Shaorin

because it's FAR easier and cheaper, thus more profitable, to make a basic action figure than it is to make a transformer. that, and the "Average Joe-Sixpack" collector/fan of a series like VOLTRON is far more likely to be inclined to drop a minimum on an action figure then they are to pay a higher price for a deluxe transforming toy. in sum, Joe-Blo out there is perfectly satisfied with crap like this, and MATTEL full well knows it; TOYNAMI has pretty much taken care of the old-line fans that are willing and/or able to spend a premium on a deluxe transformable legacy VOLTRON replica, which leaves MATTEL perfectly happy, servicing the johnny-come-latelys and the Saturday-Morning-Cereal-Set, which is, of course, where all the REAL profit comes from, after all...

the gullet isn't all that bad, IMO. it's certainly not nearly as much a distraction, IMHO, as the overly forward cockpit and droopy-shaped nosecone module of the new Kai, which ruins it's otherwise awesome FIGHTER mode for me...

AHA!! the "Wii/PS3 Skin Effect" as i like to call it, rears it's evil head in the MACROSS toy world now!! damn it to hell!! (to add context;) starting years ago, with the PS3, easily scuffed/scratched high gloss plastic cosmetic finishes became the "high fashion" rage with consumer electronics products. it started with the PS3, moved forth to the Wii, and now affects at least 3/4 of what's available in the CE world today. it ALL looks cheap to my eyes, and it's all VERY EASILY damaged, to boot. ...and here this Kai was actually starting to look REAL inviting to me, Mickey-D's color scheme or no...

MOONRAKER was my very first, and remains one of my favorite BOND films. i've seen most of them since, and i tend to feel that they're ALL good, in their own way. that said, i tend to feel that CONNERY was the worst BOND of them all, as he always seems to come off to me in his BOND films as a seriously chauvinistic SOB. i know, i know, BOND is SUPPOSED to be a chauvinist, but at least MOORE did it with class. hell, BROSNAN wasn't half bad at all, either, IMHO...

and the firm might not even exist anymore by then. i wouldn't hold my breath, however, as HG seems to have always had the Devil's Luck...

who cares? QUANTUM OF SOLACE sucked total @$$, so why shouldn't this one as well? the early-2000s BOND films were the last half way decent ones, IMO...

WOW... reminds me of the kind of crazy crap i came up with as a pre-teen child back in the late-80's. boy's got an overactive imagination, i say...

two words; Electrician's Tape. indeed!! small, cut to order swatches of Elect. Tape placed in the PINS/SHAFTS of ALL joints turned my rather loose-n-floppy 1985 1/72 BANDAI HCM VF-1J into a total tight-@$$ tank that's pretty much the equal of my Yammie 1.60v.II!! NO JOKE!! this TRULY is a magic cure-all for just about any non-ratcheted Mecha joint out there!! it's like POLY-CAPS for non-poly-cappable joints, only BETTER!! SERIOUSLY!! sure, you have to do major disassembly in order to once-over a Mecha toy/model like i did with my HCM, but trust me when i assure it is MORE than worth the hassle!! i even nicely tightened up the swing-wings on my Yammie 1.60v.II with this technique!! it is surely one of the very best methods out there!! into

indeed!! but seriously, who cares anymore about ROBOTECH beyond the "Original 85" ? and even then, as nothing more than an early, pioneering footnote in the history of the U.S. Japanese Animation industry. indeed,it was a series that served it's purpose long ago, back in the very different world of the mid/late 1980's. back then, a generation of aging prunes with a VERY old fashioned series of values and trains of thought were in charge of pretty much everything. they all collectively thought that ALL "Children's T.V.Programming" that wasn't on the order of "MISTER RODGER's NEIGHBORHOOD" or "CAPTAIN KANGAROO" were nothing more than half-hour, extended length toy-commercials, and were automatically deemed of precisely no value at all whatsoever, and by all rights should be outlawed along with their concept. this frame of mind encompassed any and all animated series that came to production AFTER their related toy lines, and, of course, included series such as TRANS FORMERS, GI JOE, SILVERHAWKS, THUNDERCATS, and, of course, ROBOTECH. i have nearly 100 issues combined of both "VIDEO MAGAZINE" and "VIDEO REVIEW" most of which are from 1985 through 1987. these magazines have given me some fantastic insight on the overall average nature and climate of things in the TV and HOME VIDEO industry, as well as the average prevailing train of thought of the average "Responsible Adult" Television/Home Video consumer of the period, despite the fact that i myself was but four/five years of age at the time. things really are SO much better for people such as us these days. indeed, it can be difficult, with the convenience and freedom that the Internet imparts today, to imagine a time, barely a generation or two ago, when Hollywood and the Network Television industry were an omnipotent force with an implacable Big-Brother Half-Nelson on the Audio/Visual entertainment industry. Anime fans fought LONG and HARD to get Anime and Manga to the near-mainstream popularity levels that they enjoyed for an all too brief five to seven years back around the turn of the century. INDEED, with the highly Racist, Jingoistic, U.S. Protectionist mentality that pervaded the "average" U.S. citizen back in the mid-1980's, a series like ROBOTECH was surprisingly and honestly relatively open-minded and ahead of it's time. it was the only real way to get Anime into the mainstream U.S. market of the period with a relative minimum of U.S. Lobotomization. ("Localization") ROBOTECH is indeed an outdated concept that should have been put to rest long ago, but back in 1985, it did indeed serve it's intended purpose, as a TROJAN HORSE for Anime to establish itself with in a VERY closed-minded and Jingoistic U.S. T.V/VIDEO ENTERTAINMENT market...

i remember seeing that ad in an issue of TOYFARE magazine. i believe i bought the issue, too. in fact i think i still have it put away somewhere. AFAIK, that singular ad was about all the U.S. ever heard of SUNWARDS corp. rather like a supersonic jet fighter, they went away just about as fast as they came forth...

and yet it was just like yesterday. for me, at least...

i sure do remember that bit of crap ten years ago. i remember first hearing about the old 1/72 Yammie MAC+ series back in Y2K. my grandma was the only one in the family with net access at the time, and i was spending time up at her place due to my medical issues at the time, and her convenient proximity to the OREGON HEALTH SCIENCE UNIVERSITY (OHSU) hospital i was going to. that was the first time i ever got to experience the internet, and MACROSS/ROBOTECH was among the first topics i looked into, MACROSS WORLD being one of my first stops. i got excited, as i imagine many if not all of you people did, over the imminent release of the "TOYCOM" 1/72 MACROSS PLUS Valkyrie series. i sure was rather disappointed when i heard that they weren't going to see official U.S. release! still, in 2001 i was actually able to pick up my first and only Yammie 1/72 MAC+ series, the infamous VF-11B with SELF-DESTRUCTING-HIP action, at a local PORTLAND ORE. japanese toy importer called "JUST BE TOYS" SOMEHOW, by some holy miracle, i suppose, my first sample survived many transformations over at my grandma's house. THEN, -believe-it-or-not- i get back home, a 200 mile trip from my grandma's, and i go to put that 11B through another transformation, and sure enough there goes the hips. WTF?!? i put that SOB through 100 Effing transformation cycles back at grammy's, but i get it home and it dies on me!! fortunately, i was due to head back up to PORTLAND for more medical business on about a month or two, and when we got back up there, we headed on back to JUST BE, and got in an argument in terse Engrish with the japanese owner/operator of the shop, one "Katsu Tanaka" our point of view eventually prevailed, so to speak. what ACTUALLY happened is that we kinda took the the old rule of "THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT" into our own collective hands; Mr. Tanaka was rather adamant that he wasn't about to refund us or exchange the defective product for another copy, and he reinforced his decision with repeated assertions of "NO!! YOU BOAK IT!!" (You Broke It) things were obviously headed nowhere fast, so, in the pandemonium of the argument between my grandmother and Tanaka-san, my mother, unnoticed, grabbed another VF-11B off the shelf and headed to the car, putting it in the trunk. she came back and fetched me and grandma, and we skedaddled, leaving Tanaka-san with the defective valk, none the wiser, at least for the moment. in the end, the second 11B sample also broke in the obvious places, and this time i got creative and effected repair work; it certainly lacks the range of motion that it had before, but it holds together fast, and allows a fair degree of leg spread. at any rate, i don't know what to do with the thing these days. i need to get around to picking up a Yammie 1/60 VF-11C, as much prefer it's color scheme to the VF-11B's. still, that leaves me with the crappy old 1/72 VF-11B, and all those silly old personal memories it conjures up...

has anyone ever heard of this? is it an official design or fan work? TAKEN FROM HERE; http://katsumix.zouri.jp/mokei_wf2010winter_repo.html

but it IS a "Modern Toy" it is a VERY modern toy, in fact...

AMEN to that, every last word...

OH. MY. GOD. witnessing such a beautiful work of engineering art in action, i'm starting to want even this garishly colored Kai!! it's going to be a LONG, tough wait for me for the more sensibly-colored variants of this MASTERPIECE of technical design...

AMEN, Brother...

it must be... the K-G-B. they are , after all, watching every move we make...

just finished adding final detail work to my vintage VF-1 HCM; as you can see, the head laser turrets are now their proper white tone, and the shoulder floodlight/sensor modules have a touch of TAMIYA CLEAR ORANGE to match the look of the Yammie 1/60v.II...

just finished adding final detail work to my vintage VF-1 HCM; as you can see, the head laser turrets are now their proper white tone, and the shoulder floodlight/sensor modules have a touch of TAMIYA CLEAR ORANGE to match the look of the Yammie 1/60v.II...

thanks, man. OKAY, i have to admit it, despite myself, I AM IMPRESSED. it's quite clear to me now, that, while this "toy" most certainly looks the part, with the aforementioned color scheme/Kai-specific features and all that good stuff, it is, in actuality, an honest to goodness "Anastasia" it's quite obvious, to my eye, from watching that Yammie spokesman handle it, that this is a "fine precision scale model" that functions rather like a fine Swiss watch. witnessing it's mechanism in action is breathtakingly beautiful, really. i wanted to reach in there and take the model into my own two hands, it's "handling" looked so fine to me... despite myself, i am beginning to see why some of you are so excited. static photos simply aren't doing this thing justice. bear in mind, i still prefer and want to own a YF-19 1/60v.I, but i am nonetheless in awe...

i admit, i feel pretty much the same, though from a purely technical standpoint, this YAMATO Kai design is a DAMN FINE work of technical art. i still personally prefer the feel of the original YF-19 toy, but that does not diminish my appreciation of the technical virtuosity at work here. it's just too damned bad that it has to be a work of high-tech art that also happens to look like a $300.00 POWER RANGERS TOY, ohmygawd. sorry, that's a rather pointy and specific hurdle that people like me just cannot seem to get over, no matter how awesome the basic design is, and is IS one AWESOME basic design. say, is there anyone around here that might be willing to sell me their YF-19? please follow this link if you are interested; http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?showtopic=35048 oh, and what exactly does "LERX" mean? first time i ever herd the term was during a discussion of the MAC.ZERO VF-0 series. i had pretty much assumed that it was something specific to that design, and had left it at that. one final thing; does anyone know why YAMATO seems incapable of using the original SDF MACROSS logomark on the packaging of their VF-1 products? i can see from the -19Kai packaging that they appear to be fully capable of using the MAC.7 logomark however they wish, so what's up with SDF MAC.?

and why should it be shut down?

ah, thanks kindly. this is a very beautiful commemorative color scheme. it would be nice if YAMATO could produce a 1/60v.II of it. Real Nice...