jenius

I think some people in this thread are being confused. HG, without a doubt, owns all of the rights to everything Robotech. You have to think of Robotech being a unique creation and ignore the fact it is, at its core, and adaptation of three other unique creations. Since Robotech is an adaptation though it becomes it's own intellectual property giving its creators the ability to do whatever they want with it. There are issues caused by having that core though, wherever RT stuck too closely to the original property there would have to be changes. Since this is going to be a live action movie, there were likely going to be HUGE changes to the RT story any way. Now we'll all get to say "Ha, they made that change because they didn't have the rights to Macross" but the truth could just be they made a change because they felt it'd come over to the live action film world better.

Presumably they're Macross Chronicles exclusives and ordering will be the same as the Max 1A.

It's pretty standard business to ask customers if they're satisfied with the product you've given them and to make changes if they're not. Even fast food companies have cards asking customers to rate their experience and to make notes where they think there should be improvement. The way in which Beagle is asking for feedback shouldn't be any means for criticism. They told a blogger in Japan who they have a relationship with to see if there'd been any common complaints... they didn't make a formal request from random customers to redesign their product for them. The customers are essentially the bosses of these companies... and I know I can do a lot of things at work my bosses can't but I still ask my bosses for feedback on how I could be a better employee. I think you're jinxing yourself Mr. Chogokin. Expect a good toy, a great toy, but not a perfect toy and you should be fine. I can all but guarantee you will think it's easily the best Ride Armor ever made. Hopefully all this feedback will make the Rand/Ray version even better.

Obviously a Robotech live action film would have to throw much of what we know about Robotech to the wind for a multitude of reasons. This opens the door too wide open so there's going to be lots of different visions produced by the people trying to scheme it up and create lots of problems reaching any sort of consensus. If I were working on the project, I'd much rather just make The New Generation be the movie. If it was successful you could do a Macross-like prequel. New Gen is so episodic in its construction that it lends itself most easily to being condensed in a huge way. Start with a preamble of Earth having been over-run by an alien species and scattered humanity empowered with alien technologies recovered from a crashed ship returning to their home planet to reclaim it. Then jump right into the first assault wave, Scott's journey, meeting up with friends, encountering resistance, forming his own gang, reaching Reflex Point, climactic battle, Invid leave, roll credits. They say the best way to pitch movies in Hollywood is to be able to summarize it in one sentence that compares it to a smash hit. Alien was "Jaws in space." New Gen could be "Robin Hood (the Kevin Costner film) in a Mad Max era."

Seeing as the majority of the complaints come from the first production run, I'd say it definitely has something to do with it. After that production run, the story goes, Yamato instructed the factory workers to be more gentle with the shoulder and since then the failure rate has gone way down. Yamato's thinking is that the shoulders are breaking because the pin was being hastily installed and flexing/damaging the plastic around it.

Both my 25s are perfect, not a shoulder problem in the world.

Supposedly yes. Not yet but there are some shows in Feb where it's expected to debut.

Aw man, do I have to pull my toy out now to test the suspension? Maybe it just seemed to work because the bike has so much give when you push down on it. Edit, just checked, while it's not like a real suspension by any means, and it doesn't use the spring in the center, both the front wheel and rear wheel move up and return to position when pressed against.

The off tones are almost certainly done because Yamato made the prototype by using a chemical to rip the paint off the parts in question.

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.