jenius

My understanding of this was different too (which again, might be flawed, what I get is 20th person down the telephone line). What I was told was that Yamato wanted to release their toys stateside but there was a Toynami flub-up. When it came to Yamato and Toynami working out some sort of agreement BW nixed it telling Yamato they weren't to do business with Toynami because of Toynami's HG relationship. That's why it's so odd to see Bandai doing business with Toynami now... hopefully this opens the flood gates. That all might have been the Toynami spin on things though. This might have just been a case of Yamato wanting to do business in the states while Toynami was still releasing their 1/55 MPC VF-1 toys and Toynami was resistant because it'd introduce competition. Maybe now that the MPC VF-1 is done Toynami is much more open to inviting in toys that were previously viewed as "the enemy."

OOoh, I need screen caps! Oh, or an episode name, I'd like to see it in action. Yep, all stuff I'm aware of... but within the context of the show none of that matters. It exists, then doesn't exist, then exists again, still looks like a helicopter in space, and all the mechs look like a backward devolution of "robotechnology"

I don't follow your point. Nothing you said contradicts what I wrote but the way it reads sounds almost like you disagree with me about something. For what it is, I think they did a decent job. Macross starts in a relatively current date, the Earth gets bombarded and sucks but does look more futuristic in The Masters, then another huge space battle later we get New Gen where much of the Earth is in ruins and cities are abandoned. There are lots of issues with it, most the New Gen cities should probably be rubble, but otherwise I think it's pretty much just the mechs of Southern Cross that feel totally out of place. Macross mechs look like progressions from existing technology and New Gen stuff has that boxy = futuristic vibe from the 80s but the Southern Cross stuff is just... not fun. It ends up looking like tanks and helicopters in space wedged between VF-1s with Fast Packs and Alpha/Beta combos. Somebody eventually throws how the vehicles are shown to perform in the show itself but i don't care what anybody says, you can't sell floating tanks and helicopters with those bruisers on your bookends.

While the transformation is very similar Toynami actually did come up with their own molds for their Morphers. See my website for more info

I think it'd be wrong to say they've "sold" the rights or the rights have been "purchased." Toynami *probably* has an exclusive license by way of HG, or a license that covers the type of merchandise Bandai and Yamato would be trying to import. Toynami theoretically paid well for that license so it'd make sense they would defend it from Yamato or anyone else trying to sell Macross goods outside of Japan without giving them a cut. Obviously there's all sorts of crap involved but that's the summary as I understand it.

There are modern day helicopters without tail rotors, they use their exhaust to stabilize IIRC. The AGACS was never a helicopter in space. In fact, it was never a helicopter in the entire series. It has three modes: Fighter, Helicopter, and Battroid. It is only seen in Fighter and Battroid modes. Unfortunately, it looks like a helicopter without a rotor in fighter mode so it still kinda looks like helicopters fighting in space. In Robotech the Auroran makes almost no sense. It appears in an episode where it shouldn't exist yet, is revealed in a later episode as a new fighter, and if Earth had VF-1 valkyries at any point all of the mecha in Southern Cross is a pathetic step in the wrong direction.

Right, so Yamato does the Sunwards thing and BW drops the hammer. Then Bandai does pretty much the same thing and it's okay because they're bigger and they fund Macross projects. I understand but it seems, unless there's something written into all those contracts, BW should have to get a whole lot more lenient with other companies trying to strike up deals with Toynami. If BW is obsessed with cutting HG off from any money from Macross it seems in their best interest to pressure Bandai to walk away from this deal. Obviously I'd just prefer BW start letting HG make some money and we all get universal Macross products.

HG has the name Macross copyrighted and has licensed distribution rights of Macross merchandise to Toynami. So yeah, HG just gets a cut... nothing really fancy here as HG could care less where the toy comes from, that's Toynami's business. Toynami just has more fees to pay as they need to pay Tamashi who in turn needs to pay BW. I still wouldn't be at all surprised to see this whole thing get killed by BW at any minute. It's not really fair for Bandai to escape BW's glare. If Yamato's smart they'll just make a company structured EXACTLY like Tamashi and escape the licensing issues in the same way.

LOL, oh that poor stimulus. I wonder what tiny percentage will actually go to boosting OUR economy?

Every transformation works... at some scale.

This episode was uh... "cute" but boring. Hot on the heels of Star Date I think I had had my feel of dialogue and romantic bumbling only to get slammed with another full 22 minutes of it. Really, I might not have minded it so much but Star Date leaves you so primed for a good scramble order that Bye Bye Sheryl never delivers on. I get the feeling this will be an oft skipped episode when DVDs of this series are available. There are worse things than boring though and I'm sure the reward for this episode will be delivered in a later episode when this character development starts paying off.

Ugh, they're such a bad design. I really like the notion of a transformable tank (even if it's kind of tough to determine WHY such a thing would exist) but the Hovertank is poorly executed. It starts with the whole open "cockpit" in the first versions and extends through varoius aspects that just make it all kind of silly.

I thought component cables only go to 720P? Also, what is this sound lag from which you speak? I've never noticed a sound lag but I don't have a PS3 so if it's specific to Blu-Ray or the PS3 that'd explain why I'm lost. I've got no clue what might cause a hiss in the audio but typically a dirt cheap HDMI cable is everything a super expensive HDMI cable is. I've got an expensive one and a few dirt cheap ones from Amazon.com and I could never tell you where the cheap ones are versus the expensive one.

You'll always be your own worst critic on these. My prediction, you'll paint it but the slight differences in color will eventually drive you nuts... so then you'll strip the whole thing, primer it, repaint it, and buy some after market stickers. Regardless of whether or not my prediction holds true, you've already done a better job than I could.

While I really dislike Southern Cross, and HATE The Masters portion of Robotech (they stripped all the cool aspects of the mediocre show away and dissolved it into a glue to attach Macross to Mospeada) I believe the issue is really one of licensing. Didn't those podcasters (can't remember their names right now) say that Big West owns the rights to all the mechs and designs and that's why none of them appeared in Shadow Chronicles? If Tatsunoko owned it you'd have a chance but if this is a BW issue no dice.

Actually, if Monogram just repackaged Imai kits then YES, Toynami's toys are based off of those kits! The Toynami MPC is essentially the Imai 1/48 Legioss with some minor tweaks. Of course, the similarities are all superficial, the toys are built much sturdier than the models with different materials. Okay, I suppose "much" might be a bit strong given the MPC Alphas problems with falling apart for no good reason. We should also note that nobody here knows anything about the Toynami MPC Cyclone. They showed a prototype that appeared to be based on an old model kit but then they stopped showing the prototype and said they might just import Beagle's effort instead whilst telling retailers that they'd deliver them an MPC Cyclone by year end for $79.99. There's no way the Beagle will only be $79.99 so the speculation now is that Toynami might bring out their own Cyclone and the Beagle but that contradicts their statement from NYCTF where they said it'd be one or the other.

That link doesn't work for me but if you're looking at the Toynami I believe the place to post about it would be the "Mostly Mospeada" thread

The title could probably use a "NSFW" tag.

Exact same molds huh? That doesn't sound promising for rare/exotic!

It got licensed right quick (thus making it impossible for me to get torrents!).

How do you mean an "internal" perspective? How are we supposed to know that Ranka is going to skyrocket? Is that because we're supposed to know she's going to follow in Minmay's steps? Doesn't that thought necessitate us considering it from the "external" perspective where we only know what to expect because we know of the original series? How is it then "skill"ful to use an episode in such obvious fashion only to put a late twist on it? Isn't that what most people consider "lazy"? I do agree, it is skillful to play with a viewer's expectations but I'd disagree that mirroring an existing episode to do that is a sign of skill.

Hey, that's still the only Houquet Ride Armor to date! (for the moment)

Wow... you're actually modding it. A member here once made a mod that gave it a swiveling torso, maybe you'll want to take a stab at that!

I am so friggin' psychic... just you watch. You guys might say "But Jenius... the formula is one VF-1 toy, one Mac+ toy, and one almost never seen valk so obviously it'd be a VF-1, a VF-11B, and a VF-5000" and I say to you, "shut up, I'm psychic!"

That looks like the canon paint scheme to me.