motley

just that huge cannon from the F90 II long range type. its folded down in that picture. that and the F91 is already pretty weapons heavy with a beam rifle, beam launcher (sort of a bazooka beam weapon), and the two built in VSBRs, what else does it need? i think it looks pretty good, i'm mostly glad i've got one on order.

too many tags and the software overloads and drops them all.

i would say that the toys seem to be getting consistantly better, but now that they've given up their close connection to the consumer base the toys that they have announced leave a little to be desired. as exo mentioned, they do have a few other things working against them as well, but the basic toys have been getting better with each new toy. i'm guessing we've just found ourselves at a rough spot for yamato, more interesting things will surely be in the works. edit--grammar good

more than tempted, i bit the freaking hook. only the standard F-91(F-90II) though, i've been pretty good at skipping the color variations (for which my wallet is deeply grateful). and i put in a pre-order for the hyaku shiki as soon as i heard about it, so i guess its going to be a while longer before i can wean myself off the plastic fumes.

1/144. roughly. they're quite a bit smaller than the HGUC and other 1/144 model lines, and the 15 meter gundam wing is taller than the 19 meter gundam Mk II, but in theory they're 1/144 scale. damn you graham. i was so close to holding off on these guys, but two looks at those pictures and i've already added a pre-order. oh well, i'll probably be happy when i get it. at least i can hold off on the ZZ since i already have the FAZZ.

i think people were more upset about sideswipe being the less than impressive new viper as opposed to a lamborghini than they were about the transformation (though i'd say there are more than a few issues there as well). i think grimlock looks great, the differences between his transformation and smokescreen/*streak/meister/jazz are fairly pronounced, the legs are totall different, as is the transformation for the mid-car section, the doors have a very different look. plus i'd say it fits into the "reformatted" binaltech storyline if anybody really cares, though a bigger alt form would have made a little more sense. at least they didn't opt for a hummer alt mode, the H2s are beyond ugly, and do the even make the original hummer anymore?

you know what, i'm not going to get into a fight over this, its not worth it. those where my PERSONAL opinions, you are under no obligation to agree with me. but yes, because i'm not a fan of katoki's work, and so many other people like yourself seem to worship at his feet, I think he's overrated. but remember, as this is my opinion, and clearly not yours, you're under no obligation to agree with me. edit- font tags

i'm just not a big fan of katoki's original designs. i do like most of his "official" redesigns for the HGUC line, but most of his original stuff seems too over the top, too much hanging crap on a too skinny frame. his obsession with BFGs also really gets to me, it smacks of overcompensation. not that okawara's designs have ever been any better, they worked for MSG, but for all the other shows he did with designs i've liked, he was just one of several mecha designers, he works better with others. part of his problem is his static pose line art style, there's just something about the way he does it that makes them look fat and crappy. they animate better, but it still ruins even otherwise good designs. Izabuchi (0080 and CCA) is my personal favorite MS designer, but he hasn't done anything recently. Fujita does good work as well. and back on the subject of SEED, i did like some of Akutsu's work (the first five gundams in SEED), though Okawara worked them over a bit too much.

meh, katoki's work is over-rated. that said, these new designs do blow. guess they were just blowing smoke up our asses when they said they'd do something to appease the UC fans. unless that's what this CG crap MS IGLOO is supposed to be. sucks to be a gundam fan these days. at least they're still putting out a few decent toys and models.

my condolences.

How on earth did you break the 0002? it wouldn't be that hard, the first two GFF's were bricks, virtually no articulation, it wouldn't be that hard to break one trying to get it into a decent pose, or at least what consititutes a decent pose for #'s 0001 and 0002. really the only thing they had going for them was the REALLY nice paint jobs. they've actually toned down the really nice paint since. my GFF 0001 looks like someone did some custom airbrush shading after the panel lines and tampo printed text was put on. its gorgeous, but its such a brick that i usually can bear to have it on display.

that's pretty cool, if a bit TOO pink.

DYRL is a movie re-telling of the original SDF tv series. in the canon, its position varies. since its production values were much higher, DYRL looks much better than the TV show, and subsequently the DYRL mecha designs are generally used for the later shows. DYRL is sometimes rationalized as a movie within the series, as there are references to a movie of the same name in Macross 7, but i think we've come to the conclusion that its basically just an alternate re-telling of the SDF macross tv series, and Kawamori, the creator, has stated that neither DYRL or the tv series is the "true" story, that it lies somewhere in between. mostly DYRL is used canonically for visual design elements, with SDF macross TV used for the story. edit, grammar

i usually only buy one of anything, though i tend to make exceptions for mass production types i'm especially fond of. i also don't usually get paint variations without good reason, recent GFF figures are what come to mind. one is usually plenty, especially with limited display space.

omg i NEVER thought about it that way. well... i guess if you think of baseball or any sport as a TV show, yeah. the plot only has three outcomes, the heros win, the villans win or they break even. kinda seems hard to complain about tv serise plot lines now that i think about the popularity of professional sports! dang, way to ruin the fun!!! well fandom is pretty much fandom, whether is sports or sci-fi, dog shows or soap operas, take your pick. obssession seems to be a fundamental human trait. the only difference between the extreme sports fan and the extreme baseball fan is the social acceptability, they both obssess over little bits of seemingly useless trivia, and they're both likely to place emphasis on their obssession over human interaction.

ah, there's the crux of the issue. speaking for myself, i take each series more or less on its own merits, so i'm while eagerly awaiting a region 1 release of gundam Zeta DVDs, i could care less about the upcoming sequel to gundam SEED. i have passing interest in a couple of the AU shows, but for the most part i'm only interested in the UC stuff. and bandai, being the smart merchandisers they are, realises that there are fans like me, and that we're also usually older and have much higher spending limits, than the average new fan, or fans of the newer AU shows, so the majority of the high end merchandise is UC only. the old gundam shows maintain their popularity in the same way that the macross shows pre-macross 7 retain their individual popularity, even though M7's popularity is less than universal. there's also the perpetual hope inherent to any fanbase that the next show is going to give them what they want, despite repeated failures. look at star trek, or star wars, or baseball. gundam fans have a lot in common with red sox fans, we have faith in the franchise, but it just doesn't seem to pay off very often.

yeah, i guess i should have been clearer. the original GFF ZZ i mentioned (#0005) is the one in sentinels colors. and i was suggesting that the new one is going to be the same mold, with few, if any, changes. the FAZZ in the sentinels story is supposedly very different from the TV version, namely that armor was a permanent part of the MS, as opposed being bolt on like the TV version, and GFF #0005. yeah, it came as the 'enhanced ZZ' with the armor off.

well the reason statements like "gundam made macross realistic" get made is that gundam is credited as the first realistic robot show. admittedly its not the most realistic, but it started the trend. and not just because of the story line. the failure of the original gundam toy line caused the Clover toy company to go out of business, and the success of bandai's gundam plastic model line lead to massive changes in the way robot shows were made. gundam, and the huge success of robot models are also largely credited with the crash of the japanese toy industry in the early 80's. macross, as a member of the realistic robot genre, therefore owes a great deal of its existance to Gundam. and more when we learn that kawamori and friends were huge gundam fans, and some elements of the early parody show macross almost was, are drawn heavily from gundam. heck our favorite Roy Focker started out as a parody of a character from gundam, Sleggar Law. that said, macross is just as much an influential show as gundam. we can largely tie the success of any transforming robot show (especially Transformers) from the mid 1980's on to macross. there were transforming robots before macross, but macross really changed the genre. you can even credit macross with all the transforming MS in the first gundam sequel, Zeta. its all circular. now, i'm not saying anyone has to like gundam, far from it, your tastes are your own. but you do need to understand why gundam is seen as such an important show to macross, though it may not be obvious just in watching them both. edit-i'll also note that we're really starting to get off topic here.

I'm just going to guess here, but i have a feeling that the upcoming GFF ZZ is just going to be a tv colors repaint of the original GFF, there aren't really all that many differences between the toy and regular ZZ, though supposedly the FAZZs in the sentinel story were considerably different from the tv version. the hyaku shiki is extremely tempting, though the full armor Kai version will be a tough sell. the plain Kai version is pretty nice though. i'm going to hold off my opinion until they actually have a prototype to show us.

G gundam is really a special case. it represents the point where bandai went from being the primary merchandiser of the franchise to owning the franchise and scaring off all the old help. it was the first time a gundam show was done without the input of the original director, tomimo. its also the beginning of the now standard "multiple hero gundams at one time" more merchandising friendly stance of the show, that has been a hallmark of the AU shows. this is not neccesarily bad, but i think it can be argued that its not a move for the best. its also the show that gets the most frequent comparisons with macross 7, though i think that's a little misplaced, i think wing is closer, though lacking m7's character development. G gundam is less an attempt at originality, and more an attempt to make a lot of money on bandai's part. its really only the director Imagawa's attempts to sabatoge bandai's plans and turn the show into a parody of bad kung fu movies that the show works at all. here's a fun link.

i'm going to have to severely disagree with you on this point. while there have been a couple shows that fit the mold you're discribing, most have not. going back to the original MSG, the supposed "good guys" of the Earth federation are repeatedly shown to be arrogant, racist, cruel and petty, or at least some of them are. and almost for every hideous evil Zeon character, there is one who's completely human and fairly likable. this is another of the elements of Gundam that made the show revolutionary, ALL the characters where human, and reflecting all the various shades of human behavior, from the good and the bad and several shades of normal in between.

i wouldn't say that gundam really makes an effort to show "kickass cool' mecha action, or at least the UC shows (not the OVAs, or at least not 0083). in MSG, the original show, Amuro, the main character is rather traumatized by what he's going through. he's only 15 or so, and the strain of being a full time soldier, and the principle protector of a ship full of refugees starts to get to him, not to mention the fact that in the course of the show he winds up killing several hundred people, both directly in MS to MS combat, and indirectly by shoting down capital ships. by the end of the show he's essentially a machine, little emotion, just death. its quite different from SDF macross, where hikaru and max are just part of a large flight wing, in MSG, there are 6 pilots total, two of which die, and amuro scores virtually all the kills. plus the UC gundam shows are Tomimo at the peak of his 'kill them all' phase. many of the central characters die, and many of the enemy pilots have character development before they get killed by the gundam. macross tends to show war on a grander (and mostly more realistic) scale, whereas gundam shows a decidedly personal take. i wouldn't say one is better, they're just different, and products of their time. gundam opened the doors to more realistic mecha design, of which macross is decidedly a result, though its debatable how realistic a flying transforming robot really is. gundam presents a pretty raw picture, where macross is much more refined. the gundam directors also try to make the mecha action secondary, but it almost always has more impact. the macross shows have made the same attempt, with much more success, due to the scale. edit- spelling

i would say its less about repetition of themes, and more about market saturation. with a new gundam show every couple of years, even bad ones, the fan base stays connected and new fans are continually brought in. we see this with star trek as well. i think what made the original gundam popular, was less the imagery and more the story. the power of the original story has definitely been somewhat muted though, by the shows that have followed and borrowed its elements. i'll admit to being a big gundam fan, but the lack of originality is starting to get old, especially with the new shows. i like the original MSG, dated animation and all more than any of the other gundam shows i've seen (OVAs excluded), which at this point is only the AU ones due to a certain lack of courage on the part of bandai america. and SEED and its sequel have completely failed to interest me apart from a couple of diecast heavy toys i'm thinking of selling. but yes i do think that if there had been scads of macross sequels with a complete lack of originality, that it would be more popular than it is today. but honestly i suspect that one of the biggest things holding macross back is the theme of music/culture as a weapon. its definitely what has prevented macross 7 from gaining much popularity, and i suspect it limits the popularity of the tv show. the mecha genre thrives on certain themes and sets of imagery, repitition and a certain degree of unoriginality are standard. some deviance is allowed, but when you get too innovative things tend to folp.

the japanese also see themselves as "white' in comparison to other ethnic groups, placing themselves more in line with caucasians than with most other asian ethinc groups. part of this mind set is also why characters of african descent rarely used to show up in anime, and also used to be heavily caricatured. this has changed, somewhat, of late, but most of more recent characters still have heavily stereotypic looks, and there's still a heavy stigma against darker skin tone in japanese society. edit spelling

no, the HG lines are still going strong. the HG lines are put out while a show is still on the air, which is why the quality varies so much between the kits for different shows. the HGUC line is reserved for kits from the UC shows and OVAs. so the HGUC line has focused on MSG, with a handful of suits from Zeta and a couple from ZZ. recently though the line has started on the OVAs, 0080 has been the focus of the last several kits, and 0083 off and on before that.