Graham

Heh, it is the face of the Nyan Nyan logo! Well spotted! As for the other one, I would have said VF-19S, except the SMS logo makes VF-27 more likely IMO.

That is not confirmed.

VE/VT will have the correct canopies, not the same as 1D.

I let my 4 1/2 year old watch both The Clone Wars and the uncut, dubbed ADV Gatchaman, which he loves. I was initially a bit concerned about some of the deaths in Clone Wars, but beyond the occasional "Daddy, are those Clone TRoopers OK?" questions, he seems to be OK with it. No nightmares or other problems. Graham

When I met with Yamato last week, I was told mid-February, so should be any day now. Graham

One thing very interesting in this book is that there seems to be some new information on the VF-171EX's gunpod, which is not in other sources. Hopefully, somebody will be willing to translate the relevant text. Graham

At the moment, I've got my VF-25S DX and VF-25F DX displayed on top of my bedroom TV. One is in always in fighter mode and the other in battroid mode and I transform them between fighter and battroid about every two days. I don't bother with Gerwalk mode as a), I don't think the DX has a good looking Gerwalk mode and b), in Gerwalk, the DX is not stable enough IMO. For a display cabinet OK, but not perched on top of a TV, with a 4ft drop to a hard wooden floor. Anyway, last night I transformed the VF-25S from battroid to fighter and instead of resting it on it's landing gears, I decided to display it on one of my flexi-stands (square base, medium length prong version), on top of the TV. Big mistake. I had two of the prongs on the fighters legs, just inboard of the ventral fins and the front prong just ahead of the gunpod muzzle. The fighter was at about a 20-25 degree upward angle. I positioned the fighter on the stand and it seemed stable enough, but within a minute of getting into bed to watch TV it suddendly slid backward off the stand and toppled to the floor with a loud crash. Needless to say, I jumped up immediately, fearing the worst, but thankfully, although the fighter had come unlocked and the shield and gunpod had popped off, there was no damage at all, not even any paint scratching. Tough toy. Graham

Both the sculpt and possability look excellent IMO. I'm personally not bothered by the lack of FAST packs as it's a Hikaru VF-1J and Hikaru's VF-1J never used FAST Packs in the TV series anyway. I never display either my 1/48 or 1/60 Yamato VF-1J Hikaru with FAST Packs either. Graham

On the DX shiny plastic looks good IMO. In that new photo of the 1/100 VF-25G battroid, the plastic looks a bit cheap. Probably just the photo though. The downside to shiny as many of us have been experiencing with the DX is paint rubbing off very easily. Graham

I do buy Great Mechanics, but only when it has Macross stuff in it. I still prefer Hobby Japan though, as over the past year there have been several issues that have featured the largest and clearest Frontier CG art and lineart of any book or magazine published so far. Some of the VF-25 lineart has not been published elsewhere either. Graham

Looking good, although the plastic on the VF-25G loks a little shiney in the latest pic. Graham

Actually, we had a long discussion about what I'd recommend for future projects. The VF-4 was on the list, but not at the top. Expect some exciting stuff from Yamato in the next few years. Graham

Arms and legs nice and tight on the one I handled and locks together well. Appearance is awesome in all modes, it really captures the look of the VF-11 IMO. It looks much better in person than in pics. Graham

Even if designed by a mainland Chinese team, intellectual property rights & tooling will be 100% owned by Bandai.

What I heard is not confirmed, but I consider the source to be pretty reliable. Graham

Yes, some more, but I'm not going to repeat it yet, until I get confirmation from independant sources. Not Yamato. One of the toy factory owners from China I've met. Again, not bashing Chinese toy designers, but they are not as experienced or accomplished in designing transforming mecha toys as the Japanese. Just a fact. Graham

Not saying the DX is bad, I actually really enjoy mine, but it does exhibit obvious signs of being far from cutting edge. Graham

Had a chance to examine and transform a VF-11B test shot yesterday Transformation was fairly easy, only one tricky area. The toy looks fantastic and feels pretty solid. Several aspects of the transformation are quite ingenious, especially the heatshield. Light years ahead of the old 1/72 scale version. IMO. Really looking forward to this even more now. Graham

While we all know that these days most Japanese toys are made in China to save costs, the majority are still designed by Japanese design teams. However, a little birdy in the industry told me that not only was the DX VF-25 made in China, but the job of designing the Bandai DX VF-25 was also farmed out to a Chinese design team. While it’s still a decent toy in its own right, this piece of information may explain why in main respects the toy does appear to be about 10 years behind the latest Japanese state of the art in toy design. Graham

Hey, I think this picture I found online is from the live action G.I. Joe movie. Graham

Only Gundam anime I would be interested to watch is Sentinel. Graham

Fighter mode appearance is much improved over the DX IMO. No more down-turned nose. Longer (more anime accurate) nose too. Longer landing gear. Legs appear to sit higher, i.e. less gap between the top rear of the legs and the backplate. No ugly triangular cut out on the underside of the nose either. Graham

I find it funny that both convenience store clerks were able to identify the weapon. Obviously, this points to some correllation between being a Trekkie and working as a convenience store clerk. Graham

IIRC, the YF-19's canards are also POM. Correct that POM can't be painted easily, which was why Yamato included a second pair of ABS canards with the YF-19 in case anybody wanted to do a custom paint scheme. Graham

No movie toys have been announced yet. It's far too early! Heck, it's not even confirmed that there will be any differences between the mecha in the TV series and the mecha in the movie. At this stage, it's just an unconfirmed idea that the creators were thinking of. Graham