Graham

I have two of the VF-11B FP, both transformed about 20 times each and so far neither of them show any stress marks. Go ahead buy the toy, don't worry. Graham

And whatever you do, don't feed the Monkey! Graahm

Surely you don't have to be a fan of the cartoon, or even the entire franchise, to appreciate a nice, well designed transforming toy. Does it need some UN Spacy logos on it to garner any cudos from you? While I can appreciate nice engineering on a toy, that is not enough to make me rush off and buy it (or vote for it). For me to buy a toy, it has to be of a mecha design I actually like. The toy has to be aesthetically pleasing, well articulated and generally well designed. Lastly it should be from an anime or game I actually like. In my younger, wilder, more carefree days, I'd buy mecha toys just because they were well designed or had interesting gimmicks, irrespective of whether I actually like the mecha design or the anime it was from. Then one day not so long ago, I realised I had a house full of toys that I hardly ever looked at or touched, so I decided to get rid of most of them on ebay and stick just to the designs I really like. These days I have strict rules about which toys I purchase. My interests are mostly in 'real type military robots'. And even then I'm really picky. These days the only mecha designs that I find attractive enough to make me buy toys are Macross, Mospeada, Gundam Sentinel, V Gundam & Combattler V. That's it. The Takara Convoy may be a superbly engineered toy, but transfroming trucks and cars hold no interest for me, so I'd never consider buying it. Likewise, everybody raves about the Bandai SOC Dancougar, but as I find the concept of animals that transform/combine into robots silly, I'd never buy it. Same with the Bandai SOC EVAs. They may be great toys, but I've never liked the design, so why buy it. Graham

I'd advise you to buy at least one 1/48. I don't think you will regret it. I'd recommend starting with either the Hikaru VF-1J Super or the Hikaru VF-1S and a FAST Pack set. Graham

Don't worry, there are lots of the Japanese Convoy toys in HK, selling for HK$699 on average. I've seen it in nearly every hobby shop. I don't think they are selling too well, cus Transformers is not really that well known or popular in HK. Anyway, a quick update. On Monday night I met with Sebastian, Guppy, their lovely wives and Sebastian's very cute baby (who thankfully is much better looking than Sebastian ). We had dinner together, followed by drinks. Then on Tuesday, I had lunch with the bigwigs from Yamato as they are in town for the HK International Toy fair. I got to see and learnt about lots of upcoming cool stuff. Unfortuntely, I'm not allowed to talk about any of it. Unfortunately, I'm still waiting for the Shopathon T-shirts from the manufacturer. When I spoke to him Monday morning, he promised they would be ready at the latest by the morning of Friday 9th. I'm trying to chase him for an update. So, on Friday morning before the Shapathon I might have to rush over to Cheung Sha Wan to pick up 30+ T-shirts Anyway, I just like to ask all of you who are coming on Friday not to eat breakfast as we will have a late breakfast all together when we meet up at 11am before we set off shopping. Graham

Makes me wonder how popular the Transformers toys and animation actually are in Japan, as Transformers gets almost zero coverage in the Japanese hobby and anime magazines. Graham

That avatar is big enough already. If those puppies were any bigger, that poor girl would give herself two black eyes running like that. Graham

LMAO! Was the pun intended? Yes, it was intended. I know there are a lot of fans here, but sorry I just find the whole concept too silly. My pet name for the cartoon, toys and fans is 'Trannys' I'm still pissed that Panda Z didn't win toy of the year. Graham

I don't see why it's so difficult to believe that Kamjin used a resizing chamber to macronize Earth livestock to provide food for his troops. If Humans can be macronized, why not other living animals such as chicken, sheep, pigs and cows? In fact, once provisions start running out on board Breetai's remaining ships, it would probably be necessary to macronize Earth animals as a food source for the giant size Zentradi remaining on Earth. Or perhaps, Zentradi already have some type of giant livestock animal living onboard their ships. Their ships are certainly big enough to have a farm section. Or maybe they have farm planets whose sole purpose is to raise food for the giant Zentradi armies, and the warships just carry ample supplies of frozen food for their long journeys through space (freezers full of giant frozen chicken legs anybody)? As for the wine, perhaps it is a Zentradi wine bottle, not an Earth wine bottle. I don't think it's too difficult a stretch of imagination to consider that the Zentradi also developed bottles of a similar shape to Earth bottles. Or another possibility is after the end of Space War 1, with a considerable number of giant size Zentradi living on Earth, the various Earth industries, commercial enterprises etc would also start to produce Zentradi-sized consumer goods to cater to the giant size Zentradi, who are now employed on Earth and thus have spending power. Graham

Err.....hang on a minute. Not sure how I feel about being called a 'Higher Sauce' . Personally I prefer HP Sauce (buy me a bottle and I'll tell you anything) Graham

Nah, IMO having the sleek, perfectly proportioned 1/48 head stuck onto the chunky, poorly proportioned 1/55 body just doesn't work IMO. Don't get me wrong, I think this Minmay Guard 1/55 Custom looks great, but it would be better with the original 1/55 head, to match the 1/55 body. Graham

The decals look great, but that Chunky Monkey sure looks weird with the 1/48 head stuck on top. Just looks wrong IMO. Graham

A Tranny won <_< What is the world coming to? Sorry, I'm just not a Tranny fan. Never have been, never will be. I just can't understand the popularity of the toys and cartoons. Graham.....call me the anti-Tranny

Saw the title and I thought it would be about a spaceship made from a shampoo bottle. Graham

Time to put the rumors to rest. I just got to play with a very-close-to-final-version preproduction sample and I can confirm that it can definitely stand on it's own very easily. Thanks to well designed sturdy joints featuring some very solid and positive ratchets it's a very stable toy. All in all it's a beautiful toy. Very nicely finished, with great articulation, lots of detail and a fantastic pilot sculpt. That's all I can say for now. Graham

Most of these games, with the exception of the typing game are quite old and have not been available as HK bootlegs for many years. Graham

Again, information is on Macrossworld. Graham

Arghhh...........! information can be found on Macrossworld. This is not a Macross Plus game! It is called 'Macross Since 1983'. It is a turn based strategy game fought on different grid maps, that allows you to use mecha from SDF, DYRL, FB2012, MII, M+ & M7. Graham

This is not a strategy game, it is 'Macross U-Print". To quote this very site: Create your own Macross calenders, stationary, pictures and stickers! Includes hundreds of pictures from the original series, SD, and DYRL to use in your creations, or import your own. Includes some 'sequences' too! Comes with over 100 already done and ready to print. 19 question movie interview with Shoji Kawamori. Comes with a leather Macross credit card holder. Did I mention there is an English version to install!!!? 1 CD-ROM Graham

AFAIK, the helmets are being manufactured in Japan, so quality control concerns should be less of an issue than with the toys, which are made in China. Graham

The YF-21 doesn't even have it's arm lasers at the end as remember it has it's arms and legs blown off by the Ghost X-9. At the final fight, the only weapons the YF-21 has are it's single head laser, plus any micro-missiles still remaining in the 4 dorsal micro-missile launchers. Graham

I was in the Nelson Road branch of Animate yesterday and they had stock of the 1/48 VF-1S Hikaru, 1/48 VF-1J Hikaru, 1/48 VF-1J Super Hikaru and 1/48 FAST pack set. Graham

It's years since I last played Macross Digital Mission VF-X, but IIRC the VF-4 does not use a gunpod in the game. It uses it's built-in forearm guns instead. The gunpod was only shown in that promotional pic for the game shown above in the first post. Graham

I'll try to remember to scan it in the next few days. I can't tonight though, as I'm having dinner with MW members Sebastian & Guppy. Also, I just picked the new Winter 2004 issue of the quarterly Character Model magazine and it mentions a release date of January 20th for the Hasegawa VF-0S. Graham

David, Just curious, any idea how much ammo the 30mm GPU-5 pod holds? Graham