mechaninac

Yep. I blame MacrossWorld too. Finding this site made me aware of this small new company that was going to be producing 1/72 M-Plus collector's toys... you may have heard of them, but the name escapes me . Anyhoo, after getting the YF-21 and VF-11B it's been down hill ever since, slipping and sliding into financial ruin .

Well, in WWII, some bomber flight crews took their mascots (cats, dogs, pigs, lion cubs,etc.) on missions over enemy territory with them, and I'm pretty sure a few fighter pilots did also; so that, in itself, does not cause me any concern. However, I do agree that the prevalent anime treatment of such pet inclusions is highly suspect.

Got mine a few days ago. And straight out of the box I noticed a few QC problems with my 0A; none of them insurmountable but all of them annoying. I can't vouch for any materials improvements or problems... I didn't notice any stress marks or hairline fractures or anything of the sort; the problems with mine are entirely assembly line related (not mistransformed... misassembled). One minor problem was insufficient use of cement to attach the control pannel to the pivoting seat. The darned thing just came undone upon the merest touch. This was easily corrected with some super glue once I had the entire fuselage dismantled. Another minor problem was not enough cement used to assemble the left leg foot thruster heel part to the thruster block. When I splayed the foot open the part came off in my hand and I noticed that a very small amount of solvent/glue had been used. This "deffect" was also corrected without fuss with some plastic weld. Yet another glitch, one I haven't corrected since it is not that severe, is the left hip ball joint being looser than the right... it can hold a pose fine but I would've preffered a bit more friction -- how do you take the air intake block appart? I removed all the screws but the assembly where the ball-n-socket are located would not separate... is this glued? If so, I think I'll just leave it as is or just feed some white glue in there to stiffen it up. Lastly and of most visual impact, and possibly the biggest detractor from my enjoyment of this piece, was the missaligned cockpit fuselage. The way the toy came out of the box the nose of the plane just drooped and did not lock with the heat shield. I had to take the whole thing appart in order the reassble it so that the LERX would align with the fuselage tracks. It also appeared to me that the sliding track part of this metal piece was a bit warped or bent so that the whole assembly was thrown out of wack. After reassebly everything lines up correctly and the toy looks and works great. Like I said, none of these issues were impossible to correct, but I should not have had to. After all, this is a $200 collector's piece and I should think Yamato would show a bit more pride in their products and use more stringent QC to prevent similar occurences from souring prospective buyers of their products. As for the Ghost... completely trouble free and a beautiful hunk of plastic parts. And to my surprise it looks considerably darker in person than I was led to believe from the posted images or even the box pictures. So, am I happy with my purchase? Now that I've fixed what Yamato neglected, I am. But I'm growing more leery with my SV-51 preorder.

As nice as these look, at app. 90 mm (3.5") in height they are ridiculously expensive; and with the less-than-encouraging reviews these are not worth getting IMO.

Totally agree. While the movie wasn't bad per se, it felt "flat". It had none of the freshness and imagination of the first, and very little of the sharp humor and social satire of the second. Shrek the Third just felt like one long cliché ridden attempt to profit from the popularity of the franchise. It's definitely a 2.5 star flick.

My total came to 23510 Yen, which came to $198.30 with the exchange rate at the time of payment. EMS shipping alone was a full 4700 Yen ($39.64)... talk about expensive. However, the way I look at it, if I were to buy a stand alone VF-0A + a separate Ghost I would end up shelling out another $15-$30 (or more) after shipping, even from a US retailer. Plus, having purchased from HLJ gives me the opportunity to procure a set of POM upper arms to put on my VF-0S. All in all, I'm cool with the final cost (I have to keep telling myself that to reduce the sting ).

Ditto. And at 95 mm (3.74") for the Motoko figure, that's close enough to 1/18 scale as to make any discrepancy moot, despite Good Smile's claim of the Tachi being non-scale. This is definitely the one to get.

The change from clear to tinted canopy would only be a material's spec change; no retooling required. As such, they could decide to go with a golden canopy as late as a few days (it all depends on how fast their plastic supplier can deliver) before start of production. The only reason to go with clear over tinted is cost savings since they already spec the clear for all other VF canopies.

And the Abyss is staring back...

Some people sound far too jaded. However, in the words of Gene Simmons (paraphrased): "Marriage is an institution, and you have to be committed to it... if that does not sound like a nut house, I don't know what does."

Exactly my point. The Toynami design is beautiful, but everything else is passable at best; whereas, if nothing changes between now and release date, CMs' Legioss may turn out to be a much better toy from a playability standpoint -- arguably the most important factor where these types of collector's toys are concerned, if you tend to play with them, but it looks like a$$. Non-prototype pictures will tell the tale once those are available.

I'm going to withhold final judgment until I see pictures, from multiple angles, of the final product, or at least the off-tool version. Going by the posted prototype pictures CMs' Legioss looks pretty bad and mostly out of proportion. I must say that the one thing Toynami did right is to create a very good rendition for their Alpha (maybe a bit too wide, with Sasquatch feet, and a too upturned nose -- the hog back effect is engineering related IMO, but overall dead on "accurate"); if only the execution had been commensurate with the sculpt (crappy plastic, lousy joints, imbecilic use of die cast, bad paint applications, crumbly hands, bad engineering and QC) the Alpha would be almost perfect.

I've got to agree with you there. Eureka 7 is a mediocre show at best. Besides, the casual fan watching on TV, who has not seen the unedited subbed version, would not know the difference anyway. All the belly aching is just from some fans who have way too much invested emotion to understand that the general adult swim viewer simply does not care.

... and that sound you've all just heard was everyone's ballons just being popped. Thanks for the heads up Odyn, I think...

I don't know what you're talking about --- maybe you're just trying to be modest, but for a first model that looks stunning; it looks better than some kits built by people with many builds under their belts. I'd say you're a natural... beautitull work!

They are non-scale, but given their relative size in relation to the destroids, the figures would fall between mister_e's stipulated range... I'd guess closer to 1/72.

While I'm not personally interested in the revoltech VF-1s, I do hope they do well because I'd be the first in line to get Destroids, some non-vf-1 battroids, and Zentradi mecha.

Is anyone doing the same in the USA? I could go for left and right upper arms halves to replace the craptastic ones Yamato included with the VF-0S... mine are still together but I had to reinforce them with gobs of super glue once they started to show major stress marks and one piece began to split .

That's a though thing to accomplish. Usually, the best way to avoid brushstrokes, but far from guaranteed, is to do the following: 1. Have good quality paintbrushes (sable or equivalent). 2. Do NOT use the brushes on mixed mediums (have a set of brushes for enamels/oils and another set for acrylics). 3. Use paints you've found to work well for you (brand and type... some do well with enamels and others with acrylics; some like Testors and other Tamyia. The best paint is the one that works for you). 4. The paint must be thinned with the proper thinner to the correct consistency (out of the bottle is usually too thick). 5. Always brush in a single direction overlapping the previous stroke, and take your time. Edit: Another thing to note is that flats are generally easier to work than glossy paints, and some colors brush/cover better than others (I have the hardest time with white and yellows, both flats and glosses, but the gloss ones are definitely worse).

Just Google "Legend of the galactic heroes torrent". You should get thousands of hits. If you go to the torrent site and the series is not displayed, just use the site's search engine to jump to the series' download page. As mentioned before, you'll need to install one of the many bittorrent client applications in order to be able to download the individual video or episode bundles; and you may need to install some specific video codec to play them. Good luck.

Yes, the VF-11B (both versions), as well as all versions of the YF/VF-19 in 1/72, comes with three hands: left and right fists, and right hand pistol grip. You have to swap the closed right fist with the pistol grip that is included inside the box, IIRC, located in a little recess on the plastic tray. Edit: Roy's Blues beat me to it...

Could be just a trick of the angle, but it does look better... a lot better.

Waidaminit... The new look I can live with, the all teenage angle is tolerable (a bit too TMNT for my taste, though), Snarf as the leader is just as ludicrous as having Orco be the King in He-Man, and the modern day setting could be either good or awfully lame; but a rock band, WTF??? Is this a re-imagining of Thundercats or Josie and the Pussy Cats?

You can always mod the mass production CF to accomodate the Fast Packs by adding the slots to the back pack (having a FP ready example available for reference does come in handy)... I did, and it works like a charm.

That looks ubber sweet. However, I do hope Yamato specs a darker shade of grey for the fuselage and add a golden orange tint to the canopy to make the final product even closer to the CGI comparison pictures. Other than that...