Anubis

They'll probably still release the Armor only, and the 1J+armor. Releasing the CF might convince more people to buy the armor too. Really have an armored flight group (or squadron in certain members' cases )

Hell, they're still highlighting the vaporware VF-0S on Yamato's site. This is really quite a surprise. I was starting to think they weren't going to release the CF, but if HLJ is taking pre-orders, I'll believe it. If they weren't sure then there would have been a page for it, but no preorder button.

I couldn't believe my eyes, but look what's listed on HLJ: 1/48 VF-1A Production Color Sweet sweet sweet sweet sweet. Claims August release.

Bionic Eyes! Artificial retinas designed to help people without the right photodetectors. Jeepers creepers, bionic peepers

Comments: Poor Anakin...I mean Shinn. Have you considered Lunamaria or Meyrin? Now, does Kira use Freedom as a instant bomb or does he show us his l33t skillz to take Destroy out of the fight? And Stellar.....a pretty and adorable Four-wannabe....Is Mu, I mean Neo going to make the impossible possible? Dammit, so is Dullindal really the bad guy or what? Shinn is definately shaping up to be Kira's main foe after all. Would be interesting to see Shinn fight Kira and do some damage to him for once. Someone has to be able to take kira head-on. They have Kira a step above everyone right now. If Shinn swears vengeance and then draws from that then that could give him the focus he needs, in a truly Darth Vader kind of way. Another possibility: Mwu vs Kira. That would be awesome too, but far less likely. Mwu/Neo is destined to fight Rey.

The "Luna Custom" paintscheme looks good on the Force Impulse actually. With that "variable phase shift" they could probably do it too if they wanted. Someone on Animesuki has a PERFECT Athrun avatar after last episode's pitiful performance.

I might be the minority here, but I'm far more disgusted with Kira and the AA's actions right now than Shinn's. Shinn needs a boot us ass and some serious disipline, I fully agree there, especially the next time he talks back to Arthur during a mission briefing, but in 28 he was doing his job. With Athrun pissing around with Kira, Shinn was the one who 1) Destroyed the Abyss. Not disable but DESTROY. First V-fin KILL goes to Shinn. 2) Immediately grab the Force Sillouette, recharge, and engage the CF's. 3) When the Orb Fleet beared down on the Minerva, Shinn took care of the orb fleet so the Minerva wouldn't go down. 4) Did not let Freedom scare him off, berserk mode or not. Managed to surprize Kira, which doesn't happen often anymore. I don't like how he took the pot shot at Cagalli in the beginning at all, but from his standpoint the situation had to be pretty annoying. The AA was the last thing he wanted to see after their interferance last time, in which the Minerva suffered casualties. I think Talia was within her rights to declare the AA an enemy target. Athrun got pwned far more easily than he should have let himself. He has not been that useful lately. That Gundam was kind of wasted. In the last moments when the carrier was bearing down on the Minerva, what did Kira do: Shoot REY'S remaining arm off and one of the Tristans, as if the Minerva wasn't screwed over enough already. Boo hoo the orb fleet went down. I'm not sorry at all. They tried their damnest to destroy the Minerva, and while Shinn's berserk mode is sure to cause some problems later, for now it saved the Minerva. Nobody has said a word about the Minerva's plight on the AA, with the Minerva getting ambushed by those numbers, it's all Orb, Orb, Orb, wah. Cagalli's powerless pleas and incessant crying over things going so wrong have really weakened her character, she has annoyed me this entire series. If I was Athrun I'd be giving Meer a call, or Luna. The Orb fleet was obviously going to get used and suffer losses the moment they joined the alliance, and it is sheer arrogance on the AA's part that they would be able to simply stop the fight with their method. I really hope the Minerva gets at least one more Gouf Ignited or something when they get to port, especially since now they have to replace the Saviour and Luna's Zaku. Rey and Luna having to fight from the deck made things a lot harder. The Minerva has suffered much more damage now than the AA suffered in Seed's finale. As for toys, I got the only 1/100 I wanted already: the Sword Impulse GQ. I'll get the Cosmic Region Destiny (or maybe HCM Pro). Zakus and Goufs depend on which ones come out, be it HCM Pro or Cosmic Region. The HCM pro Zaku Warrior is really nice. That's about it for Destiny figures for me out of the current MS roster. I still don't like the Freedom II at all. Next episode looks like we'll get some good Crueset info, maybe something on Rey. I'm very much looking forward to that.

I have one of the small scale MR Vader lightsabers.

I ordered a Kampfer from Amazon this morning too.

Gouf Flight Type Zeonography! Don't know which one yet though. 3rd Cosmic region appears to be the Destiny Gundam.

He probably meant they ha a MG strike and were trying to charge $82. That would be pretty nuts.

Those two new names are frigging stupid. I love seed destiny, but the mecha names have become stupid. Strike Freedom is dumb. Nu-Freedom or Super Freedom was way better. It really does bring a connotation that it has strike features. At least it's not Noble Freedom or something worse. Infinite Justice just sounds retarded. Athrun should be too embarrased to pilot it. Much worse than the poor guys that have to say "Ghoon Launching". Having a Destroy Gundam is bad enough. Back to Shinn for a moment. After Stellar dies I was figuring Shinn would have a sad period, actually cry for once, mope for an episode or two, and then reflect what happened and why he couldn't save her. Actually review how he's been doing things. He probably would be a bit more unstable for a period though out of guilt, but then come through it.

I could kind of see it actually. Rey and Dullindal sitting Shinn down and convincing him to join them. The plot could go in any direction. Shinn may get some focus and start to have normal seed modes after he fights Destroy and tragically has to kill Stellar. That might make him think and focus more intead of just going nuts and destroying stuff. After he has a sad, sobering moment after killing her, maybe he'll calm down more and think about the way he does things. Give him a wake-up call. Nothing he's done yet had aversely affected himself yet, so he hasn't seen anything wrong with what he's done. He's sure to get even more priase now that he just downed the orb fleet, giving him a bigger head. I still prefer Shinn's angst in this show to Kira's crying from the first series. It's interesting having a flawed hero this time. Shinn's a good guy, and tries to do what he thinks is the right thing, but he has too much anger him still. Maybe he just needs to tap Luna. That might help him a little. It worked for Kira. Fllay gave him a little "support" when he needed it and he was able to keep going, otherwise he might have had a bigger breakdown. They have added a Luna/Stellar/Shinn triangle in the ending credits. Back to conspiracies, it's Shinn AND Rey that take and release Stellar. So who's idea is it going to be really? Either Rey suggest to Shinn they let her go, or Shinn goes to Rey for help and Rey agrees to help. It would be beneficial to the string-pullers to release Stellar so the EA can put her right back into combat, since the EA needs the extendeds to fight. Losing one is ok, but they just lost Auel, leaving only Sting right now. They need Stellar back. Shinn and Rey release Stellar, Talia scolds them but conveniently lets them off the hook, mission complete. Shinn remains oblivious for now focused on the fact he just saved Stellar's life and not the repercussions of doing so.

That episode was great. Hoshi was a little black widow there, wasn't she? Nice to see more Tholians as well, since they never showed them at all outside of TOS, except for the mention of them occasionally but that was it.

Athrun's going to be pissed. So Shinn doesn't turn around and pwn Kira? Or is that next episode?

I thought that was the great barrier from Star Trek V

Couldn't watch it cause UPN here gave a baseball game. Have to see it tomorrow.

Wow I had no idea this thread turned into a Voltes vs Combattler thread!

Current ramblings going around point out that maybe S-Freedom and K-Justice are not made by ZAFT. It would be kinda sad if those 2 got stolen from ZAFT after 3 MSs already got stolen. Some signs are pointing to the Clyne group and/or ORB (first there are no numberings on the crests, then we have this "Others" section on the official site). I'm inclined to say Lacus learns of Destiny and Providence II while at PLANT, works her magic and bang, 2 new MSs. Rey's connection to Le Crueset and Dullindal is quite hard to deny. So the question is, who is Rey working for? Who is he loyal to? Is he working for Minerva's interests or someone elses? That's a very interesting point about the Super Freedom and Knight Justice. Thanks for bringing that up. No v-fin markings (that are visible as of current drawings). The V's are also quite different from any of the other ZAFT gundams, including the Destiny. The "others" part is also notable. Orb has yet to build their own Gundams, though they did help the EA make theirs in the first show. So it would be about time to make their own. Good possibility there. Lacus+Cagalli influence could do a lot with Morgenrate if they could get back in Orb. IF they were Zaft-made it would suck for the S-Freedom to get stolen from Zaft again, and it's prety clear just from ep 27's intro that Dullindal probably won't be very keen on simply giving Kira another Gundam. My first guess before was that Lacus and Andy go mobile suit shopping while they are at PLANT and come back with the two upgrades for Kira and Athrun (at least Kira's). Having Orb make them would be a nice twist, and having Orb be on the good guys team again would help since there's fishy stuff going on on both sides of the line between EA and ZAFT. Again. The ending also shows only the new Providence, Destiny, and Impulse together in the Minerva pilot shot (nothing for Athrun yet since Saviour gets totalled). No K-Justice could be a sign that it's not part of the batch. If so, why wouldn't it be there when the Providence is there already? Very interesting point on the Orb possibility. One more thing for Rey: He got a comm, and then he's shown talking to Talia, then all of a sudden Rey and Shinn are heading for the Extended Research Lab. He's getting the comm messages, and then relays info to the captain. As for Gaia/Chaos/Abyss: I really think those were made specifically to BE stolen. Neo's 3 extendeds were already trained to start-up and pilot those specific models, and were led to the Gundams by ZAFT soliders, who then let them in the hangar and took off leaving the extendeds to kill everyone inside and make off with the trio. They could have been in the Minerva already like the Impulse if they were slated for the Minerva anyway. The 3 gundams kind of leveled the new start level of the playing field. New CF mobile suits, and even-standing Gundams to start with for each side. Their theft was kind of the kickoff to the big game, and then the Junius 7 group (also puppets) was sent off to to their mission. The chessboard in front of Dullindal is kind of a statement in a way.

I paid $90 for my Hoover and it works great.

Finally got my GQ Sword Impulse yesterday. I love it, it really is worth every penny. I do have to say from ep. 27 I'm relieved that it was the Captain that sent Luna out to monitor Athrun. That was getting stalker creepy if it was just her doing it herself. Now we know there was a reason. Also, Dullindal is looking at this monitor with surprize surprize: Specs on the Destroy Gundam in the upper right. Here's a screen grab, though it's not the best quality view of the screen. I do have a threory on this: If Dullindal is involved with these Logos guys then it makes perfect sense for them to send him the specs on the new giant Gundam that's going to be trashing everything. This will allow Dullindal to see to the design of Gundams specifically to counter the EA's new Gundam and whatever else the have in store, hence the Destiny, Super Freedom, Knight Justice, and the new Providence. After the new gundams roll out, the EA will go back to their drawing board and come up with even more models. Thus continuing the cycle with each side producing more and more desgins to counter the other. Once again: dance puppets, dance. Dullindal knows exactly what's coming but of course won't say anything because it would spoil the game. I also think Talia's might be in on at least some of it too. She has a relationship with Dullindal, she happens to have the newest ship class with the remaining 2 ZAFT Gundams on board already, she's going to have 2 or 3 of the new ZAFT Gundams and she has been assigned to FAITH. She was nicely surprized when Athrun gave her the order and the pin, but she might have known that was coming too. Her being assigned to FAITH effectively makes the Minerva autonomous by association and under Dullindal himself. She is in a very prime position right now. To what end-goal that could be is anybody's guess. Also in turn, where are Rey's communications coming from? He could be a 3rd in on it, which that part wouldn't be that surprising really. I also want to know what that is on the bottom left of his screen, I'm not sure what to make of that.

Looks awesome. Can't wait.

Bandai America and CN really screwed up this one. Zero hype, pitiful time slot for Seed, crappy relewase schedule for toys. They didn't even try. They released models in small quantities, charged too much for them, and they released crappy figures for Seed. Disgraceful. CN is also to blame for the crappy editing of the show, the stupid timeslot, and the pitiful exposure. If goddam BEYBLADE can still have a place on the shelves, yet they can't milk Gundam's marketing potential, they have the biggest collection of morons in charge imaginable.

Well, looking at the ep preview for 28, it appears that the Sword Sillouette might just be Shinn's preferred SEED-mode mode equipment choice.

Holy crap that Astray is gorgeous. That just rocks.