Pat Payne

I don't know if it's just me, but the size of the Nousdejaul-Ger Male Power Armor seems off to me now. When Kamujin was wearing it (in both TV series and Movie) it seemed like it was more a suit of armor that augmented the wearer's strength than a humanoid pod (like the Queadlunn-Rau), and that it wasn't much bigger than a regular Zentradi soldier.

And that's if they don't do more non-canonical LEs like the Low Vis.

Well, I'm glad to see the NTSB is doing something about thses tragic Valkyrie accidents

IIRC, the re-releases fix all of the QC problems that existed with the early 1/48s (loose nosecones and flaps, crooked printing) and updates them to the curent mold. Outwardly, they look completely the same as the new 1/48s, but they're much more sturdy.

You have to remember, Mac II came out long before Mac 7 had been dreamed up. The Protodevln hadn't been created yet, so there was no conflict. That's why, if my idea about the Marduk being the "Supervision Army" is true, then Mac II would have to be a seperate univers on its own.

I was under the impression that Kawamori said that Mac II was an "alternate universe" but still canon. I don't see how it could be a sequal to DYRL, as in the official timeline, DYRL is a docudrama. It'd be a little like making The Dirty Dozen a sequal to Patton.

IMHO, the gist of Macross II was BW's first attempt (without SN's input) to explain the Supervision Army and tie up a lot of the loose story threads from the original series. With the Marduk's use of culture as a weapon (the Emulators spurring on their forces through song), that would seem to be a good impetus for the Zentradi injunction to stay away from Miclones and culture.

I really wonder if the whole process of making spare parts -- basically casting extras to sell if the need arises was starting to lose them money. According to Graham (And correct me if I'm wrong, O Sithlord,) there have been only a handful of breakages of the backpack hinge (most but not all due to mishandling) yet for a time they were churning out replacement backpack assemblies to sell. If they have backpacks collecting dust in a wharehouse somewhere (because people are heeding the instructions on not forcing the backpacks) that's money wasted and backpack units that could have gone onto new VF-1s. Although it does the cynic in my heart good to agree with you, Uxi, I'm pretty sure that the profit motive inherent in another complete unit sold is only a part of the story. Actually, I was surprised that they even offered the service in the first place. With most toy companies, if you've broken it, you've broken it -- they're not going to expend good plastic to send out a replacement widget for your GI Joe Ultra-super-secret fortress playset.

RED's? IIRC, REDS was the company that handled the distribution for Yamato's toys both in Japan and abroad (with the exception of foreign distro of the Macross line, of course). They went under earlier this year, and Yamato's been scrambling to find another distributor.

On the other hand, although I think that the reports of Yamato's imminent demise are greatly exaggerated (that's, of course, without seeing any of the financial documents that are probably company secrets), comparing a Hasbro or a Bandai with Yamato is like comparing apples and oranges. Yamato is a small and very young company (getting bigger) which chaters to a narrow market: Adult Anime fans who are looking for toys to both display and play with. Hasbro is a more general toy company that started in the '50s IIRC that is well diversified in the toy (and with the purchase of Wizards of the Coast/TSR,) and game markets. When Hasbro toys languish on the shelves (and I'm surprised, this time around, even Han Solo is remaindered at Kay-Bee) there's always something else to take its place.

In one episode of Urusei Yatsura (the one where Lum and her frioends are fleeing from a demented alien teacher CAO-20, I think), take a look a the spacedock that young Lum, Benten, Oyuki and Ran pass through: Among the ships in the dock is a VF-1!

I see both sides on this one. On the one hand, we have discussed this thing to death (We were, for a time there having heated arguments about how much ramen company A bought for Company B, for Chrissakes!) and the whole excercise has become something like rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic. It's also caused quite a bit of grief when certain people (who will remain nameless) from both sides of the argument get out of hand and cross the line from debating the legal issues concerning a TV show to religious zealot. On the other hand, I still feel that this is a useful jousting field for those who are inclined to debate this until they're blue in the face, because that way, that keeps it from spilling out into other forums -- it also keeps people from posting numerous HG-vs.-BW topics, like they were doing before the thread was set up on the old boards. What they OUGHT to do, however, is make sure people are coming here not solely to get on this thread.

If I remember correctly, the "Black Hole" retcon appears in the instruction booklet for Macross M3 (Or "Max Jenius vs. The Attack of the Killer Cockroaches from Outer Space!!")

I do have two questions about the FAST Packs myself: 1) How well do the covers on the boosters/missile pod themselves stay on? Is there a set of latches that hold them on when the Valk is standing up/engaged in heavy dogfighting (you can see what my Hikaru is going to be doing )? Or do they fall off at a whim like the nosecones on the early 1/48s were reputed to do? 2) How detailed and easy-to-follow are the instructions for attaching the armor?

Now that's a rip. So the first Regult toy ever from Japan would be he one Yamato (hint, hint) better put out sometime soon

Just sent in my payment to Valk Exchange today. Can't wait the week or two before it lands on my doorstep

I collect because for fifteen years, I've wanted to get a Valk again (I had a Jetfire, a Joke Machine and a craptacular Matchbox Veritech -- all three were victims of the usual treatment of toys by a six-year-old ), and now I've both the disposable income to do it every once in a great while and Yamato and Bandai are allowing me to indulge.

I'm not quite sure you're understanding me either. I wasn't saying that you or anyone on the boards had a problem with Kawamori saying that he wouldn't do anything about the Megaroad. Instead, I was arguing how we could have gone from "Well, I'm not saying anything about that, because there won't be a Megaroad series" to "Well, they got sucked into a black hole. End of discussion. Happy ?!?" I agree that if he had just kept with "I'm not doing anything with Megaroad" this may have allbeen averted.

Edit: Got that totally wrong. Nothing to see here, folks... Move along

Well, I think part of the problem, Duke, is that Kawamori AFAIK, doesn't like doing sequels. He's said before that he prefers to do a completely fresh story every time. But BW came to him with a cartload of money and said (a'la Conan Doyle) "We want you to do a new show for us, and by 'new' show, we mean Macross show." When that happened, I think that's when the fanboys really came out of the woodwork. Because now he had to explain why Hikaru, Misa and Minmay weren't there (and at the time, IIRC, Arihiro Hase hadn't died yet--he did have a role in Mac 7), and the infamous retcon machine was turned on yet again. Fanboys just won't listen to "I don't want to do another story about that character -- it's over." However, there won't be a return from Reichenbach Falls for Hikaru Ichijyo. It seems Shoji Kawamori has more resolve in the matter than Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

I'd say even before Pineapple Salad. It had to have happened during their captivity with the Zentradi. Because IYR, that's when Misa began to thaw in relation to Hikaru. They realized that they could work together (that they needed to or, well, die is immaterial ) and that kiss certainly must have created a spark.

To a certain extent, I think you're right. The thing is, though, one may trump the other. That is something of an interesting question that Macross 2 brings out: Does BW or SN have a bigger stake in the rights vested int he both of them -- in other words, could Studio Nue say "Screw it, we're doing the next Macross show with Sunrise" just as BW cut out Studio Nue on Macross 2?

Another interesting thing I just came upon in the article (it's been a while since I read it): There is a sidebar about the legal bollocks between HG and BW. Apparently, as said before, Tatsunoko was brought in late to the game, circa April 1982. Two months before, Studio Nue asked Artland (Mikimoto's studio) to join the production by (Loo's words) "assist[ing] in the conceptual work and animation in 1982." It wasn't until Oct. 1, 1982, that the memorandum was signed that gave int'l distro rights to Tatsunoko in lieu of dramatically increased monetary payments -- two days before the show's premiere. So it seems that the heavy lifting work of the story's creation by SN, BW and Artland was pretty much finished by the time that Tatsunoko entered the arena, and long before the memo that pushed Tatsunoko over the edge into a key production role on Macross.

Accordign to Egan Loo, the name actually came from an early story treatment for Macross where the heroes' fighting machines were ostrich-legged 'mechs called "GA-WALKs" (Loo thinks the name came from a Japanese mispronounciation of the words "we walk"). The original sponsors, still lookign for the next Gundam, were not impressed, and the idea was shelved in favor of the more humanoid, more Gundam-like robots of the "breast fighters" and Valkyries. When Takatoku toys sent a test model of a Valk toy to Kawamori, the ratchets on the legs failed, swinging them down into an approximation of the proposed GA-WALK. Kawamori then put the GA-WALK mode into Macross as the GERWALK. Hope this helps

The issue is Animerica v.11 iss. 1, January '03 "Macross and Beyond." A closer reading of the article seems to intimate that yes, most of what became Macross was created before Tatsunoko came into the picture. The show, after all, had been germinating since 1979 with a long pre-production hell necessitated by the dissolution of the Wiz Corporation (the original, pre-Big West sponsor) as well as other commitments made by Studio Nue. Interesting enough, even the debut of Urusei Yatsura had an effect on the show's development. Although Loo gives no firm dates on specific points (I doubt even Kawamori himself could say "And here's where we decided to change the Zentradi from comic relief to serious adversary"), the way the article's set up strongly suggests that the substance of Macross (sans the last nine episodes -- something else was planned for the 54 or 48 ep. continuity) was developed before. I'd love to scan the article, but there are a couple of things that prevent me: 1) the author is a visitor to the MW boards every so often, and I'm pretty sure that he (or Viz) wouldn't be amused by me infringing on copyrighted material to that extent. Since I use my own name as my screen name, that'd just make it easier for the lawyers to find me. 2) It'd take too long. I've only got two USB ports and a ****load of USB-needing devices.