mechaninac

In a business where "mold milking" for all available versions of an item within the scope of the license means extra profit to amortize tooling costs, you better believe it that Yamato will get around to Miria's 17S... It's better for them, it's better for us win-win. I'll probably pass on the whole VF-19 series due to the gloss finish unless I can score one for more than 50% off... fine for the Kay, but not for the Blazers and P variants military equals matte to semi-gloss at most, with gloss units reserved for demonstration teams and ,in Macross's case, the occasional flamboyant oddball peacenik rock star. But the VF-17 Nightmares, as long as they're matte, shall grace my shelves.

Yamato would need to tool-up an new 2 seater forward fuselage/cockpit section (the rest of the space frame is the same) and almost certainly have to forego the hide-away heat shield gimmick for a snap-on design, but I'd be game for one.

That's one impressive looking toy; however, there is one thing that really bugs me about it, and that's the gloss finish. Don't get me wrong, gloss is entirely appropriate to the flamboyant nature of Basara's VF-19 Kai, but it means that the mold cavities of Yamato's tools for the VF-19 are highly polished in order to achieve that finish and since the Blazer shares all but a few components with the Kai it stands to reason that the VF-19F and S, when they get released, will be gloss also... not cool for a military spec fighter and won't match the finish of any of the other Yamato VFs, including the other M7 ones. I may be wrong and Yamato may decide to acid etch the molds by the time they produce the Blazers, but that would preclude them from offering re-releases of the Kay in gloss after surface finish changes are made for the Blazers (In this case the first run of the Kai would be the only one in gloss as polishing mold cavities, then having them etched, and then re-polishing would be ridiculous for any manufacturer). I know I'm getting way ahead of myself here and I'm just engaging in pure speculation, but knowing how plastic molding tools work, and what is involved in getting from a product specification to a final product that meets it, I find myself wondering how Yamato will handle the transition from Kai to everything else that shares molds with it. I want to get the Blazers, but if they are released in gloss I'll pass.

My mistake, I misread the thread to mean opening and ending themes/songs, not just OPs. Besides, who cares? They are both great songs, specially "Ride On Shooting Star".

I've got five six in no particular order FLCL: Ride on Shooting Star Cowboy Bebop: Tank Orguss: Gipsy Robotech: the screenplay may be highly debatable but Ulpio Municci's openning theme is a masterpiece for a cartoon. Macross Frontier: Lion Elfen Lied: Lilium... haunting, beutiful, and it sends a chill up my spine every time I hear it. -- Edit: added a sixth --

nice assets picture

I don't know if this apparent flub was intentional or not, but it's pure comedic genius!

Too true, but for some reason this story arc really got my causality paradox alarms going full bore. On some of the examples you mentioned the paradoxes can be circumvented by the possibility of a tangential split in the flow of time so that a cause and effect contradiction is avoided (Ex.: sending a note to the past creates a split in the time stream at the point the note is received; stream 1 remains the same as before where the note was never in play and stream 2 is given a warning from the now-alternate future -- like a premonition or precognitive event... the 2 parallel, yet separate, possibilities continue to unfold normally but do not coexist; the same can be argued about the SGU episode with the Keno recordings... diverging, parallel, and unique time streams with no interaction other than the Keno which was the catalyst for the branching out of realities in the first place). In this SGU arc, however, the two time streams coexist since the descendents of the stranded crew inhabit the same time line/Universe as the crew that never went back to have descendents... hence why it bugged me as much as it did.

The way I understood it is that the Destiny crew that settled Novus were the same that were presumed dead in the ill fated attempt to gate to Earth from within a star a few episodes back... the one in which the current time line Destiny runs into the alternate time line shuttle carrying Rush and than proceeds to find the alternate Destiny in a decaying orbit around the system's Primary, where they cannibalize what supplies and equipment they can before the ship burns up. Where Rush and Destiny were thrown back in time by days or weeks (I don't recall if they ever said what the time gap was), the crew were gated back some 2000 years onto an inhospitable world from which they then found Novus and made it their new home. All in all I found this episode, along with the related preceding ones, quite good, with a melancholy undertone lending it a certain poignancy. However, the causality paradox inherent in the plot would tend to negate the whole thing from happening: By finding Rush they avoided the events that would cause their being stranded two millennia in the past which would mean there could not be a human population to start the Novus civilizations, but if they avoided the fate of the alternate Destiny there would be no marooned Rush to find which would then cause the Destiny crew to make the stellar gate attempt... it's an endless loop... And one thing bugs me to no end: Why is it that whenever a show finally hits its stride, Syfy immediately proceeds to cancel it?

Saw it, loved it, will try to see it all. It's been years since I saw this show on video, and decades since I saw it on TV... I had forgotten just how porn-tastic some of the background sound track was on this show. Other than the obviously dated animation (just a couple of steps above Speed Racer in some spots) this is such a great show that the minor flaws are easy to overlook... Go Star Force...

And you call yourself a modeler... The typical model builder is an obsessive compulsive, borderline hoarder, ADHD riddled dreamer whose imagination often outstrips his/her ability and available time. I should know... I have a pile of unbuilt kits going back years; and yet, every time some new kit, regardless of subject, catches my fancy I find my mind spinning with possibilities and I end up pulling the trigger on another purchase, until the next plastic siren comes along and the process starts all over again. I'm sick man, I tell you... And the 1/72 VF-11B is going to join my stash, of that I'm certain.

Never mind Godzilla. When are either the Revoltech or the Figama, or maybe even Figutto, lines going to come out with Bubblegum Crisis carachters, original and/or 2040, with and without power suits as well as boomers and AD police? And when, if ever, are we going to see any of those lines go into Macross... they could start with Frontier and work their way back. So much squandered potential, so much missed opportunity.

Just received my Armored Klan Figure. Two observations: 1. Beautiful sculpt and paint applications like most here have said. 2. Did MegaHouse contract their box design out to Yamato?... There is more empty space on the package design then I've seen on anything short of a VF box. Major fail on the packaging efficiency front.

Of that I'm not sure. One MegaHouse Armored Klan Klang PVC figure and one MG ReZEL. Regardless of the reason it still sucks as the shipping cost was almost as much as the PVC item... the items come out a bit cheaper than getting them individually and at full price, and EMS means I'll get them faster, but the sticker shock was still palpable.

Just paid for my last order with HLJ. Two items, both on substantial discounts, but the savings were completely wiped out by having them arbitrarily bumped to EMS. With today's pathetic Dollar/Yen exchange rate and the price of fuel (shipping) it's getting to be prohibitively expensive to continue with this collecting hobby. I wish it weren't so but I'm getting seriously priced out of this market, and with so many cool stuff getting release too... I guess I'll just have to be a lot more selective in the future and wait for the stars to line up for a killer sales price on the items I want in conjunction with shipping discounts offered sporadically. -- end of rant --

I'm sure many of the members here must be aware already, but I thought to post a heads up anyway: HLJ has MegaHouse's Armored Klan Klang PVC figure on sale for 4800 Yen (60% off). This is a great opportunity for anyone who wanted one of these gorgeous figures but was kept away by how expensive it was... with that impediment out of the way I've already placed my order; it still won't be cheap but at least it's somewhat affordable now. Cheers!

Other than logistical issues, or the usual teething problems inherent in the manufacture and introduction of a new line, I don't see why there should be a change to the scheduled release date... aren't Yamato's producs made in chinese factories?

What Vifam7 said! Unlike Chernobyl, there has been no leakage of Cesium or Uranium, or other heavy isotopes (these have an incredibly long half life with as little as 30 years and as much as in the millions of years), at least not yet, into the atmosphere at Fukushima. The radiation released at the afflicted plants is due to neutron contamination of the sea water being used to cool the reactors (these are no longer running... they shut off automatically when the Earthquake hit; what the nuclear engineers are dealing with is the residual heat from the nuclear rods that were deprived of cooling purified water). The impure sea water is irradiated with free neutrons from the reactor, thus becoming radioactive, but the half life of this radiation decays in as little as a few seconds to a few minutes or maybe up to a few days, so that when the plants vent, or blow up, the contaminated steam has an effect only in the immediate area or up to a few Km from the source, and only temporarily. Don't let the know-nothing meat puppets giving you the "News" scare you off from making a purchase... Japan can use all the economic activity they can get at this time of need. Your chances of getting a "glow-in-the-dark" toy from Japan are nil.

Don't get me wrong; I'm not advocating for a light gray to light ghost gray hull on the Andromeda, but something like a neutral gray or slightly darker would have been more in line with the ship's lighter tone than the Yamato as seen in the anime and would have the benefit of making the sparse surface detail of the toy stand out more (as it is, what is there gets lost amid the dark greyness of it all). If I were to hazard a guess, I'd assume that Bandai chose the dark gray in order to minimize the possibility of light leakage.

I got mine from AmiAmi a few days ago. Shipped EMS it cost me $283.00 in total... quite a pricey beast, $100.00 more than I paid for my BPX-01 Yamato. I can honestly say that I was not overwhelmed by it out of the box, but neither was I underwhelmed or disappointed by it, but I did not get that "Wow!" reaction that I experienced when first opening the SOP's box. Compared to the BPX, it is not as heavy, nor as chock full of gimmicks; depending on your point of view this can be a positive or a negative... it certainly does not feel like you're getting as much "toy" for your money. On the plus side, it is big and wide, beautifully sculpted, and the stiff fins and antennas are way better than the child-safe ones on the BPX. On the minus side, as mentioned before, the hull color is a few shades too dark... actually darker than my Yamato. This ship, like the Borodino class, should be much lighter than the battleship gray on the Yamato. All in all I'll give Banday a 7.5 out of 10 on this one... It does look really cool next to the Yamato.

8th MS - atypical to UC gundam it may be, but it is not as if Shiro comes out of it unscathed. I too found it to be an enjoyable series and a welcome departure from the usual UC fare.

Good question, I'd like to know that too. I was very enthusiastic about the idea of a 1/48 Frontier line, specially if perfect transformation with MG/PG quality, but since that first hint so long ago... nothing.

I hope you're right on that score, with the caveat that they should all be in scale with each other (app. 1/12)... if so, then I'm in for a whole set.

Black Ops scheme for the win! I'm well aware that is nothing but prototype test shots, but I would definately go for a black/grey version over the McD one any day.

-- I hate you....-- I too preordered with AmiAmi but have not gotten any notice or payment request, yet. Do post plenty of pictures when you get yours so that we Andromedaless slobs can vacariously enjoy this most eagerly awaited Chogokin release... so envious...