VFTF1

Sweet! Lots of nostalgic chunky goodness here! The economy must improve so I can get thse guys as well! Pete

Well - that is one thing that has to be said for Revoltechs; they are very very dynamic looking. In fact, I think the only time a Revoltech would look bad is if you "posed" him just being static - standing their like a G1 Transformer or something - with legs straight, arms straight, head looking forward. Then it would look wierd; because the way the sculpt is made, a Revoltech is made to be ....bouncy Pete

And I bet they want the money up front? Sadly, I'm out. I'm pre-ordered/budgeted up to the utter limit straight through to March 09... I was hoping to snag some fast packs after that... I will probably "regret" this since they will likely go up in price but..oh well Happy to be getting the Valkyrie at least Pete

so...what is that wonderful picture of? Is that the Do-Nu or whatever it's called? The non-transforming Yammie? Pete

Maybe this is some kind of exclusive again? I can't find the 1S Hikaru on pre-order anywhere - for December or later Pete

I would love to pick these up, but alas - I'm on a budget, and that budget only allows so much. Yamato - yes. Bandai Macross Frontier: yes. Soul of CHogokin: yes. Select Transformers: yes. If - at some point in futurue - I have some extra cash lying around, I'd likely be happy getting one of these for that sake of having one... or something like that. Pete

Oh my God! You know Mr. ***** AND ****** ??? !!! Well, if you ever talk to Mr. ***** OR ******, tell them to let *** know that **'s cousin's uncle's friend's sister's brother said hi:) As for the super-parts/armor pack... I haven't been paying much attention to this, even though lots has been said about it - but am I to gather that the chances of little old me having an alto super pack are - as of this moment - pretty much nill unless I go through someone like Overdrive? Pete

December? That's like - not possible I need to get some stands for these guys... Pete

I think it just isn't correct to use terminology like "fault." The idea that a price is some person or some group of people's "fault" - at least in the realm of micro-economics, is off kelter. In macro-economics; we can indeed say - as others have argued above - that a certain group is at fault for a general macroeconomic tendencies. Doing so, all we are saying is that we think certain monetary or fiscal policies have led to certain general economic results. However, in the realm of micro-economics; when discussing a particular firm and its' particular market, no one is "at fault." You might as well say that God or the Universe or fate are "at fault" because of scarcity which is, after all, the basic condition making economic calculation a necessary part of human existence. Also - remember that the market is always in flux: prices are not rigid; they are forever changing depending on conditions. Also, prices are signals. As I noted earlier; high prices, "expensive" or "too expensive" items, are all signals to firms that there exists a lucrative market to enter - and by entering it, they will inevitably drive prices down through either direct price competition or through innovation. The reason why I always am alarmed when people complain with a sense of entitlement about prices being "too high" is for the same reason I would be alarmed when corporations and producers suddenly complained to government that "prices are too low" (aka "stock prices are too low, please give me a bail out). Prices are always signals about where supply and demand are going - they reflect what you and me and everyone else basically wants and can give. When people start complaining about them due to a sense of entitelement, this usually ends in prices being artificially fixed at a low or high rate, or in someone getting a bailout. All this does is make adjustments in the market impossible; it makes it impossible for producers and consumers to see reality and to adjust to reality; and prolongs crisis. That's why a sense of entitlment is, in my opinion, a bad sense. In practice, having a sense of entitlement actually makes it more difficult for you to get what you want. For example: what if, when Yamato came out with its' version 1 VF-1 at the 1/60 scale, everyone said "NO! We are NOT buying this for 100 USD! Not for 80 USD! NO NO NO!" And what if, indeed, driven by a sense of entitlement, no one bought at those prices. Retailers made no orders. Yamato finally bowed to reality and sold the VF-1s at...say...5 USD to retailers who, after adding on all of their respective costs and fees, sold it to us for say...10 USD. And then what? Do you seriously think that Yamato would have concluded - hey - that went well. Let's get to work on a 1/48 scale perfect transformation fighter? More than likely they would have concluded that the market interest in Macross is limited to a small group of people unwilling to spend more than 10 USD on a Macross product - and they would never have given us what we have today. Thankfully, the market doesn't work that way. Believe it or not, but demand does exist for Macross products of high quality at the current price range. There might be some people who do not buy, or buy less than they otherwise would have due to QC or price concerns - and of course Yamato, like any company that wants to expand, is going to have to address those concerns. Nevertheless, it is more productive to be concrete: Yamato - fix your QC! Yamato - make more line-art accurate fighters etc etc than to just complain "the price is too expensive!" because Yamato will NEVER LISTEN TO THAT COMPLAINT. I should know: I get tons of people complaining that my prices are too high, that my prices are insane, that my prices are terrible. I also then get people who just buy things. When I put products in my store on sale, I notice something interesting: if I cut prices by 25% - heck even 50% my sales DO NOT GO UP. (I don't mean the money I take in, but literally items that just sell). Product does not move, no matter how much I slash prices. Product moves at its' own pace at normal prices. What does this tell me? It tells me that the market is divided into two groups: reasonable people who look at my price and say "dag; that's high - but ...hmm...if I were to try to buy this thing on my own, I'd end up paying more because of a number of factors" and then the "entitelment group." The entitelment group yells alot about prices being too high; but when you lower them or have a sale - this group doesn't suddenly dish out loads of cash to buy your stuff. In fact, these people resent you for not maintaining sale prices all the time. I've even had people who just see themselves as "representatives of the consumer" - even though they...never consume anything at my store...but they are always complaining, writing on forums about prices being too high and so on and so forth and so on. Of course, everyone has the right to have their own opinion; and in criticizing this "entitelement" mentality I am not saying that it should "go away." It should stay; just like all other opinions - I'm sure it has some merit sometimes. Still, this is pretty much how I view the matter. Peter

Well - I guess Macross Plus has to be praised for showing the VF-11B actually making mincemeat of the enemy. You would think, judging by Macross 7, that the valkyrie did indeed exist only for the purpsoe of blowing up... Pete

I completely forgot about the Monster- but yeah - it's an obvious candidate. Speaking of which... I STILL haven't gotten Yamato's Koening Monster and notice that not many people seem to have it, or if they do, they're not falling over one another to show it off... Maybe Bandai will make one for Frontier? Pete

I applaud any serious fan effort - even if it is Robotech. I agree that the designs don't look good; but whatever - fan fiction is mainly meant to be fun Pete

That's nothing! My cousin is the brother of the uncle of the daughter of a guy who had a temo job in a Chinese factory making Yamato products in 2007. While he was there, he hooked me up, and in exchange for access to a lucrative drilling operation in Zimbabwe (the shares to which I won through the good fortune of being the one thousandth person to open a websit dedicated to sugar cane while reasearching the subject), I managed to gain access to all of Yamatos molds; which were copied and shipped to me via Russian express train, through Mongolia and then by Submarine from a military base in Kalingrad. The molds were then used as the basis for the production of my Valkyrie collection; produced here in Poland by Vietnamese labororers working out of a basement in a new Opel car factory in the southern part of the country. That and Pamela Anderson's children are actually all mine. Pete

My turn Some recent shots: Pete

I agree with you about artificial, non-gold based money causing all of the problems, and you are correct to pinpoint the Bretton Woods agreement of 1973. And of course, to the extent that numerous corporations entered into cahoots with government to "free" money from gold and therefore make the federal reserve into their own personal printing press of last resort (which it has become, as the latest bailout for the big guys shows) - then yes - you are right in your scorn of corporations as well. But in talking about inflated prices due to flaws in the monetary system, you cannot single out Yamato and say that their valkyrie have inflated prices. Price inflation that is caused by bad monetary policy affects ALL prices, even those which we consider to be nominally "low" or "reasonable." Monetary inflation cuts across the board, and it doesn't have anything to do with people who happen to charge more because they think that their product is artsy. Secondly; costs, like benefits, are in the eye of the beholder. Should antiques, for instance, or Piccasso paintings, be priced ONLY with regard to the cost that went into making them? That is absurd. Valuation in the market is totally subjective; and for those of us who truly do believe that Yamatos are minor works of art and prize possessions, their pricing is not insane at all. Third, as I mentioned prior - even if we do agree that the Yamato valkyrie are excessively priced; that is to say that the profit margin is HUGE (which I highly doubt), then this is still good for consumers; because huge profit margins serve as signals to other firms that they should also enter the market and gobble up some of those profits. The more firms enter the market, the more innovation, price competition and other benefits for consumers appear. And finally: when you say that there is a higher demand for cheaper items then we think, you simply demonstrate that you do not fully grasp basic supply and demand theory. Please note that of course, the lower the price of something, the higher the demand. That is the nature of the demand curve - it ALWAYS looks like that. But the market price exists where supply meets demand - that is; at the point where it is possible to provide X amount of goods at price Y. To shift this point, you would either have to shift demand, or shift supply. In order to shift supply, you need technological innovation. In order to have technological innovation, you need a profit margin that invites it. In order to shift demand, you would need either more or better marketing, or the type of artificial monetary injections that you rightly protested against in your post. In either case; the effect of a real shift towards higher demand would ultimately be a shift towards higher supply as well, and likely more innovation. Having said all of that, I think it is a testimony to how hard Yamato have worked and how successfull they have been that in an age of economic stagflation, dwindling profit margins, dwindling consumer demand, and credit crisis, they have been able to bring us what is surely a masterpiece at such relatively low prices; and that the market is advanced enough that even if you live thousands of miles away, you too can have one of these Yamato valkyrie within the space of a few days. Pete

Morality has nothing to do with it. My whole point is that th reason that there are not - right now - affordable Macross products widely available in the United States is because of Harmony Gold. To continue relying on Harmony Gold to bring you widely distributed Macross products at affordable prices when they haven't been capable of accomplishing that for the past 25 years is like believing that if you sit under an apple tree long enough, a bag of thousand dollar bills will suddenly fall on your laps. If Harmony Gold had any brains, they would realize that it would make better business sense to actually cooperate with the Japanese entities that have been successful in bringing out more and more quality Macross movies, tv series and merchandise. But Harmony Gold seems not to care about doing business but only about winning an assanine and utterly vapid legal war that only results in them having a monopoly on a vastly niche market which has seen zero growth, or should I say, a SHADOW of growth in the past. From the point of view of a consumer, it should be obvious that to get what you want - high quality at affordable price - you should have a free and open market rather than a monopoly enforced by law at the whim of Harmony Gold, which happens to only guarantee you that once in a while an abortive attempt will be made at launching what ultimately turn out to be a low run series of mediocre products. That's not in the interest of US consumers and fans. Pete

I would also add to that that it would make more sense to pre-order 4 VF-11Bs. Grimlock is one character and you really have no need for four of them... But 4 VF-11bs would be a cool fleet Pete

I actually think that I will probably buy more VF Zeros down the line. I just wish they were less floppy. And by this I don't mean the transformation or battroid mode. In fighter mode, they have this unsightly tendency of not locking together unless you...well...lock them together But generally Yamato did a great job on the SV-51. Pete

Heh heh Actually, you're right - I didn't think of that, but for a total newbie to only be exposed to two episodes from two different shows that basically amount to people eating pine salad and getting shot, one could have such a bizarre interpretation Ah - I love when Macross World puts a smile on my face. I plan on asking her about her impressions towards the end of the week; since she usually can't talk about such "firvolous" things during the work week Pete

Yippee! Returning from a romantic weekend holiday with my Misa Hayese look-alike (aka girlfriend), I opened up my laptop and set about watching the later episodes of Macross Frontier - from 18 onward (18 being the one where Alto is compelled by circumstances to sneak back into his father's mansion where he confronts Sheryl). My exhausted girlfriend had fallen asleep, so I figured there would be no harm in me watching some anime... a few minutes into the episode, I notice that far from being asleep, her eyes are open - albeit ever so vaguely (as though she was trying to fake sleeping - thinking "I can't let him SEE that I'm watching this"). She wasn't getting any sound, since I had earphones, but she was reading the subtitles. I partially think she did it just as a way of "checking" her english reading comprehension skills (since english is her second language), but also I know her well enough, that if she TOTALLY hated it, she wouldn't bother watching it Anyways; she watched episodes 18 and 19 with me and then dozed back to sleep. This now makes three Macross episodes (17 Pineapple Salad from SDF M TV and 18 + 19 from Frontier) that she has watched along with me. Yay. Pete

Well - I don't mean to rain on anybody's parade; particularly people living in the USA, but here's my view about this whole Bandai/Toynami/HG thing: I HOPE the deal fell through. I HOPE Toynami and HG are kept as far away as possible from Macross Frontier. Why? Because I don't trust them. I don't trust them to do what's right for fans, for Macross, for the franchise. They have already done enough damage to Macross as it is. I do not believe that they will miraculously do an about face and find mutual interest in cooperating with Bandai or any other Japanese based part of the Macross puzzle. I do not believe it because from my point of view, they have never shown any effort over the past years to be anything but negative. Letters sent out to dealers in the USA threatening legal action - that's pretty much all they have been doing. Meanwhile companies like Yamato have been engineering beautiful works of art and companies like Bandai have been risking large amounts of capital to sponsor a show as great as Macross: Frontier. And now Toynami and HG just want a piece of the action? Sorry - no way. Shouldn't happen. If Bandai are smart they will stay away from these people. Their credibility as a business partner is ZERO. There are plenty of other potential partners in the USA with whom one could eventually come to some kind of deal rather than resorting to dealing with people who have a history of litigating rather than cooperating. Pete

It would just be another good reason to throw the wife out Pete

I'm also looking forward to reading them - although I will try to beat you to it:) But still...Ozma and Alto will be out first so reviewing all four won't be possible until...what? April? Pete

I like this thread. A bund of old men analyzing dolls And not even dolls that could actually pass for "action figures" (always a term that I thought came up so that boys wouldn't get embarassed about essentially playing with dolls)... no - these are JUST DOLLS Truly we have sunk beyond the pale Pete

I actually don't want "middle ground" Macross toys. Toynami tried that with the 1/100 and in my personal opinion they were terrible... And in a sense - that's not surprising. Besides; the Bandai classic Takatau mold reissues are kind of middle ground, insofar as they are more durable than the Yamatos... But... in a sense... I just can't see how you can seriously have a "middle ground" Macross figure? What would it look like? What compromises would have to be made? Why would you want it, when you could get the nicer one? Would you realy shell out say 49,99 for a "Leader Class" Macross figure that was quite shabby when you could buy a Yamato? I dunno... maybe I'm extremist and going overboard (as usual:) ) ... but I get the feeling that part of what makes Macross special is that it doesn't have this middle ground thing... There's no preschool Macross line, no "kiddie Macross" line... maybe in one sense it would help Yamato financially to do something like that - maybe it would be better not to have all your eggs in the adult collector/uber fan basket... but... I won't complain if they continue on their present course. Pete