protogarland

1/48 = 2 1/60 (v.1) = 1

Beginning this Friday at SF's New People. http://www.newpeopleworld.com/films/films-3-2010/ Who's going?

Johnny Winters (aka Yahagi Shogo) was voiced by the same guy who did Sean Philips from the Robotech Masters segment. Lightning sounds like he was voiced by the same guy who did Johnathan Wolf from Robotech New Generation. Armstrong was voiced by the guy who did Khyron and Scott Bernard. That's about as much as I can remember right now.

If you are asking if it can assume a "guardian" configuration, yes it can. I got it into guardian in the mid-way point of transforming it from battloid to fighter.

I believe Feb. 2009 is the red beta followed by the Green. From the instruction booklet included with my unit, the characters to be used on the red and green are Annie and Lunk respectively.

My beta fighter arrived today. I did a full-cycle transformation once. I am happy to report that the thing is sturdy. Yes, the legs are a bit loose at the hip joints. The way the battloid folds and collapses into fighter mode can cause minor disgruntlement if you don't have your hand firmly grasping the unit, but aside from that, it is solid. It feels solidly built, the way the Alpha should have felt. One caveat, in battloid, the legs can extend and the knees can bend. From what I can tell, that is only real weak spot. Even though the knees click when they bend, I can just see someone putting a bit too much pressure into it and breaking it. I actually believe that because the Beta was intended to be an add-on to sell more toys, and that the designs weren't fully drawn like that of the Alpha, that the lack of details in the beta's design has helped to make the toy a lot stronger than the alpha. Since they don't have to go by detailed design sketches, they were free to look at the molds from other (sturdier perhaps?) model kits and create a toy that is solid. Like I said earlier, this is how the alpha fighter should have been constructed in the beginning. I have not tried to link it up yet but I will soon.

That looks like a re-cast from the 1980's Gakken transformable cyclone. It did find its way over to America in the mid and late 1980's under the Robotech brandname. I think Matchbox released it back then.

Oh how I remember those days before the internet. I too was exposed to Macross through Robotech in 1985. I grew up in a very small town roughly 3.5 hours north of Los Angeles. We were lucky enough, however, to get L.A. stations and thus I was able to see Robotech's first run in 1985. In 1987 I was hanging out with this kid who was into Robotech and had an uncle who was big on Japanese animation. Through his uncle I was able to borrow a VHS tape taped from Japanese TV of the Macross movie. That totally blew my mind and my world changed forever. By the time I was in high school (1989-1992) I was driving down to Santa Barbara to go to a monthly anime club and thus started my anime collection.

True enough.

Those are some of the reasons why Toynami has earned the nickname "Crapnami".

I pre-ordered mine. I'm crossing my fingers and hoping that the betas will be sturdier than all the other MPC products.

The pic displayed on robotech.com shows that it matches the color of their MPC betas. And from what I could gather, one of the reasons the beta costs what it does is due to its size. Apparently, it is a hefty toy.

Got my pre-order in. About a year ago I had decided not to buy Toynami products again since the blue alpha I bought ended up with both arms breaking. I reneged on that decision after seeing the CM's Legios/Tlead combo. Since then, I've procured the remaining alphas and am looking forward to the betas, even if the qc history of Toynami is spotty at best.

In 1993, when I left California [santa Barbara County] for Seattle, Washington, I was told to never tell anyone in Seattle that I was from California because the potential for nefarious acts against Californians was a rumor. When I got to Seattle, I found that people in Seattle thought California was odd but I didn't encounter any hatred. Perhaps because I never felt like I belonged in California [even though I grew up in SB County] and feel in love with the Pacific Northwest; maybe they were being generous to me. In 2001, I [sadly] found myself in a position where I had to start my life over and move back home to Santa Barbara County, California. Upon moving back, I discovered all this animosity between Southern and Northern California. I think it had always been there but it never seemed as pronounced as it does now. Where I live, the central coast, always considered itself isolated from the North/South California wars but since living back here the last seven years, the central coast is pretty much considered southern California as the influence from L.A. is very big. On the whole, I dislike California. There are certain places that I can tolerate, the bay area being my preferred spot, but I also dig West Hollywood and the Silver Lake district. I find California to be too crowded and expensive to live. I do love the non-homogeneity of places like S.F. and L.A. because quite frankly, everyone in Santa Barbara looks about the same, however, there are great opportunities to find in other states. The "California life style" works for some and it doesn't work for others. If you are considering moving to California, that is one of the questions you should ask yourself.

I am currently reading "Perdido Street Station" by China Mieville. It is really good. Think fantasy, steam punk, and hard sci-fi all mixed together. The book is hard to describe in one shot as it is very involved but it is worth the time investment. Here's a link to the book.