VFTF1

What bout my star @Fomo. It's the song that definitively made me fall in love with Ranka It's also the first song to have moved the Vajra and warmed their intestinal heart - although nobody seems to notice that part... But the problem is - the two songs in Frontier that are TRULY the best are not ont he poll: Totsugeki Love Heart My Soul for You And the best Macross Song of all - since I'm on a roll - is of course Angel Voice. But Frontier does have a wonderful amount of songs. And just so people don't think I completely dislike Sheryl - I really really love "Long, Long goodbye" - a very beautiful song. Diamond Crevise, on the other hand, has GREAT sound. Pete

To make matters worse, I AM a fanboy and it's my favorite OVA and second favorite Macross (next to Frontier) But actually, in many ways, Frontier is a continuation of Zero since we learn about O[TURN-A]W and so forth and so on. As to the Birdman being Alpha and Omega - Duke Togo is partially right... I say partially because that theory is the one ventured by Professor Bloodforbracelets. But I don't know if his theory is the correct one. There are lots of theories floating around (excuse the pun ), and in the end, humans are not absolutely sure since we haven't actually met the Protoculture, nor has any definitive proof been found. Personally, I always took it that the entire island was a form of advanced bio-genetic engineering. If the Zendradi - who are after all "grown" just like flowers, are nonetheless able to react to music and "remember love" - then it is concievable that the Protoculture could genetically grow other organic life forms capable o a symbiotic relationship of the sort we see that Sarah has with the island. Perhaps the Protoculture concieved such harmony between man and nature as the ideal civilization to create? And their fear was that humans would begin to bend nature to their will rather than live in harmony with nature? In any event - Macross Zero is certainly tops. Pete

This is the perfect reason why one should NEVER listen to wives prattling on about money. The stock market has fallen FAR FAR more sharply than the value of vintage toys and collectibles. Who would you have rather been yesterday: BBTS and their warehouse or Joe Stock Broker, or even worse Joe Shareholder? Never listen to your wife or girlfriend when it comes to money. Or at least try to spend just as much on Macross as you do on clothes, flowers, dinners, fancy dresses, vacations etc etc for her. I think women get annoyed when they see that INSTEAD of spending on them, you're buying toys. If you spend lavishly on a woman, then she won't care that you buy Macross and hobby stuff. You might even live long enough to see one of them actually buy YOU a toy (my 3rd and curent girlfriend, who wisely never ridiculed my collection, bought me God Ginrai for my birthday a couple years back, and the BW Reborn Takara Primal/Megatron remould reissue set) Parity is key. Pete

Actually, it's not capitalism. It's arbitrary international litigator with dubious real authority telling the world that HG has rights which it doesn't. Capitalism would be a situation in which property rights are respected. Macross is not the property of Harmony Gold. Agreed. Making a concession to Harmony Gold is like making a concession to your friend who borrowed your KISS CDs and decided "hey, these really sound great - I think I'll keep 'em" - and after years of saying "give me back my KISS CDs dude" you suddenly say "ok, well...can I at least have one please?" Pete

Newb thread for this? Answers: Hey, a few questions that I might pose to you... 1. Side Covers - do these lock in at all or just remain kinda loose in there? They lock in tight (assuming you're talking about the 1/48 here) 2. The big chunky chest piece - similar to the side covers, does this lock in place? Even with the slots for the hinges on top it doesn't really seem too secure for me. It locks in place 3. What's the best order people have found for actually putting the parts on? Obviously some parts, such as the forearm armour, can go on whenever but other bits like the cap things that go over the top of the legs can be a bit trickier to get on if someting else is already in the way... In the order that the instructions suggest Pete

There is a bright side to this. If it's a clip movie, then there's not going to be any "do you prefer the series or the movie" debates like with SDF M and DYRL. Pete

I picked 17 because of Bassara. and because I couldn't remember which episode had Sheryl and Ranka singing What Bout My Star together to Alto... I liked that episode alot - oh - yeah - it was the "overview/summary" episode which I also hated at the beginning...was THAT episode 15? I'm such a shitty voter Hopefully people don't have the above thoughts when voting for important ellected officials heheheh "I voted for candidate B 'cause I couldn't rememba candidate A - that is, I know it said A on the poll, but I'll be durned if I could put a face on that feller...oh wait - wasn't he the one I really liked more than B? Aw shucks " Pete

Upgrades?? Noooooo This feels like Transformers.... Although Airos does look less clunky in robot mode than his predessesor.... Still, I will probably pass on these - not that big a fan to have both versions....yet.... Pete

Agreed. Agreed: for instance, the closing credits - because you know it's FINALLY over Tee hee hee :) I feel so naughty on this board sometimes It's the only place where you can actually "flame" an entire series and fandom and get away with it weee ! But if it's Minmey on Letterman - then it's Macross music, isn't it? Or.... did Robotech actually have completely different songs and music for her? Pete

Infinite Justice is ...very...red... I dunno. I appreciate the poseability, and he literally has greaaat legs; legs that kill - literally... and the booster jet is kinda cool, and anything that comes with a stand is always a plus - but somehow I never was and never will be a fan of this type of Gundam design. I think the UC Zeta is fine - but then these things like the Justice just went overboard... As for OO - he looks good, like everything else from Gundam OO. But now I'm probably gonna want to get around to building Kyros and Dynames to round out my Celstial Being collection. Pete

Well, it's a Yamato bike - so watch the front wheel fall off or something -Pete

Ah - if this was routine therapy suggested by my shrink, I would probably have continued visiting her Pete

And ain't I happy that I DIDN'T sell my 1/48s when the V.2 1/60 was announced ufff ! Pete

What a lovely vision. At least there a beautiful women in Poland, but beyond that NOTHING Pete

Well - now I'M feeling the crunch - the Yen and the US Dollar just got 23% more expensive for me But - whatever - I'm still buying as much as I did before. This probably has to do with the fact that I started a business only 9 months ago, and so my business plan calls for starvation and suffering for the next three years. I figured that the recession would be the best time to start a business since recessions usually go hand in hand with costs being low; of course - there is no profit - but then again; start up businesses usually don't make any profits in the beginning anyways. So - my reasoning was: dag - I'm gonna suffer anyways - might as well suffer according to plan It's tough going and everything looks bleak - but the only way that this recession could really become a complete and utter calamnity that will see us living out the next 25 years of our lives in misery and poverty is if governments the world over decide to do crazy things like inflate the currency, go into even more absurd amounts of debt and then hike taxes everywehre....and I'm hoping that not EVERYbody will do all of these insane things at once.. Sooo... hopefully we're well on our way to the bottom. The quicker we get there the better. Eventually, things will be so much cheaper and costs will fall so much more that suddenly it will be very economically feasable to invest in things that, up to now, were "too expensive" and resources will be reallocated towards more productive means... I guess I'm an optimist - still. There's been a bit of bad news on the toy front; the exchange rates are terrible now - not just because things cost more but mainly because they seem to be so unstable - flailing wildly about... There was that story about a toy factory in China closing down because they couldn't meet payroll, and the Chinese complaining that their prices were artificially held so low that eventually the business went under - but then again, the factory produced for "Mattel and Habso" - and if it turned out that production for Mattel was the main occupation, then it might have also been those unfortunate recalls... and the region's governor said he wasn't concerned because he wanted "low-skill factories" to be shifted further into the mainland and to try to convert the area for high tech activity... so... I dunno... it's just hard for me to imagine things getting bad - but this is probably because I grew up in a communist country where "bad" meant: a) one hundred people standing in line all day to TRY to get a loaf of bread b) an inflation rate of roughly 2000% per month c) dinner consisting of onions and water d) Soup kitchens where you sat at the table with a random stranger and ate with spoons that were linked together by a chain (so that people wouldn't steel the spoons and use them for scrap). When you finished your soup, a lady would come around with a rag and whipe the spoon so the next people in line could sit down and eat... of course - you had to eat in sequence - since the chain linking the spoons was pretty short - whenever you pulled the spoon to your mouth, the other guy had to give you some slack and vice versa So... I guess when I compare this "crisis" to my childhood and how my parents lived - it's just like "oh - whatever - so I'm buying one or two less Transformers than I normally would - wow - big crisis." Pete

I might be wrong, but I was under the impression, based on the story of the "turtle shell cracking in half and falling in the water" that Mao told Shin, that the islands were initially part of a larger structure (perhaps the underwater Protoculture island from DYRL?) and somehow "came off"... That is to say - I get the impression that the experiment, in its' early stages, did not go off without a hitch: there was something that went wrong - clearly some kind of conflict took place when the Protoculture visited earth - this is clear from the mystic fabel of how Loli cut off the Birdman's head and so forth and so on - the beginning was violent: perhaps the intention was noble, but always violence seems to be even at the birth of a new civilization... But that could just be me reading too much into the mythos of the Mayan religion. Pete

No, but given the choice between DYRL and Phantasm, which is also a clip episode, albeit extremely psychedelic and replete with Freudian nuance, I'd say that Phantasm is better On another note, I have just recieved an email with an interesting link pertaining to the future of Macross, with a snippet about the upcoming movie: www.jpanimenews.jp/334/story/title/upyours/completejoke.jp/440?!.//http Guess the cat is out of the bag But I still prefer the original Macross anyways:) Pete

Graham wrote: This is interesting. The same thing exists in Poland - except in our law there are "toys" and then there are "Adult Collectibles." If you designate something an Adult Collectible, then it does not require any such certification from approved laboratories. So, unless Yamato is marketing these Valkyrie to ages 5-10, which would be crazy, could they not simply not call their products toys and instead call them adult collectibles, or does Japenese law not distinguish the two? It strikes me as almost impossible to think that Japanese law does not distinguish between adult collectibles and toys - unless perhaps Yamato valkyrie are sold in toy stores alongside other explicit toys, and Yamato would rather pass lab tests to certify the Valkyrie as toys in order to be able to place their products in large chain toy stores? Kaiyodo, for example, explicitly distinguishes by writing on its' box that Revoltechs are not toys, and not meant for children, and that they are collectibles for adults. I noticed Yamato apparently at one point was hoping to sell their Macross stuff in Europe as toys because they slapped EC certificates on the 1/48 VF-1S - but they didn't put it on other Valkyrie... perhaps because they didn't pass EU legal muster as "toys" - which is lamentable, but at least in Poland the law explicitly stipulates the existance of "Adult Collectibles." I wonder - doesn't Japanese law have a seperate category as well for this? Pete

I don't think Macross universe has an "official" language - it's pretty much like our real world. People speak more than one language usually and usually have to use and understand more than one. I dunno, I like in the EU, it's multilingual and you just get used to it. Everybody and their grandmother speaks at least three languages - it's really rare to find a person who doesn't speak at least two and most people study other languages just because it's good to know more than one. I imagine Frontier and the broad Macross universe are the same. Pete

Thanks for the tips. I was kind of dissapointed about the V-fin not being able to really stay aligned when transformed to Unicorn horn... and I guess now with your warning I'll just stop transforming it all together. Although technically, constant removal of the horn and replacement with the V-fin is bound to wear something or other out ... I generally get the feeling that the transformation to Psycho mode is very smooth. I've finished everything except the legs, backpack and weapons now and transformed the uper body, arms and head to get a feel for it. At first, it kind of annoyed me that you have to seperate all of the parts to transform him - but then, I guess it makes sense and it's better than the Gundam falling apart when you start to transform it... Personally, I prefer it in white Unicorn mode. It reminds me a little bit of the YF-19, but also has a distinct EVA-01 feel to it - and even the "psycho" mode feels EVA-01... after all, EVA also had a "psychotic" mode of sorts.... All in all, this is my fourth MG Gundam and I'm enjoying it like the rest. The one thing that kind of annoys me is that my Turn-A-Gundam is fairly loose - it holds its' poses, but the shield is too heavy for the arm and so that kind of limits the kind of poses I can put him in... a pity, since Turn A is probably my favorite Gundam design next to Unicorn. Crossbone I like just because he's a pirate, but really he's pretty mundane. Wing Zero is also mundane; but I like his...err...well wings But only Turn-A and Unicorn have designs which I can appreciate in their totality. I'm considering whether to build the Force Impulse Gundam next - all those nifty jet/aircraft/space ship modes look tempting, but he is also kind of one of these "UBER FIRE SUPER POWER UP BANG BOOM" Gundams which I get the feeling dominate Seed and which I'm not too fond of... Zeta version 2 is also tempting me - but... I dunno... generally I'm more drawn to the really unorthodox Gundams; I like them to really stand out and stand apart from the rest... Turn A and Psycho Unicorn do this. EDIT: Finished everything but the gun and bazooka. Happy with him: Pete

Season 1 I'm way way waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay behind But I do have the HG Gundam OOs from Celestial Being I've built Nadleeh, Virtue, and Exia. Will start on Kyrios and Dynames once I've finished the MG Unicorn that I'm working on Pete

The theory which has been ventured on numerous occasions is that anti-gravity cells are activated by the power of Sarah's singing. There's a long thread somewhere in here where we all went into lots of detail about this -and I think it was Mr. March who provided the most sensible explanations for various things happening in what amounts to one of the most beautiful instalments of the Macross Saga. Pete

So... I finally got around to watching episode 1 of Gundam OO... yeah... heh... kind'a late to the party ,eh? Anyways - here are my newbie impressions: 1. I like the general idea insofar as it heavily alludes to the world we live in today; one in which we are all interconnected by necessity and yet divided by conventions (ideology, religion, nationality etc etc). This makes for quite the tragic brew, and Gundam OO does a good job show casing this situation. Naturally, things are taken somewhat to the extreme, but any good drama does this. 2. I like how Celestial Being are branded as terrorists; and how the series seems to highlight, or at least hint at how terrorism eventually stopped meaning "people who terrorize innocents" and starting meaning "people who don't agree with the nation-state/ruling powers" - also, it is nice to see the cynicism with which Celestial Being's Message is recieved throughout the world by both the political/military leaders as well as regular civilians who can't believe that anyone would fight for morality of the type presented by the Cellestial Beings. 3. On this note - I also find myself wondering why Celestial Being chose this particular route - it is the classical problem of whether power corrupts or whether it can be used towards the good... 4. The characters at this stage don't make much of an impression one way or another - by which I mean the pilots... 5. The Gundams themselves are ok, I guess. I kind of feel a bit as though they were kiddified; what with the easily recognizable various colors and all; but it's not too bad... Well - anyways - I finally got around to watching it. Will be looking forward to seeing the remaining episodes Pete

It is just so inspiring looking at threads like this. I think Macross fans are more dedicated than any other fandom. Polidread's work is amazing: the attention to detail and technical ability is marvelous But then again - I'm sure you were inspired by the Anime Spiritia that you've got contained in that bubble thingy there Great job! Pete

You know what I want? I want Mikhael's VF-25 with Ranka figure in cute dress - able to stand in cock pit . I also want lights and sounds. I want to press a button on the VF-25 and hear Ranka sing her song to calm the Zendradi. And I want rainbow colored lights to flash all over the Valkyrie as she does so. I doesn't have to come with a stand as long as it comes with custom-Ranka Lee stage. And finally - lots and lots of glitter. Make it with lots of glitter. That would be sweeeet Pete