Graham

Price is supposed to be somewhere between ¥4000 to ¥4400 (to be confirmed). The toy is also supposed to come with the wing missiles and the leg FAST packs as well, although these have not been shown yet. Graham

Here's a picture to illustrate what I mean about the wings. On the Hasegawa model kit, the narrow portion of the wing trailing edge, where it meets the fuselage is quite long. On the Yamato toy, the same area appears very short. Graham

Larger version of the pic now up in the MW magazine section here. Graham

BTW, a slightly bigger version of this pic will be going up in the magazine section in a few minutes. Graham

Guys, straight from the just released May 2004 issue of Hobby Japan Magazine, here's pictures of the painted Yamato 1/100 scale VF-0S toy. A few comments about the toy shown in these photos: - The hip joints still look fugly and too big. About a month ago, Yamato told me that the hip joints would be made smaller, so there are two possibilities here. 1, this is a painted earlier sculpt, pre-modifcation. Or 2, Yamato are not going to change the hip joints. Guess we just have to wait and see! I note that the tail fins and heatshield do not feature Skulls. I had previously advised Yamato to Tampo print the Skulls on, but I guess they decided not to (perhaps to save money?). This means we are probably going to get the typical crappy Yamato stickers. Oh well, maybe Takatoys can make up some of his superior quality stickers, or Devin can make his excellent decals. Maybe it's just the photos, or maybe the toy wasn't transformed correctly, but the tail fins look too vertical in fighter mode. They should be canted (angled) more outwards. Also, the tail fins look a little small IMO. The release date is shown as April. Maybe this is a mistake as previously the release date has been shown as May. It's unlike Yamato to release anything early. Where the wings connect to the backplate, they are supposed to narrow down (front to back distance). Compared with the Hasegawa model kit, the narrow area looks too short. Not sure which is correct. Anyway, here's the photos. Graham

What you have to remember is that when Destroids were originally designed, the UN Spacy probably didn't have a 100% clear idea of the aliens war fighting capability. Oh sure, they knew that the aliens were giant humanoids, but beyond that little else may have been known, so the Destroids were built to fight against giant humanoid soldiers, but proved seriously lacking againgst the faster and more mobile enemy mecha, especially the Q-Rau, N-Ger & Glaug. Destroids were probably phased out of service as they lack both the tatical and strategic mobility of VFs and also their sheer versitility. Graham

HLJ has pics of the various clamps. See here. Graham

I have both of those Macross CD-ROMS, although I haven't tried them for years, so not sure if they still work or not. What do you need? Graham

ROFLMAO.....man, you actually made me spit out my coffee when I read that Graham

Err, they are all hideously ugly Graham

There are some pictures of the SHE VA-3 in the MW magazine section. See: - Dengeki Hobby Dec 1999 Dengeki Hobby Feb 2000 Graham

groan......... Graham

The pre-painted hard-PVC Legend of Galactic Heroes spaceships are by Yellow Submarine and are due for release later this month (March 2004). Quality and material should be similar to Yellow Submarine's Yukikaze planes, if that helps. The Legend of Galactic Heroes spaceships are up for pre-order at HLJ. Look under 'Heldensagen vom Kosmosinesef'. Be warned, there are a lot of them (12 sets or 1 huge master set), so if you want them all, be prepared to spend a lot of money Graham

I wouldn't really call Hikaru angst-ridden at all, especially not compared to the Majority of Gundam pilots who take the meaning of angst-ridden to a whole new level As for how to become a pilot in the UN Spacy, well it's probably just like applying to the air force in real life, except for I guess during Space War 1, where due to pilot attrition, they were accepting anybody with 2 arms and 2 legs! Graham

For those of you who don't like the Nora color SV-51, why not just wait for the inevitable D.D. Ivanov version, which I'm sure Hasegawa will release. I bet they'll eventually release the tan cannon-fodder SV-51 as well. Graham

Yes, Dragon does sell base figures separately, or at least the used to, I don't really pay too much attention to their stuff. Next time I walk past a UML shop(Dragon's retail stores) I'll have a look-see. Graham

I'm watching it now. Just finished ep # 102. Only 8 more eps to go! Been watching it at a rate of 1 to 2 eps per evening before I sleep for the last few months. Great anime. Gonna have to track down the movies and OVA side stories as well. Graham

I count 11 Valks in that photo and 1 Gundam. Truly, that is they way life should be, Valks outnumbering Gundams Graham, not generally a Gundam fan.

In theory it should fit, but you will have a mis-matched VF-11B, due to the different shades of grey plastic used in the first VF-11B and the FP version. Graham

That is an animation error. It is only yellow in one short scene. Graham

I just added scans from Spring 2004 issue of Character Model Magazine, includes pics of the Hasegawa VF-0S & SV-51 in non-canon colors and line-art of the VF-0S with drones attached. See: here (bottom of the page). Graham

Guys, the new Spring 2004 issue of Character Model magazine features some black and white line-art pictures (see below) of the VF-0S with two drones attached on pylons mounted to the back-plate (in place of the normal dorsal-mounted fuel tanks). To me, it looks like the drones are armed with micro-missile launchers, located towards the front of the drone near the drone's canards. Also shown for the first time are what appear to be wing-mounted drop tanks as well as some new type of wing-mounted missile (high manauever missile?) on tripple-ejector-racks on the wings. I guess we'll be seeing this appear in episode # 4 of Macross Zero? Enjoy the pics. Graham

Yeah, that's a 1.5. Bad paint chipping on the lower leg though. Graham

I've always felt that the Ghost X-9 and it's production version the Ghost AIF-9B were somewhat overated. They seem suitable as interceptors, but not much else. Frankly speaking, they lack the versatility to handle all the various types of missions that VFs are tasked with. IMO, the UN Spacy was incredibly short-sighted for thinking that they could replace manned VFs, VAs and VBs with a non-transforming drone for all mission applications. Basically, the X-9 has only it's high speed going for it and the only thing it is really good at is high speed slashing attacks (which is shown in Macross Plus). Even though the lack of a human pilot would allow the X-9 to pull more Gs than a manned VF, at the sort of speeds the Ghost flys, it's still going to have a huge turn radius. Plus as we all know, the prototype Ghost X-9 proved glaringly vulnerable to hacking. And yes, I'm sure Max would have quite handily defeated the X-9 or an AIF-9B without dying. In fact, I suspect Isamu could have as well. I've long thought that Isamu had far more real combat experience and was a better combat pilot than Guld. From what I understand, Guld was not actually a military pilot, only a civilian test pilot for General Galaxy, with probably little or no actual real combat experience (probably only simulated combat experience). Isamu on the other hand was already a highly experienced and talented combat pilot by 2040AD. Graham

As it hasn't come out by now, I think it's a safe bet that it has been cancelled. Graham