Jasonc

These are great, Darrin, wish I had the funds too. I didn't expect, between the Masei helmets, the 19, the Prophecy, the Tornado packs, and the Isamu 29 parts, that I'd be spending so much, so fast. Not only that, I've been working on finishing up projects of my own, which has been kicking my behind. love the pics, too. They look great. It only makes it that much more difficult that I can't afford them.

I really don't care if they did a reboot or continued on with the series. It'd be even more interesting, if they did a series based off the Macross 30 game. Either way, I'm just excited about this news, and am excited to see this unfold as it happens, and more is announced along the way. This would be interesting, and I hope that Arcadia would get the license, considering their quality.

Quick! Cancel the order!

This is true. I've already thought of it, in case it becomes a necessity for what I'm doing. I'll probably use this more for cosplay reasons. When I did go to the helmet shop, I tried on the Arai, Shoei, and several other cheaper brands. Medium seems to be just fine on all of them, although, the Arai helmets seemed to have less space around the lower jaw for me, so I didn't like that too much. But I'm going with a medium, especially since I hadn't cut my hair in 7 months and now my hair is short again. Medium should work just fine for me, and I should have my Hikaru colored one in June/July.

Looking great so far. Keep up the good work. Love seeing the build pics. Thanks for putting them up.

That makes sense, as they need to build the chapters to make enough for the compilation volumes. Still very good news. I'll be downloading the app, settings set for Japanese.

That's true, but it was never shown in Frontier, only in Macross 30, as I'm sure you know.

My wife likes the figurines. She has no problems with me getting them. Then again, she loves Macross as well, so that helps. Speaking of the news of another bout of ichiban kuji figurines, I have no problems with that. Usually I just get the Sheryl versions, but if they decide on a Nanase, or a Grace, or another Klan, or a Cathy, I will dive in and get one of those as well. For me, I'm just not that into the Ranka character. I have a couple, but when I comes to the Sheryl figures, different story.

While it'd be cool to see it back up, I still like having my hard copy of the book. Does this mean, if your suspicion is correct, that these won't be on bookshelves?

Because they're both still niche products, and as I explained, Pixar isn't. You could apply it to many other genres, as well as other products. You're taking only one part of Renato's example, and focusing on it to where you're missing the point.

Well, all you across the Pacific that chimed in.

I have to agree with Renato and Tochiro on this. The comparison with Pixar is, well, simply ridiculous. Pixar worked with Disney, which is, and has been, a household name for at least 3 generations now. When you have a company with that type of history, that is not niche, it's part of mainstream culture. Your comparison to movies like Ponyo and the other Ghibli films are also tied to Disney, which while not originally, have become quite popular (not like Pixar) here in the U.S. Interesting enough, Studio Ghibli's works became most popular here, when it was Disney that bought the rights to Spirited Away, and showed it at select theaters, including Disney's main theater, the El Capitan in Hollywood. Again, you can't compare the promotion, marketing, and backing of a multi-generational powerhouse like Disney and expect the same results for "anime" all across the board. Let me also suggest this: If Macross had free reign to be released here and abroad, I'm sure a company like Funimation would've picked it up, and would've released Blurays at a lower price. The reason? From what I've been told, and Tochiro, Gubaba, or Renato can chime in on this, Japanese culture is still very oriented with tangible media, where here, the trend is changing to Cloud storage, digital download, and streaming. To counter that, prices for Blurays here are almost at the price DVDs were at, without the long stint DVDs had of being so pricey. In the original argument, Tochiro hit the nail on the head. From what I have gathered, the books that come with this are actually quite large and great quality. It's also 2 movies and a very high quality box. Take into account that there's an interactive PS3 disc that comes with it, with tons of extras, I don't believe this is all that expensive. Considering similar Blurays here with comparable additions for one movie may cost $60-$80 or more, it's not much different, except or paying for the shipping.

I went into my local motor shop, and they have all the brands of helmets there. Various Shoei, BMW, and many other brands comparable, lower and higher ends as well. Since my head usually is in between M and L, I tried on various sizes of various brands, and Between the M and L, the top of my head is the same, but the L leaves too much cheek movement, so Medium is for me. I too, want to see a finished product version, and would like to know those questions. Perhaps someone who preordered can send those questions to them? I think it's just DOT certified, not SNELL or whatever the European equivalent, but I wouldn't necessarily put this on and ride on a freeway or a track. So, maybe #4 is answered. #2 and #3 are important though for everyone, as the visor is an integral part of any helmet.

It probably isn't for you then. I think they had to take a couple small liberties with it to make it DOT certified, in which I'm totally OK with. The main thing I see that's different (not the only thing but the main thing) is the visor. I'd like to know too, if the visor goes up or not, but IMO, isn't a deal breaker. I have all 3 Yamato replicas, so if I want to look at lineart accurate helmets, I'll defer to those. Still, this looks like what a more realistic helmet would look like. You have to remember that we don't have anime heads, and most of us (I presume), don't have anime hair. For that reason, I can't complain at all. I ordered one, and may order another one in a different color just to have.

IMO (and to date) I feel they're the same in quality. The designers are the same, are they not? Seems they may even use the same factories.

Money left at my house is considered offerings, especially when left with Macross stuff. It's written in the bylaws.

Just happend to find $187 lying around my office stashed in one of Tenjin's Valkyrie books. LOL, maybe Tenjin is like the tooth fairy, and brings good things sometimes. In any case, I was starting to sweat paying for this, but I think I'm in the clear now, and quite well. I might have to clean stuff up more often.

I've been keeping an eye on this project, and absolutely love it. I too, am going to get a 3D printer sometime soon...a good high res printer that will set me back about $2K. It'll be awhile, but this kinda stuff is what I'd like to do. I hope I can afford this 1/60, as I've been wanting one ever since Yamato first put that teaser out, then vapored the project. For now, all I have is a paper craft Monster that I made about 10 years ago, but still holds up.

The Banpresto brand, IMO, features the best Rankas, Sheryls, and a great Klan figure, all of which can be found on ebay, or other auction sites. They don't, however, feature any other characters as far as I know. They are large figures. They also have smaller chibi figurines that are done well. Aside from that, there are other brands, but many of them only feature the female characters, and even then, not all of them. There is the small figurines that are about 4-5" tall, and they cover more of the characters, and aren't or shouldn't be too pricey.

That sounds like a great idea.

As I'm still working on a 1/60 version of this, it is a monster of moving parts. I admire them for doing such a great job on it. They have skills I don't in cad, that's for certain.

Just listened to part 2. Good stuff. Interesting conversation and stuff to talk about. Can't wait for the next one. You guys rock. My only hope is that if I can get out there this year, maybe in June or July, that we can sit through one of the shows.

For what series? Some brands specialize only in Frontier, some do more than one. I think my favorite is the Banpresto? The Ichiban Kuji ones. They are pricey, but their Sheryl figurines are off the hook beautiful.

Moron and Mav are making the claim that it's Big West simply to direct all the hate towards the Macross franchise, and of course Big West. You have to remember that these two guys, no matter what they say in forums, privately have stated that there's a "war of the two franchises" (stupid, I know). As strange as that is, that is how they think, which most likely maybe why instead of asking logical questions from the staff at HG, which they are in contact with, go with the furthest speculation they can think of, and the one that makes the least amount of sense. While it hasn't done much but show their ignorance, they are so far up this ONE speculation, they won't back down out of fear of losing face (although, to most, that's long since happened). Kevin's latest comment on their, as clever as he thinks he is, has pretty much answered the question as a yes, even though it appears he lacks reading comprehension and can't understand simple yes or no closed questions. Once he says "We need to protect our interests......" it came from them. Creavision, while at first they said Big West (probably at the direction of Memo) they have since retracted that statement. I don't see them retracting the statements that it came from HG, nor do I see HG going after them for libel if it's not true. Also, by their actions of dropping Robotech from their FB page, it does appear that there is some bad beef between the two, which is further signs of where it came from. It seems like a wrapped case, and since we can't argue with stupid, arguing with the mods there won't change anything. They're in the ignorance too deep, and too far up HG to really see how idiotic they sound. BTW, while it does suck for this project to be shut down, while I may not like HG's direction, their staff, etc., I do feel they were in their right to shut it down. Sure, they're gonna get more hate and lose more fans, but they are within their rights. Maybe doing a fan work as a legit company is a conflict that their legal team became privy of, and had to stop it? As they say "Shtuff" happens.

As I've done the measurements, I'm exactly in between a med and large size. For you riders out there, is it better to go with a smaller, more snug helmet, or a larger, maybe needing thicker padding? edit:: I too, am getting a Hikaru Medium, but maybe later in the year, will get one like the Yamato purple helmet that came out before the re-release of the replica helmets, like this one: