TheLoneWolf

When the palette swap of a minor enemy character becomes the game's most recognizable character.

Whoah, those Experten Option Parts for the VF-1AR/JR/SR are quite the find! I believe that may be the only official kit ever made for Macross 2036. Could you post a close-up photo of it?

I stand corrected, you've got a great battroid pose going on there! Even with mixed rods, I was only able to do basic battroid poses, and even then it took an ungodly amount of time.

FlightPose stands are the closest you'll get to Yetistands. The advantages FlightPose has over Yetistands are that they're stupidly easy to setup and can be used with practically any plane or ship, even a dinner plate, since they don't require toy-specific adapters. Speaking of adapters, most of Yeti's adapters are opaque plastic, which look pretty unsightly, at least to me. The disadvantages are that FlightPose stands can't achieve the extreme poses that you can do with Yetistands and battroid poses are nearly impossible since FlightPose is designed for planes and ships. There's also inconsistent reports of the stand's rubber tips melting the paint on some toys. Anecdotally, I've never had that happen to any of mine, but it may be due to specific combinations of paints/plastic used and/or room temperature.

That's an interesting find! Did your family buy this brand new from a retailer back in the 80's or was it second-hand from something like a yard sale? My first reaction when I saw it was to say that someone lost or kept the original gray strike armor and replaced it with Jetfire's red armor (which was released the same year as the Strike Valkyrie). But then I noticed that it's missing the Big West copyright sticker on the box. It's also got a 50th Nissan Anniversary sticker, which I've never seen before on any 1/55 Strike Valkyries (1984 is indeed the 50th anniversary of the Nissan Motor Co.). Inexplicably, it also includes the green instruction booklet from Takatoku's 1/55 VF-1S. My guess is that this is a (unlicensed?) variant that Bandai produced for Nissan near the end of the Strike Valkyrie's 1984 production run, in which they Frankensteined leftovers from Jetfire and Takatoku booklets, figuring Japanese kids and Nissan wouldn't notice or care. Or, whoever you bought this from, Frankensteined the Jetfire armor and booklet themselves and slapped an age-approriate Nissan 50th Anniversary sticker on it to boot. edit: Just to add some context, there's an urban myth that Bandai ran out of FAST Packs during production of the 1/55 Elintseeker and Super Ostrich toys and just shoved Jetfire armor inside to save money. Some fans swear that they bought brand new Elintseekers and Ostriches back in the 1980's only to find Jetfire armor instead of the correct ones. Maybe the same thing happened with the Strike Valkyrie? While these are all clearly unsubstantiated stories, we do know for a fact that Jetfire had multiple production runs due to its popularity in America, so it's possible that Bandai had a glut of leftover Jetfire armor.

Great job with that Quamzin kit! I think the weathering came out nicely, especially on his boots.

The Focker Strike Valkyrie in the upper-right corner is a custom model kit found in Hobby Japan (January 1998). I don't know where the rest are from. Btw, where did you find that carded bootleg?

Good catches, I never noticed those before!

I'm a longtime Macross LD collector (love that big artwork!) and I've never heard of any original cels ever being offered with them. Macross Dynamite 7 included a reproduction cel of the LDs jacket art, but that's it. I don't even think pre-orders were a thing back in the 1987, which is when the Flashback 2012 LD was released. The closest promotions that I can think of were mail-away promotions, such as with the Macross II LDs, which would get you a limited poster if you mailed back proofs of purchase of all 6 LDs. Considering Flashback 2012's high quality animation compared to the relatively small amount of original animation it produced, I doubt Bandai Visual/Emotion could convince the animation studio to give away cels.

My vote goes for put the peg hole in the middle of the detail. I can't fault these sorts of changes if there's a utilitarian purpose behind it. Here's a good photo showing off the difference between the two colors. The OHM Fast Packs used a color scheme closer to what was shown on the TV series. The HMR line uses DYRL colors. If you'd prefer a physical sample of the TV colors, feel free to DM me.

I never thought any toy line would ever feature complete lineup up TV Regults, but with the Regult Scout, Bandai has achieved that. Packaged solo or with Roy's DYRL VF-1s, this is a definite buy for me.

I love the paint scheme on the Roy VF-4 and will definitely be getting one. I especially like the updated head, I always thought the head on the 4G was unusually bland. If they do make a cannon fodder VF-4, I wonder if they'd give it an existing head or commission a new one from Kawamori. As for more Destroids, I'm sure Bandai's response to that would be: "If you want more Destroids, then you should've bought more Destroids! Except for you sh9000, we love you. "

I hope that Kids Logic will be using industrial strength resin with these. Regular resin is fairly brittle when it comes to small, thin pieces and I can see those wings and antennas easily breaking.

My guess is that both parties honestly believed that all the contractual issues were ironed out. Perhaps Mikimoto assumed that AnimEigo was going to handle all the various licensing issues with the shikishi; after all, AnimEigo is one of the oldest anime distributors in the US and has a reputation for professional work. Meanwhile, AnimEigo might not have believed that a handful of shikishis would be enough to infringe Japan's copyright laws, especially since Mikimoto isn't being directly paid for them. But given Mikimoto's fame, combined with the shikishis' high pricetag, should make them highly susceptible to Japan's strict copyright enforcement.

Robert Woodhead's explanation jives with my limited knowledge of Japanese copyright law. Japan strictly enforces their copyright laws, more so than the USA in some regards. If Mikimoto was going to draw copyrighted characters from other anime productions in exchange for money, then AnimEigo would need to get permission or a license from those copyright holders to do so. For example, if someone pledged $2,500 for Mikimoto to draw a character from Super Dimension Century Orguss, then AnimEigo would need to get permission from TMS Entertainment Co. and Big West. Since AnimEigo only has a license with AIC for Megazone 23, Mikimoto is limited to drawing characters from Megazone 23. If no money was being exchanged, or if the money from the shikishi was going to a charitable cause, then Japanese copyright holders probably wouldn't care.

Excellent work, I love reading translated interviews! I think the TIA editors made a mistake in that article. It says that Kawamori was born in Fukuyama prefecture, but at his panel at Otakon last year, Kawamori said that he was born in Toyama prefecture. I double-checked the panel's audio and he clearly says Toyama.

Hopefully they fix the coloring on Breetai's pants in the new production run. His pants aren't supposed to be purple.

I think someone else had a similar idea.

KitzConcept has a contract with both Harmony Gold and Tatsunoko Production. Tatsunoko's contract with Harmony Gold explicitly designates Harmony Gold as "the lawful and authorized representative to exercise merchandising rights related to the underlying series..." As Tatsunoko's authorized representative, Harmony Gold has the authority to legally bind Tatsunoko to contractual obligations involving merchandising. Basically, any merchandising contract signed by Harmony Gold automatically includes Tatsunoko. Back to KC's Dark Gold VF-1S, I really like that color scheme, especially since it prevents KC from applying their usual gaudy panel lines.

KitzConcept should be fine. Since Harmony Gold and Tatsunoko Production are joint copyright owners, if HG's rights expires, then KC's existing contract to produce Robotech/Macross toys should remain in force through Tatsunoko. Think of it as when a married couple takes out a mortgage in both of their names. If one spouse dies, then the mortgage stays in force through the surviving spouse. The only caveat would be if KC's contract contains an explicit provision stating that the contract becomes void if HG's rights epire. But if that were the case, then KC should be fully aware of what may come.

If UK trademark law is similar to ours, then it's business as usual for Titan while the appeal process plays out. But when Harmony Gold loses the appeal, I can see Titan renaming everything "Macross" to something else, or even just referring to it as "the city" or "the ship." It'll be a bit embarrassing, but nothing they're already used to, considering the comic's content. Take this with a grain of salt as I'm not familiar with UK law. To Macross fans in the UK, if Big West releases Macross Blu-ray discs and books over there, please buy them. If fans just download torrents and call it a day, Big West may wonder if their legal expenses are worth the trouble.

Ah, my mistake. I thought you had bought that new Fext stand and that the photos were yours.

Do you prefer these over Tamashii's stands? It seems weird that the arm can't be plugged in to the center of the stand.

Whoah, that Books Nippan newsletter has some crazy romanizations! Does it happen to say what month it was written? Thanks for posting those pics, it's great to see what anime fandom was like during the early days of the web.