TheLoneWolf

When I transformed Evolution Toys' VF-2SS, the first thought that ran through my head was "Damn, this feels like a Toynami toy" due to the toy's cheap plastic and looseness. It's fitting that Toynami will now be distributing ET's Legioss' in the US.

21 hours ago, Lorindor said:

Just two before this. Nic Mathieu and James Wan.

That's it? I could've sworn there were more. Thanks.

4 hours ago, azrael said:

+1. I'm waiting for it to break Duke Nukem's vaporware record. 

If the movie could speak, I'm sure it'd say "Hold my beer."

Has anyone been keeping count as to how many directors have been attached to this debacle? After a decade of no progress, naming another director isn't something to get fans excited about. It's a reminder of the hopelessness of this movie.

Thanks for the heads up! I really hope that Calibre Wings can release those Macross F-14D's here in the US, because I'd snap them up in a heartbeat. I always thought it was a shame that they only saw a limited release at WonderFest.

5 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

I've never actually watched the Macross Plus dub, but I'm given to understand from the Japanese fansites and the disc credits that the "International Version" (English dub) of the Macross Plus OVA episode 4 does in fact have a different cast from the first three episodes.  This was apparently done to address the old English dub's use of different background music and sound effects for that episode for reasons unclear.

Manga stated that their master dub track for episode 4 accidentally got trashed during the dubbing process, so the entire audio track had to be rebuilt from scratch. Since they inserted new foley and omitted some musical tracks in this dub, I wouldn't be surprised if Big West and Bandai forced them create an accurate English dub for Japan for legal reasons. Not to mention that it'd be a little insulting to the show's Japanese directors.

On 6/27/2017 at 11:47 AM, zad2k said:

Thanks for the other replies.  I'm still on the fence, I really like the look of the HMR's but they're a lot smaller than what I was looking for, partsforming the landing gear doesn't sound like a big deal to me.

...

I've got a 1/48 Yamato that I think I'd be pretty happy with If I could repair the backpack but I'm not finding any repair options.

If big VF-1's are what you're into, you may want to wait a little bit and see if Bandai releases their monstrous 1/35 VF-1J. Unfortunately no release date has been set, nor is there any guarantee that it'll ever be released. But since this year is Macross' 35th anniversary, I can see Bandai releasing a 1/35 toy on the show's 35th anniversary. Coincidence?

2 hours ago, JB0 said:

Actually, it was finished at the time and unreleased. Either due to concerns the Super Nintendo would compete with the Ultra 64(as it was known then) or fears people would compare it to the Playstation's 3D(I know, so stupid.

That's interesting, I had always assumed that the leaked beta was the furtherst that Star Fox 2 had made it along. I'm astonished that Nintendo was sitting on a 100% completed copy all this time.

Yeah, I thought it was pretty dumb to cancel it. But then I read that there was still serious animosity between Nintendo and Sony concerning the cancellation of the Nintendo Playstation, so with that in mind, it makes sense that Nintendo was worried about their 3D being compared to Sony's Playstation.

On 6/26/2017 at 0:36 PM, davidwhangchoi said:

STAR FOX 2!!!!!!!!!!

The SNES classic was an easy pass for me, until I saw this. I played the leaked beta and liked the direction the game was going, but didn't think it would ever be finished. Has there ever been a situation where an incomplete game was actually finished (not remade) two decades later? I tip my hat to Nintendo for remembering Starfox 2; they'll be getting my money for sure.

With the VF-2SS, we'll finally get a chance to see what the High Metal-R line is really made of. While the Destroids and Zentradi mecha were all top notch, neither of them are transforming toys. And I don't consider the HM-R VF-1's to be true HM-R toys, since they're really just old High Metal toys that got grandfathered into the new "R" line with some tweaks. If Bandai can cleanly handle the VF-2SS' crazy transformation, the sky's the limit for them. I have confidence in Bandai and will be pre-ordering on day 1.

At that price range, I'd say it's the Hi-Metal R and 1/55 lines, hands down. Personally, I'd go with the Hi-Metal R line since it's such a varied line with, Destroids and Zentradi mecha to complement the VF-1. Just make sure to avoid the old Hi-Metal (sans the "R") toys since they aren't as rugged as the newer Hi-Metal R's. About half of my old Hi-Metal toys developed loose ankles after 1 or 2 transformations.

9 hours ago, Slave IV said:

For those who claim the moral high horse stance, does that mean you do not buy Macross items outside of Japan that are not licensed by HG? Because if you do, you are stealing from HG and theft is theft, stealing is stealing, right? 

Just another reason why I don't take legal crutches seriously.

Legally speaking, that's not a good analogy to make. While Big West, Bandai, et al. can't ship Macross toys outside of Japan, re-sellers in Japan (eg: HLJ) are under no such restriction. So if you buy a 1/60 VF-1S from HLJ and they ship it directly to you in the USA, then none of Harmony Gold's rights are infringed. In addition, these types of restrictions don't apply to private individuals with intent of keeping the goods in their private collections, since the damage to Harmony Gold is deemed negligible. That's why Harmony Gold hasn't sent HLJ any cease & desists, nor have they tried to shut down MacrossWorld's For Sale forum.

However, if store located in the USA, such as BigBad ToyStore, were to buy one hundred 1/60 VF-1S' from a re-seller in Japan, and then market those VF-1S' here in the USA, then Harmony Gold's rights would be infringed for two reasons. First, a Macross branded toy is being marketed in the USA without HG's approval. Second, as a large scale retailer, BBTS can't make the argument that they're simply engaging in a small, private transaction; their intent was clearly to resell those VF-1S' in the USA on a mass scale. As for a bit of trivia, BBTS did receive a cease & desist a while ago, which is why they now only sell Harmony Gold/Tatsunoko Production branded Macross toys.

On an unrelated note, why does the topic refer to these bootlegs as "gray market" toys? There's nothing gray market about them.

4 hours ago, ScrambledValkyrie said:

From looking at various sites it's a bit surprising to me that the VF-1J Max and Hikaru are still so readily available, especially Hikaru, who's still up on HLJ. Granted that many of the ones out there are not always MISB, or may be marked up a bit in price. But the supply on them seems more plentiful than any other HMR release, or perhaps the demand for them is lower? In contrast, the CF 1A released about the same time is now getting harder to find, likely due to army-building.

I'm guessing the Hikaru and Max HMR 1J's are still available because they were already released back in the old High-Metal line (sans the minor HMR improvements). Compounding matters for Hikaru's 1J, prospective buyers might be more interested in purchasing the HMR VF-1J + GBP combo since that VF-1J is nearly identical to Hikaru's TV VF-1J.

About the scaling issue, you have to keep in mind that HMR line is non-scale, so expect some discrepancies to appear when you line up the toys side-by-side. IIRC, the old ARII/IMAI model kits are legitimately 1/100. That said, I'm anxiously awaiting for my Spartan to arrive. Up until now, it's been a shame that the Matchbox/Playmates Spartan toy has been the only decent one on the market.

4 hours ago, Duymon said:

If you guys want to panel line and are super lazy like me just get a bottle of Flory's Model Wash and never look back.

It's a water based wash using clay pigment and not only flows super well, if you're an advanced user (not Duy) you can smear it for weathering as well. This literally took 5 minutes with just a brush and a moist papertowel

Do you have to apply a clear coat afterwards in order to preserve the panel lines? Or is Flory's naturally resistant to fading and smearing from everyday handling?

Thank you for not forgetting about this, Shawn! I always thought it was a tragedy that so much work was put into getting this translated and subbed back in the day, only for it to get "lost."

On 4/16/2017 at 3:20 PM, Giantman said:

Has anyone gotten a KO yet?

There's a post on the Macross World Facebook page from someone who ordered a Fold Booster knockoff. They said it's made out of brittle plastic and broke right away.

My guess is that Nintendo is discontinuing it due to the system's Third Party licenses. I doubt that Capcom, Konami, et al. could've foreseen the Classic Edition's wild demand. So I wouldn't be surprised if they increased their licensing fees in response to this demand. Rather than allow all of these increased fees to cut into, or even wipe out, their net profits, Nintendo discontinued the system. I wouldn't be surprised if Nintendo releases a Classic Edition 2.0 later this year that's almost entirely First Party titles and maybe one or two Third Party titles at best.

1 hour ago, Graham said:

Ollie Barder who wrote the review is based in Japan though.

Ah, that makes more sense. Thanks.

8 hours ago, sh9000 said:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/olliebarder/2017/04/01/vf-1s-strike-valkyrie-hikaru-ichijo-custom-toy-review-better-than-any-jetfire/#68a821e61c4b

I'm just surprised that Arcadia directly provided a US company with an early sample to review. It's a pretty gutsy move, considering how litigious Harmony Gold is.

Ethical considerations aside, I'm highly skeptical of these v2 1/60 VF-1 KO's. If you look at the v2 assembly kit version that Yamato released, you'll see that it has dozens of small, intricate parts would be difficult to copy on the cheap. Furthermore, the toy has small hinges and locks that bear a lot of pressure during transformation. Arcadia can rely on these small parts due to the high quality plastic that they use. But, if bootleggers opt to use cheaper plastic (eg: Toynami plastic) on their versions, it could result in cracks or outright breakages. Moreover, the Macross fanbase is considerably smaller than the Transformers fanbase, so I find it hard to believe that bootleggers would be willing to invest as much capital in Macross KO's as compared to Transformers KO's.

The Fast Packs would be a different story, since they're much simpler than the main toy. While I don't need any more Fast Packs, I'm curious to see how they'll stack up compared to Arcadia's.

Props to jenius! Just completed a partial sale/trade with him and it went through without a hitch.

While I'm glad that someone is giving the TV SDF-1 some attention, the horrible color palette and line art inaccuracies make this an easy pass for me.

The only word to describe that cockpit is breathtaking. If the mass production versions can maintain the amount of painted details as this prototype, I'd seriously considering buying one. Harmony Gold royalties be damned, Kids Logic deserves to be paid for their work.

If sales are brisk, I hope Kids Logic explores the possibility of accessories for this diorama. Figures such as Ryuji's 1/8 Misa Hayase (NSFW version here) would perfectly compliment this cockpit, if scaled up.

(photo courtesy of Celso Ryuji's DeviantArt page)

The answer to that is the beginning of the previous anecdote. M&M's super schemes have always been questionable... a fertile land for interpretations.

The color schemes haven't always been questionable. After 2003, the color schemes remained consistent amongst various manufacturers for well over a decade.

...it's quite possible that Bandai went to BW and said "We want to differentiate our product so this is the scheme we'd like to use, are you okay with it?" BW would have then looked at the checks Bandai cut and said "Yeah, you do whatever you want."

But if Bandai was simply trying to differentiate their products from the competition, why limit their alterations to just Max & Milia? Why not Roy Focker's VF-1S, the GBP Armor, or the Cannon Fodder (which could really use some panache)?