jenius

Plastic on the Weathering Edition.

Ooh there are lots. There was a Legioss Tread combo toy never released seen in one magazine scan (scale unknown, transformability unknown), there were all the "Dark" variants that never got produced, there was the 1/72 Tread which only saw a release by Lansay in France but was planned for all color variants in Japan, there were diecast figures planned in 1/20 scale for houquet and Yellow (in both bike and armor modes), and I'm probably missing a few....

LOL SDK, you missed your era... right now you should be somewhere in the 60s obsessing over the JFK assassination.

Vegas inspired me... an Easter Egg that hasn't shown up yet on my site:

Double post. EDIT - Miriya, I've added a comment to the post with a credit to you. -

Yes, the color of the stickers are more subdued... so I guess i could have worded that better. The problem still remains that if there was a black residue over the armor it would also be over the decals, not below them. Still, it's a minor gripe.

Just an FYI, I made a quick post of observations on the Weathering Edition Tomahawk. Check it out by clicking here, teaser pic below:

I don't think Overdrive can put it on their site since it's an exclusive to another website. I believe you have to email them.

That link above will work (and thank you optimator for posting it) but it's sort of part 2 to this link that is more of your typical review: http://anymoon.com/blog/2008/08/04/yamato-...1s-superstrike/

Ya see, I disagree. I think we'll see all new non-canon schemes in 1/60 scale. The non-canon they've already done I suspect they'll leave alone because if you really like that paint scheme it's already available to you, just in a larger scale.

Economically speaking repaints are almost a surefire money maker, even if only made in very limited quantities. i think you'll see Yamato go back into repaints once their production efforts aren't so busy with new products.

Nice... a Monster toy fit for scaring off all the neighborhood cats.

The CMs connection is a massive metal arm connecting two very light plastic toys. This means that when you put the CMs Beta in the cradle (that's another thing, it's an actual cradle for their Tread, not an arm) and pick the thing up the whole assembly slops downward. If you wanted to have the CMs Legioss and Tread together you would have to hold the cradle and probably both the legioss and Tread in place. Also, the way the cradle wraps around the tread you can't bring the Tread's legs down and angle them outward. The CMs cradle has its landing gears permanently affixed so if you're not using them they just sit there as eye sores. Also, the CMs Legioss doesn't physically connect in anyway to the Tread so it just wants to flop right out of the connection if you move it around at all whereas the Toynami Alpha butts up against the Beta so tight it won't shake left and right with normal movement (if you've got it connected right, sounds like you might still be having problems). Finally, the way the cradle attaches to the CMs display stand means you can't display it with both toys connected in fighter mode. It's the most craptastic connection that could have possibly been engineered. I think it sucks the Toynami doesn't lock the arm in the Beta, it seems like that would have been easy to do, but otherwise it's leaps and bounds better than the CMs. Toynami on returns: I'm pretty sure you have to pay to ship it to them and they'll pay to ship it back to you.

No, he's saying there are trade-offs and that Toynami chose fast and cheap over making a good product. Unfortunately, in that example I don't really think "Cheap" and "Good" are two options you can pick simultaneously and "Good" and "Fast" together would probably require a huge premium as I doubt many shops are capable. Basically, if someone wants to make a high quality Legioss toy they're going to have to make it larger in scale and of high quality materials and farm it out to a manufacturing company that can do premium toys. It's a bummer no one has revisited the 1/35 scale thus far because that toy is amazing for an 80s toy and a modern update could be exactly what we've all been hoping for. Ravenhawk, didn't you see pictures of the CMs connection? It's atrocious. You should have no problem picturing it, you should have seen pictures of it. If you haven't, go to my site! Edit - on display stands... I'm having an issue because the stand needed for the Alpha Beta would be huge. I think I'd need to get like 10" rods on a flexidisplay stand and those would probably have too much flex so they'd need to be thicker. The stand would probably also need a four rods (if you were posing the Beta with the legs down, Alpha in fighter mode, 1 for the alpha, 1 for each leg, and 1 for the back of the Beta). I'd probably need a 10" rod for the Alpha and Beta and then like 4" rods for the legs...

It sounds like you don't have the nosecone pushed up high enough.

I think your problems with transformation are mostly to do with the bugginess of the design. I remember my first attempts to transform that toy back into fighter mode... it seemed like the fight of a lifetime. After I'd done it about 4 or 5 times I started to learn how I should hold it at certain points, what areas of the toy could cause problems if not alligned perfectly, etc. Just remember, if it started out that way it can get back to that way. If it's the rear landing gears that are frustrating you by not staying up you're probably not pushing them far enough forward... they actually lock into place at some point (IIRC). If your combined Alpha Beta doesn't look as tight as pictures you've seen elsewhere then you're doing something wrong. EDIT - AcroRay, that's a CA state law and I remember hearing that it was really all smoke and mirrors and that the mugs with those labels are essentially the same as any other mug. Might be wrong, but that's what I was told.

Many countries are actually experiencing mild deflation (or completely stagnant inflation) right now. I think you're confusing inflation with the exchange rates.

How do ya figure? Without Tats there wouldn't be much of a Macross.

I had the same initial reaction. I think I like the Beagle one a little better but I don't think either one knocked it out of the park. I can understand why Toynami saw the Beagle one and said "You know, we'd like to try our own sculpt" and it makes me sad that THAT was the best effort they could come up with. I'm really curious to see what will happen with Rand/Ray. EDIT - Drifand, good work with the CMs Fuke, I'm afraid I've resigned myself to leaving her in bike mode going forward.

No, Overdrive is not shipping yet. It's officially holiday break time for them, I suspect they'll be back in the office on the 5th, unless that's some other holiday.

Mine are more loose than I would prefer but not broken... A piece of the knee broke off but that was as bad as it got. Ravenhawk, enjoy your first excellent Toynami product (the Beta) and good luck with your Alpha!

Seriously, Yamato is putting out a prolific number of toys right now to try to capture the Macross F wave. They haven't been this busy with releases in a LOOOOONG time.

Ah, thanks for clarifying, I was confused by the quote.

I hate to be critical of something like this, since I have no experience putting a podcast together, but I figured since I really enjoy my memories of Heavy Metal (I haven't seen it in eons) I'd give this a listen and... to be totally frank, it sounded like two really stoned high school kids who started having a conversation and decided to turn on the recorder because, at that moment, they thought their conversation was really deep. It seemed like people were sobering up toward the end. Maybe you could lay out some structure on an ink board next time and discuss your thoughts with each other for a bit before recording rather than contradicting each other while recording. I've listened to a few previous podcasts (the robotech or macross relevant ones) and it seemed like those offered better insight into some of the surrounding stuff that went into the creation of the show, original concepts that weren't used, in-jokes, etc. but that wasn't present here. I thought it would have been cool if you had given us some production history on how such an odd piece of film got made rather than stating how it's pretty fascinating that such a niche film was produced. Yes, Heavy Metal has scanitly clad women, ultra violence, drugs, zombies, monsters but what about themes (if any), history (of the film and the inspirations for the clips), etc.?

It's actually pretty tricky to go from the standard ride armors to the Bartley type. CMs seems to have rushed it and given us a flawed product. Hopefully the MH delay is due to them designing better ways around the difficulties.