Roger

To me, the epitome of being a dysfunctional internet fanboy is to complain about minor things loudly and repeatedly, to the point where it becomes an affirmation that the negative comments actually mean something, or are somehow important in the grand scheme of things. This attitude is completely and totally worth mocking. If anyone has an issue with it they need to look in the mirror and consider that they take themselves a little less seriously. If you choose not to, no problem. The world will keep laughing at you.

Eh, they're all pink on the inside.

Not me. Reread my posts if you have any doubts. Because I refuse to sympathize with people who repeatedly whine about a toy they haven't actually held in their hands.

You can come up with a "Marvel No-Prize" answer for that, like Stick was saving those missiles, or he already fired them. We are now at the point where we are criticizing the inner ankles. Keep going, guys, I think a shot showing the underside of the wrists might show up soon.

I would rent it, then decide whether or not you want to buy. If you liked the first movie, you'll probably like this one more. It does everything a bit better.

The linkup is always going to be something for people to nitpick because it's something that works on paper, but in an actual 3-D realization of it, there have to be some compromises made. This is because two different people designed the fighters: Aramaki did the Legioss, Kakinuma did the TLEAD. CM's solution is to spread the Legioss' apart so the two of them can dock. Toynami's solution seems to be adding an extended boom piece. Either solution is acceptable to me, I've just wanted a decent TLEAD toy for two decades now and don't care about what mating positions it or its partner have to assume in order to get the deed done. ;p

Haha, that's funny, I have that issue. Do a search on this board for "Kakinuma," you'll find a discussion of it.

I always suspected that the Tiger design was reused and refined to make the MAC III for Robotech: The Sentinels: http://www.kent.net/robotech/mecha/ref/maciii.shtml Incidentally, the katakana for "Tiger" in that illustration follows the German pronunciation ("tee-ger"). I was told that the pronunciation was supposed to evoke the German tank.

What were the references? This could win for Least Descriptive Post of 2008.

I really don't think it's too kosher to use Palladium's artwork.

I ran this through Google Translate and it came back as, "I don't have any way to get free toys from Bandai, so I don't support them." (Oh, just kidding, Graham. Gimme those ribs!)

I ran this by Matt Alt, no mention of "henkei" (transformation). Anyone know what book this comes from?

All of these mecha have a lot of stuff on them that doesn't make sense, like pinkies.

For the heck of it, I ran the scan of the Animec article past my friends for translation. It must have been published after the show was canceled, because the article laments what could have been if the show had more support. It says that the first episode of the show was going to feature the first drop operation on Earth, the one that failed. It also refers to the Condor as an "Armo-Soldier." The caption under the larger Condor illustration at the bottom, though, refers to it as an "Armo-Fighter," but nowhere in the article is the word "henkei" (transformation) used. All it says is that it's a Condor with space booster installed, from the first drop operation. The caption under the flying one says that the three boxes on the top are missile packs. The illustration above and to the left (the one that was turned into a painting for the episode about Yellow's girlfriend) says that it shows Condors inside Earth's atmosphere with the space boosters detached. I thought that the blocky, crude version of the Condor that appears in the Animec article was done by an in-house artist, but looking through the Imai material that I have, I found it twice. One is an "image illustration" that has it dropping through the clouds inside the atmosphere, the other is one that sort of establishes a visual vocabulary for the little greeblies on the human mecha. It has two names on that sheet: Condor B-1 and Jackal A-G. There's also a shot with the cockpit popped open that shows It's also very small, maybe only the size of a Scopedog. Nothing about it being variable, though. To me it really doesn't look like it was intended to transform. I also really prefer the finished line art of it that was used in the show, much more consistent with the style that the Artmic team developed for the human mecha, and you can see the kinship between it and the Legioss and TLEAD.

Man, that Animec artwork completely sucks all of the coolness out of the design. I really prefer the original version. Palladium's artist did a decent job with it: http://www.palladiumbooks.com/Merchant2/ca...550preview3.jpg Someone should make conversion kits to turn Super Poseable Alphas into these.

Man, that Animec artwork completely sucks all of the coolness out of the design. I really prefer the original version. Palladium's artist did a decent job with it: http://www.palladiumbooks.com/Merchant2/ca...550preview3.jpg Someone should make conversion kits to turn Super Poseable Alphas into these.

Matt Alt posted a really fascinating essay about Macross over at Néojaponisme here: http://neojaponisme.com/2008/02/12/macross...material-world/

Almost sixty pages! Does the fun ever start? I think it's ironic that when Toynami released pics of their Masterpiece Alphas, they were accused of ripping off the Imai kit. Then when another company applies their own style to the design, they get bashed for being too different. Can anyone please anyone else? Obviously not.

I can see where I stated that a little strongly rather than presenting it as conjecture, but it's the only thing that makes sense. Boomer would had to have presented some sort of proof of identity to get into the military, and we know that there were at least two cylons (Caprica Six and Gina) who had access to defense department computers. Got any others? I'm trying to make this pretty solid.

Well, the whole thing is titled a "theory," but where do you see the parts where I state "we know this or that" and are contradicted by the show?

Read it and weep: Roger's Grand Unified Cylon Theory

What about chocolate air? When is that going to happen?

Actually, I can tell you what Yaco told me, and that is Tatsunoko actually has been a little bit difficult to deal with regarding the MOSPEADA license. He knows a few people who have tried to get garage kit projects off the ground and have been rebuked.

Oh, really? What are you basing this opinion on?

You just demonstrated the most likely reason why they're selling them as a set. If they're spending the time, effort, and resources to develop the Legioss and TLEAD, then they're going to want to make all of that money back. By offering them as a set, they're making it more likely that their entire investment (the cost of developing both toys) will be covered, not just less than half of it (the cost of creating the smaller toy, the Legioss). If they did their market research, I think they'd probably find out that there are many more people like you who would just buy the Legioss. If they went with your idea and sold it piecemeal, making more Legiosses and less TLEADs, they'd probably end up having to sell the TLEAD for a much higher price due to economies of scale. The higher the price, the less people will buy it, so why bother making it in the first place? This is exactly the issue Toynami faces, and the most likely reason why we haven't seen a TLEAD from them years after they showed off that prototype. CM's is probably skewing towards the minority in this case. I think that takes guts and deserves a hell of a lot of credit. They also got this toy to market within a year of announcing it, just in time for the 20th anniversary of MOSPEADA. After 2008 is over, the chance of seeing anyone else take on a project like this will be slim to none, because not many people care about MOSPEADA in Japan. If anyone was going to do it, they'd be building up a buzz in the hobby magazines right now. I'm overjoyed that CM's is making these two toys. I love the way they look and I think $250 is a reasonable price, considering that they have a reputation for quality toys, they're going to be making it in relatively small quantities, and we're getting the chance to buy a TLEAD after 20 years. I've wanted it, I like it, so I'm paying for it. If you don't want to pay for it, then you didn't want it enough and/or like it enough. Pretty simple.