VFTF1

I will probably be able to answer your question on Wedsday, when my Haruhi Suzumiya shipment finaly arrives - maybe sooner. Pete

Zoinks! I like to think to myself, that this time around, the Unicorn Gundam looks so good because my building skills have improved since the first one I built. In a way (starting to praise myself here - beware) - this is true. Notice how the decals are applied and how I even applied the rub-on tampoo printing or whatever you call it. So - it's all because of me that it looks so good It has nothing to do with that Titanium coating ... Pete

Well, I was thinking of replaying, but instead I went and got myself a Masterpiece Brave King Exkaiser :-) This'll be fun. Got Dangaurd Ace coming in probably on Weds - and I think the two of them will get along spiffingly Speaking of which - do people here count Brave as a variation/extention of Transformers? It's still Takara, and the aesthetic is hard to dispute in terms of looking very much like the direction that Transformers were going in with Victory and then Battlestars... Anybody else got a Brave King Exkaiser MP ? Pete

I dunno. We used to call my old boss "The Grandmother." But that was kind of meant to be a reference to the GodFather (his mafia like presence/style) + the fact that rather than looking like Marlon Brando, he looked like one of the Golden Girls Er.. But in Alto's case - if I had Ranka and Sheryl running around me all day and night and the ONLY negative thing I had to tolerate was being called "slave" or "mi'lady"... I wouldn't complain Pete

Ravenhawk (quoted below): I do appreciate that a lot of my opinions are the result of nostalgia goggles and an emotional attachment to the characters that those "boxy" G1 toys represent - fair enough. However: consider the following - For the time the G1 toys were made, their engineering was anything but lazy. They were state of the art. They were extremely realistic vehicle forms that turned into for the most part visibly humanoid forms with legs, arms, hands, and heads with nifty "battle helments." They were die-cast metal and some of them were even more poseable than others. In the late 70s/early 80s when these things were king of the toy shelves - they were the best that engineering could accomplish back then. Fast forward to today: Today, engineering can take Optimus Prime's G1 design and create Masterpiece Optimus Prime. It can take Megatron from G1 and make Masterpiece Megatron. It can take Hound or Skyfire and make Henkei Hound and Skyfire. Henkei and Masterpiece are modern engineering applied to the old aesthetic designs. It's just like Yamato 1/60 v.2 vs. Bandai Chunky Monky. At the time the 1/55 Bandai VF was produced - it was the height of toy engineering. It was better than Transformers/Diaclone because it was way more poseable, sleek and complex (kind of like the Yamatos are better than the Masterpiece/Henkei line today). Now - fast forward - and with modern engineering the VF-1 aesthetic can come alive in the Yamato 1/60 - an improvement over the 1/55 Bandai. My problem with the engineering on ROTF and Movie toys in general is that it seems that the manufacturer did NOT use modern engineering technology for maximum effect. You know - before the first movie came out - I had this awesome dream - I thought - wow. It's happening. TF Live Action. I am so going to collect all of thse awesome toys. I accepted the radical aesthetic. I accepted it because seeing them move on screen was truly awesome and I figured - yeah - that's gonna be a kick ass toy. Then I bought Starscream and Ironhide. I felt so cheated. It was depressing. My dream of live action Transformers had come true and THIS was what Hasbro gave us as toys? I mean - Live Action Movie is just THE EVENT in OUR LIFE TIMES - the DEFINITIVE TRANSFORMERS EVENT. And how does the producer of the toys mark this event? How is this producer STILL marking this event. Sorry - but it is obvious to me that Hasbro made a conscious marketing decision to cut costs on the design and finish of the Movie toys - both 07 and ROTF. They so obviously basically got what would usually be considered a bootleg factory in China to make crappy replicas that vaguely resembled the Movie screen robots and sell them far and wide. They kept the engineering costs way down. They didn't paint details, they didn't try at all. They made little effort. Certainly LESS effort than with Beast Wars, wouldn't you agree? I mean. Come on - the Beast Wars toy line had more awesome looking molds than ROTF and the 07 movie combined. My complaint is NOT that Hasbro didn't just reissue boxy G1 Prime, nor is it that Bay chose these and not a different set of aesthetics for the Transformers. My complaint is that the coolness that is Barricade on screen is NOT reflected one bit in the POS that is the deluxe car. The same goes for every last one of these toys. And insofar as I thought - well...they didn't have time to work out the toys very well for the first movie and they didn't know whether it would be a bust or not... I was shocked - sadened - by the crap they put out for tis movie. I mean - come on. 15000 JPY retail for Devastator. Yeah - I know - he's the scape goat for all that's wrong... but he's a deserving scape goat. And again - it's not the design. Bunny ears and all that - all of it could concievably be very cool if the figure was more complex. No - not more complex. If the figure could DO what the 1985 toy could: COMBINE! So - yes. I feel totally cheated. I feel like Hasbro is taking the low and easy road and I feel that the Movie toys are worse than Armada. Worse than the Unicron trilogy toys. Worse because the movie set up high expectations - and these things don't meet them. For ROTF, they made one decent figure: Leader Optimus Prime. It's like they decided that Prime needed to be really great and everything else could just be half assed. I don't doubt that some of the figures are better than others. But you know what? This is LIVE ACTION TRANSFORMERS. ALL of the figures should BLOW EVERYTHING WE'VE SEEN BEFORE OUT OF THE WATER. This should be THE DEFINITIVE COLLECTION. That's what I was gearing up for in 07. Instead - I'm now gearing up to start collecting Transformers: Masterforce and Victory toys alongside waiting for more Henkei and Masterpiece. I love the movies - really. For all the cheesy crappiness - I cried watching the 07 one. I explained to my girlfriend all about my childhood and growing up dreaming about a movie like this - and I really really loved it. And I love Michael Bay for doing the movies. Seriously -all criticism aside. I do. But the toys are trash And I don't say that with an ounce of happiness.

So... I started on my second Unicorn - this time the Titanium version. I stripped the old one of its' armor (put the armor in the box) and will be displaying it naked. I'm now building a new inner frame for the titanium parts - but first, I started by applying decals and dry-decals (those "scratch on things") to the armor. So far, I've done the main-body armor and thn built the inner frame and applied it the (all decalled out) armor to it. I'm also actually using the decal instructions to apply them this time and being careful - more so than before. The one thing I'm wondering about - when I get to it - is on the head... the open-horn decal covers up the nice detailing on the actual horns. I want to restore that detailing - but in yellow... is there any way to do this without painting? Or maybe I should take a thin yellow pen and run it along the lines after applying the decal? I need to think about it. In any event - wanna get this project out of the way ASAP so I can get to building other Gundams (RX-78-2 and RM-79) that I don't have yet - but it'll be cool having an inner-frame on display. Makes me suddenly desire two each of ever MG Pete

I have always thought that Barricade or Blackout (with either Frenzy or Skorponok) would make for great Masterpiece Transformers. Pete

The Nutcracker Ballet? Pete

This might be a good time for me to introduce everyone to ROTF Genericon: ROTF Genericon is, as most of you may well suspect, actually a completely mistransformed Henkei Astrotrain with a strange insect crudely copied, cut on via MS Paint and serving as its' head. However, this is no mere coincidence. Initially, to prove my point, I had considered taking my entire collection - from Henkei, to Masterpiece, to G1, and mistransforming them to generally look like something out of Michael Bay's Transformers movies. Then, as soon as I had completed posing Genericon here for his picture, I decided there were better things to do with my short, mortal life span. Besides; Genericon alone should make the point. What is the point? Simple: appearances to the contrary, the aesthetic of the Bayformers is terrible NOT ONLY because it departs heavily from the original look of the Transformers; not only because it even departs heavily from the admitably extremely broad scope and range of Transformers toys issued throughout the decades - no. The aesthetic of Bayformers is terrible in its' own right for being just down right lazy. To take something that looks like a car or a plane and turn it into something that resembles a samuraii, a knight, an armored warrior with generally humanoid shape and form - this is not an easy task. Much criticism has often been laid at the feet of Transformers for anthropomorphizing the robots. Initially, Marvel comics did this because it was the best way to make it easy to draw them quickly for the comics. However, let's also celebrate the fact that by inadvertantly making the robots LOOK like super heroes of various sorts - the comics (and later cartoons) presented a wonderful challenge to engineers. A challenge, because it is not easy to make - say - a Walther P-38 actually transform into the original Megatron. It's not easy to make a sleek F-15 transform into the rather boxy seekers. The list could go on. On the other hand, with regard to Michael Bay's Transformers - it's actually quite easy to make a vehicle fold out into twenty randomly twisted parts with some fungus on a peg thrown in for good measure and called "th head." Let Genericon up there testify. Lo and behold Gnericon does not have any legs - at least not by human standards. But why should he? He's an alien from another planet, and the scientific laws of evolution which seem to imply that having legs is actually useful don't apply because we're talking about aliens. And to demonstrate just how alien Genericon is - he has a vague stand-like thing with some boosters out front. The boosters - when ignited - do flip him backwards, but, waving his four random limbs around and adjusting for variable wind, this only helps Genericon mode forward - doing back flips. Yes, that's right. Back flips. Albeit backwards back flips. And this is how Genericon moves forward. What? You expected him to walk? Only humans do that silly. These are aliens. As for Genericon's limbs - he has three claw like elements at the end of the middle limbs. He really can't hold anything in these claws and they really don't seem to be very nimble. But holding things and being nimble is a traight of human hands - and - yes, that's right - Genericon is an alien after all. And finally - we come to the limbs up top. These are Genericon's generic extra limbs, to signify how alien he is, because if he only had two limbs above his torso, it would look too human - and these are aliens.

Good to see true art is not dead. Pete

I just wanna add another couple'a words as someone who doesn't speak Japanese, doesn't read japanese and has no clue about Japan: People like Gubaba, Shaloom and other translators have the power to waste my life. Often times, much is said about how much people sacrifice as fans when they do tons of work for no pay out of love for a series or movie. But what doesn't often get said and needs to be given this situation is how many OTHER people sacrifice to listen to the above guys, to read their posts, to follow their every word, to respect them and to look to them for guidance. Just because there's no money being exchanged doesn't mean there's nothing of value being traded here - and what is really terrible about what this Shaloom fellow did is that he TRAPPED a bunch of Spanish speaking people - many of whom presumably maybe don't speak or read english or if they do, do so at a level that is not perfect and comfortable - into HIS WORLD. Think about it - what if you got interested in Macross, but you're Spanish, or Chilean or (insert Spanish-speaking nationality) you don't speak Japanese and your english is at a medium level. You also don't have a lot of time due to work/life and so you can't sit there with a dictionary reading posts on MW. Oh - lo and behold - you have a Spanish language sight. Great! This means that now he language barrier won't stop you from also being in the know about your favorite anime. And then it turns out that the guy who set the site up has basically been selling you unverified bull. You thought you knew stuff, you thought you were reading meaningful things - you thought you were keeping up with what the world was keeping up with from Tokyo to Toronto - and suddenly it turns out that you weren't. I don't agree with people who say this is a problem with Shaloom and not MG. This HURT Macross Generation and hurt the Spanish Macross fandom because an obvious question arises: How much else on that website is false? How much else is misinformation? How many other people out there think they know something but instead have the wrong information? My point is just to say that lots of people put a lot of heart into being fans and usually we tend to think that if you are a fan on the recieving end then it's not a big effort... But that's not true. Just like the fans who translate stuff, run websites, keep us informed and buy magazines or make fan-subs for us are precious - so too the legions of people who READ the stuff, comment on it, ask for more, show interest are even more precious. What Shaloom did hurts his forum, hurts the Spanish Macross fandom and it hurts Macross as a whole. Honest mistakes are always forgivable - especially in anime-fandom. Jokes - even really mean jokes or jokes that get out of hand are also - IMO - forgivable. But this guy wasted lots of peoples' time. For MW it might have been an interesting mystery - but I'm thinking now of the Spanish fans at MG who have who knows what sort of notions and misunderstandings about Macross. It's really really really a shame. Why go to the effort of making a Website to promote Macross and to organize Spanish Macross fans and then hurt them like this? Could it have been that at some point Shaloom just noticed that people beleived ANYTHING he said and it started going to his head? That's what it sounds like to me. When you notice that people who you're talking to are 100% relying on you for info - for the meat of the discussion - then you maybe start to exagerate - and one exageration builds into the next - and pretty soon you've created a fairy tale where you're bosoom buddies with Kawamori, are working on a new CD mix with Kanno, and have detailed knowledge of the plot to the new Macross Frontier movie before anybody else does... You also think you are totally safe because your fandom is Spanish speaking and therefore "isolated" in the sense that nobody from Japan or America is going to pop into your forum and understand what falsehoods you are writing about. I dunno - I can only speculate... In any event... this event has stopped being funny to me. Particularly - and I have to add this - that the guy mentions that he is working on a Masters Degree and on other websites. This might be offensive - but given the half-assed apology I don't really care: I wonder if Shaloom does his academic work on his Master's Degree with the same academic standards with which he has conducted himself in this Ohnogi affair? I wonder if, when writing his Master's Degree, he "speculates" and writes "from memory" or whether he actually cites sources and gives credit where it is due? I personally do not find it at all amusing what this guy has done - particularly now that hi "apology" has emerged - and it is an insulting apology. Insulting to the fans - especially to the people at Macross Generations - because it explains nothing. It sounds disengaged. It sounds passive, like this really wasn't happening, isn't happening, doesn't matter - like it's no big deal. It is a huge deal. And Mr. March is right - Shaloom should do something CONSTRUCTIVE to apologize. I am truly sorry for Spanish fans and for all fans who rely on really just a few select individuals who take the time to give us all information. Fan Translators are right - they deserve respect for doing so much for so little. But in this case - the fandom at MG was treated with utter disrespect - and normal everyday fans also deserve respect; they deserve not to be toyed with, lied to and misled by people that they trust. If most fans are like me, they log onto their respective fan site to read people like Gubbaba's work with more frequency than they log onto the news, the stock market, the futures market, the sports news - whatever - and just like when newspapers fib or talking heads talk crap or have conflicting interest it enrages people - so too what Shaloom did is really low. I kind of got this feeling only after chewing on his apology letter for a bit longer. Pete

My comments: Oh my God. And I thought I knew how to BS. You forgot to write how many times you had to go to the bathroom, what deoderant you use, how long you had to wait for the stop light to turn green, how you couldn't find any clean socks on weds... aka - NONE OF THIS has ANYTHING to do with the subject. If I was in your shoes, I'd start my response with evidence to back up my claims, not long stories about nothing. Is the purpose of this long winded post meant to make 70% of potential, casual readers who are also Macross fans lose interest? Stop reading? Decide there's better things to do? But instead - you wrote a mountain of BS that could have fit into one sentence "sorry I didn't respond earlier; I was very busy - now here's my response about Ohnogi.... This paragraph came right after you spent two paragraphs rambling about how you never check sources, how you were just speculating, and how it's other people's fault for taking at face value the things that you wrote. And THEN you actually write that YOUR methods are similar to Gubaba's - the guy who DOES check sources, who always cites sources, who always does all the hard work to try to provide accurate information. HOW is this a compliment? "Hey Gubaba - you're great because you're just like me (oh - except you check your sources while I don't). That was made clear somewhere in the forty trillionth paragraph of this "essay" response which doesn't even make the courtesy of referencing even ONE of Gubaba's arguments. Sum Up Commentary: As far as apologies go - I guess on the one hand it's always praiseworthy when someone apologizes, but on the other hand the more words you use, the more stories you tell that have nothing to do with the point, and the more you use passive voice to apologize the less of a positive impact it makes. Final point: "I'm sorry the gun went off." "I'm sorry I fired the gun." VERY VERY big difference between those two apologies. Pete

Ah - indeed - could the "split legs" be refering to the antena, which are kind of swooshing to the sides? Pete

I don't understand about the "move/split" the legs? And ...I don't understand about the head either?? But yes - those are Bandai 1/55 if I'm not mistaken. Looks like some of the hands are customed? Pete

I also love listening to Ranka sing What 'Bout my Star while working! Yay! Good job on the YFs! Pete

I just like reading your essays Gubaba - and you seem to produce your best work when debunking others Pete

I was thinking something more along the line of opening a website dedicated to the hottest girl in anime - Alto-Hime from Robotech: Frontier. We could throw up lots of fanart of Alto as a woman and write long winded essays about how Harmony Gold was courageous for breaking the glass cieling and making the star protagonist of an anime a beautiful woman. I'm sure somewhere out there in this vast universe, there will be people who fall for it Pete

I'm listing to "You Are My Star" Gurren Lagann Kirameki - although it's best to listen to it while watching lovely Yoko groove But on a daily basis, I listen to my Soundwave MP3 who plays Fire Bomber and Lyn Minmey for me! Need to finally get some Macross: Frontier track on him... Pete

Hm. Maybe we should start an Alto-Hime fanclub, dedicated to loving Alto ONLY when dressed up as a girl? Pete

Of course, there's also the Transformers version of Sound Energy, if we're going that route, which is the cheap immmitation version (kind of like TFs themselves): namely Jazz unleashes his "light and sounds" attack (according to his tech spec), which sounds like it COULD be a Minmey attack, but unfortunately in the cartoon is portrayed as two satelite dishes coming out of his ass, and proceeding to emit a screeching sound that gives friends and enemies alike a splitting head ache... Pete

A-Fcukin'-Men Brotha! Pete (not being sarcastic)

The comparisson has already been made in the Haruhi Suzumiya thread .... or...wait...was it maybe in the Revoltech 2G thread when somebody showed off their culture festival Haruhi... In any event - the notion has come up Pete

Mylene was gaining my heart until the last picture. I could never imagine what cocaine induced haze had to be the prequil to putting the poor girl into THAT outfit. And to think Honey said nothing about it... tsk tsk.... The swimsuit picture looks like a throw back to Miami Vice or an edited clip of a 70s porn flick. But the lying in bed pic is good. And for the record, I do like her singing, and there are some scene in Macross 7 where she looks really hot... particularly when she's around Gamlin IIRC... But that uniform thing is crazy As for the Macross: Frontier pics... Ranka (on Brera's laps) looks sooooooooo wonderful - in fact - she kind of reminds me of Minmey towards the end of SDFM TV - ...in winter...sitting on that playground swing before being spotted by the loli laundry men and fleeing... very cute. Love the clothes -the classy/classic leather gloves, the checkered skirt, the coat... it all blends together really well - a classy girl. Sheryl on the other hand AGAIN has those huge boots - which I actually like on women - but in this particular pic Ranka beats her by a mile. Sheryl looks like the hooker you'd pay to have a good time with; Ranka looks like the girl who'd melt your heart and make you give up booze. Besides - look at poor Alto clearly not happy about the girl-distribution, and Sheryl looks keenly possessive there... As for Brera - suave And finally - the kimono pic... For some reason Sheryl looks like somebody's hot mother I think it's the "Had ten babies" cleavage as well as the neck shading which seems to give her some age. The hair is also a bit on the "busy mom who DID have her hair done but then had to run around the taking care of kids/chores" look. And the kimono... reminds me of Kaifun's mother - mabye it's just the color. Alto...what can I say? I guess he's every girl's dream - it's like having a boyfriend and a barby doll all wrapped up in one package. Ranka just doesn't match. Her hand looks like the hand of an adult - and also the hand of a woman more like Sheryl. Look at the manicure on that hand. Ranka's too ditsy to have one of those... I understand the Minmey homage MIGHT have prompted it though - but in these kind of pictures, I can't help but feel like Ranka plays the part of the family pet. She is just this cute "thing" that is always serving something or looking puppy eyed at you. Much prefer when Ranka is a cute girl in her own right. But all good pictures since they evoke so many thoughts Pete

That's cause she can't sing, doesn't have long or short green hair, isn't named Sheryl Nome, doesn't pray naked in French, her boyfriend's not a pilot, and has the finess, grace and poise of the kind of girl you'd do in a trailer after beer, chips and bowling. Pete

The only mail in items I ever got was a Gobot submarine after I won a coupon or some such for a free one in a box of Quix chocolate drink. Anyone remember Quix Chocolate drink? Pete