1/1 LowViz Lurker

It looks hard to navigate at first but you need to first select your "world" that you want to know more about first. (ie Universal Century) And then from there go to the relevent section (mecha, story, timeline, maps, glossary on the menu to the side of the screen) concerning that universe to see more. Because there are so many damn shows a noob has to decide which is the most relevent to them. You don't want to bog your mind down into details or you will be discouraged but it is always handy to have some reference of the various locations and places that each story is involved in so you won't get confused. Over the course of the timeline some colonies get renamed and even moved - knowing where they are and whose side they are taking helps - think about how confusing lord of the rings movie would be to someone who didn't read the book or know where the hobbits were coming from and going to on thier journey? Also over time there are factions working on the same side who end up betraying thier own people or allying with the victors of the previous wars (for political reasons or for some other reason) so it can get confusing if you don't read up on the various groups or have some reference. Gundam imo can be confusing at first because of the amount of people involved. We can all agree that to start with UC and then go onto the newer alternate universe stuff is the way to go since that is where it all began. Even though I am much more a fan of macross, liking that won't stop me from seeing the various shows. Some of the fighting in char's counterattack for example is really cool. (it's really the robot equivalent of two jedi but with bits and funnels and lots of other crap - ie the battle between the 'wills' of two characters and not just federation and zeon) But seriously don't just only watch the UC stories with 'newtypes' in them: definately see 8th MS team (everyone loves this!) and gundam 0083: stardust memory in thier order of the UC timeline. The main characters in these may not move with the grace of the heroic aces, but if you like the realism in robots then these beat the tv series in overall animation quality and suspense. (ie it is because they are no-name soldiers that you are actually scared they might die in them So because it keeps you gripped to your seat, you want to continue watching until the end - no robot of the week syndrome)

When you do, could you let me know if they fixed the chest mechanism piece that breaks in the chest when missiles are inserted roughly? Thanks. I am thinking to get a tv hikaru vf1J (outfitted with the gbp) one day. (after the wallet recovers from all the macross zero stuff) With all the recolouring of fast packs (ie black for SStealth, blue and red for max and milia) and recolouring of GBP(camo valk) I wonder if they would come up with an idea to release a special LE cannon fodder fast pack? (done up in the tan of the CF? or maybe release a super cannon fodder set like the super hikarua and super max etc - this might be a good way to sell some more CF? But this time the pilot wears a DYRL-style space suit but comes with the usual tv fast pack and arm armor)

Do you think the woodland valk would be suitable for that race of elves in macross 7? Heheh. I agree with whoever said it should be called camouflage valk. From now on these are going to be my nicknames: 1. Stealth should be called Super Ninja (ie it sneaks up on the high vis ostrich to kill one) 2. Credit Card valk should be called MIB (men in black) valk (because it is rare and nobody has seen one in real life! The government denies it was ever made) 3. low vis v2 should be called camouflage valk. (forget woodland - camo sounds much better imo) 4. low visibility = low vis (not low vis v.1 - makes it less special) An alternate name for 1. could be Shadow valk, but then that might confuse it with the shadow alpha from robotech. I think this should be the low vis pilot's special custom paint scheme for night time flight and for when he goes into space.

Me too. I liked the movie. I thought the fighting and action was done well and in a way tells the story better than the comic. I've always been more a fan of appleseed than I have for gits for some reason. It must be the whole thing with cyborgs being the normal people in gits vs humans being the normal people in appleseed. I think the first thing that comes to mind is that just because we can put stuff in our bodies doesn't mean people would want to. Also I find the idea of using powered armor just more appealing than ripping your brain out and chucking it inside a fake body and replacing it when it gets damaged. (just seems so horrific, and the characters in appleseed are more realistic to how they react to it imo)

I was wondering if the subtitles were changed to read "Muhcross".

Once you start it is hard to stop. The only thing stopping me for now is that I need to set aside some money for the garland, the MP SS, and VF0A. (plus whatever extra they will bring out like ghost boster and reactive armor) When they finally get to bringing out a proper macross plus line it will be crazy. (hopefully by then boxes will be more tiny)

VF-4 would be nice. We see models of it in the background of the tv series and movie so I think it would be good if they did one. That or a variable glaug.

If these toynami's are better than banpresto for small scale valks I will be content. I won't be pissing my pants, but I will be happy. In fact I was hoping that higher qaulity versions were going to be attempted of those since it means you can get sets of vf1 from tv and dyrl easy. I don't think many people can justify paying a huge price for stuff like MPC if the QC wasn't up to snuff. If you want accuracy and details the yamato's have dominated for the collector market. It might be better to try to get a low cost equivalent of a PT vf1 out there for the casual fans of macross who wouldn't buy expensive stuff. This fills up that gap: those who wanted a PT vf1 but not pay an arm and leg for it, and who although they liked the super posables, really wanted a true variable fighter to display. (not just robot mode) If toynami can somehow pull off a line of PT mospeada legioss (not masterpiece) which are something between the super posable and these PT banpresto clones, I will be happy.

I like the color of the gunpod. Is that green? Reminds me of the vf11B for some reason.

Dont forget the "Amurooooooh" song at the end. Really the UC stories have a certain style to the mecha that makes each one seem unique. When you see the zaku you know it is a bad guy because of the spikes and chunky body and shield. You don't get that feeling of different manufacturers and different design philosophy in modern shows like Seed because everyone has a gundam. It would be like the zentradi had identical fighters to the humans in macross. Booo-ring. At least in Wing and G, each person's mech looked liked it was personalised for a style of fighting.

You know if kawamori was allowed to do a line of alternator jets you might actually get your wish of a realistic f15. (no laser exposed on the outside) Masterpiece is all about accuracy to the character in the show. I can forgive stuff like Prime not being a real truck for posability. I guess I am more a robot fan than vehicle authenticity fan.

I've heard many people refer to wing as a good beginner's entry into gundam because of the fact that it is not related to older shows. (no baggage) I can agree with that. But to me it is because it is AU and that it strays from the original to add in flashy stuff that I think it might give the wrong impression about gundam. I like gundam wing for what it is as a standalone story, but if you want to get to gundam's roots you should see UC first imo. For example in Wing, there doesn't seem to be much ships to ships combat. Kids have no normal life, (we immediately introduced to them specifically knowing nothing about them which in a way is "cool" but not in the spririt of the original. The main characters in the original were not mysterious crack killers but merely happened upon the MS by chance and opportunity.) Gundam wing also makes no mention of newtypes and has no star wars-ish feeling to it. In many ways Heero is like Cloud from final fantasy 7. No family or friends, tries to act tough, antisocial, and not interested in girls (hinting he might even be gay - just kidding) and stark contrast to the main character in UC (who doesn't even want to kill people and whines about being there) Wing is the backstreet boys of gundam for a mainstream audience. At no point in the whole show do you feel any sense of danger because the characters are so tough they can withstand an explosion and only get a headache or take on armies of other pilots singlehandedly simply because they have uber powerful machines and no regard for the environment they are in or tactics. When a prototype machine makes its appearance: its not a test model machine with limits, its a killing machine and the enemy is merely cannon fodder to be massacred in large numbers at any one time. But as it is a nice self contained story, I think it is one of my favourites of the AU. (the mecha design for some of them is pretty good especially the tallgeese)

The weathering looks great. And the hands and feet look detailed. Will definately be getting one of these.

I can agree with you there. But I guess it depends on the person. For example I didn't like DYRL in terms of story to SDF:macross specifically because it starts halfway through something. I think a noob might like to know how they got there, what the setting of the story is (ie set on earth, set in the near future, taking place after a major struggle for contorl over an alien technology, and just as aliens attack etc) before diving right into action scenes. Similarly i take that approach with gundam. Because the one year war is such a crucual event in UC, maybe it is best to go slowly, episode by episode to see how this legendary amuro ray beats people one by one training himself and improving skills and getting upgrades, and the effect of this on people around him rather than assuming in the space of a few hours he can kick ass without much thought. I guess that is just how I would see it. I feel that when a thing is paced too quickly, your mind goes a bit numb from it all whizing by and you forget details about the person or major characters and it is just a dreamy haze of a events rather than one long big war. Weeks of time compressed into minutes. The tv series has many cool things that go on in the background that might be interesting to know. (unlike macross 7 which is packed with filler and repetitive)

I stick by my order of 1. Mobile Suit Gundam 0079 tv series (some people call UC as 'First' Gundam), and then 2. see the movie trilogy of this show. You need to know who everyone is. And when people die in the show you actually give a poo! Unlike seeing them die as a faceless person in the movies and not caring. Same goes with gundam seed. Don't watch the movies and then the tv series. You will just spoil the whole thing because it moves so fast. Plus if you are curious about the world itself that the events take place in, it's a good idea to see events and how they happen. Much better pacing to see the gundam tv series as an ongoing struggle with characters that slowly evolve and change than one continuous action scene after another with people you barely care about. When I refer to the 'movie' I mean don't watch those "compressed event" type affairs which is just tv footage mashed together and called a "movie". This is not how it should be watched unlike "true" movies like Char's counterattack which are specifically designed for movie audience to see for a few hours. "Compressed event" movies are really just a special edition for the hardcore fan to buy if he wants extra frames of animation. For example you get a sex scene in gundam seed special edition - whoopdedoo! That doesn't mean it is superior telling of the story than what the original tv series was, or that a newbie would accept this more easily. In fact he might just be annoyed at the lack of effort put into introducing the major character properly more than the story taking too long to be told.

One word: Jetfire. But I grew out of TF and really wasn't into toys so much as as games. Now that I have taken a 20 year break, I am buying the stuff I couldn't get as a kid. It all started when I decided I needed to get robotech vf1. Then I started to get yamato vf1 and I am interested in other stuff too. Really though, I would much prefer the masterpiece prime to the vintage original thanks to the advances in quality since then. Really like the alternators for this reason because they look really good in thier alt form. I don't really regret now that I couldn't get everything (I had voltron) because back then not all toys were as cool as they are today. I thought even as a kid the robots didn't look that great. They were rough aproximations of the characters and that was good enough for most little kids. Other stuff was around like Heman, thundercats, lego kits, macross models, gi joes etc and for a while I was too absorbed with star wars to really worry about TF I couldn't afford. Part of the reason I am interested in old school stuff though is nostaglia. I just saw the original animated movie of transformers, and think that it would be cool to own the toys of these characters as this was a part of 80s history. (really who didn't get jealous when they saw thier friend at school with the coolest toys? Everyone was into them) PS: Oh yeah now I remember: the most wanted thing for me was a toy of the Legioss from mospeada. When I saw all the cool modes it could transform into I was pissed that such a toy couldn't be found. Even today as an adult, for a modern toy all we have is the toynami. I wish there were other competing toy companies making some of this for nostalgia reasons and aimed at the hardcore collector market. (not on mainstream popularity)

Wing = people with little beam rifles with the power of the SDF1's main gun. (armies are now obsolete because you can kill them with 1 shot)

For complete noobs I would start with UC stories. link to gundam official: (written in english) http://www.gundamofficial.com/ (under "worlds" tab go to universal century - have a quick glance of all the major mecha, major characters and major events and as you are watching try to remember the names of each character, the names of each mecha, and the locations on the map of where these events take place on earth or in space. VERY HANDY TO LOOK AT THAT MAP. I have avoided a lot of confusion thanks to it since there are so many colonies and they each have thier own sides and change them due to politics in the flow of the show - some are neutral, some are zeon, and on earth most is under federation control etc.) Read through all the UC stuff (including timeline, characters, mecha) before even watching gundam 079 tv series to get a feel for what the show is about. Given that UC is the most developed universe I think it is one of the more important to know about. Then later if what you see, you like, (you've watched absoluetely everything in UC and want more) later you can try all the Alternate Universe (AU) stories that came later. (Wing, Seed etc) Seed would actualy be a good start for noobs since in a way isn't that just a "reboot of UC" in an AU? (ie they even have zakus and hyayu shiki clones ) Then go out and buy some pg models. Oh and I would not watch the movies because all they are is a compressed version of the tv series. (unless the movies or OVA were specifically NOT designed as a recap but a completely new story that you watch with knowledge of past events in the main story ie Char's Counterattack) Watch the entire tv series first instead of the compressed form first. Unlike others I like to get to know who the characters are, and there is no time in the movies. The movies move much too fast and you miss out on stuff that was in the tv series. I would only watch the movies if I want a quick recap of the major things that happened in the tv series. See the thing about newbies is they want to know as much about something as possible before going into great depth. If you watch a compressed form of the series, you might not understand who such and such guy is, where they are, why they are there and stuff. So I think a slower paced story (tv series) helps them to understand things a lot easier because they get to know the characters, seperate factions on the same side and who is in control of certain areas at any time. (and there is a lot of them to remember) In step-by-step summary for noobs I would recommend this order: Step 1. Primer: read as much as you can on characters, mecha, timeline of events (taking place before episode 1) on www.gundamofficial.com about UC for the show "Mobile Suit Gundam 0079". (the "one year war" between Federation and Zeon and the use of mobile suits as weapons) It would be the equivalent of needing to research a bit to understand the Lore of a tolkien-scale "world" before beginning. Because they use completely different calendar, have completey different weapons, and use different tactics etc from the real world - examples: -they have anti-gravity but it doesn't look like robots can use them so they can only "hover" or "fly". (only the ships like white base can just leave the planet) -They have superior armor called "Lunar Titanium", (can withstand shots from kinetic weapons which the zeon use) but this is alloy is very rare and hard to make. (similar to "Mithril" armor in Lord of the rings: very expensive poo but it is lighter and yet superior to standard metals so only prototype mecha has it) They also use Beam Sabers as a close range attack. Sometimes this might be useful in a colony floating in space if the two don't want to damage the walls and kill innocent people while fighting. But often it is a fancy way of killing something when ammo runs out or the two want a pissing match to see who is better in skill and the glory of "knowing" this after winning a fight with no interferance from others. These are things you wouldn't see in our world. The bad guy should just cheat to win to get any advantage they can, but that would be boring wouldn't it? -some pilots can commuunicate using a kind of psychic energy to control machines equiped for it. Only the Newtype people with the power can use them effectively but it makes the fights interesting. The nazi like zeon seem to have more advancement in this than the federation so later the feddies make a "cyber newtype" as a way to catch up. (obviously inferiour to true newtype so it doesn't rape the hero of the glory - there is an equivalent of this in Gundam Wing in the form of the mobile dolls trying to replace the "naturally-gifted human pilot with super-human reflexes") -core fighters are great escape capsules for space so the pilot can not only eject if he is losing, but also retreat to base, ...as well as good fighters by themselves. The expensiveness of Lunar titanium might mean they can save money if they let this be a combinable portion of the original robot because a modular design means cost savings. In V gundam, they actually have the robot split into three fighters. If the pilot got his butt whupped and you only had to repair 2/3rd of the robot you would be pretty happy with a system for docking and the ability "go anywhere" and keep a low profile and to try to keep the technolgy out of enemy hands. (since there is so much stealing each other's ideas to win the war in the show) Often what happens is the hero gets his butt kicked about halfway through the show and the core fighter saves his butt or something miraculous happens. Ie survives an explosion. ...Again reading about how this works may be good background before starting to watch. So you don't go "WTF, how is that possible? Why did they do it that way? And why don't they do it this way?" Step 2. get the original Mobile Suit Gundam 079 (the old school when the enemy robots were all 70s looking and bad guys had those porno moustaches ) tv series. Watch through it and if you forget something, (like what number colony it was that got destroyed or who is the neutral colony again?) refer to the maps and character descriptions on the official gundam site. There is even a "glossary of technology" in the show for the tech geeks so you understand what it all means. (in UC they don't even use guided missiles. It also affects thier war strategies in the show so it is good to know this as it will explain the reasons behind the use of things - ie kid who knows about the machine ends up being the hero because his daddy made it and the machine AI "learns" and adjusts itself for him. All the original guys died so the kid takes on the responsibility - but he is a gadget freak so it makes sense for a young person from this perspective) step 3. get the movie trilogy (compressed version of tv series) if you just want a whole story compressed into movie form. step 4. start to gradually watch gundam UC stories that were made after the original tv series in UC calendar. (I prefer to watch them in the order of the story's timeline. Even if the ova or movie might have been made in a different period in our time (out of order of the story timeline) and the quality varies. One of my faves is 8th MS Team which is all earth based rather than in space and has main characters that aren't newtypes. So...yeah, normally you might watch Gundam Zeta after MSG, but it is nice to know you are viewing events "as they took place" in order of the calendar. step 5. read more about AU on the respective parts of gundam official (it has those maps and timelines which is REALLY HANDY to know and study, because characters make reference to them in the shows and you need PICTURES of where they are COMING from and where they are GOING to, to help understand this stuff) step 6. watch the AU stories and any sequels that came after them. eg: Gundam Wing before Gundam Wing movie (I forget the name of the movie) Gundam Seed (or alternatively watch the movie trilogy if you want compressed version) before Gundam Seed Destiny. step 7. Complain that the newer shows suck comapared to older ones. (yet continue to support the newer ones by buying the models and feeding the bandai cash cow. )

I wonder if they will release a FP version of these? Or will the FP be attachable to the non-FP release? How about GBP in this scale?

Movies always want to change stuff though. Spider man with web coming out of his wrists instead of cartridges was my main gripe though. And hulk turning variable sizes based on anger like one of the hulk clones in the image comics was a bad idea. Why do they do it? I get pissed off for example like in the dolph lundgren punisher movie, where they didn't have the skull emblem on the shirt. Its part of the character.

This thread should be renamed: "Fanchildren, continue thy whining" Put me on the side of the whiners.

Oh yeah I remember they got into a big fight (not sure if this was in fumoffu though) where there was supposed to be a bet between who could do the job of being a mech pilot (the loser had to run around naked) but now I remember: at the end they made up so they ended up friends again. My mistake. See that's what happens to your brain when you try to watch too many different animes at once in marathon sessions: you forget stuff and your memory is generally messed up.

Chunky munky Alpha? Non-poseable hips Beta with fat proportions in fighter modes? No thanks. I want Masterpiece mospeada for the adult fanatic not a mass produced toy. Preferably in flexible but strong plastic, and not diecast which will scratch like hell when transformed and develop floppy limbs. Maybe this weight reduction will translate into the ability to upscale the toy to a bigger size with more details too, and alpha beta combinations will be managable. Bandai should just focus on gundam kits while takara do the TF MP and leave the rest to yammy imo What bandai should do is make the custom hands for the yamato Alphas. (cuz theirs have problems holding the gunpod like a man )

Holy poo I got to see it. Hopefully there will be subs soon. What is with the chest massage? Is it all the stress from her job? And Ithought those two hated each other?

Great really appreciate it. I hope we get a good view of the inside of the cockpit in robot mode.