jenius

I'll use spoilers for those planning on watching this online tomorrow but it's mostly speculation anyway.

I honestly wasn't too thrilled with this last episode but overall this was a pretty good season. I guess my problem with the finale was a lot of it HAD to happen... there weren't many HUGE surprises other than the man in the box at the end.

Much like the Q-Rau eventually sold for $50, so will these.

I think the tallest bit is more an optical illusion. It's essentially the same height depending on how you position the heels and the head fin. You guys should really check out my third posting on the legioss for tons of comparison pics in various modes with various Alpha/Legioss toys.

Too many mysteries, too goofy a plot, this episode was teh suxor. I tried to have fun with it, I really did, but.... lame. I guess it's another episode that sets up a future episode to be good though since now we have even more mysteries to unfold. Has creepy looking Cathy-boyfriend guy ever expressed an interest in Ranka before? MEGA MEH!

Quick correction, it's the Gakken 1/8 Ride Armor you're probably asking about. Gakken's 1/35 Ride Armors are tiny diecast figures that don't transform.

What confuses me there though is that most other taxes are expensed throughout the year because you more or less know what they're going to be. I guess you could still account for them separately but it seems silly, they're all a cost of doing business whereas income tax is a cost of being successful.

Don't forget, the hands were pretty huge in the cartoon... maybe Yamato was just trying to capture that feeling. Besides, Yamato probably took so much heat over their tiny 1/48 hands they took the "You want big hands... you got 'em!" approach on this one.

My Little Pony... OF DEATH! No? How about this one: My Little MECHANIZED Pony

You gave the mecha porn episode the "worst episode so far" title? Wow. Can't say I disagree with any of your criticisms though. Any time someone can compare a fight scene to something we saw in Mac7 it suddenly loses a whole lot of points in my book. Oh well, I love mech porn so I definitely still enjoyed the episode even with all its contrivances. If I can forgive Alto for some reason being in Ozma's hospital room after he got injured then I guess I could forgive Cathy having a random perilous assignment. Luca being captured struck me as very odd also... I wish he would have just been bobbing about in a debilitated mech or something.

Did you guys notice the arm armor?

Hmm, they lost $595K before taxes. I don't do taxes... but doesn't the US tax on income? Doesn't that mean they lost $595K... PERIOD. Saying a loss, before taxes, makes it sound like the loss would be worse but if you don't make money you don't pay taxes. Am I missing something obvious? As far as this news go, since they're just being merged it sounds like there's a chance not much will happen.

Well it looks like my info may be more Robotech RPG (meaning... not true) according ot that Mospeada page which lists the ride armor with swords as a heavy combat version. No wonder humanity lost during the invasion... their weaponry was designed to run up and stab enemies shooting plasma discs.

Is this thing getting released in June still?

Ivanov had the missiles that didn't attach well to the hardpoints (much like the 1/48 Reflex missiles that were so loose they would shift if you leaned the valk and pop off if you even thought of transforming it). The biggest problem with Ivanov had to be the number of people that got the wrong wing hinge. All the SV-51s that came out after him have the fixes (Nora, CF) so they don't really fit in the discussion. That all said, the SV-51 was a definite step in the right direction for Yamato getting over their first release jitters. After the disaster which was the VF-0 though I don't think anyone could ever be faulted for saying "Nah, you know what, I think I'll wait for a second release."

The bike was meant for different purposes. It's the sneaky bike with sabers... although I'm not sure when sabers were really an intelligent choice of weapon. Stig and Rey's bike were the standard infantry variants (Stig being the "heavier" of the two) and Houquet's bike is obviously the "light-duty" bike. Yellow's bike is recon/covert ops bike.

Aw crap, what if the non FP version has all the fixes we'll demand after fiddling with our FP versions for a month or so? Then we'll have to buy both! CURSE YOU YAMATO!!! I SEE WHAT YOU'RE DOING HERE!!!!! Uh, sorry, way too much coffee.

Is 'yamaturd' a new term for Yamato fans? I'm not sure I like it. Anyway, take a look at Yamato's GNU pics. Those things are painted and posed but we keep hearing they're roughs that don't accurately reflect the final product. I think we all need to take a breath when it comes to condemning this Bandai effort.

Lancer's Blowsuperior (mark my words, one day someone will correct this and label it a Brosuperior on their packaging!) doesn't have arm mounted weapons per se' so they compensated by giving him chest missiles. As you can imagine, the arm "swords" aren't really effective for most combat situations... just sneaking up and stabbing people. Without those missiles every time Lancer was in a bike fight he would have had no weapon to return fire with.

So the original concept must have almost nothing in common with the end product except the armor huh? It's amazing how much these ideas get tweaked on their way to actually being animated. It's like every guy who gets to approve funding also gets to put his own twist on the show without anyone being able to veto it. "I like it, but take it out of Japan and put it in Space!" "I like it, but make it so the bad guys are actually just trying to get home!" "I like it, but we've never seen helicopters or tanks in space, try that!" "I like it, but horses on a space colony don't make sense, give 'em hover cycles!"

those pictures aren't new I'm afraid... I couldn't tell you how old they are, but I know I've seen them before.

Really, I don't think this toy is all that hideous. Looking at the battroid, the chest looks a little chunky, the pelvis looks mistransformed (it needs to be angled), it needs to have the head lasers shrunk a tad and flared out, but otherwise I'd say it looks pretty solid. It's light years ahead of anything Bandai ever accomplished before (for Macross) and this is from a sagging resin prototype. I suspect many people who hate it at this point will have it grow on them if just some slight imperfections in sculpt are its worst problems.

I will second your "oh so very 80s" line... but I always hated the notion of robot horses. Everyone knows the motorcycle is the modern day horse!

Aw c'mon, that steals the fun of it. Logistically that raises an interesting question... how would you get horses to some outpost planet (and in some feasible manner)? Were they indigenous horse-like creatures? If they were real horses with armor then I imagine they'd wear armor similar to their rider's. Ooh, did the marine ride a seahorse??