Batou

OK, my first time to chime in on this. So far I've seen both the fansubbed versions released so far, and other than image quality, I can't see what the deal is with the Gattai version. There seems to be a lot of dialog left unsubtitled, which is a cardinal sin for subs as far as I'm concerned. Is it just the player I'm using dropping these or something? (Gom 2.1.9) I'm not all that impressed with the AiA one either, though ... what dialog the Gattai bothered to put in seemed more natural and conversational to me. I'm pretty sure Shinsen is still doing the series, so I'm hoping that winds up being the best of both worlds. I'm only burning one of these sets to dvd. Questionable subs aside, so far this has been everything I could have hoped for in a Macross series. I wonder how they're going to keep this up over an entire season with the bar already set this high, but man oh man have they delivered the goods so far. I honestly wasn't all that keen on the '25 until seeing it in motion ... I think that missile volley / itano money shot converted me, though. Bad. Ass. As far as the Varja go, I wouldn't be surprised if they're still connected with the Protoculture in some way. Maybe some evolutionary experiment of theirs that ran amok, or something similar like the Zerg from Starcraft. I kind of doubt they react to singing and such unless there was some kind of link, but I guess they'll explain it all before long. Reserving judgement on the "progressive knife" or whatever that thing's supposed to be. Valkyries don't seem like they'd be all that suited to melee type combat if they were real practical machines of war, but hey - this is anime - and I'm regularly shown wrong. One of the reasons I could never really buy into Gundam was the stupid lightsabers, though ... mecha should blast stuff to hell, damn it! Anyway, I can't overstate how I'm squealing like a little girl over getting to watch new Macross pr0n every week (as opposed to waiting months btwn ep. releases for the ovas).

If she was a Cylon, why would injecting her with blood from the hybrid baby heal her cancer? Why would they have given her cancer to begin with, if it was going to kill her before she was "activated" and could perform her mission? They couldn't have possibly foreseen Hera's arrival when they were designing the humanoid models. (Or maybe they did, who knows). If I had to take a guess, the final Cylon hasn't been introduced yet and the humans and toasters team up in the end against him/her as a common enemy of something a la DYRL. (Then Starbuck flies in, transforms into a robot, and shoots him in the face). I'm sure the Internet fanboys will be pissing and moaning about it for years to come, whichever way it goes. I'm just really hoping no one jumps a shark, that's all.

And a collective wave of jealousy swept across the globe ... Wow. What else can you say? You'll have to find a f*ing awesome way to display it. Just sticking that on a shelf or something seems an injustice.

How about a big ol' DYRL SDF-1? Not prohibitively massive (pics of that old 1/60 Monster come to mind). Bigger than any of the present valks, though. No idea as to scale ... maybe 24 inches or so bow to stern? Others "wishlist" items would be ... VF-22 Regult, various configurations Glaug Those VF-25s are looking pretty &%@*#'ing awesome, and I don't trust Bandai to not screw up a potential license, if only by sitting on it and doing nothing. I hope Yamato gets to make these.

That 1/6 figure is nice, but the price is awfully steep, especially when comparing it to the Ex Machina Appleseed figures coming out (same price range, but appear to be waaaaayyyyy more detailed). You can't play that Yamato "we're so small and Macross is such a limited audience that our manufacturing runs are low, thus we charge you through the nose" game here ... for that much cash it better make toast and wash my car. Maybe there are some cool gimmicks I'm just not making out. Hell, I'll probably wind up getting one anyway once someone marks them down, but with the Goodsmile Tachi coming out soon (anyone heard any news on that one?), and the Deunan and Bri figures about to come out, my wallet is about to take a serious pounding.

It's not been confirmed by Yamato, but for the first run of M+ toys way back when, they came out with the YF-19 ... then the YF-21 ... it's a sure bet the VF-11 is soon to follow. It's been unofficially nodded to as well, though I'm not so sure drawing a whole lot of attention to the specifics would be particularly welcomed by the management. (Blink and you can easily miss stuff around here ). PM me for details if you like. Suffice it to say for now that it's pretty much a sure thing.

So I don't have the patience to sift through the past dozen pages of this thread ... Has a firm release date (other than 2008) been set yet? Has anyone heard of any fansub groups planning to pick this one up once it's released? Since Macross is such a fan favorite in the English speaking world, I'd imagine a few different groups would take a crack at it like Zero. Is Bandai handling the domestic (i.e., Japanese) release distribution rights or is that just the toy and/or merchandising rights they scooped up? I'm kind of hoping it's both, not bc I want Bandai to start sitting on Macross toy licenses they never plan to get any use out of, but rather they might have the financial muscle to take HG to the mat and wrestle this thing out for international release??? Is it just a pipe dream? I guess that if they didn't do it for Zero, they're not going to for this one. A boy can dream, though.

VF-22S Glaug ... really any enemy mecha would do, but that's my first choice large scale (but not ridiculously so) SDF-1 I would definitely prefer them to be in line scale-wise with Yamato's stuff (1/60 or 1/48), but it wouldn't be a deal breaker if they weren't. Quality is key.

Funny, I actually re-watched this just last night ... Yeah, the movie was technically very beautiful to watch and the action scenes were amazing, but I think they took so many "creative" liberties, it's a little hard to swallow for longtime Shirow fans like myself. The Appleseed manga was very very special to me, and still is. I take them out and read all four released books maybe once a year to this day. More a disclaimer than a defense of the movie: Shirow's plots are hideously complex and have never really translated to the screen very well, so it's easy to see how the movie could be difficult to make any sense of if you're not intimately familiar with the source material already. Too lazy to look back and quote: Whoever suggested that Appleseed was Shirow's test run for GITS is off mark. Appleseed was released in four volumes between 1985 and 1992, several years prior to GITS or . His characters have almost always involved a female lead, which may (or may not) be attributed to his getting his start in shoujo manga (essentially, manga for girls), more often not in a police unit of some sort (Appleseed = SWAT, GITS = elite special forces, Dominion = tank police, etc), always with an underlying reflective and introspective theme as well. Point being, this pattern was already well established in his work prior to either of these. Then again, GITS does borrow quite liberally from Appleseed - Imperial America, Posieden, and of course all the bio-cybernetic tech that allows completely artificial bodies just off the top of my head. You might almost perceive a hint that GITS is in fact the preface to the Appleseed universe (just several decades in the past). And of course the Wachowskis went so far as to credit him in the Matrix films for stealing so many of his concepts ... there's nothing new under the sun, I guess. Anyway, The White Drew Cary pretty much summed it up right: You can't really condense disparate plot elements from all of four different books, each developed and setup in painstaking detail and thoughtfulness, and then regurgitate them into a 2 hour movie with anything resembling coherency. That said, Shirow always used to call Appleseed his life's work and that he intended to finish it one day. If you've never read the original manga, you're really doing yourself a disfavor if you write it off because the movie was very pretty but impossible to make any sense of (kinda like my ex). Do yourself a favor and grab a copy ... it's arguably Shirow's best work, and none of it was computer aided (for you purists).

Wooooooooooow. I just now saw these on HLJ and commenced drooling uncontrollably just about immediately. Cost shmost, I must have. Who said 1/6 landmate?

You know, it's funny: I keep going back and forth on getting this since everyone keeps raving about it. I can kind of see the appeal. On the other hand, I have a small home recording studio, 5 guitars and a host of other instruments around the house. The thought of me playing a video game involving playing an air guitar with colorful buttons when I've played the real thing since I was 15 seems a little too ironic to move past.

First off, thank you for continuing to make Macross toys. All battying and moaning about QC aside, Yamato is one of the very few companies making toys of this complexity, detail and quality, let alone making Macross toys at all. Maybe I'm marveling teary-eyed at my shiny new Ivanov, but I'm continually amazed by what they're able to accomplish and I for one am grateful they're doing it. Secondly, any information on or better yet pictures of the 21 prototype would be appreciated. Hell, any information on what's coming up in general. I'll never understand all the secrecy surrounding their upcoming product line when they're pretty much the only game in town. Maybe it's a Japanese thing. Anyway, thanks for listening.

Woo-hoo! Muchas gracias for the info. Mine just arrived from HLJ, too, ahead of schedule. This thing is awfully pretty, and I really dig the included stand. The wings aren't particularly floppy, but do tend to shift a bit with all the stuff attached. I haven't dared transform it yet. Sweet. So now where's my YF-21?

So I'm too lazy to search this thread this morning ... Has anyone heard of any plans for aftermarket stickers for this bad boy? Anasazi? Takatoys? Bueller?

I finally got a Wii last week and thought I'd add my $.02 ... I can't get over how cool this thing is. So far I'm just completely blown away. I'm simultaneously slogging through Metroid and Zelda, and it's instantly nailed home why I've owned every Nintendo console since the NES. I'll still pick up a PS3 at some point (assuming they ever bring the price down to something reasonable) just for Metal Gear, Final Fantasy, et al, but I can't imagine passing up Miyamoto-stamped first party Nintendo goodness. My only gripe is leveled at Amazon for taking so *(&$#^% long to ship my component video switcher so I don't have to unplug this thing to hook up my dvd player.

Agreed. I find myself almost rooting to see this thing fail as it may either hasten or act as the final nail in HG's coffin. The last thing I'd want to see is their coffers getting filled and hungry for more, setting off further ownership litigation. Legitimate Macross releases in the US are a pipe dream already, and if HG finds themselves squatting on a potential goldmine, it can't be good for those of us still hoping for non-domestic (i.e., non-Japanese) Macross releases.

Wasn't sure where to post this, but it's made out of legos so I thought this just might fit ... Came across a random 404 error page a buddy of mine sent a link to at FoundryDX's site. If this has already been posted somewhere here, I invite the mods to delete before I get pelted with rotten vegies. Enjoy. Monster 404

Heh heh heh. If this ever even makes it out the door, I predict that this is going to make Batman Forever look like Citizen Kane by comparison. I personally don't think the big robots thing can be translated to live action without adequate budget resources, a la Transformers. Whether you liked the movie or not, the special effects were pretty convincing as far as big metal thingies beating the crap out of each other. I just don't see this generating the kind of interest in the studios to warrant that kind of investment in it. Who knows, though - they're loving dredging up crap from the past lately so maybe it will happen. The legal sh*tstorm this is going to set off btwn HG and Studio Nue should be fun to watch, anyway.

Man is that beautiful. It has to be my favorite valk of all time. It really pisses me off that we'll never see a Yamato Blue Gazer just because Bandai is squatting on a license granted years ago that they're never going to use. I'd give my left nut for a 1/60 M&M VF-22 set.

Yes, it just came out - I'm sure they just sold through their initial shipment. The first run may have had limited quantities, and more are expected from the factory. I wouldn't panic yet.

Umm .... "That was irrational of you... not to mention unsportsmanlike." ???

Didn't see this come up in a search, so forgive me if this has been passed around ... it's new to me, anyway. http://miotd.com/category/macross/ There are some fairly hi-res scans of some of Tenjin's work as well as a smattering of line art. There are also sections for other series as well, though nothing nearly as extensive. Enjoy.

Saw it last night at the Alamo here in Austin ... they had a 60 foot robosaurus eating cars and blowing fire out of its nose in the parking lot. They wanted Harry Knowles to get in its mouth, but he wasn't having it. I love this town. The movie was better than I was expecting. Lots of fast sweeping shots, big explosions, very well done action scenes. It's not going to revolutionize cinema, but it was a lot of fun. I'd go see it again. Oh, and I'd jump in a bathtub full of electric eels wrapped in tinfoil just for the chance to fold Megan Fox's delicates.

A ton of new screenshots and such are out in the new Game Informer that I saw at my brother's place yesterday. I'm starting to have more and more confidence that Bethesda is going to do this justice ... it's not like the old isometric games, but if you read the article it's definitely not "Oblivion with Guns". Found some scans here ... http://kotaku.com/gaming/fallout-3/new-fal...cans-269517.php Wow. Make that WOW.

I'll echo that. I bought the HK boot of M0 ep1, and while the video, packaging, etc were pretty much identical to the R2 release - the subs just sucked. And I mean f*cking awful. (WTF is "Nutuk"???) I wound up transferring the ANBU fansubs to dvd so I don't have to watch it on the computer ... the video quality isn't quite the same, but the fact that the subs aren't displaying gibberish more than makes up for it, imho. YMMV, though. I'm horribly picky about my subs and thought the Fx "Perfect" DYRL subtitling was atrocious, though some people on these boards seem to be ok with it.