TheLoneWolf

The good news is that N64 games do fit inside the small USPS flat-rate boxes.

But if you don't have the time or desire to deal with 20+ sales, the best thing to do is to sell the system and accessories as one lot and all the games as a 2nd lot. Shipping them together in a single lot is going to be almost as bad as parting them out. Lots don't make as much money as individual sales, but since you didn't pay for these, it's all profit anyways.

Do the games all have their booklets, paperwork/flyers, and cardboard trays? If so, make sure to note that in your auction. Complete games will usually fetch around $20 minimum and higher depending on the game's demand/popularity. Even sold as a lot, you'll still make quite a bit of money.

edit: Oh yeah, I'd test out the N64 at the bare minimum. "Untested system" is slang for "probably broken" on eBay. N64 cartridges are pretty robust and easy to clean, so you shouldn't have to worry about those.

3 hours ago, Chronocidal said:

If anyone was to approach a single Macross title for western adaptation, I'd think Macross Plus probably has the best chance of success.  It's probably had the most exposure of the franchise due to HG's leaky practices then, and it already feels like the most "western" of Macross material, between the Top Gun comparisons, minimal necessary exposition, and the unique role music played in that particular story.

I think someone else had a similar idea.

The old Macross Compendium has some dates for the Tatatoku stuff.

http://macross.anime.net/production/models_toys/mecha/united_nations/variable/vf1/index.html

4 hours ago, RavenHawk said:

I'm not following your logic here. HG and Tats may be join copyright owners, but if KC only has a contract with HG, then I don't see why Tats would be obligated to allow KC to continue manufacturing products under their trademark.

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.

On 6/8/2019 at 1:11 AM, jenius said:

A curious thought here, if Harmony Gold really does lose their license in 2021 to merchandise Macross products, then that seems like it will royally f*ck KitzConcept and Toynami (to a  much lesser degree). BigWest will probably be in no mood to deal with companies that were not operating under their licensing previously and they will have not motivation to do so with their biggest sponsor (Bandai) already having a full catalog it could deliver.

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.

12 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

I wonder what implications Big West's new trademark are going to have for Titan Publishing Group and their current (awful) Robotech comic.  They're based in the UK, and that comic is making fairly liberal use of the Macross name.

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.

On 5/30/2019 at 7:27 PM, sh9000 said:

I think it comes with the Fext System sets.

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

On 5/29/2019 at 3:18 AM, sh9000 said:

https://facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2673142702756189&id=1641462599257543

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.

On 5/26/2019 at 3:35 PM, Legioss said:

Sorry, I've never been to Macek's gallery and haven't seen it. The only times I went to California were in 1995 and 1996 for Robocon and Anime America '96.

I have this 1996 Nikaku Animart Catalog. I don't know if I have any others scanned. I still have my Books Nippan, Super Collector, and maybe some other catalogs in paper form.

nikaku96.doc 182.3 kB · 3 downloads

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.

In the books, the White Walkers' origin has yet to be revealed. But Melisandre does say that they are creations of the dark god, whereas in the show they're the creations of the Children of the Forest. Maybe the showrunners gleaned their info from GRRM's notes or maybe they just pulled it out of their asses. Nothing's mentioned about them being immortal neither, it's just assumed.

As for female White Walkers, one is mentioned in the story of the Night's King. In this story, a Lord Commander of the Night's Watch fell in love with a woman who matches the description of a White Walker. While the White Walkers resemble monsters in the TV show, GRRM described them in the books as having a strange type of beauty, so a human falling in love with one wouldn't be outright disgusting.

There aren't any more instances of female White Walkers in the books, but then again, only a scant few have been seen up close, so it's difficult to say that there just aren't any.

As for Craster's deal, I just assumed that he wanted to be the only pervert rooster in the hen house, so getting rid of his sons was a win-win deal for him. But I could be wrong and perhaps the White Walkers specifically requested his sons.

15 hours ago, Tochiro said:

I need to fix some of the line formatting later, but for now, heres my write up.

http://www.decultureshock.com/nhks-ultimate-macross-poll/

This is fantastic, your translations and explanations are invaluable!

On 4/18/2019 at 12:19 PM, kajnrig said:

Well. So much for FBA.

That's a pretty fascinating case. From the information in that video, it looks to me like Capcom is in the clear. The problem with the FinalBurn Alpha team is that the proverbial right-hand doesn't know what the left-hand is doing.

The first thing to check is FBA's Articles of Incorporation (assuming they have one). The Articles of Incorporation should state whether Barry Harris is empowered to make legally binding decisions on the behalf of the team. If he doesn't have that power, then the contract he signed with Capcom is as worthless as used toilet paper.

If Harris has the authority to make such decisions, then the next step is to determine whether the rest of the FBA team are legally considered employees who are producing code under a written "work-for-hire" agreement, or whether they're independent contractors. If they're employees producing code on a "work-for-hire" basis, then Harris can license their code to whomever he wishes. But if they're independent contractors, then they legally own their respective portions of code that went into FBA, so Harris has no right to license their work to anyone without their permission. Since the team is comprised of volunteers who are working from home using their own hardware, compilers, etc., they're almost certainly independent contractors.

If my analysis is right, then the lesson here is to hire a lawyer before signing any major contract. Unfortunately for Capcom, they're going to take the brunt of the blame for Harris' mistake.

Anyways, that's the kitscshiest arcade stick I've ever seen. Someone's going to make big money selling a decal to cover up that thing. 

On 12/17/2018 at 8:48 PM, TheLoneWolf said:

I don't think the unfortunate residents of Hell will have to worry about finding a new home just yet, considering there's a long list of unreleased Robotech toys.

Called it.

This might actually be a blessing in disguise for Southern Cross. If MAAS' lazy designs were actually released, their sales probably would've been so disastrous as to completely extinguish that 0.001% chance the show has of seeing more mecha toys.

Harmony Gold should count their blessings that MAAS died when they did. If they had relented to MAAS' Kickstarter plans, it would've been yet another Kickstarter debacle for them.

1 hour ago, Convectuoso said:

Can't wait for the VF-1D. What worries me is ..what comes next for HMR?

More VF-1 and VF-4 repaints. With the VF-4 just being released, I wouldn't expect any new sculpts for another year or so.

Beyond that, I'm thinking the Q-rau.

The Regult is way too small to fit an average-sized Zentradi pilot, even if you squish the pilot inside.

These are photos of John Moscato's Regult and Zentradi pilot models; the Zentradi pilot is 1/72 scale and the Regult is 1/57 scale. Even though the Regult is much larger than it should be, the pilot barely fits inside.

As for the HMR line, as Lolicon said, it's a non-scale toy line, so don't try to do serious scale comparisons with it.

Model builder and photo credit: Cool8tor

3 hours ago, Shizuka the Cat said:

Kind of surprised that a Yamato v2 Elintseeker sold earlier today from Mandarake for 30,000 yen, given that one can pre-order the Arcadia upcoming release for much less money.

The buyer might not be aware that a reissue is being released soon.

Or maybe the buyer is securing one just in case the Arcadia version has QC problems or has some minor, undesirable design change.

I noticed that clicking on any of the articles on the main page leads to a blank page.

Also, there's no articles at all prior to January 2012.

I'm pretty sure there never was a chrome version of the VF-19 Kai, just the VF-19S, VF-17S, and VF-17D.

If there was, then Kawamori forgot to include it on the limited edition card that came with the set

17 hours ago, Penguin sushi said:

I know that the hm regult is really expensive, but has anyone had any experience with the ones from revoltech?

If you're looking for cheaper Regults, you're best bet would be Toynami's 1/100 Battlepods. They don't have the crazy posability and details of the HMR, but they look decent.

If the HMR's don't get a reissue, I can see Toynami's Battelpods going up in price.

Packaging designs are indeed protected by copyrights. Assuming that Bandai acquired all of Takatoku's intellectual property, and not just their toy moulds, they would have a leg to stand on.

But I don't see Bandai doing anything. Bandai never used that packaging design under their own brand, not to mention that the 1/55 line is long dead; it'd be hard to argue that they're suffering actual harm. The best that they could hope for is an injunction, which doesn't net them anything.

 

I've been wondering this myself.  There is a story attached to them.  Back in the day when the 2002 reissues were first being sold in the United States, Harmony Gold (aka the Evil Empire) reigned in those sales on IP grounds and filed suit against Bandai, alleging copyright infringement as Harmony Gold had the rights to sell them exclusively here in the United States.  Yadda, yadda, everybody knows this by now.   But this may have something to do with the limited production runs and why they are going higher in price.  Although my guess is probably not because nobody's even mentioned it on this thread here so far, so it would have little if any bearing on its value in the marketplace.

I don't think it has anything to do with anything else other than the honestly held belief that newer is better.  Forget the old, the vintage toys.  The quaint charm of the past, those garishly painted boxes.  Those are just trash.  The way it is done now, with improved production runs, superior plastics, etc., is just plain better.  It has a whiff of this self-entitled arrogance if you ask me.

There's no record of Harmony Gold ever suing Bandai over the 2002 reissues, but Bandai knew that Harmony Gold would nevertheless block their Macross products outside of Japan, so they probably factored that in to their production numbers. But to be honest, the 2002 reissues sold poorly because of competition from Yamato's v1 1/60 VF-1 line and that most people thought the reissues looked like dinosaurs compared to newer toys. You could usually find the reissues selling at half the price of their original MSRP, which ironically brought them down to the price range of 1/55 bootlegs. This is most likely why the later releases, such as the Max & Milia reissues, had small production runs.

 

2002 also marked when the first volume of Macross Zero was released, so Bandai may have wanted to capitalize on the new Macross anime, particularly one set in the past, by re-issuing the chunky monkey. 

Similarly, Macross Frontier TV premiered in 2008... coinciding with the 2008 chunky monkey re-issue. So I think Bandai is using new Macross shows as an impetus for these chunky monkey re-issues.

I doubt Macross Zero had anything to do with the 2002 reissues. Macross Zero was released in the end of 2002, whereas Bandai announced the reissues in the end of 2001. Bandai was probably just jumping on the 2001 Macross bandwagon when they saw all the interest being generated by Yamato's v1 1/60 VF-1's and Toynami's 1/55 line.

Just to add on to what jenius said, I wouldn't be surprised if the 2002 and Origin of Valkyrie lines also had smaller production runs than the the original Takatoku/Bandai toys. Back in the 80's, Macross was on fire and Takatoku and Bandai practically had a monopoly on the 1/55's. But in the 2000's, the marketplace was saturated with toys from Yamato, Toynami, and numerous bootleg 1/55's, so Bandai probably manufactured less of them.

3 hours ago, jenius said:

For the record, I think a pretty awesome Mospeada Live Action Movie could be made. Yes, the plot would need to be reworked pretty thoroughly to cram it into 2 hours. The movie would bookend with massive space battles and feature a Mad Max road trip in between... could be kinda cool. 

Stahp giving them free ideas.

8 hours ago, tekering said:

I just hope the Yellow figure is unique.  Stig and Ray can share proportions, but Yellow should be much taller and thinner than the others.

Since these are reimagined designs, one could always say that in this reimagined universe that Yellow has similar proportions to Stick and Ray.

Speaking of designs, does anyone know if Sentinel commissioned Shinji Aramaki to redesign Yellow's Ride Armor, or did they do it themselves?

Absolutely stunning work!