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Definitely gonna check it out.

Got some repaints for you. First up, we're actually finishing off the final 2025 wave of Age of the Primes with Flatline. Flatline's something of an interesting character... he was actually created for the IDW Bayverse tie-in comics. He was originally conceived as something of a mad scientist, the guy who created Devastator's gestalt from the Constructicons, but that scene never made it into the comics. He later turned up experimenting on Arcee, as an attempt to explain how she went from the Deluxe-class toy from the original movie line to the Arcee sisters that appeared in Revenge of the Fallen. I guess the IDW team liked their original character enough that he made it into the main G1-esque IDW line, where he was drawn as a potential repaint/retool of Thrilling 30 Trailcutter. His character was a bit more fleshed out; he joined the Decepticons because he believed in Megatron's vision, but as a medic he'd treat anyone regardless of their badge. Here, he's obviously not a retool of Trailbreaker, but rather Armada Red Alert. Broadly, I think it works. T30 Trailcutter had the front of his alt mode as his chest, rather than folded all the way down like the G1 or Earthrise version, and the Red Alert mold still has wheels on the sides of the lower legs. The only things they really had to change were the head (of course), and giving him an actual left hand. On that note, Flatline comes with the same trio of left hand attachments, and he new hand does pop off and you can use those accessories just like you could on Red Alert. They can still store in the fenders on his legs and under his backpack, like Red Alert. However, Hasbro wants you to use the little holes on them to plug them into tiny pegs on his roof, just above the windshield. This is so they can mimic the gun barrels seen on Flatline's back in IDW (which themselves mimicked the spikes on the Bayverse design). I was kind of surprised (but not also not) to find that this is a feature that was always built into the mold, and Red Alert can do it too. The instructions suggest that the weapons should stay on his roof for vehicle mode... perhaps a legacy of his design as a Trailcutter retool? After all, that toy had a pair of guns permanently affixed to his roof. But personally, I think I'm good tucking them away for a cleaner alt mode. Speaking of tucking things away, you had to remove Red Alerts gun-hand to transform him, but I'm happy to say that Flatline's hand can stay attached. So, yeah, I though Red Alert was a pretty decent toy originally. But if you skipped him because you're not into Armada a pseudo-G1 Decepticon medic is a good excuse to take another look at this mold. I also got the latest Target 4-pack in. The 4-pack opens with Ultra Magnus, who's a straight repaint of AotP Deluxe Optimus. Same accessories and everything. And, I get it, as white Optimus repaints go this one probably makes the most sense, since the Optimus use of the mold was mean to mimic his G1 toy, and the G1 Magnus toy had a white Optimus repaint at it's core. Frankly, if DNA does an upgrade trailer that can go with this figure to transform him into a full-on Ultra Magnus I'd consider using this guy on my main movie shelf instead of SS86 Magnus, but as it stands, he's just ok. See, as Optimus toys goes, this one was one of my least-favorite modern molds. Not that it's a bad toy, it's just that the G1 toy aesthetic doesn't really mesh so well with the rest of Siege/Earthrise/Kingdom/Legacy/Age of the Primes, and as a Deluxe he doesn't really scale all that well, either. What I really wanted was the guy on the far right, but to get that I had to go 3P. Speaking of least-favorite modern Optimus toys, they have Magnus fighting Nemesis Prime. Which is a good choice! Except it's Animated Nemesis Prime, and as I've said many times before, as much as I loved the cartoon I'm not a fan of the designs as three-dimensional toys. Objectively, it's a pretty neat mold for the Animated design, but subjectively, Animated clashes so hard with with other G1/Armada/IDW/Cybertron/etc stuff in the post-Siege mainline. Heck, even the Prime stuff fits better )though you could make the argument that's because those figures have been much more G1-ified than Prowl's chin reduction). Besides, Legacy already gave us an evil repaint of Animated Optimus... it was Animated Motormaster. So, yeah, I'm not opposed to Nemesis Prime appearing in this set, I just wish they'd have used a different Optimus toy. Heck, I'd have been happier if they included a second repaint of the Legacy Deluxe, though the SS Devastation version would have worked, too. I'll at least say that Hasbro put some love into this Nemesis, though. In addition to his new masked face, you'll note that Hasbro painted the little squares on his feet, and made his fingers a different color than the backs of his hands... things that should have been done on Animated Optimus in the first place. They also painted his rims and marker lights, which they couldn't be bothered to do for the original release. I guess, if you're down with the Animated aesthetic and you're into Nemesis Prime repaints, the figure's honestly a pretty decent toy. But I personally wouldn't have bought this set over him. I would, however, have considered buying the set for Bumper. It's about time he got an official toy! But Bumper is sort of a weird character... the G1 toy was released in super limited quantities on Cliffjumper cards in 1984. The yellow robot in Cliffjumper packaging led to the unofficial designation "Bumblejumper," despite the actual toy being neither the Porsche 944 or the Volkswagen Type-1. Rather, this was the Diaclone mini-car based on the Mazda Familia 1500 XG. "Bumblejumper" was eventually shortened to "Bumper," which become his canonical name when he was finally acknowledged as his own character in the Dreamwave comics. Retooling Bumper from Bumblebee makes sense, then, as all three used the same basic engineering as G1 toys. That said, he's a bit low effort, as he's really SS86 Bumblebee with slightly brighter yellows, slightly blacker blacks, and a new head. In an ideal world they'd have remolded his feet to be more blocky, like the Familia, instead of (sloppily) painting over the headlights. Likewise, for robot mode, I wish they replaced the yellow pelvis and forearms with black. Instead, all of the effort in this set really went into Horri-Bull. Horri-Bull, who finally completes the Decepticon Headmaster Juniors, is an extensive retool of Titans Return Skullcruncher. They share the same gray gun, biceps, elbows, thighs, and knees, but that's really it. He's sporting a new torso, new pelvis, new hips, new shoulders, new hands, new forearms, new beast claws on his forearms, new lower legs, a new blue gun, and new lower legs. The results work surprisingly well. Where Skullcruncher was a floppy mess that could barely stand, Horri-Bull's joints are sturdy, and he's even got heels with ankle pivots to keep his feet firmly planted. The Head/Titanmaster is a completely different mold than the one from Titans Return. The sort of helmeted look is, to my mind, more evocative of his Japanese Bullhorn counterpart. The body is the same as Skullcruncher's, but with a different head and a different face on his back. Transformation is basically the same as Skullcruncher, but with the added step of folding his feet out and tabbing them into the sides of the torso. And, like robot mode, it works pretty well. His rear legs are blue instead of gray, and his back is a little less humped, but he's got the same basic shape and oddly-spined design of the G1 toy, with a beast face that has more cow-like proportions than the G1 toy, but the same sort of sharp teeth. Because the beast head is actually just pegged on, it can swivel (which, in this position, works like a head tilt) and his jaws can open. Like the G1 toy, there's a hatch on his back for the Head/Titanmaster to ride in. And the blue gun still plugs into his butt to form the beast tail, but there's an additional 5mm port under the barrels that lets you stow the gray gun back there too. For me, Horri-Bull is the highlight of the set. As I said, he completes the Decepticon Headmaster Juniors which started trickling out with Fangry all the way back in 2021. The extensive retooling makes him (and Squeezeplay before him) much better figures than Fangry, though. Like I said, Horri-Bull is really the main reason to buy this set. It's hard to justify an entire set that retails for nearly $100 for just one Deluxe, though (which, you know, could have been a little cheaper if they'd used a Deluxe mold for Nemesis instead of the Voyager Animated one, just saying). For me, I'm always down for a white Optimus repaint, and Bumper provides some much-needed (if lazy) love to an often overlooked G1 character. Those three combined are enough to sell me on this set. Nemesis Prime, a objectively good toy that I subjectively don't like, will be on his way to a new home shortly.

Test shot of the 1/72 HMAGARAGE F-15 Kai

My Status as an Assassin Obviously Exceeds the Hero' had a great episode 2. I am not surprised at anything that has happened, I like the elf girl.

New book from Hobby Japan coming Nov 28 - Macross Mechanics Autumn 2025: https://www.amazon.co.jp/-/en/dp/4798640093/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3IN918X0Q6RFC&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.pJVX9BI0iRabw5lwWXDmKzqQpIuLOyXheZyCAEKj7tLcZo_LjB-j76xrCkJuN46rM-phtJUaj8Wy47mW67iK3jVooXK4-x8961bbDNBYFNo8ZE2LWhkUObLPV2GMs8bQQbnNV6bKj-d6QSP92VBbX2UKa3OA687itxHercg3lMX50OTjTX_ljaQjb2dTnS_hfb-kSeFX5pSoMCn8hYFAJpvKoKi9PwDqsNlKmTt5G_0.eAzgiHTb69ZeEuFE_Jg-M2vqNtRbiyqZDrjfckZYsC8&dib_tag=se&keywords=マクロス+本&qid=1760384842&s=books&sprefix=マクロス%2Cstripbooks%2C87&sr=1-1

Star Trek is a big franchise with a well-established multi-generational fanbase, so there are always going to be at least a few fans willing to tune in and check out any new project no matter how obviously ill-considered. That there will initially be an audience is guaranteed. No guarantees are made with respect to the size or continuing existence of that audience after the first few episodes. Well, no... no it doesn't. After all, it'd be a spinoff of Star Trek: Picard and that series was neck-and-neck with Star Trek: Discovery in the race to be the worst-rated Star Trek title of all time for most of its run. It was only saved from winning that race by being shorter and going all-in on fanservice in its third and final season. Trying to build a new series around a character whose development in the prior series was one of the most harshly criticized aspects of its story and a ship that was also poorly received for its unnecessary redesign and overall aesthetic is probably not a winning strategy. We already have a series about the Enterprise exploring the cosmos, though. That's Strange New Worlds. Concurrently running two different shows with the exact same premise is probably not a winning strategy either. Variety is the spice of life, and the Star Trek franchise is big enough to accommodate more than that one type of story. Strange New Worlds and Lower Decks are both very well-received on average. Not always. TOS didn't have one. DS9 only got one in its fifth season when Nog came back for sophomore year field study. ENT's eager young ensign was also the most experienced person on the ship by a huge margin. PIC didn't really have one either. Enterprise wasn't Uhura's first assignment even as a cadet on training rotation in SNW either. It's really just TNG's Wesley, VOY's Harry, and DSC's Tilly. Lotta -y's. I guess that makes those know-it-all fresh-outs a pack of Y's guys. 😜 Lower Decks's whole premise is seeing these space adventures through unjaded eyes, since the senior staff (and Beckett) have seen it all before. They're still good and experienced at most of what they do, because they've still got four years of Academy training plus mentoring and training from more experienced officers. Even people who are in their final year at the academy don't really stretch credibility IMO since they've got years of training under their belts (e.g. Tilly, SNW Uhura). It's more of a problem when you've got characters who've never been and have no training (e.g. Wesley, the Prodigy crew) or have been in Starfleet for all of five seconds (the Academy cast and the Academy cast) out saving the galaxy and never attending class.

Yeah, I had varying levels of leg lock on the couple I got, and it was never consistent. The tabs were pretty shallow, and it wasn't hard to knock the legs loose on any of mine. For all its failures, that is one thing I don't think the 171 ever had issues with. I can't say I ever had the issues with the Yamato 17s' feet that I did with the VF-19s', but I also had even less desire to display a 17 in gerwalk than I did the 19s. Mine seemed to hold up well-enough in battroid, but I never displayed them that way for more than a few minutes at a time. I'm probably a bad judge of 17-related stuff in general, I was just happy to get a solid fighter mode to display. Yeah, fair, I guess I was never a big enough fan of the 17 for the issues with the Yamato one to bother me? I thought it looked good enough, but it did have the same kind of weird backpack issue that the DX YF-21 has. It was always one of those designs so firmly planted in the "impossible anime magic" category that it was never going to really look like the animation. What I guess is kind of funny to consider.. have you looked at the old Bandai 1/65 versions? They were far more limited in articulation and features, but I'm starting to think they got some things right that neither of the more modern takes have figured out.

That's the main issue I had with the old Yamato 17 and 19. The ankles had a hard time holding up the weight of the toy in battroid and occasionally I would find they toppled over on their own even in a very neutral stance. I've had to resort to propping them up against a wall so I don't find them collapsed later.

Probably because they help fund his new Macross stuff.

This, so much!

As I recall the locking mechanism was highly particular. But when it's in place those damn things won't budge, even when you want to transform it. On the other hand, Yamato's pall jointed ankles are the biggest flaw with both the 17 and 19. I don't recall what the fix was.

So I got my $180 Amazon YF-21 and it's a good 'un. Straight head laser, whole canopy, and although a wing flap fell off I'm just going to put a drop of super glue on it and call it done. I doubt very much Bandai will make "bent" flaps for this thing. I haven't transformed it yet and don't know if I ever will. Fighter mode is where I leave the majority of my Valkyries. The exceptions were my Yamato VF-1J because it was dirt simple, and my VF-31C Siegfried because the engineering and care of assembly made a complex transformation pleasurable. No other model has come close. Finally, as to the model itself, I'm so glad I got this dirt cheap. It isn't worth anywhere near its retail price, and with the god-awful Super Parts you can see Bandai was phoning this in from 1,000 miles away. We waited 30 years for this? Lord knows they could have kept the idiot Delimiter Mode and included a Fold Pod in its place. Now what may be a surprising sentence: I'm very glad I have this. Macross Plus is my favorite Macross series, now given our current world more than ever, and I had considered my Full Set Pack YF-19 the best 19 available. I had a Yamato VF-22 Gamlin as a fill-in for Guld's 21, and the two just never meshed together. It was more than the different colors, it was the design choices of each as far as shapes, details, plastics, and so on. Plus, unlike many others on this forum, I rather like all the tampoed details and callouts. Reminds me of JASDF F-15s and F-4s with their monstrous amount of stenciled placards. You should see the decal sheets for their models. Ye gods... And so this YF-21, flawed and overpriced it may be, is a great companion piece for the Chogokin YF-19, and it looks like they are indeed from the same place and time, if that makes sense. And I do like that, both perched on the same YetiStand (sniff.) I have a Yamato VF-11 on there too, with a nice decal sheet printed by the great Anasazi37, that I'm going to get to apply and that should bring the "feel" of the 11 up to the 19 and 21. I doubt very much we'll ever see a Chogokin 11, and I have no faith whatsoever that Bandai wouldn't stuff it anyway.

That’s a great idea. I also have one that came in the 4 pack with that Ashura Temple I’m working on. The Bat-Shu triplets.

If they were that concerned about the writer's strike (I doubt it), they should have held off on the season until the strike was resolved.

They don't lock that well, at least on my copy. Try lifting the plane up without cradling the legs and see if you can swoosh it around without the legs dropping. The tabs that click into the legs from the backplate in fighter mode aren't deep enough to hold it. To be honest, it seems like those pegs are meant to help you line things up properly rather than a locking mechanism. Anyway, I pulled my Yamato VF-17S from its box and it's gone all loosey goosey on the ankles. Is there an easy way to tighten these up? I don't think stuff like Kiki's will help since these are metal on metal joints.

https://variety.com/2025/film/box-office/tron-ares-box-office-opening-weekend-roofman-kiss-of-the-spider-woman-1236544376/?fbclid=IwY2xjawNZzhRleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFOSjg2aGRUT3F1N0NuNTRqAR4EtzY0s8D0Fmr-tMSsxGiNd3fgu5O6nJEjWnyRiEFzg_OkR3M2npZEM-4Vxw_aem_tcV0x2-lUihbaLpD6H2ugg According to Variety, the film didn't do well upon its release. I think it was kind of expected; neither of the previous two did, but this one was even worse than the first (by a few fractions). But what can you expect from it, and its plot? Besides, this kind of makes a sequel impossible in the short term, as they wanted. I think if they're going to do something like that, I hope it's a TV series with at least 8 episodes, to close Leto's arc (who is as dull as the Joker). In fact, Leto was charging a pie and sugarcane juice to be able to make this movie, because it's really bad.

This is helpful, thank you. I've not read the Chronicle or Master Files (though I've looked at untranslated scans from time to time) and wasn't sure if there was an official date for when the 24 entered service in the NUNS. If it was contemporary to the 25, that helps give a window to the aesthetic of the head sculpt. I was going to ask about variants, but you just answered that as well. I can guess that it would be reasonable to expect similar load outs to the Frontier era 25s and 171s, with an RVF version and such. I expect details are pretty sparse, but anything else the setting materials tell us about it? I'm getting way ahead of myself here, but already thinking about super packs and such for it.

The legs do lock into place in fighter... If Bandai were going to have a semi-partformer anything to start with the 21 would have been it. The legs already detach for limiter mode so it makes the absolute most sense to make use of that gimmick for a slimmer fighter profile.

Yamato missed that detail back in the day, too. Of course this is just a shrunk version of that but the gunpod did already exist in 1/60 as it does 1/100 now.

Safe to say any fan favourite valks would best be served as bandai's 'emergency' options..i.e.. to be used to raise sticker prices; or when bottom line profits are getting hit; or when sales/interest in the IP are waning... thats why i am NOT IN ANY BIT REMOTELY INTERESTED in bandai releasing any max/milia VF-1J.s in DX format.. hear that bandai!! . . . . but if they do, of course i might see whats the fuss all abt..

I was never happy with my Yamato VF-17S. I thought it was a bad toy, especially when compared to their VF-19S. (e.g. weird gap in the back plate in battroid, legs are too heavy to lock in place in fighter, battroid proportions were also kinda bad, etc). Was intially hoping that Bandai's version would be better, but it has its own set of bad issues. Sadly, I haven't seen any good VF-17 yet, or at least owned any. Now what if by some weird chance, Bandai includes a set of swappable bulkier legs that are only used for battroid mode and make it into an optional partsformer. Would that make people happy? I know there are perfect transformation purists here that would hate that path, but I would be okay with it.

The could have just recolored the Speaker Pod from the HMR VF-19 Kai if they had wanted to include it with the VF-19P Personally, I'm happy they instead gave us a GU-15 gunpod with the HMR VF-19P. Which also means the next VF-19 HMR variation to be released will likely be a VF-19S or VF-19F.

Industrial, basically. Definitely not classical jazz or country. It pretty much covers bands like Nine inch Nails, Ministry and KMFDM as a few of the bigger examples. Some bands are more rock and metal sounding and others are more dance pop or in the case of Ministry, starting out as dance pop then moving to a more metal side of the spectrum. NIN is kinda the mid range of dancy and rocky

You should do a display with the L-Gaim Bat-ahi next to the one from five Star stories