Totoro242

Word. Just recently, it was finally documented in Figure Oh! magazine, here's a review I am stealing that Matt Alt did on ToyBoxDX.com: http://toyboxdx.com/phorum/read.php?4,192680 From an interview with Tetsu Watanabe, a Watanabe Giken employee who was project lead on the 1/55 Valkyrie for Takatoku toys: "After Takatoku's bankruptcy, the molds for the 1/55 Valkyries were placed under the stewardship of the contracted manufacturer, Matsushiro. Matsushiro began manufacturing 1/55 Valkryies for the export market, but gradually slid into financial hardship themselves. Matsushiro sought to be acquired by a major toy company, and this became the connection between Bandai and the Macross series." The article goes on to interview a Mr. Takayuki Morishima, who was at Popy at the time Bandai came to control the Macross stuff via the Matsushiro acquisition. At the time, the Macross stuff was only really selling abroad, via Matsushiro's exports. When Popy got ahold of the assets, however, they decided to revitalize the Macross series for the domestic market. Morishima says of the first release (the "Hi-Metal" Strike Valkyrie): "Takatoku had already created blueprints and even a partial prototype of the Strike Valkyrie. We at Bandai used those as references to make the molds. At first there was talk of simply reissuing the Takatoku molds as-is, but as the movie was just about to open, it was decided to properly revamp the design. It was already so well designed I didn't want to add anything to the basic toy itself, but one area I did insist on was adding missiles to the wings... Another thing I did was to come up with a new canopy cover design. Even the Takatoku Super Valkyrie left the canopy as-is in Battroid mode, and I wanted to do something about that. That's how I came up with the idea of an insert that would be slid under the chest from below. We finished it just as the Strike went on sale and offered it in a giveaway campaign. It proved so popular that we actually included it with the VF-1A. As a side note, when we started discussing putting out the Hi-Metal version of the toy, it turned out that Matsushiro had a lot of leftover stock on hand. So some of the Strike Valkyries were shipped with Bandai stickers covering the Takatoku inscriptions. [That's really unthinkable now.] I break into a cold sweat just thinking about it."

Yes, its right next to Popy, Japan and Bullmark, Japan.

From a conversation I had with one of the owners of Book Nippon years ago, they were responsible for importing Macross Perfect Memory Out 8. I was told that they commisioned the poster for their edition only. This would be the second run without Japanese print on the outside and it was created for the import market. I'm not sure how many if any made it to Japan. I think this is agrees with one of the points you are making Veffidas?

Very nice! I always wanted to get into collecting Macross phone cards, but havent made the step yet I really like the gold foil cards wthat came with coins. There's a ton of those. Eventually I'll get around to it. I do have the one phone card that came with the Macross II LD box set.

Not at all likely that you would get a complete set unfortunately. There are 81 cards 72 of which are regular cards and 9 are special cards. You would probably get about 90% of the regular cards, but you would only end up with 2 or 3 special foil cards. The special foil cards are really nice and feature mostly original artwork. I am still tracking down the special cards even though I completed the regular set a while back. I need 3 more There are a handful of collectors on here that trade or sell cards, so you can always start with a box and work from there

Sure. I can scan them maybe tonight.

Oh yeah, those are cool! I'll have to add those to my want list Veffidas!

My 5 year old was marginally interested in Robotech when I played it for him, but when I started watching Macross 7, he was enthralled. I'm not sure what it is, maybe all the music, but he would sit with me and faithfully watch 2 episodes every night. I gave him sold old junked out Convertors Valkyries and 1/144 Destroid toys, but they hardly get any notice from him. The one thing I have been passing on to him is the collecting bug. We collect Thomas Trackmaster toys, Mattel die-cast Cars toys, Avatar The Last Airbender action figures, Hot Wheels Speed Racer movie cars, and most recently Star Wars Clone Wars figures and accessories. According to my wife we go a bit overboard trying to complete these collections and so I'm trying to convince him to sell his Cars toys to finance his Clone Wars collecting

My Anime May 1983, Takatoku Toys full page ad:

My Anime May 1983, page 100 and 101, 1/55 Valkyrie Takatoku Toys model lecture, photo contest winners:

My Anime March 1983, page 108 and 109, 1/55 Valkyrie Takatoku Toys model lecture:

My Anime March 1983, page 93, 1/55 Valkyrie Takatoku Toys photo contest:

My Anime March 1983 Takatoku Toys full page ad:

My Anime February 1983 page 113, 1/55 Valkyrie Takatoku Toys article:

Here are some scanned toy articles and ads from 3 My Anime magazines from 1983. My Anime February 1983 Takatoku Toys feature fold-out ad:

Akim, I checked my Mospeada cards and I have the same 4 that you have I guess the Stick card is harder to find..

Okay, finally got around to scanning these:

I would definately be interested in that too I've been thinking about picking it up myself and it would help if I knew if there were any good extras like the on the DVD's

I'm not apologizing for anything. I just cant stand to see people present obviously incorrect information as "fact". Now you have the real facts. Interesting that you would resort to insults rather than acknowledge that you have been corrected.

All the TT toys and boxes say JAPAN.

The Sentinels comic picked up within months of the last issue of Comico's The Macross Saga #36. Its even announced in TMS #36. HG never "gave up" and "attacked" comic books, the comics just kept going. For anyone who actually reads the comics, The Sentinels and The Invid War are considered the best comic books of the entire run. If you know your comic history, the art and story are consistantly as good as any other independant American manga produced during this time. Also if you know your history you will know that the entire comic book industry peaked and began a massive decline in the middle of 1994. By 1995 volumes of comic titles were being cancelled and every comic saw declining sales. The Robotech comics dried up as interest in the original series waned, interest in comics took a nose-dive, and HG lost interest and gave the comic book companies free reign. All of these reasons contributed to the decline of Robotech comics. The Eternity Sentinels comic restarted the story based on the original scripts, the McKinney novels, and their own added elements. Sentinels Book One sold extremely well for an independent title, warranting second printings of the first two issues. A comic book series that ran for 75 issues for eight years and produced a myriad of spin-offs must not have been "poor" and must have sold well. That the Sentinels partially weathered the comic book crash of 1995-1996 is a testament to this point. As far as “milking Macross for cash”, the comics explored just about every aspect of all three TV series, not just Macross, so I don’t see the point you are making. Marvel bought Malibu to acquire technical staff and skilled colorists. They decided not to acquire Eternity which was heavy with licensed titles and B&W independent flavorings. Not really Marvels cup of tea. The Robotech staff simply formed with another company, changed the name to Academy, and transferred the license and titles to the new company. If you talk to any of these artists that used DYRL designs you will find that many of them are huge SDF Macross and DYRL fans. One artist is even a regular on these boards. Their choice of using these designs was because they liked the art and wanted to pay homage. At this point in the comics history, HG was hardly monitoring the license and the artists and writers went with what they felt was right. This was also the period where Macross II and Plus were released. No harm done. No writers "jumped ship" to cause HG to revoke the Academy license, but rather Ben Dunn (who had made a bid for the Robotech comic license back in 1988) made a stronger pitch for the license when it next came up for renewal. He offered better sales through his distribution, flashy CG covers, more money, and a color format; and HG fell for it. Cant argue with much of your criticism of Antarctic’s run. Ben Dunn is an admitted DYRL fanatic and felt obligated to use those designs. I'd hardly call that "attempts to milk the original", but rather, he thought he knew what the fans wanted and failed miserably. He really dicked up what was left of the comics license. Its painfully obvious by what you stated above why the Antarctic license was revoked. No one in business revokes a license without giving a reason and of course Antarctic knew why the license was revoked. There were 4 titles, one of which was a prequel (obviously since Macross comes first it involved many Macross characters), one was Macross based, another New Generation, and the last bridged the Sentinels with the Shadow Chronicles series. I'd hardly call that "endless retreads of Macross events". Robotech comics have a long history of prequel stories starting with the original Graphic Novel in 1987 to Return to Macross to The Legend Of Zor. Return to Macross also chronicles the period during the VF-1 development. No one saw Macross Zero when those were planned. The Mospeada derived mini-series was in support of the (albeit terrible) Invasion video game, not a lead-in to Prelude. Its no secret that HG cannot make animated sequels to Macross. Its no great revelation that the Prelude comic didn’t dwell on any Macross characters. Maybe you were surprised by this, but the rest of us saw this coming a mile away. Everyone knew it was a lead-in to an animated sequel, which could not have Macross characters in it. If anyone really wants to get a good idea of what a well-informed opinion of the Robotech comics looks like (the good and the bad), please check out Ravenhawks MW post: http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?showtopic=28822

Its too nice to be Suzuki's IMO. The original My Anime poster is signed "SToshi" not ARTLAND like the Robotech posters.

This was originally a poster and was found in the issue of My Anime, December 1982. It is a jumbo fold-out poster and there's a little bit more at the bottom than previously seen on Robotech posters. Scanning it would be tough since its a fold out poster and has lots of creases. There are a few collectors that have the poster, I am one. If I can find a good technique for photographing folded poster, I'll get you a nice big pic. Macross posters thread can be found in the Collectors section: http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?showforum=42

Awesome list! This would be my top 5, though in a slightly different order

My fav is the original Area 88 OVA series. Absolutley brilliant. It has awesome action, plenty of violence, a "modern samuari" main character, beautiful animation, classic 80's soundtrack, angsty characters, and intrigue.