New Gundam toy category

[Black Valkyrie]

Just found out that Bandai are making new Gundam toy category similar like the MSIA but more detailed, more info :

http://www.toyboxex.com/phorum/read.php?f=1&i=92629&t=92629

[Jolly Rogers]

* Groan *

As a diehead Gundam fan, I will have to say...

[Graham]

Yawn, like we really need yet another gundam toy line

Now if only Bandai would put the same amount of effort into Macross toys

Graham

[Black Valkyrie]

To tell the I`m getting sick plastic ... plastic ... plastic, I was planing to order HG Gundam-X kits but I stopped who needs a large chunky plastic kits. .Why Bandai doesn`t focus more on their Kadoh Senshi line

Really Bandai do we need another plastic Gundam toy line .

[Black Valkyrie]

Now if only Bandai would put the same amount of effort into Macross toys

Graham

I agree ! we need more Chunky Monkeys

[Anubis]

Master Grades and HGUC are fine with me. An occasional FIX maybe for the detail on a complex design like the Ex-S.

I do wish they would put at least some of this level of effort into Macross.

[Sarensaas]

These would be cool if they were MS that have not been covered a hundred times over. MSZ-V's like the ZetaII, or ZZ or CCA variants, like the Nightingale, or Sentinel or Kazushia Kondo variant designs, or Gaia Gear designs.

[Graham]

I wonder how many RX-78 toys and models there have been over the years. A whole sh*t load, that's for certain.

Thing is, I've never been able to understand why such an ugly mecha (IMO) is so damn popular? I can understand why the anime was popular, first of it's kind and all that, but IMO even for the 1970s the RX-78 is one ugly, bland and boring mecha design.

Graham

[Lynx7725]

It's a 40ft tall robot with big guns and bigger explosions, what did you expect? We drool over a plane with a 30mm Gatling.

The designs aren't butt-ugly.. certainly, the VF-1 is more stylish over most Gundam mecha. The VF-1 design is that of the sky, something elegant and sleek. Their appeal is that of speed and deadliness.

But Gundam mecha screams pragmatism and foot-slogging in the mud; it's war machines at a very personal level, some thing that appeal to us at a very primeval level. It's face-to-face and fist-in-face kind of appeal.

The VF-1 speaks of a highly glamourous approach to war -- that of the fighter pilot, the movie-poster guy who climbs into the cockpit, fly for a few hours, and get all the girls.

Gundam mecha speaks of the front-line grunts, those who climbs into a foxhole, fight for weeks, and maybe get buried in the fields.

IMO, while the VF-1 design is very good, I have to say that there is more consistency in Gundam designs than in VF designs. Just compare the differences between VF-1, Mac Plus and Mac 7, vs. Gundam from OYW to F91. Gundam may be ugly, but they are consistently ugly.. VFs, they are sort of hit-and-miss.

[kanata67]

Gundam may be ugly, but they are consistently ugly..

I agree with you in theory... There have been many an ugly gundam. I know this as while I collect only gundam that contain metal, I often find myself at the local toy stores staring at the gundams availible looking for any part that might be cool for one of my bad taste customs. Besides the deathscyth wings I'm going to use on a 1/100 I haven't found anything that was even remotely appealing. On the other hand... I saw pics of a perfect grade wing gundam and I must say it looks so not ugly compared to my s-heavy type rx-178 that I must say not al gundam are ugly... but mayhaps I am looking for the exception to a pretty good rule of thumb

or to quote myself again... I think a robot that transforms into something like a jet [vf] is soooo much cooler than a robot that lies on it's stomach and pretends to be a jet

[Opus]

I feel about Gundam the way Graham feels about "trannys".

Gundams just don't look like soldiers to me. They look like Japanese school girls with guns. Destroids and Dougrams are the real grunts of the anime mecha world.

[Mechamaniac]

Half the size of MSiA's??

Yeah, I'm gonna shell out cash for a two inch toy. NOT.

[Californium]

I'd rather see some CCA gokins in the KS line. The detail and styling is an improvement over past lines though.

[motley]

there are entirely too many gundam toys out there, but these do appeal to me, mostly in that they are small and cheap with lots of detail, and good sculpts and a wide variety of figures available. that said i have no idea if i'll actually be acquiring these, i have a sinking suspicion that these will be more randomly packed trading figures, and i have just been cut off from the place i usually am able to track down specifics for this kind of line. and as much as i do like gundam, i would be much more interested in a similar line of macross figures, or moreso a bigger more detailed line.

[Final Vegeta]

It's a 40ft tall robot with big guns and bigger explosions, what did you expect? We drool over a plane with a 30mm Gatling.

Men with small penis trying to compensate

Gundam mecha speaks of the front-line grunts, those who climbs into a foxhole, fight for weeks, and maybe get buried in the fields.

I think that for Japaneses they symbolize samurai and nobility in general, and nobility is slicing defenseless peasants protected by armor.

The main Gundams have even two swords like a master samurai.

While mechafans like them for the over-all image of a tank (although not being a tank, because lots of people hate tanks), Japanese children like them because they look strong.

IMO, while the VF-1 design is very good, I have to say that there is more consistency in Gundam designs than in VF designs. Just compare the differences between VF-1, Mac Plus and Mac 7, vs. Gundam from OYW to F91. Gundam may be ugly, but they are consistently ugly.. VFs, they are sort of hit-and-miss.

Which is strange since Macross' mecha designer was always the same and Gundam' were only supervised each time by Okawara. Maybe that's because Kawamori was creatively experimenting and Gundam's mecha designers were simply following directives.

Anyway, I like the way every Valkyrie has a subtly different transformation.

FV

[Black Valkyrie]

Guys you really changed the subject !. If you have seen it in it`s early days like 0079 and Zeta you`d have a different opinion by now and don`t forget that Kawamori and Mikimoto are huge Gundam fans in the first place. No Gundam No Macross.

BTW I`ve noticed in MW that everybody here is a Eva fan and no hursh or bad words against it only Gundam or Gundam vs. Macross, if you should know I`m an anti Eva same as Graham feels towards TF.

[Shin Densetsu Kai 7.0]

if these toys are small as hell and cheap as hell, i will buy. Otherwise this damn market is saturated and its hard to match this verka new gundam figure to the arch enemies one.

[Graham]

BTW I`ve noticed in MW that everybody here is a Eva fan and no hursh or bad words against it only Gundam or Gundam vs. Macross, if you should know I`m an anti Eva same as Graham feels towards TF.

Heh, actually I'm pretty anti-Eva as well.

Graham

[Opus]

BTW I`ve noticed in MW that everybody here is a Eva fan and no hursh or bad words against it only Gundam or Gundam vs. Macross, if you should know I`m an anti Eva same as Graham feels towards TF.

Heh, actually I'm pretty anti-Eva as well.

Graham

Yup, EVA blows goats.

[Lynx7725]

Yup, EVA blows goats.

*Mental Image of an EVA blowing a goat*

Heck, if EVA would literally blow a goat, it would make more sense.. I ain't an EVA fan either.

Back to topic. Yeah, too many lines already, especially of OYW material. I like 1/144 for display purposes, although the 1/400 line is great for wargaming purposes.

[Graham]

But Gundam mecha screams pragmatism and foot-slogging in the mud; it's war machines at a very personal level, some thing that appeal to us at a very primeval level. It's face-to-face and fist-in-face kind of appeal.

Gundam mecha speaks of the front-line grunts, those who climbs into a foxhole, fight for weeks, and maybe get buried in the fields.

Actually, I have to disagree with that.

My view is that Gundams in general come over looking more like unbelieveable super robots or Samurai robots (as mentioned previously), rather than ground-pounding, down-n-dirty, realistic war mecha. This is why I have trouble accepting Gundam anime as a so-called 'real robot' anime.

In the history of anime, there are many mecha which look far more like realistic war machines than the Mobile Suits of Gundam, for example: - The Armoured troopers from AT VOTOMS, Tactical Armor from Gasaraki, Military Labors from Patlabor, the Armor Shrikes from Blue Gender, VFs & Destroids from Macross, Legioss from Mospeada, the mecha of Dougram, the Studio Nue designed powered suits from the 1980s Starship Troopers OVA, the powered armor from Metal Skin Panic etc.........

My opinion is that both Yoshiyuki Tominio and Kunio Okawara have very little understanding or appreciation of military technology and design and this is reflected in the designs of the Mobile Suits.

Graham

[Apollo Leader]

Hope some of the new Gundam figures come stateside.

[GobotFool]

BTW I`ve noticed in MW that everybody here is a Eva fan and no hursh or bad words against it only Gundam or Gundam vs. Macross, if you should know I`m an anti Eva same as Graham feels towards TF.

Heh, actually I'm pretty anti-Eva as well.

Graham

Yup, EVA blows goats.

Eva's are such a major throwback to super robots it makes me wanna puke.

[Blaine23]

BTW I`ve noticed in MW that everybody here is a Eva fan and no hursh or bad words against it only Gundam or Gundam vs. Macross, if you should know I`m an anti Eva same as Graham feels towards TF.

Heh, actually I'm pretty anti-Eva as well.

Graham

Yup, EVA blows goats.

Eva's are such a major throwback to super robots it makes me wanna puke.

Is this the "I'm a mean old man who doesn't like anything" thread or what?

oh yeah? Well, I don't just hate Gundam and EVA, I hate kittens and bunnies too!

I like most everything. RX-78 and EVA included.

But... I do hate tiny toys. And there's too much damn Gundam out there anyway. So poo on these little Gundam things.

[Graham]

Is this the "I'm a mean old man who doesn't like anything" thread or what?

oh yeah? Well, I don't just hate Gundam and EVA, I hate kittens and bunnies too!

I like kittens (I have two cats), and I think bunnies taste mighty fine in a pie.

Graham

[Lynx7725]

I like kittens (I have two cats), and I think bunnies taste mighty fine in a pie.

Yeah, I still remember the pic of your cat curled up in a Valk Box. Cute, that one.

I need to go for a meeting; will come back to post a rebuttal later.

[Blaine23]

Is this the "I'm a mean old man who doesn't like anything" thread or what?  

oh yeah?  Well, I don't just hate Gundam and EVA, I hate kittens and bunnies too!

I like kittens (I have two cats), and I think bunnies taste mighty fine in a pie.

Graham

Edited April 7, 2004 by Blaine23

[JB0]

See, a cat would've killed that guinea pig. Then tried to eat your finger.

I'm a dog person. But my dogs like cats.

[Blaine23]

See, a cat would've killed that guinea pig. Then tried to eat your finger.

I'm a dog person. But my dogs like cats.

'Tis no guinea pig, my friend.

That is a rabbit with a pancake on his head. An old friend to Macrossworld.

[Stamen0083]

My view is that Gundams in general come over looking more like unbelieveable super robots or Samurai robots (as mentioned previously), rather than ground-pounding, down-n-dirty, realistic war mecha. This is why I have trouble accepting Gundam anime as a so-called 'real robot' anime.

Blame it on the people who wanted to sell Gundam toys. What was the name? Clover?

Tomino originally wanted a pure white Mobile SUIT. Clover wanted red, white, blue, and yellow. He who has the gold makes the rule, and so Tomino had to settle for the demonstration colors. Unfortunately, that Gundam set precedence for the rest of the Gundams that come after it.

In the history of anime, there are many mecha which look far more like realistic war machines than the Mobile Suits of Gundam, for example: - The Armoured troopers from AT VOTOMS, Tactical Armor from Gasaraki, Military Labors from Patlabor, the Armor Shrikes from Blue Gender, VFs & Destroids from Macross, Legioss from Mospeada, the mecha of Dougram, the Studio Nue designed powered suits from the 1980s Starship Troopers OVA, the powered armor from Metal Skin Panic etc.........

I need not remind you that without Gundam, none of those things would be realistic, right?

My opinion is that both Yoshiyuki Tominio and Kunio Okawara have very little understanding or appreciation of military technology and design and this is reflected in the designs of the Mobile Suits.

I don't think that's true. Gundam was created at a time where Super Robots were rampant, and there were very obvious traces of Super Robotism in 0079 designs, quite possibly because Okawara did not want to alienate the Super Robot fans by straying too far from established norm.

Perhaps I am giving the designer too much credit. Maybe Super Robots have had a stronger hold on him than I can see, but still.

By the way, that last comment is contradictory. If you think Votoms is so realistic, how, then, can its designer have little understanding or appreciation of military technology and design?

I love Katoki, and there's a reason.

[wolfx]

Actually, I have to disagree with that.

My view is that Gundams in general come over looking more like unbelieveable super robots or Samurai robots (as mentioned previously), rather than ground-pounding, down-n-dirty, realistic war mecha. This is why I have trouble accepting Gundam anime as a so-called 'real robot' anime.

I'm sure you've seen the UC Gundams and referring to super samurai robots through Wing , Seed and X neh?

The UC Line gundams were more grunt and more believable than the AU s' (alternate universe) super robots. You mentioned that you probably only liked 8th MS Team, and I can see why. Try out Stardust Memories (kawamori designed the mecha) and War in the pocket as well. Pretty good gundam stories in my books. Yes...I hate Wing and Seed with a passion.

And EVAs pwnz j00 a||. Just coz they're not blocky, non-transformable , and don't carry huge ass guns that you possibly can't lift off the ground doesn't make them un-cool.

Edited April 7, 2004 by wolfx

[Graham]

I'm sure you've seen the UC Gundams and referring to super samurai robots through Wing , Seed and X neh?

The UC Line gundams were more grunt and more believable than the AU s' (alternate universe) super robots. You mentioned that you probably only liked 8th MS Team, and I can see why. Try out Stardust Memories and War in the pocket as well. Pretty good gundam stories in my books. Yes...I hate Wing and Seed with a passion.

Actually, I think the RX-78 is like a samurai. It has a samurai style head, plus the two swords (beam sabers) thing going on.

Anyway, I've watched all the UC Gundam stuff years and years ago, except for ZZ, which I gave up on half way through.

My favorites are 0080, 08MST, CCA and V. I don't actually like 0083 much as I find Kou and Nina too whiney and annoying. I also find Z to by very over-rated.

Even though 08MST is more realistic than most, I still hate that they are taking these bright white, red and blue robots into jungle and desert combat. Talk about standing out like a sore thumb. At least the Zions had the sense to paint their Zaks green

Graham

[Graham]

I need not remind you that without Gundam, none of those things would be realistic, right?

By the way, that last comment is contradictory. If you think Votoms is so realistic, how, then, can its designer have little understanding or appreciation of military technology and design?

Personally, I think that even without Gundam, we would have eventually ended up one way or another with realistic military mecha anime shows, but it's pretty much a moot point though as we can't travel back in time to change things, so we'll never know

You got me about Okawara In my defense I guess that between the time he designed the RX-78 and the ATM-09 he might have actually studied up on military designs, which is why the ATs look much more realistic and practical, i.e. something that the military may actualy use in the near future as opposed to the much more unrealistic looking (IMO) MS.

Anyway, there's a lot of things I don't find very realistic about mobile suits: -

• They are too damn big. An 18.5m tall robot is just a huge target if you ask me. At least starting from the UC120 era or there abouts, MS started to become slightly more reasonable in size, starting with IIRC, the F90 series.
  
• Most early mobile suits lacked any type of flight capability, meaning they had limited stategic mobility. Sure they could walk, run, skim in some cases (Doms) and do limited booster augmented jumps, but they lack the ability to quickly respond and travel from one area to another without having to rely on a seperate transport vehicle. Valks on the other hand are capable of supersonic or in some cases hypersonic speed alowing them to quickly travel from battle-site to battle-site, country to country etc.
  
• IMO Gundam is just giant robots for the sake of giant robots. At least Macross has an excuse why giant robots are needed. And no amount of reasoning is going to convince me that an 18.5m tall humanoid robot is the ideal size and form for a combat mecha.
  
• Most MS carry an extremely limited weapon load considering their large size. For example, the RX-78 has a beam rifle which is good for only 20 shots and then has to be returned to base to be recharged, or optionally a giant bazooka with only 4-5 shots, head vulcans which are totally unrealistic (I'll explain below) and the beam sabers.
  
• One of the prime reasons I state that Okawaro & Tomino didn't really have much of a grasp of military design and weapons when they created the RX-78 (and most MS thereafter) is that the head Vulcans in a Gundam are listed as being 60mm. Now sorry, there is absolutely no way that you could ever fit one let alone two 60mm Vulcans into the head of a MS. First of all, lets clear up what we mean by Vulcan. Well, Vulcan as I'm sure most of you know is the name for the General Electric M61A1 20mm 6 barrelled rotary cannon fitted to most USAF fighter jets that can fire up to 6,600 rounds per minute. However, in Gundam, Vulcan seems to be the general name for cannons mounted in the head of an MS. These are often (though not always) multi-barrelled rotary cannon (3-6 barrels). As calibre increases, so does the size of the gun. The M61A1 20mm is not too large and it might just be possible to fit one or two of these in the head of an MS. However, increase the size of the round and the size of the gun has to increase, including the barrels, breach and drive mechanisms, ammo drum. I'm sure most of you have seen the publicity shot of the GAU-8 30mm Avenger cannon from the A-10 next to a VW Beetle and that gun is huge. It's 6.4m long and weighs 281kg (not including ammo). Now scale up the cannon to fire 60mm rounds and you would end up with a huge weapon, certainly too big to fit in the head of an MS. This is one of the reasons why I consider Kawamori to have a better grounding in military equipment as he pretty much got the size of the GU-11 55mm gunpod correct. Now the recent Gundam SEED takes a steep further towards the ridiculous by having the head mounted guns of the MS as 75mm calibre....puh...lease!
  
• Minovsky particles and Minovsky physics along with other wonders such as Luna Titanium seem to be the OTM equivalent in the UC universe However I've always found the whle Minovsky thing to be a bit too unbeliveable and too much of a catch-all. IIRC, Minovsky particles can block radar, radio and IR and be used for flight (Minovsky drive) and IIRC is part of the beam saber, beam gun and beam shield operating principal. OK, I'm willing to accept that Minovsky particle can block radar, and radio. Now I'm not a physicist so I hope somebody can explain how a Minovsky particle can block the thermal signature from say an MS, car, Plane, human body etc?
  

I probably shouldn't take all this stuf too seriously, not good for my blood pressure and all that

Graham

[Jolly Rogers]

Anyway, there's a lot of things I don't find very realistic about mobile suits: -

Mobile suits weren't developed to fight other mobile suits initially. Remember the Zakus were made because they served the role of nimble ship killers (like aircrafts) and were unopposed on the battlefield at the time because the Feds only have lame-o fighters and Balls for fleet defense.

As with most technology, you start big until efficiency and new technology allows you size it down. The very computer you are using now would require more than a single room to fit merely decades ago.

I wouldn't worry too much about trying to explain some future technology using what is known today. Imagine Ash trying to explain to those medieval guys the wonders of chemistry and his boomstick.

[Black Valkyrie]

Personally, I think that even without Gundam, we would have eventually ended up one way or another with realistic military mecha anime shows, but it's pretty much a moot point though as we can't travel back in time to change things, so we'll never know

Hmph..... Then there is no Macross in the first place or it would be something different. BTW I do agree that AU Gundam`s are super Gundams but not all of them like Gundam-X and Turn A.

WOW THIS TOPIC REALLY CHANGED

Back to main point BANDAI ! MORE GUNDAM-X PRODUCTS K.S. OR METAL MATERIAL LINE