JsARCLIGHT

OK, I'm as easygoing as the next guy but I seriously have to don the mod hat here.

Please, NO MORE "NSFW" links. MW is officially rated PG-13. This stuff will be deleted when encountered.

Well, if you consider each account to be a "unique" member then we do indeed have over 4,500 members. Of that number you can count "active" members, banned members, folk who never come around any more and everybody else who has ever signed up for an account.

Just some info to add balance to that number, since January 1st of this year we have had 1303 members "active" and from day to day we have varying numbers of accounts "online" at the site. For instance right now we have something in the ballpark of 30 registered folks "online" and something like 60 "guests" (unregistered).

IMHO we are going to see an influx of guests and new members as Macross Frontier nears it's air date.

The only thing I could think of while watching that video was "Aren't you a little short for a storm trooper?"

My Christmas present to myself is a USP Match .45.

I was a good boy so I got it early.

I am probably not the best person to respond to this but is it just me or do Shirow's graphic novels not really translate well into anime because his creations take full advantage of the print medium? What I mean by that is if you ever sit down and really chew into one of his books his art and his layout style is very dynamic, dynamic in ways that you can't really "do" in anime. At the same time his method of story telling, which usually involves several very verbose exchanges between characters replete with liner notes in some cases, flows very well when read as it allows the reader a chance to go at their own pace and fully absorb the material... but when those same long, talky scenes are transcribed to video you always feel like you are playing catch-up to what is being said and a half second of missed dialog can cause confusion. In that same vein, Shirow is almost too heady for his own good... and as we all know "complex" and "action" don't blend well unless the author has a firm grasp of dialog, timing and plot flow (something that IMHO most "anime" directors don't have in spades). That has to be one of my biggest gripes about the GITS movies and the TV show to a good degree... they try just a tad too hard to match Shirow's long winded chunks of dialog and it winds up slamming the brakes on the flow of the show and the viewer gets bored. But if they simplify things too much like they did in Appleseed the viewer can get grumpy from feelings that things are being "too dumbed down".

Next Gen HD Media war is at a "Stalemate"

I'm not sure this article or what is said in it was timed all that well. You'd think people would have kept their yaps shut until after the Christmas shopping season... unless someone knows something the rest of us don't know.

Ooooooooookay guys. Please drop the secondary line of discussion and get back to bashing the Robotech guy. No insult was intended and no discussion is needed.

yeah that was one of the best scenes ever!

So how effect are the head lasers, I assume they were build for air defense like

Roy used them in M0 to shoot down all the missiles that were send towards him, but other than that are they effect in actual combat, not paying attention to the animation error we saw in Macross where they disabled all those pods

I have always figured that the Valkyries were made to be the "foot soldiers" to fight the giant aliens. As most people know you send a foot soldier into combat with a rifle, grenades and a pistol as a last ditch weapon. I have always seen the head lasers on the Valkyries as their "pistol", a last ditch backup weapon that the pilot could use when needed. But unlike a soldier's pistol the head lasers also serve a functional utility use as cutting tools in an emergency (as shown several times in SDFM). So in that effect the head lasers are kind of a combination of a soldier's pistol, knife and perhaps his ration can opener.

Another factor to consider is who is releasing these huge toys. Every one that EXO mentions is being or was released by companies that produce hundreds of toys a year. A large scale output house like Hot Toys or the behemoth of Hasbro who have revenue coming in from several different varied lines of product have more "room" to take chances releasing huge money losing toys. Hot Toys can develop and roll out nearly any property they can get the rights to in a 1/6 action figure now that they are so large. And to use EXO's analogy I'd say that years ago before they grew to the size they are now the idea of taking on some of the rarefied licenses they are making now would probably have seemed ludicrous. They did take some chances early on but those lucky chances paid off and with time and rolling out more mainstream product to build up their product base they have arrived at a point where they can just churn out nearly anything. And if that 1/6 scale fully articulated and accessorized museum quality replica of Cherry 2000 completely tanks and they don't even sell one of them they still have umteen other revenue streams from all the other product lines they have cooking. In this sense if a big company like Bandai wanted to churn out a 1/12 scale Legioss they could, easily at that, and even if it never sold one unit the loss of making it would be absorbed into their bottom line beneath the eighty metric tons of cash all their Gundam licenses pull in.

To a good degree that goes the same for Aoshima. They are not exactly Beagle or Megahouse, they have a bit of money coming in from all the model kits they produce. If they really, really wanted to crank out a large scale Legioss they easily could and not lose their shirts if it tanked. Which brings us back to the notion that these companies just don't want to make the characters we want as big toys right now. Economics and feasibility vanish in the face of someone just saying "Nope... not going to make one right now".

More on subject I would really like to see Aoshima and Toynami's books on these Legioss toys. I'd like to know what sort of margins they have on these things. I mean, we all already know they (Toynami) sell these things for huge markups out of the gate so it makes me wonder what their true net is in all of this, post returns/replacements.

In all practicality the saddle bag boxes should come with Stick because he is prominently shown using them in the first episode. Mint should come with Rey as I stated before (because she is really only seen riding with him). As for what comes with Houquet and Yellow, who knows...

When you think about it, the upper leg armor cannot attach to the knee... if it did it would prevent the rotation of your upper leg and seriously curtail the movement of the unit when in armor mode. In the same breath however, those strunts must attach to the knees as they are the chief load bearing members that support the weight of the armor on the user. If they are not attached then the wearer must shoulder the entire weight of the armor without mechanical support.

Once again, this is part of the problem with these designs... they employ a ton of anime magic in them. They look convincing on paper but simply can't "work" in real life and this is yet another area in which compromise has to be made to get the toy to work.

As for the EP-40 beam cannon on Rey's bike it does not have an armor plate... you guy's are thinking of the RL-6 Rocket Launcher on Houquet's bike. That one DOES have the armor plate as it is usable without being mounted on the bike... but Rey's EP-40 is permanently built into the bike and the gun itself is the arm armor.

Rey's EP-40 Beam Cannon

Houquet's RL-6 Rocket Launcher

(those with keen eyes will remember Mint finds one of these in the rubble on the lake island and shoots it)

I agree with the second paragraph here... I just hate the whole "it won't work" reply, because as we've seen in the toy market nothing is that impossible.

Hence why I prefer to say "it is not economically viable". I'm sure it's possible for any company to take any property, no matter how "niche" or sub-pop it is, and turn it into a sellable commodity... the question is can they do so in a way that is profitable to them and that doesn't produce a total piece of crap. Then again you can never count out the dark horses... those hardcore toy fan companies making a toy just because they themselves want to make it, flying in the face of market studies and trends. In the end it's all about risk and the willingness to take those risks... and from my experience the Japanese are far more willing to risk than American toy makers.

Well then it comes down to the obvious that no one likes to say... the license is held by crappy companies that simply don't wish to make the toys the collectors want, they only want to make the toys THEY want to make. After all, if it's not the collector demand or the commercial viability of the product then it has to boil down to simply the desire of the creators to make what they make in the scales and quality levels they do. Some guy in a suit says "this scale" and that is that.

Then again everything is progressive and it builds on the generation before it. The Yamato 1/48's were possible because of the good sales and positive reception of the 1/60s. The Appleseed toys are probably the same as the smaller, cheaper action figures came before these new big dolls. The same can be said for Robocop, Aliens and a lot of other properties. The wave has to start and it has to carry... and from what I have seen the initial wave of the Mospeada toy renaissance has floundered due to poorly made toys, fan complaints and the like. Everyone is waiting with baited breath on all the new toys. I would honestly believe that the hope of large scale Legioss toys lies in the hands of CMs now. If their toy sells well and is of high quality which meets with positive fan reception then by all accounts I'd expect someone to make them bigger... but as it stands now the current toys we have are pretty much crap, there are a lot of vocal unhappy fans and I'd bet no one wants to walk into that lion's den and risk more money on bigger toys until a "hit" toy surfaces and proves the commercial viability of the line.

Also don't forget that Max gets in a good pot shot with his 1S'es head cannons on Milia in their dogfight in DYRL.

It would be strange that Mint would come with Houquet as she is seen riding with Rey most of the time in the show when she is not riding with Jim in the truck. Houquet is kind of the "rebel" of the group and to the best of my knowledge no one ever rides with her on her bike.

You know, the more I hear about this game the less inclined I am to run out and buy it.

Looks really good in armor mode but still looks weird in bike / guy mode.

This is not meant to be a slam but seriously how many people still play dice and paper RPG's these days. I thought those things went out with hammer pants and cassette tape walkmen.

Haaaa Ha!

Oh wait... I got that same card a week ago with the same 11/25 dates.

Edit: I have that number, give me ten seconds to dig it out.

Edit Deuce: The number is 1-800-405-7520. I've called three times now, they are very polite and "understanding" but from what I've found calling the number pretty much does nothing.

The real question would be if the blueshirts are smart enough to jumper it in. The local Beast Buy that I shop at employs kids that barely know how to dress themselves.

Ah, but those are expensive toys! Expensive to make that is... few companies are willing to take a gamble manufacturing such a costly toy for such a niche license. The Valkyries and transformers were kind of special because they are so universal and at the time pretty much had a guaranteed purchasing base. Mospeada is still fringe. For a company to invest a lot of money in a large scale design at this point would be like someone making a 1/6 full featured action figure of Tommy Boy. Sure it's "popular" but it's very niche and will only sell a handful of product. Plus with petroleum skyrocketing as it is the price of plastics is probably going to get really darn expensive here in a year or so, if not sooner.

I have to say that I am generally not a big fan of "origin" movies. I always feel like they spend an inordinate amount of time trying to re-establish an already established character or team and the plots generally suffer and have watered down "non origin" story arcs. In all seriousness while the Joe team and it's members have deep and varied back stories they are usually completely irrelevant to the "mission" at hand. I myself would enjoy it if the writers just "threw" the viewers into the plot with no ramp-up or elongated origin arcs and instead built the characters based on an "assumed" knowledge base. I have always enjoyed movies that just take you along for the ride and leave you wanting to know more about the characters than what is covered in the movie... or movies that only reveal hints and "tastes" of the history of the characters. Imbuing the characters with a level of mystery rather than overtly, usually bluntly, showing their varied back stories or origins just seems so... blahze.

How long is it taking for you guys to get your BLuRay movies? I bought my PS2 about 9 wks ago and still haven't got my movies.

I got mine in a hair over 4 weeks. From what I've seen you either got yours right away like me or after like three months like other people.

I myself am still waiting on my Xbox360 HD DVD movies... three months and counting...

Not so much too lazy to develop their own but rather too lazy to actually FIX the problems with this hunk of junk's design. And to be honest I don't know how much of that you put on Aoshima. Are they simply the distributor for this or did they have a lot of "say" over the development and build of these things? Something tells me all they did was agree to have their name on the box and use their distribution channels to allow Toynami to sell their crap directly to the Japanese.

Methinks I smell another "well these didn't sell well enough so we won't be making the Tread after all" brewing again. Aoshima probably understands how their market feels about overpaying for crap toys but it makes me wonder if Toynami has figured it out yet...

The Toshiba HD-A2 has a pretty good service history. One thing to consider about all these "super low sales" is that they are all pretty much undercutting the manufacturers' MSRP on this player. This is not a "crap" player that people would assume it has to be because it's a hundred bucks... this is one of the one-time flagship players from Toshiba. The only real thing it has going against it is that it is outdated cutting-edge technology wise and there are much better players on the market to be had. Walmart is even putting up endcaps featuring $15 HD DVD movies like Sleepy Hollow, Big Lebowski and others. By all accounts Walmart is in the midst of a D-Day level HD DVD push. I've talked with people who would not normally be even remotely considering getting into the HD DVD game thinking about it with these prices. As I've said a few times in this thread, the Blu Ray camp really needs to pull out the stops and combat all this press the HD DVD camp is garnering with these super low bargain basement player sales. It's not even officially "Christmas" shopping season yet...