RavenHawk

21 hours ago, Big s said:

Maybe this deal with harmony gold is for the best.

😲😲😲

I'm not sure I've ever seen those words written together anywhere outside of RT.com message boards before... and I haven't been on there in 20 years...

3 hours ago, JetJockey said:

I wish someone would meet the person in charge of Mospeada licensing and ask them why with every release Rook is last and still doesn't come out. And knowing that they still don't make her first for whatever new toy line.

I suspect that the licensing agreements have more to do with what characters/mecha/designs fall within the license, for what types of items, and rights to audit the quality of the products and records of production/sales. What figures, and in what order, actually get release likely has nothing to do with the licensor, but is just up to the licensee.

The licensees are probably pretty much always looking at things like:

- Where can we recoup the most of an initial investment? Make Stig, and the Ray, since they have reasonably high popular and we can reuse 95% of the molds while getting two characters out of it.

- Make Yellow, since it's an almost-guaranteed hot seller, while reusing 80% of the molds that was already paid for.

- If we REALLY need to make more profits before we can afford to invest in new designs/molding, then make Dark versions of the above, since there is some risk as to popularity, but 100% of the molds has already been paid for.

- Make Houquet ONLY if sales are strong enough to believe a perceived less popular character will sell, and we can only reuse around 50% (or less) of the molds... and we need to do brand new designs and testing on smaller joints, limbs, connectors, supports, etc.

It just comes down to costs of entry, in my opinion.

That said, as I mentioned in a post a couple weeks ago, the fact that Sentinel now has access to the new female synthetic human figures as a basis, reducing brand new design and testing work needing to be done, does seem to improve the likelihood of getting a Houquet this time.

My BBTS orders have typically run anywhere from 2-5 months after order (as sqidd mentioned above, 3-5), with it probably usually being around 3.

Honestly, with how fantastic they've been with customer service any time that I've had an issue, going back many years, I don't mind the wait.

On 8/21/2021 at 2:21 AM, Glasswave said:

Don't these also have the distinction of being the smallest variable mospeada's ever mass produced?

Not sure. These are listed as 1/28th, and I believe the old Henshin Robo/Gakken ones were estimated (if I remember the Anymoon review correctly) as 1/20th, but looking at the size listed (2.5"), these might be about the same size.

On 8/16/2021 at 8:20 PM, tekering said:

Armored mode isn't terrible, but... the less said about the bikes, the better.  Ugh.

If that oversized Invid was going to happen, I might've bit regardless, but there's no way I'm gonna shell out for these tiny figures that scale with nothing.

I'm a Mospeada whore, but I still have some self-respect, you know?

I LOVE the Sentinels figures for their detail, very cool transformation (in my opinion), updated designs that appeal to my personal aesthetic, and just general good looks when being displayed.

These don't look anywhere near as good, obviously. On the other hand, I'm a MOSPEADA whooooooore and these look like they MIGHT be fun.

One of many things that I loved about the old Yamato BGC bikes was that, for me, they were genuinely fun to transform. Probably the only Aramaki design that I ever had fun transforming time after time as a toy.

i'd be happy if these, even if not gorgeous display pieces, end up being resilient enough and designed to be a fun toy.

I wish we had a clear answer on the RT branded one versus the MOSPEADA branded ones. I ordered two of each with BBTS, since I don't care about the box branding, but what's inside.

If there is a legitimate difference in what's included, I'm going to have to switch to the MOSPEADA ones.

1000toys is releasing a new female synthetic human figure for the TOA Heavy Industries line which supposedly features new joints.

Since I'm pretty sure the male was the basis for the figures under the male Sentinel riders, this at least means that, if Sentinel DOES decide to give us female figures, they have these skeletons available to work with.

14 hours ago, Glasswave said:

It's unreal...and the plastic they used is so brittle and weak, I for one am convinced that anti-mospeada knomes from an alternative reality slipped into the factory.

Again, I genuinely suspect this universe may be "incompatable" with the glory of the female ride-armor.

Haha we're just not good enough to deserve the female riders.

I think the issue is often that they design the male riders first, figure out the tolerances, materials, and dimensions needed, and then just scale it down for the female, assuming it will work for the thinner design, too.

That said, I still love those figures and their scale.

59 minutes ago, Glasswave said:

Correct Sir *except for the cracked or broken knee joints on every Bartley I've come across...smh

The female ride-armor may indeed be too cool for this world.

I forgot about that. They made those WAY too thin.

Even with how careful I have been with mine, one knee broke.

On 5/16/2021 at 4:36 PM, roboemo said:

Appreciated. Also I am thinking Invid War for similiar premise.

I FINALLY took a few minutes to find the series/backups that I was referring to (the old series that was more of what I was picturing Breakers would be).

I genuinely enjoyed "Invid War", published by Eternity, and it is probably my single favorite series under the "Robotech" banner (feel free to skip the follow-up "Invid War: Aftermath"). Also, the "Class Reunion" special was solid (writing and art), but just kind of in-between episode content.

However, the series that I was thinking of was "Robotech: Unsung Heroes", which was about a completely separate team doing their own missions. It was a back-up story in issues 2-4 of Vermillion (b&w), and was reprinted as part of Megastorm (color). Just sort of a story of a separate, not previously heard-of unit, who were competent, but just not at a place (or survival rate) to have been encountered in any other stories.

I had been hoping that Breakers would be something similar, and not a fan-fic-y "these guys are super duper awesome and super duper secret ninjas".

3 minutes ago, vladykins said:

I can probably work something up once I get some client work done, but the 1/23 is roughly the size of the old Matchbox shocktrooper and the 1/28 is roughly the size of the Matchbox "scout". 

Here's my Matchbox invid with the Megahouse (a little bigger than the CM's) on the right and the Sentinel on the left.  So defdinitely won't work well with the Sentinels but should look pretty good with the CM's (or even better with the B2.FIVEs).

Thank you.

I think I'm either just being lazy or the ol' brain isn't firing on all cylinders today.

I have one Megahouse, most of the CMs, the Sentinels, and the B2Five's on order, just curious if these are going to scale well, and so the completist in me should get some, or if it's just going to be an oddball I won't be displaying with anything else, anyway.

21 hours ago, vladykins said:

Some scale estimates for the three MEP sizes:

My Photoshop-fu is weak. Does anyone have a feel (or can put together a quick image to give an idea) of how these would compare with the Sentinel ride armors or the classic CMs?

I think I just tend to be skeptical of scales from manufacturers.

I preordered.

I'm half expecting to be disappointed by the final product (definitely look a bit reminiscent of the similarly-sized 80s Gakken ones' underwhelming transformation), but I always kind of enjoy these little figures, and am just curious to see what the transformation is like in person.

Plus, to be honest, I don't want to be hunting them down in a year or two if I change my mind, and I really just can't say no to ride armors.

On 6/6/2021 at 5:56 PM, tekering said:

Apart from the five Invid figures already mentioned, MEP has also publicly displayed prototypes for:

• Khyron
• Azonia
• Exedore
• Dolza
• Miriya
• Nova Satori
• Marie Crystal
• Dana Sterling
• Maia Sterling
• M-32 Hover Cycle
• VF-8 Logan
• VHT-1 Hovertank

Others have been mentioned on Facebook, but I don't count 'em until physical prototypes have been confirmed...

...but yeah, you're not looking hard enough.

That's right, I remember those last three. I missed those figures, though.

On 6/6/2021 at 5:56 PM, tekering said:

...but yeah, you're not looking hard enough.

I'm going to tell myself that I didn't MISS them, I just didn't care enough to notice... (because, you know, niche collecting over here)

On 6/4/2021 at 9:13 AM, tekering said:

it won't receive approval from Harmony Gold and/or Big West, and will simply remain among the dozens of other unproduced MEP figures

Which figures are you referring to? The only ones that I can think of (probably because I haven't been paying attention) were the Regent, Regess, and the Hellcat, which I remember seeing 3d printed prototypes of but seem to have disappeared since then (or maybe I'm not looking hard enough).

I was actually hoping to pick up the New Gen/MOSPEADA stuff, and the Sentinels will always have a place with me just because of how much I enjoyed the books when I was a kid.

10 hours ago, sqidd said:

They scale with the Sentinel 1/48 Legioss. Which is pretty small.

They would be HUGE if they scaled with the 1/12 Ride Armors. That would be pretty cool!

Thank you. Just looking at the pics that MEP has posted, they looked too small to me to even scale with the Sentinel, since I tend not to trust claimed scales.

Scaling with Sentinel's Legioss works for me.

10 hours ago, vladykins said:

As sqidd says, these 1/48s will scale with the Sentinel legioss and with the older Toynami/Aoshima alpha fighter/legioss, their beta fighter/tread, and the CM's legioss and tread. (The Toynami technically billed itself as 1/55 to match the Masterpiece valkyries but it is definitely closer to 1/48 and not anywhere near 1/55- the Aoshima advertised as 1/48).

 

If the oversize one is built, depending on whether it is the 167mm or 209mm version that is built, they will be 1/29 or 1/23 scale roughly (assuming a 4.8m height- Mospeada scales are difficult at the best of times). While not to scale, the 209mm won't look terribly out of place with the 1/18 CM's or 1/15 Megahouse ride armors.

Here's the Megahouse with the old Matchbox ones- the 209mm would be about the same size as the old Matchbox Shocktrooper.

Thank you.

As I mentioned above, I looked at MEP's pic (from IG), and it looked like the Toynami was much bigger to me, so I figured this was only claiming to be 1/48, but really much smaller.

I only have one Megahouse, since I was pretty disappointed by it, but anything to go with my CM's display shelf is definitely very welcome!

At the moment, I keep my CM's ride armors, my Yamato Moto Slaves, and my Matchbox stuff displayed together, since to my eye it all fits... close enough.

8 hours ago, sh9000 said:

Are ANY current/previous MOSPEADA items in scale with this?

I mean, I'm ok with a manufacturer essentially having a scale all their own and planning on building out a whole like of items to match, but it would sure be nicer to have something at a matching scale for ride armors or other mecha, especially considering the price point.

(To be clear, I don't think the price point is crazy for something that obviously fits our particular niche market, it just feel a bit tough to accept for not having anything else currently on display where these would be sort of filling out that display)

On 5/14/2021 at 3:25 PM, roboemo said:

The comic by Wildstorm.

I was referring to one of the series pre-Wildstorm; I think it was by Academy or Antarctic? Sorry, this last week has been too busy to dig through them to find them, but I'm happy to find what it was when I have a little free time.

I think any time a story is set in an existing fictional universe, and the description is along the lines of "A super skilled, super lethal, super secret team...", it feels a bit fan fiction-y right off the bat.

Up until this description, I thought Breakers was going to be more of like that one Robotech comics side story (if I remember right, it was in another series that I'm blanking on right now, with like 8 pages per issue as a back-up story) where we followed a different team on Earth while in parallel to the New Gen series, except, you know, this would be MOSPEADA.

I never had the old Matchbox ones as a kid (only one I had was Rick Hunter, but I so desperately wanted all of the MOSPEADA/New Gen ones).

I finally picked some up online a couple of years ago and, maybe it's the kid in me finally getting the toys he wanted from decades ago, but I still like having them there in my display cases.

12 hours ago, tekering said:

This is a fascinating aspect of the anime industry I was completely unaware of.  Are there other egregious examples outside of BGC?

I wish I remembered some to offer.

I know I came across probably a dozen or so a few years ago, which made an impression on me at the time, but I don't remember them specifically or where the site was where I found the comparisons (it might have been a post in another thread on here?).

As it stands, I feel like an idiot, making a claim that I now can't substantiate. Sorry.

On 4/19/2021 at 2:28 PM, tekering said:

Wow, that's just beyond the pale. 

Either Youmex bought the song rights entirely -- in which case the original composers weren't properly credited -- or Kōji Makaino has a LOT to answer for.  

I've actually become frustrated a few times when I've come across discussions where everyone seemed to be harping on what geniuses some of these composers were... with that air of "If you had REAL knowledge of music, you'd know how superior this Japanese composer was"... while somehow ignoring how much of these works were flat-out copies of American, German, etc. music at the time.

17 hours ago, tekering said:

Thanks for that.  I don't begrudge them going with that scale -- the CMs, Toynami, and Sentinel Legioss are all the same size, so that's where the largest demand is likely to be -- but having already sunk thousands of dollars into Moscato Invid kits at that size, I was hoping to have Invid toys that would at least scale with my CMs ride-armor figures (if not the MegaHouse or Sentinel figures)...

Even a Scout/Eager at 1:18 would be a big toy (a little bigger than the Matchbox/Playmates, at least), but the size would certainly justify the cost. 

I will always love my CM's ride armors, and the ideal for me would be to keep filling out those display shelves with more in-scale figures. Sadly, looking at the newer offerings from a variety of lines, I think those of us with collections at that scale may be moving into the minority.

On 2/9/2021 at 1:47 AM, Glasswave said:

 Indeed, I totally agree in regards to the concept vs. execution. The toy itself is quite a strange beast(the front wheel for example)..yet I still find to be one of my favorites!

I mean, a legendary video game company makes a Aramaki ride-armor toy...whats not to love?

P.s. Good luck with the Scepter + fingers crossed on the new Tri-Charger!! *I think CM's was planning one that never happened.

From what I remember, there was a sort of blank profile pic of the Tri-Charger that CM's was supposedly working on. I was really looking forward to it, since I was one of the few that actually liked the CM's ride armors, and was excited to have a Tri-Charger at the same scale to display with it. I keep all of my in-scale Aramaki stuff (MOSPEADA and BGC) displayed together.

23 hours ago, Glasswave said:

Woah Thanks for the link!

I did a triple take when i saw the Zillion Tri-Charger !!!

I'm lucky enough to have the 1987 Sega Tri-charger toy, But o m g  this prototype is blowing my mind! A true "unicorn" dream Toy imho

*Anyone have any info on this*?

I feel very fortunate to have two of the Sega Tri-Chargers (though no RidingScepter, since the only ones I found were so overpriced, and in such terrible shape, that I just couldn't bring myself to buy them).

While I truly love those toys, it's more the idea behind them than the execution.

I really hope this new one comes to fruition, and at a decent scale for display.