Shaggydog

Huh! I agree certain joints aren't as tight as I'd like (especially those dang wrists), but with the 1/60's I'm always concerned the toy will fall on his butt due to the loose hips. I haven't had a MPC fall yet - I don't think their hips would permit it (the advantage of the MPC's inferior hip articulation, I guess). Also, I find the chest locking mechanism on the 1/60's to be a form of cruel and unusual transformation. I guess it all comes down to what you consider to be 'major issues'. I find the issues with the 1/60's to be 'more major' than those with the MPCs. But even the superior 1/48 toys have some well-documented issues (nosecone falling out, landing gear stuck, flaps falling off, etc.) These minor issues don't prevent me from thinking the 1/48 is the finest valk toy made. Also, some of Yamato's 1/60's had problems with essentially falling apart right out of the box (thinking of the vf-1d here), which I hope everyone would agree is a 'major issue'. I've yet to hear of anyone complaining of a MPC falling apart, or being unable to transform (like the 1/72 vf-11).

novel means it's a newly concieved idea. We all know where this is going... Heh! Well, I was using 'novel' for comedic effect. True, Bandai beat em to it by several decades. And the design is clearly 'heavily borrowed' from the classic HCMs. Still, it's a well-executed retread.. I haven't had problems with floppiness myself, and I have one each of all their MPCs. Perhaps you got a bad specimen? I suppose it'd be nice if the legs locked more firmly in fighter mode, but I honestly can't think of another example of something that doesn't 'stay put' on my MPCs. I note the anti-Toynami posts tend to be heavy on emotion and name-calling. Perhaps the owners are still distraught?

um.. so did you actually get one out and try to transform it? You see, unlike the 1/60's, it's fun and easy to do... toynami had the novel idea of making a toy you can actually play with.

For some reason the green alpha's head looks a little odd to me. Maybe it's just the picture. Is it a photoshop job, or a real photograph? Can someone tell me what the blue mark on the front of the red alpha's face is supposed to be? I note that it's a different color than the eyes (which are yellow). The superposeable had the blue mark too, but I don't think the big gakken toy had it. It looks like the drawing at the Mospeada home page has a blue mark of some sort inbetween the eyes, too. Is it just decorative, or is it supposed to be some sort of sensor? Is toynami correct to include that mark on their toy? Thanks for posting the pix!

The Beta seems unlikely to happen to me. It would be wisest to just assume that it won't happen, then if it does, it's a pleasant surprise. Anyone who is buying Alphas just to get a Beta made is setting themselves up for disappointment, IMO. Buy the Alphas on their own merits, or don't buy them at all.

I don't think some people here realize how difficult it is to build a kit and make it look as good as what that Jung fellow has done. I bought one of those kits myself, but after building it, I did the world a favor and hid it in a deep dark place to spare everyone the discomfort of having to look at it. And in any case, although the kit transforms, you'd be ill-advised to repeatedly transform it back and forth. The Imai simply isn't designed to be a toy (which isn't a criticism - that's just not what they were shooting for). We seem to be getting another flood of "I'm going to pass" posts, as though 51 pages of them were not enough. Maybe, if you've already told us you're going to pass in 3 or more previous posts, we could all just assume that your position hasn't changed unless you post otherwise. If suddenly I'm struck with the burning question, "is user 'xxx' going to buy the alpha?" I can just look back in the post history and determine the answer. I'm heartened by the fact that the people who have actually seen and handled the toy in person seem to be very happy with it. As for 'costing much more than a 1/60', iirc the retail price of the standard 1/60 valks was 7800 yen, which with today's exchange rate would be roughly 72 dollars; plus, if you're in the US you probably had to pay at least 10 dollars in shipping. So, it simply isn't true that the alpha costs much more than a 1/60. Smaller? yes. Unfortunate. If you don't want to buy it because of that, fair enough. But we've known it a long time, the shock should really have worn off by now.

I doubt any of us here can say for sure, but it seems like a pretty good bet that they will ship at the end of July. One hopeful sign is this post at RT.com: http://www.robotech.com/news/viewarticle.php?id=200 note it was posted at the end of June, and they claimed production samples of the alpha would be on display at anime expo this weekend; also they repeated the claim that the toy will ship in July. If the toy were delayed again, I hope/think they would have told us by now. But we'll see. As for the size irritating me: sure, I wish it was bigger, but I wouldn't say it 'irritates' me. If I let things like that irritate me, I'd be pissed off constantly.

mm, jugrubbin.

The guy complaining about the morals of buying toys from a company that aggressively pursues its legal rights to a decades-old property (which were obtained in good faith) has an animated icon depicting an infant being place-kicked with the caption "owned"? Huh.

I'd love to see some invid/inbit toys too (and I know a lot of other folks agree), but I worry that they would just reissue the cruddy old HG toys. Who knows, I guess there's another robotech video game coming out, maybe a surge in interest will finally bring us some decent invid. I'm not getting my hopes up, though.

Read the thread, dude.. he says the seller'll be at 'AX' next. (anime expo?) Like everybody else here I'd love to get one or more of these.. is it at all possible that this gunbuster fellow is just messing with us? If so, good one

Man, people NEVER get tired of that old price debate, do they? I think this has been going on since page 1. I thought the severe "overpricing" of the q-rau might dampen the debate a bit, since that case seems (to me) much more egregious than this one. I guess the lowering of the price of the Q-Rau could be taken as evidence that price bitching works (at least with Yamato). It might be more effective to speak out about the alpha's price on the robotech.com forum, though. (and please, please don't post some long tortured logic about why the Q-Rau wasn't overpriced at all. That's silly. Yes, it is.)

Although I'll be releasing a flood of entirely predictable and pointless anti-toynami posts by announcing this (why do the toynami-hating folks bother reading the MPC thread anyways?)... For those looking forward to the alphas like I am: a retailer called 'BlueForgeGames' has posted to toyboxdx, stating that they have been told by Toynami that the Bernard Alpha is now delayed until June.

some dude at toyboxdx posted the full pix from dengeki, so I'll post it here too.

funny, I wuz gonna say the same thing bout you

jetfire = robotmasters 'erle blade' pic here: http://www.tfw2005.com/article1860.html (scroll down, links are to action-hq which is swamped) (note: it's just a recolor in jetfire colors, I think. note the articulated g1 starscream, tho!)

http://www.zincpanic.com/radar.phtml jetfire: http://www.action-hq.com/cgi-bin/action-hq...nner_text=.html

People cry expensive because they're Macross or Robotech fans, and they WANT the toys, but maybe they can't AFFORD the toys. I don't know what the heck a 'real collector' is. I've got a lot of toys, I know some folks have a lot more than I do, and some folks have a lot less. Is there a minimum requirement?

Not to be harsh, but this is why MW is a bit of a joke on some other sites. Every thread turns into a HG-bash-fest .. and don't say it was the HG supporters who started it, because it was this fella 'jwinges' who first brought em up. I own vol 1-6 mpc, almost all of the bandai reissues, 4 1/48's, all of the mac+ valks, and more of the 1/60's than I'd care to count (10+) and IMO the MPCs compare very favorably to all of them. On average the MPC q/c and sturdiness is superior to the yamato products. Hell, I dare not transform some of the worst yamato products, like the vf-11b. There are folks who own multiple MPCs and have a lower opinion of them than I do, which is fine - it appears that their complaints are things like 'plastic feels cheap' and 'looks ugly' as opposed to 'they break during play' which is the real test IMO. Yes, I play with my toys, and how fun a toy is to play with is a major factor in my opinion of that toy (and that's where mpcs shine), but I respect the fact that other people have different standards (if appearance of the valk is your topmost priority, yamatos are the hands-down winners). As for those that mindlessly bash the MPCs in every available thread, you're making the fine institution of MW a laughingstock with your groupthink idiocy. Thanks for the info on the Joons, btw - I was thinking of grabbing the green one someday.

..of course in that universe almost none of us here would be posting to 'macrossworld', we'd be posting to 'facts of life world'.

Yamato should thank Macek for every macross toy they've managed to sell to us American GenXers. Heck, Scott at HLJ should name his next yacht 'Macek'.. of course his current yacht is named 'Shaggy'.

No. *I* want to pay more, dammit. FLAWED!

HA! of all the piles of flawed arguments in this thread and others, you pick that one? How about: "One more thing...the alpha is domestic....same with hasbros optimus prime anniversaryu edition...nmopw nthat thing is a foot tall and weighs 3 ppounds and has a btter qc record than toynami does...." which is flawed for reasons that graham eloquently laid out in the q rau thread I believe.. Kind of a pointless argument in any case, but I suppose it'll go on til the toys come out, then for a few months after..

Heh. As a macross/robotech fan, I'm very used to seeing the prices drop later. I think almost all of my toynamis, bandais, and 1/60 yamatos went on sale for significantly reduced prices within a year or so of my original purchases. But I always have to have them NOW. Although, I did get a good deal on that super ostrich.. that's the one toy I was actually able to wait for. Doesn't exactly make up for the rest of em, but it helps.

heh, I keep thinking there is new news posted to this thread every time I see the post count go up! Y'all are messin' wit my head! I do think most reasonable people agree the alpha is overpriced. I also think that I'm buying them all anyways. If you wanna call me stupid, I can't argue with that If you're bummed out that they're charging so much for such a hotly-anticipated toy, well, I feel for ya, brother.