LePoseur

Cool. Depending on the price I could be down for two sets. One set pretty much for sure . Don't know if I need a whole set though. just the cannon and a half-booster should do. Keep us updated.

Man, bsu, wish I could help, but as I've had him on ignore for a while now, I don't really know what he's arguing about. Most underrated feature of the board if you ask me. Sometimes I start feeling as if I might be missing something good by blocking some people. But you know what? Then I go back, unblock them and quickly realize that I shouldn't really second guess myself that much. Try it, You'll like it.

I'd be in for at least four sets (of side armor that is). As long as paypal is ok, or I can work out something with you from here in Japan, sign me up.

I second that! Pony-tails and sweats are where it's at.

At work so don't have time for a full reply, but doesn't the military exist to protect civilians? If not, you're talking Sparta, right? I look at it rather that Cain has lost her way. But that's a discussion for when I have more time. But, yes, at least the show maakes you think. Repeat after me "9-11 ≠Iraq"

Just a little follow-up on Graham's review plus a little for my warning earlier. Do what the man says and rotate your chest missiles in. Also, I wouldn't really think about removing them once you have them in (unless they went in loose or you filed them down a bit first) as the stress cracked arm I was talking about in my last post gave way last night and now I have a left side chest rack that must be rotated manually. Good news is it's not a disabling injury like a Tab B, but still... better if it had never broken.

Damn, you know you're hooked into something bad when you go from a single news post to a google search for DVD retailers downunder, to pre-ordering, to waiting for Feburary all in the space of about five minutes. Well, what am I gonna do with my R1 copy once the Auzzie one comes? "Convert," I hear you say. Say, now there's a plan.

Not to string everyone along with another post and still no pictures, but just thought I'd throw out a public safety warning for all new GBP owners. Use as little force as possible to push your missiles in, especially those on the chest. In what might be the weakest part since the 19's Tab-B, the chest armor is an accident waiting to happen. You see, it is designed so that as the doors open the respective missiles rotate out slightly. This is a cool little feature and all, but it is accomplished by a single (weak) plastic arm that rests behind the missile holding rack. The problem is, as you can imagine, it's difficult to insert the missiles into this holding rack without opening the door that's covering it. Yet, at the same time, when you open the door it rotates the the holding rack by default, meaning you're going to put a lot of pressure on that little rotating arm every time you pop a missile in. One of the arms on mine already has white stress marks and looks like it is going to go at any moment. I would suggest trying each of the longer missiles on the chest rack first to see if any naturally slide in, or failing that, I would get at least one in solidly and then push it sideways against the holding rack to help take some of the pressure off the arm as you are pushing the other missiles in. In short, I wish, I wish, I wish Yamato would have made this little level arm metal. Doh! gonna have to be really careful from now on. Sorry this might not make too much sense without pictures, but once you get one in your hand you should see what I mean. Otherwise, I'll try to scrounge up a camera that can do close zooms. Take care with them toys guys.

You know, the odd thing is, after watching it at home the old animation looks better than I remembered. In the theater it was all so grainy, then just when I'd gotten used to it enough to forget it they switch to something new and it'd disappear, only to come back with the next scene. Oddly enough, on my TV it didn't seem bad at all... Now if I could just ditch the scene in the lounge after Kamille's parents are killed. I know they must have wanted to show him as still a child, but his shaking and what not comes off the wrong way to me. If I could "fix" on scene, that would be it. On the other hand, if I could fix anything, I do a total streamlining of the story and ditch some of the TITANS characters (even though they were important in the TV show, yes, I'm looking at you Lila Milla Rira, Plus I'd rather have skipped the whole Rosamia angle and just had Four take over her spot from begining to end... oh well) so that it doesn't play so much as a recap episode and more as a movie.

Hell, Mechamaniac's list is good. Only thing I'd change is drop Sivil for a Chinese dress Minmei. I know, I know... another Minmei? But this is the last one, honest.

「消ã™ã€ or "Erase" kinda has the same meaning for kill as "rub-out" would. I do agree, however, that the subtitles could have been better. There are a lot of times when anime will use the same phrases over and over ad nausium (such as 「è½ã¡ã‚ï¼ã€ almost anytime someone in Gundam is shooting at another MS). While it doesn't really sound stange in Japanese, once you go to subtitle it, you can't really use the same pattern over and over without it sounding stupid in English (yet that doesn't stop many subtitlers). Anyhow... after the whole Stig thing...

Awesome. Macross City looks much better now. Can't wait for more.

Love Mospeada, but the only thing I really think Robotech did better was to have only one voice for Yellow. I mean, for the songs, I don't care, two is fine. What bothered me was when they'd have him talking (or even thinking) to himself with his woman's voice. I mean, is he suffering from multiple personality disorders or something? Other than that, it's all good.

While Bandai does really milk the otakus out of their money (no argument there) the "normal price" for a Hollywood release in Japan until just about last year was just shy of 5,000 yen. Now it's about 2500~3000 yen. The thing to remember is not only the exchange rate, but also the cost of living. I make just over 5,000,000 yen a year here (with my wife together we are just about 9,000,000 yen), which back home would let live a pretty good life. Yet, here in Tokyo I have a (semi-)cramped apartment, no car and a 14 inch TV. Back home that would be "unthinkable." My wife and I casually drop over 10,000 yen on dinner for two of us at our local Korean BBQ shack. In America, I'd expect a pretty upscale dinner for over $50 a plate, but then again that's just me. McDonalds on the other hand is quite cheap now. About ten years ago it was ten bucks for a regular cheeseburger, large fries and a coke. Now I can get a virtual Quarter pounder, much larger fries and a Coke for about 700 yen. Progress (or stagflation), I tell ya.

Not yet, but I'm still hanging on to the hope that we'll get one before the end of the thrid Zeta movie. Please Bandai? Both of the other MSiA HyakuShiki's have kinda sucked.

SecondLife is a online "game" that allows you to pretty much create whatever in game through basic 3D-style construction and then put your own (or someone else's) scripts in it to make it move. I hung out there a while about a year and a half ago. It was a great way to kill time, but unfourtunately hitting my wall with my programing abilities combined with my evaporating free time kinda shut the whole thing down for me. Too bad, as I had a really fun time with it all. It's not for everyone, that's for sure, but if you can have fun playing in a giant virtual sandbox it's pretty life absorbing. SecondLife Here's a PR video they recently made showing some of the stuff users have made

Not to speak for Keith, but I thought he was talking about Robotech 3000 and not Exo Squad. You know, HG's other Robotech abortion, the one they were going to pattern after Exo Suad with no transforming mecha. Christ! Why do I know this stuff?! I feel unclean...

Too close to Galatica's Boomer? Yeah, I think so. In fact, I'm surprised no one here (of all places) has drawn the parallel to Macross that Galatica runs. No one really balks about how fast Miria was adopted into the fleet. Now sure she didn’t fire a couple rounds into Global, but then again neither did the Sharon they have in their cell. Now we have a wayward battleship that kind of cuts its own path just to survive while trying to take care of most of what’s left of humanity. The enemy has enough power to wipe them out, but for the most part is just toying with them, as it is rather obvious that the remaining humans have something that they want. I think, as I have since the since the end of last season with the trip to the opera house, that we are in for another telling of how human emotions, specifically love, can help overcome seemingly impassable barriers and end a war by eventually bringing the two sides together. That’s not to say that there won’t be those on both sides that can’t deal with that and go the other way, as just like Macross, I expect the traditional “ridged†military (currently played by the Pegasus rather than Macross’ United Earth Government forces) to not be able to understand this new path, just as the non-enlightened Cylons will play their part just like the Bodoza fleet. Not that I think they’ll end the series with a Minmay song of anything, but I can’t be the only one seeing these parallels, can I? **Crickets chirping**

There was a post over on the SciFi.com board by a guy (?) named Demandrel that I thought was interesting. Here it is ripped directly Not exactly my POV but I thought it was interesting and pretty much agree with it. As for my posting about Okinawa, I hope Major Johnathan doesn't think I'm on him too bad. My point was more to support Bsu's argument of rape existing even in a otherwise well-disciplened military. It only takes a few bad apples after all... In fact after reading the follow up comments I'd say that I didn't clearly see where Major Johnathan wanted to go with his comment about 9/11, so I want to call no harm/no foul there. In response to if it matters if they are a toaster or not though, I say it doesn't. Sure you can run your car into a house, but your car is not a sentient intelligence. Once the Cylons achieved AI they are really no different than humans in terms of morality, are they? Maybe a better anology would be if you ran a super-intelligent dolphin into a house and killed it. And yes, in that case I think you would have some people getting angry about it. Only in BSG's case I guess we would be the dolphins and the Cylons would be Human.

Edited... I am stupid Please see above...

I guess Akira would be at the top of my list. Liked the manga up until I stopped reading it around issue 30 or so (old Marvel editions) but thought the movie was crap. Pretty crap but crap nonetheless. EDIT>> Man... nothing like confusing Katsushiro Otomo and Mamoru Oshii... Good thing I wasn't using that Otaku card for anything as I'll now gladly give it up.

Thanks for that tip about watching the news, never occured to me. Say, anyone hear this business about the WTC being obliterated along with a bunch of people? Must've been one of those nasty hurricanes. 331319[/snapback] The terroist attack on Sept. 11 stirs up a lot of emotion (as it should) but I seriously hope you aren't suggesting that it justifies the rape of another person. All snarkiness aside, when I read bsu's comment the first thing I thought of was Okinawa. Maybe that's just because I live in Japan. Seriously though, if you are suggesting rape as payback, than how long until Japan is "forgiven?" Sorry again for jumping on you for this, but please reconsider what you're saying.

Hear Hear! Oshii's films all look great, but I've never been happy with a single one of his "reimaginings" of other people's work. Hmm... actually, I take that back, Jinroh was good, but then again, I've never read any of the source material.

It's a bit weird for any old school gamers I'll admit, but I think it has great potential. I haven't used any controller that has ever been able to beat a mouse and a keyboard, but this at least looks like it has promise. Not only that but unhook the analog stick and flip it swideways and you have an old NES controller for retro games. Cool.

Yahoo Japan, sorry.