1/1 LowViz Lurker

The internet is awesome. I read a british games magazine which had a lot of focus on anime and japanese culture as well as the usual video game culture. And in it was lots of info about different series. Although I read about stuff from japan on macross in it (like macross 7) I never bothered to try to watch anything and find subs for me to see that show. With macross it was RT that started it and at the time I knew something was different but made do with robotech as a kid because I didn't think there would be much difference to be worth wanting to see the japanese series. Although I had seen DYRL later and that was when I realised I got to see the original SDFM to feel complete. The internet is great because now you get to see stuff uncensored, unbutchered, and the access to the toys and models is a lot easier. I can say without the internet I probably would not have a collection of macross toys right now. I hope whatever money is made from the merchandise they can continue to grow the fanbase. I didn't even have a chunky munky or jetfire toy as a kid, just the non-transforming models. Now I've got all those cool things that I wanted as a kid but couldn't find anywhere. One thing about robotech and battletech and mechwarrior though, is that it's not just the damn valkyrie that gets all the love. Destroids and those slow robots get attention as well. One thing I've noticed is that in macross the chicken-legged mecha are extinct. You had different types of robot in SDF:M: the reguld and glaug would walk around on the ground, and the zentradi fighter pod would fight in the air and space. Right? You had space-use robots like the QRau. And on earth humans/army had the destroids. Now I'm not trying to take anything away from the valkyrie, but I feel like in robotech and all that, they respect the ground robots as well. (by having ties to southern cross and mospeada which means 3 form transformation is used in other robot types) Even gundam makes sure not to only make the space robot the only thing to focus on. You had the amphibious robots, and the ground gundams in 8th ms team etc. You had those treaded robots, and even custom robots with street fighter-like special moves in gundam wing. Macross hates anything that can't fly.

I'd just call them all after dead pilots. ie Ghost AI behaviour would be modelled after those dead pilots' pilot behaviour: Roy, *Hikaru, Ivanov. It's creepy like that guy in the 2000AD comic "Rogue Trooper" who walked around with his dead friends personalities inside chips attached to his equipment. In that sense they would truly be the ghosts of those dead people living to fight again as a drone in reincarnated form. *just face it, he's dead.

And about the red lobster: It would have been good if they had one surprise upgrade path beyond red lobster stage. Sort of like what the inbit got in mospeada with the humanoid form. Play with the idea that they are 'learning' like the humans can learn. But at the same time being more like us makes them more predictable too. (ie they are no longer alien and mysterious) As an example with my mini-full barrier idea. They could have made it so the red lobster is able to create a weak full barrier that absorbs the first shot of any sniper gun. The first shot would reveal to the lobster what direction the shot came from and give it a chance to attack the sniper using a pinpoint barrier ramming attack. (the melee equivalent to the human's knife attack) The sniper then panics and can't focus and must run away to keep himself safe. But if you can take out the sniper the other lobsters can continue fighting so it's worth a suicide attack. To adapt to this humans must have two snipers to deal with the upgrade in armor. 1. is the first shot that penetrates the full barrier. 2. is the second to penetrate the armor. But the timing must be perfect. (almost simultaneous) So you could have the sniper dude in michel's blue valk for the first shot, and brera must follow up with an immediate second shot (he has faster reflexs so it makes sense to let him be the follow-up guy so the target has little window of opportunity to run) to finish it off to finally kill one of the upgraded red lobsters. Red Lobsters would have no way to further adapt to this attack since it's just a matter of using more brute force over more newer technology. As the Zentradi had sheer force of numbers and humans had superior tech and the ability to repair in SDF:M, so the vajra would always be one step ahead of humans in weapons, (we would be to them like the zentradi were to us in space war I) but we would find countermeasures to their upgrades/evolved forms before it could take affect since all the damn bugs do is steal other people's ideas, making them easy to predict the more they fight against us. I would just see the upgraded red lobster in the same way the brainwashed, mind-controlled zentradi had different clones that were stronger than others to maintain some order. Britai was bigger than other zentradi for example. So the vajra might 'experiment' from their experiences learning about humans and zentradi and try to have a special elite bug that sits somewhere between the queen and the grunt bugs in the chain of command. Now because the lobsters never got an upgrade, some of what made them scary in the beginning of the series was lost towards the end. The inbit got an upgrade. (human form) Humans got an upgrade. (strike cannon, FAST pack, GBP armor) But the vajra didn't. Where's their "FAST pack" and long range sensor to deal with snipers trying to hurt them from a concealed location? "But the zentradi never got an upgrade in SDF:M!" Yes they did: the upgrade towards the end of SDF:M was them 'learning' about culture but then using that education to repair things to use against us in the form of kamjin repairing the crashed ship for one final attack on the SDF-1. You couldn't say the zentradi were dumb anymore after exposure to humans and learning about themselves more. Now they were a bit more smart, and could use the repairing knowledge to fix their own equipment. Of course now they didn't have as large numbers, but they could adapt a bit. Learn from watching humans.

Oh and on thing they never resolved was the idea that Alto was running away from something. I mean really that part of the story almost seemed useless to me. I might change my mind on a rewatch of the series but can anyone tell me what the purpose of having this in the story was for? Clearly Alto enjoyed flying. Yet you had this constant message that he is just running away. Michel constantly reminds him at the start. Now if they had removed these parts of the character from the show and put in more mecha porn (something like the destroid monster beating some bugs in robot mode for instance) would you have even noticed it gone? Would it have made much difference? I think that part of the story just went nowhere. "Please come home alto! Be nice to your dad and stop flying stupid valkyries and realise you are an actor not a pilot. Blah blah blah" ....but it got very little development. I was thinking what was going to happen was his dad gets abducted by a vajra, he must use gerwalk mode to rescue him, and then his dad realises how important his role as a valk pilot was now that he was put in this situation where he didn't really like killing things or abandoning his dad but now there is little choice. Perhaps develop the dad a bit and show him do something like come to a realisation that you can't always get what you want. "You were right son! Your mother and I are proud no matter what you choose!" ...then maybe have him die suddenly from a stray bullet or something. (just like misa's dad died in SDF:M where he releases control over her and apologises) Another thing: I thought it was kinda funny when the bridge bunnies were all surprised about the ghost V9. lol You would think with brera stern and his futuristic brainwave controlled valk and cyborg body that those wouldn't really pose that much a threat. Ghosts are seen getting pwned at the start of the series, so any impact that the revealing of the V-9 ghost would normally have, would now have been lessened at this point due to how the vajra themselves outclassed the drones in combat. Glad that the sniper weapon worked on them so efficiently. This might sound kinda strange but I'm surprised that there was no mini "full barrier" used in the series. I'm thinking any mecha with some kind of full barrier would be a nice counter to a sniper beam on the first shot. So perhaps if they have a super vajra (evolved to deal with long range attackers a bit better) they could introduce that idea? (just like how humans adapted to the zentradi with the use of the strike cannon in DYRL which wasn't in the tv series) Another idea is a type of vajra that just commits suicide (like a bee trying to sting something) and uses a pinpoint barrier ram attack at high speed. Seeing as how mindless they are, perhaps a kamikaze attack wouldn't seem so unreasonable after it was close to death anyway? I liked the idea that in the start of the series even after blowing its head off, it still continued to be a threat. That's got to scare the bejeezus out of people.

I just finished watching the end of the series: Great end to a great series. Would have been good if the vajra actually fought against each other just like the zentradi did in SDF:M. Oh well maybe they'll do a movie version where you have blue Vajra and red Vajra blowing each other up with their tail cannons? So I suppose on the 50th anniversary we will probably see cultured Vajra with human pilots that sit inside the head of the monster? Ghosts will be obsolete since the vajra are pretty much superior at fighting? All the mecha will end up looking like something from aura battler dunbine. Did anyone here feel like this series really tried hard to appeal to the fanboy of macross? Like they just tried to put as much stuff in from previous shows as they could? And because they knew people had seen previous series, they purposely twist things so you think something is going to happen and then something else happens just to say: "ha ha we tricked you!" You all know what I mean: the scaring us into thinking Ozuma is going to die, killing michel, the cannon fodder guy not dying when he should have died according to the DYRL style of cannon fodder death. One thing I would like to have seen though is maybe Michel comes back from the dead and announces he fell in love with a vajra and they got married together, so that's why he went missing. But now he has space aids and must become a cyborg. Joking..joking

I do that with all my yamato toys because of the complexity. I have left my koenig monster in the gerwalk mode for about a year and half now! I'm also frightened to touch anything with diecast on it because the paint will chip. Already the paint is chipping on the little diecast areas of my sv-51 nora. I'm going to be super careful with these. What are the joints like? There are no polycaps in them? Does that mean it will get loose easily?

Yeah but then SK will cheat and decide the vf-25 isn't as big as the other fighters just so they can make it match the size of the 1/60 toys even at 1/48. VF-11 has grown in size for the yamato toy, so for the bandai 1/48 model, the vf-25 will shrink. Oh and Alto never piloted a white valkyrie it was always supposed to be grey like shin's vf-0.

I'm not going to use pens and stuff for panel lines. I'm just going to flood the panel lines like I used to do to my old gundam models and stuff. Anyone who owns and finished it completely break anything yet? Would be good if bandai upscaled the 1/72 kits and made the plastic stronger/thicker or whatever. Hehe nobody likes the 1/60 toy!

Looks cool. Will the stuff rub off on your hands when you touch it too much though?

http://macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?show...st&p=563271 There ya go! The reason I remember that thread is because I had the "robotech to the rescue" tune in my head and kept singing it that day. Once it gets in your head it's hard to get it out. Thanks to this thread I can't stop singing the superman robotech song again. Speaking of superman: awesome lyrics to the theme song. and batman: that's my revenge..now you'll be singing these songs in the shower for days..haha

Yep take you time! I don't get how they could get the vf-1 1/48 so good, but not vf-0. They are roughly the same style of toy. Make 1/60 vf-0 as good as 1/48 vf-1.

Call it "Did your good shoulder *self destruct?" Only people who own it, had no problems with it in this thread, and finally have it break later, should be giving feedback in the other thread. (to help us all to figure out the average durability of a 'good' release) But also keep this thread for those who still haven't bought one yet. Alright yamato. Make the 2 seater version 3 1/48 already.. *like with early 1/72 toys

Thanks for that. I like seeing transformation videos. Been watching lots of transformers youtube reviews of late!

I wish bandai sold the 1/72 as prepainted kits. Would you buy a kit that was painted up if they charged more for it? (like the weathered valks that yamato is doing for 1/48)

Really though I can wait. I'm wondering what is happening with the VF-0 redo which is suposed to have the arms/shoulders fixed up.

Seen this posted before. The "robotech to the rescue" thing is very catchy and once you hear it you start wanting to paint VF-1 toys in superman colours and fly it around rescuing people.

Yeah but if you've built bandai gundam models before it's not that hard to assemble. Like it's not going to confuse you like a really hard jigsaw puzzle or make it so hard to understand that it takes hours of your time. You don't even have to glue anything. All the other stuff will add extra time, but not enough to turn most people off from buying.

Snap fit kits are like toys that you assemble. No need to 'train'.

See that's why I have this conspiracy that bandai wants to scare people with those pics on purpose to generate buzz. "Arrrgh the toy sucks...I'm cancelling!" then the final toy comes out, and makes them come back more excited than ever. No guarantee this is in fact what is going to happen, but I'm just saying... Yeah but at the end of the day: if people are buying the chunky even now, (whether it be for nostalgia, love of fat robots, for collectors who just have to have the rare release or the various newer releases because the boxes look a bit different etc) that = $$$ for bandai, so from their business point of view they must ask themselves if it really makes a difference to them. Yamato clearly set out to get sculpt right, bandai chose to please the chunky fanbase (which could be bigger than the yamato fanbase) in order to make the most $. Now we know it's not from lack of skill because the model looks nice and skinny, so I got to guess it was that they want strength. (strong robots are chunky, armored, hulking masses with broad features and have weight) Unlike others though I don't think it is at the level of the chunkys like the macross 7 toys or anything. This isn't anything like those because its aimed at the adult collector. But at the same time: yamato when they did the 1/48 were relying on a smaller audience and made limited numbers of the thing. Probably not expecting people to buy large numbers of it (ie treating it like a main toy line the way the fans on this board do by buying whole squadrons of the things). I see it as bandai chickening out perhaps? Going for the masses/casual fans and cashing in while yamato (unable to cater to the masses at the time) catering to the whim of the smaller group of hardcore lineart nazi fans. (who; unlike the casual fans, are willing to pay a much higher price for more accurate details and sculpt for a toy that was aimed to be made in limited quantity) I still remember when people were actually angry that yamato were going to re-issue 1/48 Roy and being pissed now that there would be over-supply of 1/48 VF-1 floating around out there. To think that someone would be pissed makes me laugh: I mean don't you want the company to make more money and then reinvest into more toys for the future? But it demonstrates my point that the "limited run" thing was why those toys were made to please the hardcore and were able to command those prices. Because the audience was smaller than the typical gundam model buyers due to macross not being as profitable to them at the time. (so that means individuals must accept paying more to make it worth the risk) Bandai chickening out means they want the $ from the casual fans of macross more than the hardcore ones who are obsessed with every single detail matching what they see. (people too lazy to build the models) ..Anyway I'm going to hold off until final pics are shown, in case it turns out that the final thing looks different from what we are seeing.

..or it could be the hobby magazines themselves have paid to have the exclusive info about upcoming toys so in order to sell those mags (in an age of the internet where print is threatened) they must not have info revealed until they get their mags out there first. I can see the internet affecting sales of the magazines so everything is organised and timed to be revealed at certain times to give them a chance.

Wow lots of arguments in here. hehe I don't get it: how come so many people celebrate the classic chunky munky vf-1 for being so cool due to it being so strong....but when the vf-25 tries to be like a chunky munky (sturdy toy) it gets bashed so much? You guys have double standards. I want to see bandai make a PG kit before the license is handed to yamato. Clearly the 1/72 kit demonstrates they can make a sleek robot and jet. With larger size and no need to follow the strict rule of an indestructible toy, they could satisfy fans better.

He wants a yf-21 version 2.

That's why I always say I will await reviews first before making a decision. I keep checking this thread. Never believed in preordering stuff based only on how wet my pants are at pics. Oh and about the kit: so the gunpod can't be stored in fighter mode? That sucks..

Megatron will always be something shiny and silvery. No point trying to disguise yourself.

I hope it can stand without support. Why must bandai scare us?