jenius

For the love of Christ no. Yamato might make a great Gashapon but if Mega House and CMs has taught us anything it's that Ride Armors are too complicated to be built in tiny scales unless you're willing to make major concessions. Hell, the Mega House even gave up on trying to make the transformation at all perfect and it's still not a great toy. The CMs and the Mega House absolutely suck in comparison to the Beagle and the Beagle still ain't perfect. There's absolutely nothing Yamato has ever done that leads me to believe they could overcome the issues that CMs and MH failed to overcome. The bright sides are that the MH is cheap and can be banged around a bit and the CMs can be modded well to overcome it's sloppiness (a drop of glue here or there). If the CMs were 1/12 scale I think it would have been really impressive.

Wow Save, soon you might be able to do us a favor by finding us products in Japan (like Japan-only exclusives) while simultaneously importing Toynami goods to sell over there.

Holy crap, I just got my Maia Shadow Fighter... it really is as bad as everything you heard. I hadn't even taken it out of the tray when I had sent an email asking if I could return it... it was obviously broken inside the box. I'll do a full write-up at some point in the not-so-distant future. The real bummer was that I was hoping it would have small flaws I could overlook and keep the crappy but rare reject toy... there's no way I'm keeping this thing.\ Edit - On the bright side, Roger, since the trap door for the shoulder array was broken on my Maia right out of the box I can easily demonstrate now how easy it would be to make a shadow fighter toy without having the useless flap in soldier mode.

Here ya go then: 5) Scope should fit better, not fall out so easy. 6) The wheel jets are extremely difficult to extend the first time, some members needed to use tools! 7) The gun-grip hand should be tighter The windscreen should lock into place better in bike mode, it jostles free too easily 9) Chest sensors should be clear plastic, not painted.

No, you're right, the back attaches in its way and the white pieces help secure the front of the figure.

Yes, I can definitely see some humor there. You'd think they'd at least go for dual badging. The back of the cert probably has Beagle plastered all over it though. It's similar to the MPC Beta. Toynami is lapping up the credit there, and getting it, but it seems that really Aoshima deserves most the kudos. On another note, here's something to consider. Toynami apparently agreed to purchase 3000 of the Beagle (with minor changes) to sell outside of Japan. The Beagle still retails for $280. Imagine what the Beagle would have cost if they didn't have some cost splitting with (and revenue from) Toynami. I think it's quite possible that without the Toynami connection the Beagle would have been dumbed down from what it is now or cost an even more ridiculous amount.

To be fair, we don't really know the interactions of the companies in the development of the toy. They may just be distributors or they may have had some key conversations early with Beagle that helped shape the final product.

I guess if it's just merchandising rights then Tats must have the IP rights so it should have been easy for Tommy and company to throw an AGAC or two in Space Station liberty. It's a shame they didn't.

The Toynami's biggest difference from the Gakken was the articulation in the rider figure. Then there's all the extra details including the the jets and fins that pop out of the wheels. Well, I guess the real biggest difference was the price, the Toynami was supposed to run $79.99, not $199.99.

Brilliant!

Ha, I showed my girlfriend this toy and told her how expensive it was and she said, "Your hobby is so cute. Can we go to Comicon! I wanna cosplay as Sheryl... is that her name?" I am a lucky man.

If I'm not mistaken, there's a rights issues with the designs of the Southern Cross mechs. That's why we didn't see any in Shadow Chronicles when the crew was going through space station liberty's hangar. The Sentinels existed in a different legal time and deals have happened and cases filed since then.

I gotta imagine a lot of pic links are going to be messed up here before long. In the meantime, here is the corrected pic:

The LowVis in set 1 was unique also. I'm guessing that's Yamato's point. The chase planes will all be unique. I don't know why they'd do that, it's not like they could make enough of these sets having only one VF-1 per set that's canon to get all the canon schemes out.

Yep, I'll bet I screwed that up too. I was probably editing a pic and looking at the big 21 on Stick's helmet while I was writing the review. Two corrections to make tonight. Thanks guys, let me know if anything else pops up.

Ah yes, yes it should. I'll fix that later tonight. Don't blame me, blame Gakken and/or Beagle as they're the ones who make the claims, I just report them.

logos, the thumbnails appear if you upload a file here directly. full size images happen if you upload them elsewhere and link.

A re-imagining might work but I'd want nothing to do with a sequel. MacII was seriously lacking in originality so imagine how LAME a sequel to it could be. Macross II 2, "Lovers Again, Again" featuring the VF2SS-2, and the battle of Hibiku, the son of Sylvie and Hibiki vs. the mighty Feff jr!

Added several new pics to my review over at anymoon.com, here's a sample:

No 1/60v2 should be allowed to be pictured at that angle. The head looks too far back because of the way the chest comes up too far. It looks like if he looks down he'll be staring at his own chest some how.

That looks just like the Toynami sculpt... seems like a lot of work for that. They did get the helmet free though and that's cool. The bike looks fantastic though... brave modders with lots of money out there. It seems to me will be seeing an appendix or extras set sold separately some day. There ought to be a headless helmet in the extras set.

Here's one for you guys. If you own the Gakken 1/8 as well as the Beagle, the Beagle looks great (in a cartoony way) holding the Gakken's super beefy gun.

Word from people in contact with Beagle and selling the Beagle is that it's definitely Ray, Houquet, and Yellow LAST. I believe BBTS is going off Toynami's release schedule when Toynami was planning on making their own product.

The ankles are really stiff but do offer a large range of motion. It's definitely tricky to get him to balance just right but the feet are more forgiving then you'd expect... but they still end up too small and really require you to get your poses just right.

Lemme see: 1) VF-1S 2) VF-1J Hik 3) VF-1D 4) SuperOstrich 5) Elintseeker Now I can't put 5 though because chances are we will see limited editions, some of which I might think are awesome paint schemes. So.... 6) Minmay Guard 1 7) Minmay Guard 2 LowVis 1 9) LowVis 2 10) Weathering Edition TV VF-1S etc. etc. In the end, I can't commit to a number.