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.

Interesting. It looks as if they took some ideas from Miyazki's sci-fi/fantasy mixture. One of the first things I thought of when I saw the trailer was that it had hints of Nausicaa style themes.

Ah, that's what that was. I saw the scene where Grace activates the Dimension Eater but the subtitles I was reading wasn't making a lot of things clear. Thanks for the clarification.

Is Galia IV actually destroyed? When the Varja folded away from the planet, the fold bubble was starting to encompass the planet. At first, I thought they were going to physically fold to the planet along with their ships to some location. Then it looked like they were only going to take a chunk of the planet as the fold bubble ended up not encircling the entire planet. When the Varja de-fold in front of the Frontier fleet, the chunk of Galia IV is not present. We did not see the planet's demise during the Varja fold scene therefore, what is the actual fate of the planet?

Over the last 28 or so years of watching and collecting anime and related goodies, it seems to me that anime is still viewed as something you are into as a child or a teenager but that you are supposed to grow out of it by the time you finish college. It is somewhat tantamount to "adult societies'" view on video games, rpg's etc. I believe that some of this is fueled, in part, by the fact that anime in America is marketed towards a younger (meaning adolescent, teenage, early college) demographic. Sure, the occasional "adult" (meaning non hentai) titles comes to the U.S. but anime is still marketed towards a younger demographic. Correct me if I am wrong, but from what I have seen in the last 10 or so years from various discussion boards on Japanese culture and movies, anime is also aimed at a similar demographic, the only difference is they have manga and anime that is geared towards more adult age groups (meaning thirty-somethings) than America does. The popularity of these manga and anime over those that are marketed towards a younger age group can be debated but I would argue that most of the marketing budget is focused on the younger audiences, both here and abroad. What makes me believe this? Let's take Gundam as an example. Here we have an incredibly complex and robust world and plot but who ends up piloting the Gundam? If it isn't a teenaged Amuro then it is some young (early twenties) military recruit. From my perspective, it seems that make the protagonist in these stories young so that young boys will connect with them. Let's face it, most young boys are not going to connect with a hero who is in his 40's, 50's or older. Of course, there are always exceptions to the rule but this generally holds true. Another factor, from an American perspective, is all the titles coming over that deal with a protagonist who is either in high school or just starting college, these "slices of llife" anime if you will. These get a lot of press and attention in the fandom and it seems that a majority of the fandom is wanting this kind of material. The big exception I can see, without actually having seen any of the series, is the Victorian Romance Emma which has older characters as the main focus. Obviously, people who have been fans for a long period of time tend to stay fans well past what society would call the "expiration date" but these people are not the focus of marketing campaigns. The type of anime that gets brought over and really pushed is evidence of this. Personally, I have been finding myself watching older anime out of mostly nostalgic desires, especially for shows that I wanted to see as a teenager but never had the opportunity. Sure, some of these anime still engage me as they did back then but my tastes are also changing and I find that the storytelling techniques in a lot of anime isn't doing it for me. I am not ashamed to admit to people that I am a fan of anime but I do not always engage in the subject readily because I find that "mainstream's" opinion of anime has been static for at least 20 years and doesn't appear to be changing. Anime is and probably always will be a niche market. Anyway, there's my $1.05.

The Proto-Garland from Part 2 has no problems with the production. They seemed to have fixed a lot of the production issues.

My tastes tend to vary: Depeche Mode, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Queensryche, The Cure, Clan of Xymox, Tom Waits, Siouxsie & The Banshees, Japan/David Sylvian, U2, Nine Inch Nails, Einsturzende Neubauten, Alice In Chains, Bauhaus, Massive Attack, Portishead, Ladytron, B! Machine, Oingo Boingo, Velvet Underground, The Chameleons, Duran Duran, The Sundays, Slowdive, Lush, Bad Religion, The Clash, Joy Division, New Order, Midnight Oil, The Sisters of Mercy, Recoil, Soundgarden, Green River, Sky Cries Mary, Cocteau Twins, etc. etc.

Thanks, I'm only a novice at Photoshop but it is fun to try and make your toys look like they belong in the real world. Cheers!

Top secret military bike. If this is yours, please contact me.

I received mine last week and I'm happy to report that I am extremely happy with it. A little tricky to transform but it was well worth the cost. Who else has picked up one of these? And does anyone have any insider news as to other possible mecha from part 2?

Cool. Thanks for the link.