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  2. M'Kyuun
    Glad to hear you're warm and cozy once again. Hopefully the source of the water can be found and remedied lest your furnace woes continue. I do indeed marvel at MMC's ingenuity and talent when it comes to engineering these things. In a number of ways, be it full-scaled intricately designed cassettes or all-in-one combiners, MMC is doing things that no other company is even attempting and doing it with the sort of style that would make Jazz happy. 😉 I have all of MMC's main character cassettes except Frenzy (the red one) and IMHO their weakest efforts were the condors, which are still pretty good. I wish they'd found a different solution for the wings, but we're here to talk about Forte (Ramhorn). Honestly, I can't recall if I've even ever seen the Sunbow episode(s) that he was in ; for me, it was always about the fact that a cassette turns into a cool red rhino. Even the G1 toy, which I have sitting on my desk as I type, managed to evince an organic shape reminiscent of the actual animal, moreso even than MMC's take, which is exaggerated to more closely resemble the animation. Nevertheless, I absolutely love how he looks. Side note, out of curiosity, I decided to actually look at real rhinos to see how the G1 toy and MMC's takes compare. I figured MMC had it in the bag with that prominent shoulder hump and descending line down the back, but in fact, most of the pics I saw show the shoulder and pelvic humps at about the same height with a gentle curve between, which is how the G1 toy presents. The animation tended to omit the pelvic hump, putting emphasis on the shoulder. It looks cool, even if it's not perfectly accurate to the actual animal or the G1 toy by comparison. Credit where due, Takashi Matsuda, the designer of most, if not all, the G1 cassettes, deserves a shout-out for creating one of the coolest gimmicks in all of Micro-change, which went on to become a major part of the first wave of Transformers toys. Most of his animal designs do a great job of copying the salient features of the animals they portray, an impressive feat given the small, thin wafer template he had to work with. I'm forever a fan. I'm also a long-time fan of MMC, most notably of Alex Kubalsky, who designed all the MMC cassettes, and Jesslyn B. for her sculpt work. Again, credit where due. Beyond the upscaling, MMC's two greatest achievements with this line are giving more thickness to the bodies of the quadrupeds allowing for more realistic shaping and stability, and the inclusion of the weapons in the transformation. No partsforming here. Kubalsky, when he worked at Takara, was the first designer to give greater dimensionality to a cassette with the 2009 Universe Classics 2.0 Hound and Ravage. Ravage's jet packs were also part of his sculpt, albeit unpainted, too small, and misplaced above the hips instead of sitting outside of them. Still, it was step forward in design and I appreciate it. IMHO, it's still better than MP Ravage which fared the poorest among the MP cassettes, alas. This was a radical rethink of how a cassette could be designed, and it seems he's dialed it to 11 since becoming part of MMC. I wholeheartedly agree that the scaling of these, at least in bot mode, is far more complimentary overall to the MP line. Moreover, their sophisticated transformations, the excellent sculpt work, the high level of articulation, and other features/ details all reach what we've come to expect from MP standards. It is slightly lamentable that no oversized Soundwave or Blaster figures exist in which to place these guys (they'd be huge comparatively), but that's ok. I'm glad we still have the micro-cassettes and folks like KFC and Fans Toys, as well as Takara themselves still making "MP" level cassettes at the original micro-, or mini-cassette scale. I'm equal opportunity- I'll take all the transforming cassettes you can give me regardless of the scale. Funny that they wrapped the instructions around the case. Jaguar's, I recall, came folded around the cassette like the liners of the old 80s and 90s cassettes. it was yet another cool feature. Guess maybe there were issues doing that? IDK. Very, very much surprised that Toyhax did no labels for either Tempo (Steeljaw) or Forte. These things are beggaring for old 80s styled cassette livery and Toyhax never seems to let an opportunity like this slip away without an overabundance of stickers to complete the look of your toy and charge more money in the process. I'd be down for sets for both- still waiting.... I'm also wowed with every one of these cassette releases. MMC's engineering prowess is understated, IMHO. I don't own a MP scaled Blaster, so I don't have one to stand next to the cassettes. I've no room for a MP Blaster in my Detolf anyway, so I guess it works out. I'm also anticipating their Ratbat. I hope it's better than the condors. I have high hopes it'll be another impressive addition to the line. As I said in my mini-review, I hope they go on to do the rest of the cassettes as well at this scale and level of engineering. I'm in for all of them (except the drone, which is a boring design amongst the rest). Great review, Mike!
  3. Today
  4. Dangard Ace
    Apparently Dawn Moreno is coming. Great that we’re finally getting some comic figures but where the he’ll is Kwinn, Oktober Guard or Dr Venom?
  5. Froy
    The extra head in that bundle could actually be the one with the white goggle. Only in very rare instances the TV armored VF-1J is presented with a white goggle.
  6. Swann
    Promo poster for Vol.IV Long Thoughts LP. It is a oddity for sure.
  7. rsvictor1976
    I don't have either and wouldn't mind owning one of them. The Studio Cell figure does look great and I was considering getting one, simply because the Haslab one is way too expensive now. From what I've seen on YouTube, the Studio Cell Unicron isn't easy to transform either though.
  8. jenius
    If it's the 1J Hikaru again they should make it a TV super bundle with a TWE Miria in a similar set up being available a month later...
  9. nightmareB4macross
    They already did this with the GBP-1J Bundle set.
  10. Froy
    If Bandai is going to pull one more of this dumb moves at less they should throw in a grey goggle head like yamato did back then.
  11. jvmacross
    Definitely watching in B&W first.... Looks good, trailer tomorrow ...how bad can it be?...it stars Nick F'ing Cage....lol
  12. M'Kyuun
    Interesting, and it'd have to be a titan class fig to do it any sort of justice. Thus far, the only titan that's been announced is Bayformers Grimlock. I have the Haslab, and it does the job for me, although, in hindsight, I think I should have gone with the Studio Cell figure instead. It's not as big, but its transformation is far, far more elegant and integrated whereas the Haslab just has huge stacks of panels on his legs and back. If indeed a Studio Series Unicron is coming, I figure it'll be a scaled-down version of the Haslab.
  13. davidwhangchoi
    Let me think like Bandai for a sec: Tease a really popular valk with a great attachment: VF-1 Atmospheric-Escape Booster. Get the fan base excited to pre-order it. next: start exploiting the same fans by selling TV red tipped reaction warheads exclusive to a super Roy TV VF-1S w/ Hikuru figure and charge $550. Release Tv Max 1a with animation error removal-able vertical stabilizers stacked with missiles but troll fans and omit tv 1a kakazaki. Chogokin vf-1 are solid 1/48 yamato's version 2 toys. love them chogokin vf-1's but hate the company's schemes to nickel and dime the fans. Bandai will release a really good product for a good price, then exploit by nickel and dime with small items omitted. then reprint the main hero valk while omitting other valks on purpose to string fans along. Bandai launched Metal Build lineup with 00 Exia in 2011, from 2011 to 2026 never gave the entire 00 lineup or at least complete the main 4 hero suits. reprinting exia or 00 raiser till people stopped caring. I still love Yamato they produced full vermillion and skull squadron without playing these games. Yamato gave us fan made customs as the 1/48 vf-1a low viz and the city urban camo. Love Yamato/Arcadia as a company, we'll have to wait till 2027-2028 for their next release.
  14. Froy
    More Hi Metal goodies from Madarake Wanted to display an armored VF-1 along some brownies but realized that the bright white hands of the TV latest releasd GBP would pop up too much with the of white of the 1As. Grabed this one for cheap, 8k yen. Max is my first Hi Metal toy. There is a VF-1S strike and a Hikaru that I want to get but will have to wait for the next month. Hope they don't sell out. Lol. And as abonus for my display I scored one of these trident plus stands. Also... count up to 20. One sealed and one opened. I noticed that as per January 1 Mandarake pushed the price of a sealed Hi Metal R VF-1A from 16k to 17k yen.
  15. Yesterday
  16. Dynaman
    Looks decent - between this Supergirl and Mando I might actually get to the theater multiple times this year.
  17. Big s
    I really hate this one. I still like the mobile suit underneath, but wish they had a good designer to create the outer armor instead of just slapping trash around it
  18. Big s
    That’s cool. I’ll probably watch it in Black and white first and then check out the color version if the show is good. From the images the color ones look kinda like 80’s movies rather than something modern.
  19. Thom
    Well, it did have some corny moments - or twelve!
  20. Big s
    It’s the same trick with the Mr color super metallic 2 silver. I guess certain metallic paints turn to a chrome when super thinned. I hear it doesn’t work on every color, but certain ones it does and makes a durable mirror like finish.
  21. wm cheng
    Oh yeah! I can't believe how good those kits are!!! I'm still waiting for this Tie Bomber to make it in 1/72 scale from Bandai. No more AMT kits for me, I think I still have PTSD from the 80s-90s doing their Star Trek kits
  22. shazam
    I hear you! Be comfortable within your own collecting needs. Just collect what you want and not what others tell you what you should have.
  23. sh9000
    Factory Entertainment TOS Bridge Replica.
  24. sh9000
    8" Clothed Batman. 8" Clothed Catwoman.
  25. sh9000
    Iron Man Mark VII (Battle Damaged).
  26. sh9000
    GI Joe Classified Budo.
  27. derex3592
    Really wish Bandai wouldn't have abandoned their Star Wars ships line. Those were the best kits and there were sooooo many more to get to! 😭
  28. Chronocidal
    Seriously who even is in charge of which ships get produced in what scales now? Is it too much to ask to just get someone with half a brain to produce a complete line in a scale that actually makes sense? And by "makes sense" I mean to actually look at the sizes of the pilots and scale the ships by that, instead of some half-cooked stat sheet pilfered from the annals of old RPG rulebooks. Like it actually drives me bats that the most complete and (mostly) accurate collection (minus a few insanely notable exceptions) is the MGS line.
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