asian.com a good place to buy from? Really appreciate your feedback.

I am very excited about these figures too. Have Seiya with me, while waiting for my Shiryu & Hyoga to show up in the mail. The rest are all pre-ordered. There are quite a few flaws in the Seiya (Huge head, very loose ankles, big obvious chips on plastic chrome, hands too hard to change, robotic looking elbow, wobbly belt, very rough finish on diecast parts...etc.). But I still like these more and more as I've wanted a cool Seiya collection for more than a decade, and this is as close as it gets. Just hope Bandai will improve the quality on the upcoming ones. So the Shiryu figure is actually taller than Seiya? That's great. With their heads so big in general, having Shiryu as short as Seiya wouldn't help one bit.

No particular order: Macross (TV + DYRL) Maison Ikkoku Rurouni Kenshin OVA GaoGaiGar (TV + Final) Saint Seiya (TV + OVA + Movies) Cowboy Bebop (TV + Movie) Evangelion (TV + Movie) Initial D (All stages) Gundam 0079 Kotestsu Jeeg

As far as I can tell, you need no adapter what so ever. I don't remember any PS2 needs adapter. Just a power cord that comes with it. I do own a Jap. PS2(one of the early models) & a U.S. PS2, and they work just the same. Just plug & play.

U.S. Bandai Saint Seiya figures Just picked up the Seiya 8" from Target today. Good stuff. The figure is very well made. Articulations is very good, but really wished they had a ball joint on the neck & a double jointed elbow for better moving range. But other than that, the figure can still strike some dynamic poses, especially on the legs. Other than the chest armor & the helmet, which are both a little loose, all armor pieces snap on nice & tight, with no worries any of them will fall off. The shapes are overall very nicely sculpted too, without looking bulky or clunky like the old Seiya figures or plastic kit. Even the skirt is consist of 4 plastic chrome plates attached onto the rubbery waist belt with flexible tabs, allowing a bit more room for posing on the hip with the armor on. The helmet is the only piece that looks a little big (too wide) on frontal view. But the sculpt is very good nonetheless because it looks dead on like the anime on 3/4 view & side view. Its only because of the removable helmet aspect that limits its width, unlike in the anime where they always cheat on drawing the helmet much small than it really has to be. For collector perfectionists, there might be a couple things that sticks out more than they should, like the hinges on the side of the chest armor, the hinges on the back of the helmet, and the 2 big ball joint sticks that stick out on the back if you prefer to have the wings off (more anime accurate). But as an action figure & a toy, it really has a well balance of functionality & aesthetics which both a 5-year-old & a 25-year-old can appreciate. With its 8" height & beautiful shiney chrome armor, this thing really makes a nice presence on your toy shelf. And for only $14.99, this is definitely worth it! Great for budget Seiya collectors, or great action figure collectors in general. Can't wait the Sagitarius Seiya to come out! I have only seen Seiya, Shiryu, & Ikki so far. While Seiya looks the best out of the three because of the better face sculpt, the other two looks very good too on the overall proportion. But the eyes on Shiryu doesn't look that hot, while the eyes of Ikki looks down right funny (looks like he's falling asleep). So when you are picking one up, try to pick one up in person and compare the paint jobs if possible. The eyes are the area that always go wrong

Did everybody take a good look on the booklet? Tons of info! Talked about how the G1 Prime/Convoy was the #17 of the Takara Diaclone robot toy series way before the Transformer franchise was born. It also went through lots of info on how Prime started in the TV series, died in The Movie, and other cameo appearances in different U.S. & Japanese TF shows. Also pretty funny is that, when they tried to tackle the abilities & stats of Prime, even Takara don't know exactly what to based on as there are info of Prime being 36 meter long in truck mode, but we all know that that's way too long. He also shoots lasers from the eyes, flies in robot mode quite often, yet needed to borrow a rocket pack to fly at times. He even flied in truck mode(yes, truck mode) once. Talk about "More Than Meets Teh Eyes" LOL Wonder what the director of the U.S. TV show was smoking. This booklet is really a nice surprise. Not as fancy looking as the SOC booklets, but packed with very good toy pics, some illustrations, info, & articles. Got to love that illustration towards the end with all the Primes/Convoys together. Wish the pic was a little bigger though. Very nice stuff, and kudos to Takara again!

For what I can tell, there ain't much difference other than the number of head lasers you have, other than that, its mostly just for looks. At least its true between all VF-1A,J,S,D. The main different ones are VF-4(different feel & ammo), Elintseeker (limited types of ammo), & VT-1(very limited types of ammo). And you get all these without getting any S rank

I got the TOUCH! I got the POWER!! YAY!!!!! Finally arrived. And I am still in awe... This toy is simply amazing. Too amazing. The way the hands retracts with the flip out panel, genius! Now that I have my hands on it, I wonder why Hasbro needs to shortened the smokestacks. The toy is so heavy, they should first worry about if any kids start using these bashing people's or babies' heads! I even pinched the skin of my hand a little by accident when transforming it the first time. To market this thing to kids, I really don't know.... <_< There are a couple things that may worry me. The waist joint that flip the torso backwards when transforming to truck mode seems very sturdy when new, but don't know how well it wears after numerous of transformation. Since the upper torso has a lot of weight, it would be real bad for that waist joint to get loose, turning MPConvoy to Floppy Convoy. I also wish that the front/back rotation ratchet joints of the hips are stronger. Its very strong rotating sideways, but not so when rotating front to back. As the legs are very heavy, there are moments that the joints can't hold the pose well when I was trying to pose some action poses. It is by no means loose at all, but somehow not as strong. The sideway hip & the knee joints are really strong & sturdy, same as the rotating waist. And love all those hydraulics too, even have some on the wrists. Also, wish the hand can hold the guns a little more firm, as they fall off kind of easy since no tabs or pegs to lock down the handle. But overall, this is a VERY awesome toy. Transformers were never among my most favorite pieces in my robot collection, but this MPConvoy might change it all. A masterpiece no less. My wait has ended

NICE. Man! That is just too much! My GF doesn't buy me toys, at least not the kinds we collect here, mainly because I told her not to. She doesn't make a lot, and I don't want her to spend that much money on toys for me either, especially risk buying something that I don't really need. But I like showing her SOME (Yup. Only some , otherwise I'll be in trouble ) of the cool toys I got recently at the time. She is not into robot anime, and have a hard time telling the difference between Macross & Mazinger, but she likes some of my toys sometimes, as long as I didn't spend too much on them. Which is cool. She does get me small cute things though, which I happen to like as well.

.........my MPConvoy didn't show up today. It was sitting in a UPS warehouse less than 20 miles away, yet I waited the entire day (just happen to be staying home) but still no UPS truck showed up... I guess there is always hope for tomorrow. Man, I haven't been anticipating for the UPS truck like this for a very long time. What a torture.

Yeah, I didn't even try to get an S rank after a while. It really demands a very high score, and I feel like it may take the fun out of it if I keep trying too hard over & over each stage just to unlock another VF-1. I would say just enjoy the great game without killing yourself on the rank.

Woow. That was a lot of editing done in the domestic release, and all of them are real funny parts too.

Game (in order of favorites): Symphony Y's 95 (If you can find it, pinnacle masterpiece of videogame music) Seiken Densetsu Sound Collections (Awesome orchestral experience you'll never forget) Initial D Special Stage OST (Have huge selection of eurobeat songs from the anime show{33 songs I believe} in the price of one, best bang for the buck if you haven't got some of the anime CD releases before) Wild Arms 2 OST (OST & Orchestra tracks all in one, very nice stuff) Xenogears OST (Great stuff) Chrono Trigger OST (Kind of low tech on the sound quality because of the SNES based game, but great music nonetheless) Unlimited Saga OST (Heavy orchestra on Disc 1, Heavy techno on disc 2, have beautiful tracks with some fillers here & there) Check this SoundtrackCentral site out. I used to go there all the time when I collect a lot of game soundtracks. Got great reviews & some samples. I believe it has an anime section too.

TOMORROW might be the day when my MPConvoy arrives!!! I have been checking the UPS update every single day to see where it is at. LOL. It is now within a couple cities range, so should be here by tomorrow. YAY!!! I haven't been anticipating a TF toy this much for a long time...........actually.....ever in my life.

They actually have a domestic Miramax release already? How did the film got butchered? I watched the HK version a couple years ago, but would like to find out how bad the US release was. Even co-workers of mine who never touch HK movies cracks up so bad on this one.

3 weeks in general to Bay Area, California. I rarely get any damage on the package too ( lucky ). But its always the mysterious processing time of HLJ that keeps me guessing time after time.

Cheaper in Japan for sure, but not a whole lot. You can basically check the price in places like HLJ. Toys are sold at that standard price through out Japan. So if the VF-1J is lets say 19800yen, then its 19800yen everywhere. So you basically save on the shipping & import mark-up. There are toys stores in Japan that does go lower than that standard 19800yen, maybe like a 10-15% discount sometimes (seen very often on ads in the back section of HobbyJapan mag). If you happen to find those shops, then you'll save a bit more. But remember, both VF-1J w/FP and the MP Prime are big items with big box. Make sure you have room for them & don't mind carrying them around for a while.

That is pretty common. Yamato's stickers are not the best, in fact, kind of sucks. But part of the reason why they don't stay is the finish of the toy's surface, making very little contact with the glue on the stickers. A good number of people purchase custom stickers made by people like Takatoys, which is more sticky & thinner, but takes more work as they are not pre-cut like the Yamato's. As for the 1/48s, the sticker quality is more or less the same, but since the sticker size in general is bigger, they stays on a bit better than the 1/60s. But you can still peel off some by accident.

Woooooooow! Great pics! I didn't know it was THAT much plastic for 12800yen! Now that I actually see the correct scale comparison, 12800yen may not seem to be that much out of the line. It is still very expensive for a non-transformable plastic toy, but with its sheer size & presence, I may have to re-consider..... They sure don't look THAT big in the movie though LOL