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Posted

I picked up a CMs Ray trading figure, thanks to a member here at MW. Overall, I was disappointed.

The details were a little shallow, the face & neck sculpt didn't convey any of the charm of the original character design, and the slightly-downward tilt of his head in the pose requires the figure be above eye-level to the viewer to see his face. Compared to similar trading figure products in this price range across the hobby, CMs didn't measure up with these.

If you've *gotta* have Mospeada character figures, then this is a must-have simply because that's all there is out there apart from Matchbox's figures and the cute Fuke garage kit on eBay. I'm typically rather forgiving toward this sort of product especially from esoteric properties... but if this Ray figure is typical of the rest of the line, CMs is betting only on exclusivity and fan dedication to justify the price tag on these rather than product quality.

If you see them for less than retail and don't have to pay for postage, then go for 'em. Otherwise, prepare to be a little disappointed. The added-in weapon might take a little bit of the sting out of it for you, if you're in need of them for your other CMs Ride Armor products.

Posted

There were 800 CMs Drones made.

Thanks for the review Ray... I'm sure that's really going to help me sell off any extra sets :)

I still haven't even had a chance to open mine because I've been working crazy hours. Man I can't wait until April when my life gets back to normal. In the meantime I'm hoping to open my first set on Sunday.

Posted
Thanks for the review Ray... I'm sure that's really going to help me sell off any extra sets :)

Heh-heh - Sorry! I think in the long term you'll probably be able to move your extras. Like I mentioned, there really isn't much out there for the Mospeada fan, and that's probably their strongest selling point. I might be into buying Fuke without a box, rifle or stand, simply mailed in a padded envelope if the price is right (read: cheap). ^_^

Someone might be able to add a little more life to them with some added paint work.

Posted

Like I said before if you expect these to be like the Macross CMs you'll be pretty disappointed. They are pretty faithful to the look and feel of the actual show though.

Posted

I would be interested in a Houquet to try and Frankenstein the head of the CM's figure onto the Matchbox "Rook" figure. The figure wouldn't be too bad with a better head...

Posted

I would be interested in a Houquet to try and Frankenstein the head of the CM's figure onto the Matchbox "Rook" figure. The figure wouldn't be too bad with a better head...

Posted
How about something absolutely obscure . . .

Ha! At least it's better than the Jedi's running around in Phantom Menace talking into ladies disposable razors painted black and reappropriated as Jedi Communicators. :lol:

Posted
Heh-heh - Sorry! I think in the long term you'll probably be able to move your extras. Like I mentioned, there really isn't much out there for the Mospeada fan, and that's probably their strongest selling point. I might be into buying Fuke without a box, rifle or stand, simply mailed in a padded envelope if the price is right (read: cheap). ^_^

Someone might be able to add a little more life to them with some added paint work.

Well Fuke doesn't come with a rifle, only Ley does.

My distributor has told me that these are sold out. Yeah they certainly don't live up to the Macross figs they make but for me it's nice to see these guys in civilian clothes.

Posted
Well Fuke doesn't come with a rifle, only Ley does.

My distributor has told me that these are sold out. Yeah they certainly don't live up to the Macross figs they make but for me it's nice to see these guys in civilian clothes.

That's not bad news really. Hopefully they will do a second set including Jim, Aisha, Sorji. Batra... Well I can dream :rolleyes:

If you're really desperate for a set then Yesasia.com appears to have some still in stock. Have a guess why.

Posted (edited)

Good review of the upgraded version 2 CMS legios and tread set jenius.

I feel even worse now that I was suckered in to buy the first release. But not in the same way that you'd be with a yamato release with a busted or fragile part. More like "now that I have no money left after having bought that original one, my chances of getting the better one is less likely" type of thing. :(

I would really like it if one day yamato attempt the legios and tread combo and these things don't become the last and only ever toy of this mecha. I'm not going to buy the toynami, and not 100% satisfied with CMS (which I find much "safer" in the long term than the toynami version) so there's got to be a market out there for some other company who can get it right and make the definitive toy that has a good link, accurate transformation, and won't break up looking at it wrong.

Edited by 1/1 LowViz Lurker
Posted
Good review of the upgraded version 2 CMS legios and tread set jenius.

I feel even worse now that I was suckered in to buy the first release. But not in the same way that you'd be with a yamato release with a busted or fragile part. More like "now that I have no money left after having bought that original one, my chances of getting the better one is less likely" type of thing. :(

I would really like it if one day yamato attempt the legios and tread combo and these things don't become the last and only ever toy of this mecha. I'm not going to buy the toynami, and not 100% satisfied with CMS (which I find much "safer" in the long term than the toynami version) so there's got to be a market out there for some other company who can get it right and make the definitive toy that has a good link, accurate transformation, and won't break up looking at it wrong.

I hear you. I've been dreaming for a Yamato take on this since I read the first reviews of CM's underwhelming efforts.

Posted (edited)
I'd like to see more discussions about the show.

I just marathoned episodes 1 to 4.

Stig or Stick or whatever to me is a bit self-righteous about we're here to save the Earth thing. Since he is a second generation Martian he knows squat about Earth and is bit judgemental of the locals. Not exactly revenge driven as you'd think more on mourning his fiancee's demise. But is driven instead by the mission.

Ray - Ryuusei if he was junker. Has more practical skills than the rest. Like finding and cooking food.

Mint - Why are they bringing along a loli? An annoying loli at that. Guess with human civilization at post apocalyptic state finding a man for a girl who could provide is logical. And this is the future not the 19th century. I don't think she knows the stuff marriage entails. :unsure:

Jim - He is not a fighter but an engineer who managed to survive the first invasion attempt. He lept the Legioss maintained all those years. Though I thought from the first episode the Legioss was a recent innovation since it was said they had better weapons than the first invasion force.

Houquet - The chick who is like a passing through hero. Why and where did she get that Mospeada?

Yellow - The transvestite hiding his identity till Stick and his band came along. They used two different seiyuu for the male and female voices so as to not tip the viewer. These days seiyuus like Romi Paku and Rie Kugimiya can pull off the switch.

The Invid to me are giant mechanical crabs with green blood. They aren't biological just cybernetic. The ability to detect soldier's active fuel cells does explain why they are able to find and kill soldiers. So far they faceless without a leading officer or intelligence.

Edited by RedWolf
Posted (edited)

Stick's invasion group is the Third Earth Reclamation Group. The second invasion group brought Yellow and Jim to Earth, along with their mecha and Houquet's mospeada. I believe the time period between the two invasions was something like 3-5 years... someone remind me.

Oh, and the Inbit? The Ibit themselves are purely biological, not cybernetic. Their mechs are bio-mechanical, and are controlled by "lifeforce".

Edited by Hiriyu
Posted (edited)
I'd like to see more discussions about the show.

It was a great clone of macross with the 3 form transformation and a single-minded character (stick) who is really misa hayase in a man's body.

Both stories seemed to have characters obsessed with duty and serving something bigger than themselves versus settling down, relaxing and enjoying the peace that has resulted after a nice long fight against evil aliens who can pwn (or have already pwned) humans without much effort.

My view is that it's all hyposcrisy since the aliens (zentradi) in macross represent perfect workers who are single minded and who got beaten by humans who are not single minded or obsessed with one single thing. So making it out that settling down with minmay isn't important and starting a family is low priority goes against the message of "love is what the world needs more of".

Same in mospeada: the main character abandons his woman (like hikaru abandoning his boyhood fantasy to be with minmay) to be in the arms of his father (the military) which he serves more lovingly than himself. (choosing to see his adventure as merely a mission and not caring about the friends he made on the way)

Lesson of the two shows is that it is more unselfish to serve the military than to settle down with a member of the opposite sex and procreate to replenish the lost lives from wars. :p Minmay continuing to sing because she can be used by the government is her mission, while hikaru being proud to kill is his mission so if everyone stops acting 'childish' maybe they can all be happier that way by forgeting about sex and acting more like misa (or the mind controlled zentradi) at the beginning of the show more afterall? (ie where serving duty to protect people by being pilot instead of passing on the role to someone else is more heroic)

I see macross as better than mospeada in epic feel because they fight in space, on the ground, and you see ship battles so you sympathise with the crew as well as the individuals in the robots. As well as that you have characters that prgress from one episode to another. In mospeada you felt like each ep was better for being a self-contained story, but it got predictable how at the end of every episode there would always be some fight. Good show, good mecha, but let's be honest: macross > mospeada. Stick is not as deep as misa hayase, and the robot in mospeada (although it looks cool in robot mode) seems only half-useful within the story. (not being able to use it all the time because it will turn up on inbit radar and give their position away, making it more a liability than anything - I'd be very annoyed if I had to put up with that)

I like the aliens in macross better too. Instead of evolving, they were manipulated into being warriors and part of a warrior cult that values destruction. The aliens in mospeada have no limits! They can transform into a ball of energy like the leader and just vanish whenever they feel like it. This part bothered me about the show because if they could just leave the earth so easily and effortlessly like that, it brings into question why the leader doesn't annihilate humans with those powers from the start??

The zentradi obviously had an excuse: lets take our time and observe these creatures first. So they held back for fear of some ancient prophecy handed to them by their controllers who were using fear to manipulate them into being frightened so that they could use them. Seeing humans frightened them because of that mind control, so they can't concentrate due to programmed fears making them act like little kids scared of getting cooties from whoreish girls. Humans noticing this irrational fear, used this as a psychological weapon to scare the poo out of them and beat them because of the mind control and enslaved the warriors using tricks.

Out of the two, which one sounds better? Aliens that have magic powers but don't use them? Or aliens that hold back for special research purposes because we might be a part of ancient history and too precious to destroy?

Edited by 1/1 LowViz Lurker
Posted (edited)
It was a great clone of macross with the 3 form transformation and a single-minded character (stick) who is really misa hayase in a man's body.

Both stories seemed to have characters obsessed with duty and serving something bigger than themselves versus settling down, relaxing and enjoying the peace that has resulted after a nice long fight against evil aliens who can pwn (or have already pwned) humans without much effort.

My view is that it's all hyposcrisy since the aliens (zentradi) in macross represent perfect workers who are single minded and who got beaten by humans who are not single minded or obsessed with one single thing. So making it out that settling down with minmay isn't important and starting a family is low priority goes against the message of "love is what the world needs more of".

Same in mospeada: the main character abandons his woman (like hikaru abandoning his boyhood fantasy to be with minmay) to be in the arms of his father (the military) which he serves more lovingly than himself. (choosing to see his adventure as merely a mission and not caring about the friends he made on the way)

Except Hikaru does start a family, just not with Minmay. Just because the military shouldn't be the single purpose of a society doesn't mean the military is not needed, or that individuals shouldn't base a career around it. The point is knowing what is worth fighting for to defend, not just "conflict is life".

As for Stick, it's because 1. He's kind of a stick in the mud jerk 2. He probably needs more time to come to terms with the fact that Aisha is an Inbit.

I like the aliens in macross better too. Instead of evolving, they were manipulated into being warriors and part of a warrior cult that values destruction. The aliens in mospeada have no limits! They can transform into a ball of energy like the leader and just vanish whenever they feel like it. This part bothered me about the show because if they could just leave the earth so easily and effortlessly like that, it brings into question why the leader doesn't annihilate humans with those powers from the start??

The zentradi obviously had an excuse: lets take our time and observe these creatures first. So they held back for fear of some ancient prophecy handed to them by their controllers who were using fear to manipulate them into being frightened so that they could use them. Seeing humans frightened them because of that mind control, so they can't concentrate due to programmed fears making them act like little kids scared of getting cooties from whoreish girls. Humans noticing this irrational fear, used this as a psychological weapon to scare the poo out of them and beat them because of the mind control and enslaved the warriors using tricks.

Out of the two, which one sounds better? Aliens that have magic powers but don't use them? Or aliens that hold back for special research purposes because we might be a part of ancient history and too precious to destroy?

It's because the Inbit were not concerned about annilihating mankind initially, only finding a suitable lifeform to evolve into to colonize the planet.

On a side note, you just know that there're be a Fourth Expeditionary Force at some point in Mospeada's future once the Mars Forces recover from their complete loss, when the "pure" Martians realize the Earth population has been infiltrated by humanform Inbit.

Edited by hulagu
Posted (edited)
Just because the military shouldn't be the single purpose of a society doesn't mean the military is not needed, or that individuals shouldn't base a career around it. The point is knowing what is worth fighting for to defend, not just "conflict is life".

Yeah but there isn't much left to protect. Earth is a shithole with everything of value destroyed. Clones of ace pilots like milia would have sufficed in place of hikaru, and I think the story was rushed a bit because in all fairness the major threat was dealt with and only a few dumb aliens working alone were all that were left after the big battle. It's not like they needed hikaru by that point imo. They just say that to make it look like he is the savior of the entire human race to make it seem more like he singlehandedly saved everyone's butts and the destroid pilots and cannon fodders who died were insignificant in helping. I'm sure if 1 guy went with minmay because they were sick of fighting due to actually failing to protect their family on earth, it would not have meant the end of the human race. They just get some other guy to do that job; filling in for him, and let new guys have the opportunity to prove themselves. I mean, it's not like Hikaru is the only guy who can fly a plane or anything; like Amuro ray having to pilot gundam because it is just convenient at that point.

It's because the Inbit were not concerned about annilihating mankind initially, only finding a suitable lifeform to evolve into to colonize the planet.

On a side note, you just know that there're be a Fourth Expeditionary Force at some point in Mospeada's future once the Mars Forces recover from their complete loss, when the "pure" Martians realize the Earth population has been infiltrated by humanform Inbit, and Earth humans are developing telepathic abilities due to the influence of the Invid experiments. (In a sort of Gundam Newtype reversal).

Personally I think it would be more interesting if the inbit just evolved into a mechanoid race by copying the black legioss and becoming organic versions of that. lol Then they decide to just act like the transformers and hide from the people whose planets they invade. :D It would be kind of like that game "Phantasy Star" where the CASTs were just living robots treated as just another race by the humans and elves ("newmans" - the closest thing to a newtype in that universe). Just pretend you are not the inbit but a robotic race who had nothing to do with the last war. :p

Edited by 1/1 LowViz Lurker
Posted

I would agree that Macross has a lot over Mospeada... it's got more episode count and it's got the human culture aspect to it which helps to defeat an otherwise invincible foe. It also has the full scale division of the enemy fleet into a civil war of sorts. There's a lot of very compelling stuff there. Even the enemy baddies have a lot more personality than Batra, Sorji, and the Refless. C'mon, Quamzin > Batra any day.

Mospeada does avoid the "clone" argument beyond the transforming mecha thing pretty easily in my mind. The Zentraedi were big humans, the Inbit are WAY more interesting conceptionally. The Refless is a representative of their consciousness, not a physical being, so they live by some sort of perfect democracy via a Hive Mind. The Inbit are evolving and there would have been many more types of their mecha if things had gone as planned. Mospeada is more of a Western with a posse of cowboys and their exploits. It seems kind of wrong to say "Macross is so much better because it feels so much more epic!" when it's being compared to a Western... the kind of shows that very frequently end with one man riding off into the sunset.

Posted (edited)

Fair enough but if given a choice, I would choose macross mainly because of the scale of the fights.

One is war the other is western. I just thought the robot in the show seemed like it couldnt be used to its potential so it made me think that they only use was to get people down to the surface and from then on it would be only semi usefull from there. Taking up more ammo (which has got to be in shorter supply than what a valk could use by flying back to base for resupply), being bigger than the motor bike armor thing, and being easy to spot.

So why was it put in? They just needed a shameless clone of the macross flying vehicle and it kinda worked but without it doing anything that made it stand out the way the valkyrie does with all the scenes of swooping down in gerwalk mode and rescuing females and ascending vertically out of the hole in a wall like superman grabbing a trapped victim in a burning building in time.

You just have that mode because its cool to do it. Like how action movies might put matrix style bullet time effects because it cool and trendy to do it, even though it's not suitable for the story. (in the matrix they existed in some kind of computer generated environment to that effect made sense)

In other words: "let's just cash in and exploit this trend" is why the robot was chucked in. But it wasn't as interesting as how macross made use of it. Gerwalk is helping it to dive and descend a bit slower, fighter could be done to fight at a high speed, and robot mode is the missile spam mode. Cool.... But did it actually matter to you in the battle scenes what mode the hero was using in mospeada? Nope. In macross you saw gerwalk making a graceful landing (like rollerskating on air) after transforming from fighter mode and continuing to fight in that mode and it was a cool scene. Then turning into robot mode from gerwalk to exploit cover in front of your eyes. You were convinced that form that one scene, those modes had some purpose dpending on what kind of action they wanted. Fighter coming in for a landing, goes into a walking chicken mode with legs hanging down, then from chicken mode and after coming to a stop, it goes into human mode to fight as if it was a giant soldier itself. It made sense.

In mospeada half the time it didn't really matter if the guy blew up a group of aliens in fighter mode or in robot mode. It all just seemed the same because the battles didn't demonstrate how the mode gave you a strength to exploit. ie fighter mode to dogfight flying enemies, gerwalk to use the hand to rescue the girl, battroid for ground to ground combat etc.

Macross was more well thought out. Had more interesting battle scenes (when the destroids were used to board enemy ship and blow it up from the inside for example) and a sense that human were suffering casualties from those battles with important people dying suddenly. (more realism) In mospeada you didn't feel like there was any danger of the main characters dying since it went with a more formuliac way of telling us the story. Every single episode if someone was to die in a heroic way, you could easily predict it would be one of the non-main characters. After watching a few you could predict that the new guy that features in the ep was going to do something like sacrifice himself so that others can live or something like that. Predictibility!

Also it goes without saying that just because it is a western doesn't mean it has to have characters that are not deep. Why couldn't for example the blonde biker chic have fallen in love with that cyborg dude on the bike and we see him as a regular character in the show instead of him having to be killed off within that episode? Would have added more dimension to the show and people who don't mind a bit of romance might have been drawn to it too. They could have a story where ray has to compete with the cyborg guy for her attention or something like that heh. Macross wasn't just action only, so you could more easily care what the characters were doing in it.

Edited by 1/1 LowViz Lurker
Posted

Definitely, the poor mecha fights are definitely one of Mospeada's big weaknesses. I think it was done under the guise of a more realistic mecha than Macross strived for. Where the VF-1 apparently can do all the same things as a ballerina the Legioss seems to be pretty limited. The concept wasn't really explored though and it's one more aspect where Macross has a bit more "cool factor" than Mospeada.

Posted
I think it was done under the guise of a more realistic mecha than Macross strived for.

Pretty sure it was just a limited budget and less inventive choreography.

Posted

^^That and Stig's usual attack strategy (whether in a Legioss or Ride Armor) could be summed up as "Fire every frakken missile at the enemy." ;)

Posted

I don't want to waste space quoting your entire assessment of MOSPEADA. For what it's worth, I LOVE MOSPEADA, both for what it was, and for what it could have been. To clarify, I think the show was good, with some great ideas, but suffered from some poor budgeting and rushing of episodes, as well as too many changes from the toy company that was originally funding it and deviation from what it was intended to be. What is was originally meant to be was a retelling of the European theater of WWII, starting with the 3rd reclamation force being like the D-Day Normandy invasion, and then following Stick and a resistance group he put together as they traveled through the Americas, mimicking certain historical campaigns. The Legioss and TLEAD were meant to be minimally present, just occassionally found, repaired, used until fuel ran out or they were destroyed, but really be about a group of fighters traveling on bikes. Characters like the blond biker were meant to appear and die for greater poignancy and to show how easily people can die in war. Unfortunately, very little of this came through in the end.

As for Macross, I agree Macross had some great ideas and had the funding to execute them well, but that in no way detracts from MOSPEADA being a good show in and of itself.

If it matters, I liked the original Macross, like Macross Zero more, and absolutely loved Macross Frontier, but have no patience whatsoever for any of the other Macross sequels.

Posted

Hey Everyone,

Do you think we should move the show discussion to its own new thread or perhaps resurrect one of these excellent Mospeada discussion threads from the past?

http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?...amp;hl=mospeada

http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?...amp;hl=mospeada

http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?...amp;hl=mospeada

I would consider this thread a news thread, dealing with new releases and new developments.

:)

  • 2 weeks later...
Posted

I was really trying to get my Macross Quarter review done today but it's just not going to happen (had to pull my Takatoku SDF-1 out for some comparisons in size). So, instead I posted my drone Legioss review... only like nine months after everyone else did! Okay, not the most exciting, but check it out at anymoon.com

CMs-Pilotless-Legioss-5.jpg

Posted

Great review as always Jenius.

"The plot device that allowed Stick/Scott to kill his own troops" - Ha HAAA - Always thought that too! Thanks for finally saying it.

I do lean toward wanting it. Guess its much more the limited 800 quantity and the likelihood this is the only toy of the drone we'll ever see -- than the joy of CMs attention to detail here.

Thanks for including shots of it along with the original line art. Shorten and thicken the darn nose cone to match the art and I probably would have already gotten a few of these! The nose wouldn't have hung down so far in the back in soldier mode either.

Since you so calmly mentioned the lack of shoulder missiles I will rant much more loudly - COULD IT HAVE BEEN THAT FRIGGIN HARD TO INCLUDE THESE? AND EXCLUDE THE USELESS SHOULDER PLATE?

(and not having any cms yet - or experienced the floppiness - my rant to become much louder eventually)

Positives: Someone actually made one

Negatives: Someone actually made one, went this far but should have done 20% more while they had the funding and chance to do it . . .

post-8486-1264697514_thumb.jpg

Posted

I was just notified from the company that I buy my Mospeada/Robotech stuff from that the boat arrived yesterday in LA with the reissue of the Maia Sterling MPC. I should have it in a couple of weeks. I sure hope it's better than the one I got last year, the arm broke off just as I started to transform it.

I also wonder if they stuck with the same molds or went with the updated ones for the Aoshima. If I remember right someone here said that the Aoshima molds couldn't be used by Toynami or something like that.

Posted
I'm pretty curious about the "improved" Maia version myself. Post a review for us when you get it.

Same here, I like the Toynami sculpt, but will not buy anymore until major improvements are made. I almost bought the Maia version, glad I didn't!

Posted (edited)
I'm pretty curious about the "improved" Maia version myself. Post a review for us when you get it.

I'll let you all know, especially since I was one of the unlucky ones to buy the first one.

With the first release, the plastic felt very soft, it had lots of glue marks, and crumbled in my hands.

Edited by woll622
Posted
I'll let you all know, especially since I was one of the unlucky ones to buy the first one.

With the first release, the plastic felt very soft, it had lots of glue marks, and crumbled in my hands.

Lets keep our fingers crossed that you get a much improved (Non crumble) Alpha/Legioss, if so I'll get one too, I like Maia's color scheme!! B))

Posted
Lets keep our fingers crossed that you get a much improved (Non crumble) Alpha/Legioss, if so I'll get one too, I like Maia's color scheme!! B))

Puke......gag......gross...yuck...... <_<

here's an idea for the genuises at Toynami.....throw that Alpha mold in nearest trash can and concentrate on something NEW like..oh, I don't know,.......ENEMY INVID MECHA........ :lol:

sorry...had to vent.

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