aceoftherebellion

if your wondering why star date Sheryl doesn't have her clothes on is because the original shorts stained the body so i bought a replacement body.

A likely story...

I kind of like these, though. I don't suppose there's any way to see how they'd look next to the 12 inch Hikaru doll Toynami put out?

The way I see if, if a toy has already yellowed to that degree, it's damaged anyway. You might as well experiment and see if there's a way to save it. It's not the same as if you were experimenting with/risking plastic damage on a pristine example. Especially when you can pick up a yellowed loose Jetfire or takatoku for $20 or so depending on where you shop... My local consignment store has two of them at about that price right now. It's not hard to find a beat up/yellowed toy to attempt restoring, really...

Aren't there a bunch of techniques now to de-yellowify older toys anyway? Or did those all turn out to be bust or something

I have to go with the crowd on that one. There's a few distinctive features to me that say F-14... from where I'm sitting, at least that toy manages to convey exactly none of them. But again, I'm not fond of those designs in the first place. They look less like 'robots that are airplanes' (which Macross conveys perfectly) and more like something from armored core that an airplane threw up on. Adding little non-airplane skirt armor and an airplane hat does not an airplane make.

Can we go back to panicking about company changes and/or calling each other elitists yet?

Yeah, agreeing with the complete lack of love for Muv-Luv (heh). Sorry, man, those designs do nothing for me and I just can't get past the weird bizarro dating-sim game conception thing. Can't do it.

As for my MII hopes, looking at the designs again, you guys are right, they're night and day. IDK why I thought they were more similar than that. Oh well, guess I'll just have to hope and pray somebody makes both someday... /BRB settling in for a loooooong wait

I love that display, seriously.

Honestly, I love the V1s. I think they kinda get a bad rap/weren't what people were hoping for, but knowing the flaws going in, I don't regret the two I own for a second. I think they're pretty nice toys! And honestly, given the prices on the version two releases at the moment... Personally, I think the V1s are still a pretty viable option, even still. In fact, I'll probably stick to them for my Frontier collection for the other VF-25/27 releases, too. Leave the V2s to the rest of you fine folks who can afford them/care more about the minor differences!

Haha, I know what you mean. Honestly, I'm still of that mindset for the most part. Toys today as so consistently excellent that I think we've all become spoiled to it to the point where minor nitpicks are suddenly giant glaring flaws to us... It's kind of amazing, if you stop to think about it. It's good to know all of the little nitpicky changes though, now that we DO have the option. It's like coming out of the dark ages, almost.

So I guess hoping for Sharon (or anybody for that matter) to show up wearing Ishtar's 'outfit' is right out, huh?

Pity.

That's a valid theory as far as business law and practices go, and it wouldn't discount that it's a (rather frightening) possibility, but it's also fairly at odds with what we've heard from our members 'closer to the ground' so to speak. All of the comments I've seen from people who have connections inside the company suggest that it's all fairly clandestine. Certainly nobody 'in the know' has said a thing about debt restructuring or anything to that extent, so I wouldn't start entertaining bankruptcy theories just yet.

I think it's important to remember that Japanese business works on somewhat different rules. Secrecy is a big thing, born more from respect than a desire to hide something. We're used to US companies issuing press releases every time they replace a toilet, but a smaller Japanese company isn't likely to make any actual comment until they've finalized everything they're planning. Silence doesn't necessarily mean gloom and doom like it might for a western based company. It doesn't automatically mean they're keeping their cards close- it could be as simple as they don't intend to make any major announcements until they've got the office set up and finalized.

Graham's been dropping hints, but IDK, I think we're getting close to putting words in people's mouths. I don't think we've been given any details on what to actually expect.

As for rumors on anything else, it was in another thread a while back, it was Mr. K, as I recall, mentioning that he wanted to revisit some of the older designs that were done before he came aboard, including the VF-0, SC-51, YF-19 and YF-21... But honestly, that seemed more like an off the cuff pipe-dream and not really Yamato (Arcadia's) actual stance on it.

As usual, the temperature in the air seems to be more of a 'wait and see' kind of deal.

I still want a Metal Siren... but I'll settle for a VF-2SS and maybe the VF-2JA that could be retooled from it

I haven't heard anything about any of this, but running-changes aren't unheard of in toy production. A silent revision, perhaps? I'd also be curious to see if anybody else here has more insight on this

Yeah, that's the thing. I've been underemployed for many years now. Most of the small money I make is through odd jobs and occasional sales. It's just that any time I do happen to have the resources to spend, I happen to make my collecting hobby a priority. Sometimes at the expense of other things. True, I only own a fairly small number of Valkyries and other toys from Yamato, Bandai (and even Matchbox, haha), but thats fine, I'm happy as it is. It's not really a social class thing.

Again, they've made smaller transforming toys. Toynami has made them, Kaiyodo has made them, Bandai has made them. They don't sell very well. I get where you're coming from, wanting to be able to connect with the kids on this hobby and this series, but that's kind of the thing- The series itself was never geared for younger children in the first place. This isn't Pokemon or Dragonball or Bleach or whatever. Yes, we liked Robotech when we were little kids, but Robotech had been specifically rewritten in many ways to be accessible to us at the time. That's simply not how the actual Macross franchise is now, or has ever been handled. Would it be cool for them to expand into that demographic? Maybe. That's a big maybe, though, and one that would require some pretty major shifts in the entire franchise, from Big West to Studio Neue down to the individual companies merchandising for it. And from a logical business standpoint, I simply do not see that happening in the near or distant future. 'It's not broke, why fix it'

Then again, we've seen the other big mech franchise try just that, and frankly, it did pretty poorly. Gundam Age tried to do just that, repackage the brand to make it more accessible to the younger generation. It's been a pretty obvious ratings and commercial failure (at least judging from how much Age merchendise I've seen go at rock-bottom clearance....) and was the first Gundam show in nearly a decade and a half to run less than 50 episodes. I HIGHLY doubt a less commercial franchise like Macross is going to be jumping at the chance to repeat that attempt.

See, that's the thing though. 'Overspending' is just a perception. These toys have no intrinsic value. They're not necessities, they don't save lives, we can't eat them. They're worth only and exactly as much as those of us who buy them feel that they're worth. That's like, basic business/economics 101.

If many of us here pay the asking prices and are satisfied with our purchases, then that's that. If some of us wait for sales before a thing is offered at the price they're willing to pay, that's what that item was worth to them. If somebody buys none of these items because their price 'locks them out of the loop', then that's simply a matter of what they perceived their value at. Make and production are almost irrelevant here, in a way. It all boils down to just what we as collectors are willing to spend, and how much of a priority we want to make these.

I understand if some people might be resentful of the higher prices here, but ultimately, these are collector goods. It's entirely up to the customer what they're willing to pay. These companies HAVE attempted to offer lower-price, smaller alternatives, and the collector market spoke loud and clear with their wallets, that it wasn't worth their time. We can certainly lament that, but again, that's just how this hobby (toy collecting) goes.

Save, what we really want you to do is stare conspicuously through the glass at a fixed time, every day.

In the news today: A man was arrested for repeated trespassing and stalker-like behavior in front of the new headquarters of an unspecified toy company. When questioned, the suspect could only respond with repeated references to a television cartoon from the early 80s. He is currently being evaluated at a psychiatric facility pending further investigation. Details at Eleven.

Haha, you know with all of this wild speculating and guesswork and random hopes, I'm just gonna go for broke and hope that this new company structure somehow makes the chances of finally getting some sort of MII merchandise go up. Come on, Arcadia, your predecessor finally made the VF-4 happen, some of us have been waiting almost as long for a VF-2SS! This is what I will be crossing my fingers for now.

I would love to see that too, honestly. It would be nice to have a solid 1/100 scale line of toys as a lower-cost alternative to the full on 1/60 line.

Yeah.. it really killed Transformers collecting.

What are you smoking? Yeah the movie will probably suck but it will increase interest in the franchise, they will release new toys for the movie, plus more old toys. That's just how it works. Cash in and spread the love.

A live action Macross would only be a Boon for collectors.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/warner-bros-chooses-robotech-director-415144

If it was dead, why would they be picking a director?

6:11 PM PST 1/24/2013

It will get made. With the success of transformers (which was horrible) they will put any franchise on the screen that can repeat that success.

I hope Arcadia realize the potential and we get more toys.

This isn't really the correct thread for this, but there's a pretty big Elephant in the room here that people seem to be forgetting about any upcoming Robotech movie, and that is very simply that it's a Robotech movie.

Robotech is not Macross, just like Macross is not Robotech.

Most likely, any Hollywood film will almost certainly be a general re-imagining anyway, and will have very little if any recognizable Macross content. Especially if you take into account HG's recent efforts to distance themselves from the Macross Saga, which probably has a lot to do with the fallout from Studio Neue vs. Tatsunoko, although that's another discussion altogether. For quite a while now, Robotech's focus has been almost entirely on Mospeada, which they have full rights to. If, and that's a big if, IF any robotech live action film is recognizable in any degree, it'll probably be closer to Mospeada than anything else at this point.

All that aside... Why would Yamato/Arcadia produce anything for this, even if/when it does happen? They have no working relationship with Harmony Gold, they have never had licence rights to Robotech, and it's unlikely that they would produce anything for an American film anyway. If you see any toys from that film go down, they'll be like every other Robotech branded product- Produced by Toynami.

In other words, any possible live action Robotech film will have nothing to do with Yamato/Arcadia whatsoever.

Graham mentioned in the other thread that the CEO hasn't changed, so at this point I'd tentatively say things are looking good that we probably won't see any real changes overall.

Let's just cross our fingers, knock on wood, and pray to our Birdman/Protoculture idols that this is true.

EDIT: As extra precaution though, until this is all worked out... Nobody eat any Pineapple!!

Do you still have the original parts? Maybe you could figure out a way to combine gluing the old parts back together along with Veef's replacement parts?

I've noticed for another series (specifically Super Robot Wars models by Kotobukiya) that Amazon has some pretty hit and miss labeling... I suspect the problem is that too many amazon sellers (and Amazon itself for that matter) really have no idea of what they actually have, and make too many assumptions.

I'm sorry you got hosed by it, though. Fortunately, they do tend to have an agreeable return policy from what I've heard... Fortunately I've never had to return anything, but I'm hyper-picky about what I actually am willing to order from them. I hope they don't give you a runaround.

In the absolute worst case scenario, you could most likely find somebody here on these forums that would be willing to buy it from you to recoup some of your losses.

You're probably out of luck as far as getting any sort of replacement part from Yamato at this point, given their stance on unsupported markets and the fact that the VF-0 has been out of production for quite some time. At best, you might be able to find somebody who has spares to sell you.

On the upside, some or our members have made third party replacement parts available, depending on which parts have actually broken, you might still be in luck.

Well I'm with you. I was hoping to get it on sale later but if it's low stock now I'm diving in. It looks to me like Yamato selling the store to Arcadia which could very well mean a significant delay as the paperwork is processed for things like licensing rights before Arcadia is really able to produce anything. That's my guess as to why Arcadia didn't show anything at Wonderfest... the licenses are probably all in Yamato's name.

EDIT - I've never been involved with making anything that requires a license though so that could just be completely ignorant ramblings on my part.

My understanding is that this will depend on whether or not Arcadia is going to be recognized as the same company or not. If it's a 'buyout', the licences will likely need to be re-negotiated. If it's simply a change in title, than the licences will most likely simply be transferred to the company's new name as a matter of course. Don't quote me on that, it's been a while since I took any courses in business, but that's my general understanding of how this sort of thing works.

EDIT:

Well, one of my lower level contacts got back to me, he confirmed it is still the same CEO, the company hasn't been sold, they want to diversify apparently. But my contact didn't know whether they will carry on with 1/60 PV Macross toys. Waiting for someone higher up the food chain to get back to me. Grahm

In that case, yeah, I would expect the old licenses to simply transfer over to the new name. That's fairly good news- it implies to me that there should be relatively few major changes... Here's hoping, anyway.

Same. In fact, if I knew a good technique that got adequate results I'd go and tint the canopies for some of the others, too. I really like the effect, very suited to what is effectively a spaceplane...

We've got plenty to be nervous about, but I think we're probably over-reacting here, at least for how little information we've got right now.

That said? It's been said here already, but we need to remember that we're a very niche market, while said creepy dolls and girl-figures make up a much, much larger section of hobby toy and figure collecting, especially overseas. It might now be anything most of us here are interested in or care about, but it is a smarter business move, overall. You have to produce what your market will consume, and this is at the end of the day a business thing. They might lose our money, but that could well be offeset by not having to spend as much to produce and tool such complicated toys, if they decided to go that direction. We gotta remember that no matter how much any of us spend, it's still drops in the bucket compared to what you need to pull in to remain a successful business. (Except for maybe Kicker. I bet he makes up a noticeable percentage of Yamato's bottom line singlehandedly... )

All we can really do is wait and see, and be realistic. There's no reason to expect they're going to completely change their business approach overnight, but at the same time, things ARE hard right now, especially for a smaller toy manufacturer. Yamato isn't Bandai, they've got way more to lose here. But again, it's probably better to wait and see what's really happening before we all dust off our panic buttons.