Ginrai

Okay, here's some illustration of the problem. I'll add more pics in a minute.

Twin Moons said they would not replace my toy because it was not broken in shipping and it was the factory's fault. They told me to mail them my problem specifically (which I did) and that they would use this as evidence to petition Yamato. They did not say anything about ordering parts, which would have been fine with me.

So what you're saying, 1/1 LowViz Lurker, is to expect a bunch of smaller defects.

VF-X and VF-X2 are both crappy in my opinion, though VF-X is a lot worse. They both have stupid plane-on-a-string mechanics were you never actually -fly- anywhere. You just cannot reach a destination. The ceiling is extremely low, so you can't even fly very high. The controls are unwiedly and the Valkyries control pretty poorly. The graphics are also not very impressive even for PlayStation 1 titles. VF-X especially is just an utter trainwreck. Pass.

Regarding buying a 1/48 Valkyrie: No I don't not already own one. I was gonna buy one when the VF-1S Hikaru rerelease came out, but the Garland was so close by that point I decided just to get my Garland and get the Valkyrie later. I'm not expecting arms to break off the 1/48 or whatever, but I'm now expecting a bunch of smaller defects, and for over $100, I shouldn't have to deal with that crap. Furthermore, at least with the Garland coming from Yamato USA there's SOME chance I can get replacement parts. I'm screwed if I buy a Japanese-only release. I called Twin Moons about it and they were like, "Yeah, it's the manufacturer's fault, not ours. We can't do anything but complain to Yamato. Please send us an email with your specific complaint." So I did.

Sure, I'd be glad to. As soon as I get home I'll take a picture. There's also the little gray bits that connect the front cockpit part to the back cockpit part that totally came unglued and fell out, (just below the handlebars) but that's not such a big deal since superglue should fix it, but I'll take a picture of that too so you can see what I mean.

This one would be sweet too if it wasn't poorly made. I'm not shelling out another $100+ for a toy that's going to break immediately or come broken. Pfft.

No, it didn't. It wasn't the metal bar at all, it was the actual shoulder on the outside of the wheel. There's a tiny piece of plastic on top of the "ball" in the "ball and socket" of the shoulder that keeps it on and allows it to hold its position when you move the arm up. This piece is about the size of the tip of a lead pencil. Slightest pressure in the wrong direction and it snaps off and the shoulder dislocates. You can put the shoulder back on, but there's nothing keeping it on if you yank it off again, and the arm always just hangs there limply. You can't swing it up. This is a combination of extremely poor design decisions (a piece of plastic that small is the only thing keeping the shoulder on?!) and probably brittle, crappy plastic. Be -extremely- careful when moving the shoulder in position after locking the wheel in place with the magnets. Oh well, guess I won't bother saving up for that 1/48 VF-1S Hikaru after all. After all this time, Yamato's quality control is still pisspoor and their designs are thin and breaky.

Enjoy it while it lasts.

Well, my Garland just broke on the second transform to robot mode. The shoulder just popped right off the big wheel. A chunk of plastic just broke right off.

I have Medicom's 12" Gridman figure (which is under the Super Action Heroes? I think? line) which is really cool except the stupid shoulder armor is not actually attached and you have to come up with a way to attach it yourself, double sided tape or something. LAME. Looks exactly like the guy wearing the costume in the show though (Gridman or Superhuman Samurai Syber-Squad if you like).

Got my Garland yesterday. It is scary to transform. I loosened the screws, the bar did not break. The gray plastic piece under the handlebars that holds one side of the cockpit on fell off due to a really poor job gluing it in place, but the other side stayed in. I guess I will just super glue it, but that was pretty lame. Doesn't really affect it once it's in robot mode.

There's zero build up and it suddenly pops out. "OH YEAH! DAMN! We forgot to develop this character! Uh, suddenly Houquet has a tenderness beneath her gruff (totally cliche) exterior!" And I hate that. Don't get me wrong, I still like Mospeada quite a lot. It's fun. It's just not very well -written-. And I guess the animation isn't the hottest either. After all, Anime Friend animated the -entire- series. I remember that scene and like Bowie declaring his love, it seems totally out of left field. But I do agree that he's a pretty sympathetic character. Stik/Stig/whatever in Mospeada especially is a zealous bigot and it's really hard to like him. Robotech softened that a lot and just turned him anal retentive ala Cyclops from X-Men. But I mean, in Mospeada they were obviously making a statement about racism there. It's interesting that he doesn't really get over his anti-Inbit thing at the end of the series and doesn't really go back to Aisha until Love Live Alive. LLA kind of contradicts the end of Mospeada, really. ("Oh well, my job's done, see you later, earth! I'm off to Mars!" And suddenly in LLA he's on earth again, with Aisha, who he totally ditched. What? I think the entire point of SDC SC was to experiment with really unusual mecha and work really hard on complex characters, and yes, hybridize soap opera plotting with a mecha show. Macross certainly did a soap opera/mecha hybrid before, and so did Orguss, but the characters are a little more conflicted and complicated than in either of those shows and their development is a lot more gradual. For a lot of Macross Hikaru is treading water. He develops a lot when he joins the UN Spacy, and then he develops a lot when he says goodbye to Minmay in Love Drifts Away and picks Misa (and then this is immediately rolled back in the next episode) and again he treads water until the last episode, where he does it again. SC characters seem to develop slower, but more consistently. And as for the perceived value in the overall message, Mospeada just has more of a schmaltzy "people are people" message, even if they're aliens thing... just like Macross, actually. Mospeada is really pretty derivative. I think what makes Mospeada stand out is mostly the fabulous design work. Shinji Aramaki and Hideki Kakinuma are really talented artists.

I'm a pretty sarcastic person, but that doesn't make me laugh. Hmm, that does sound vaugely familiar. I'll have to watch it again and see what the Japanese is. I mean, daisuki and suki can both be roughly translated as "love" but daisuki is a lot stronger... But an unrequited crush is not impossible to imagine, but I sure don't recall any build up to that, you're right. Quite possibly one of the things that got gutted by the show's cancellation and desperate need to finish up before it went off the air. It kind of drives me crazy that at the end of the series there's still a ton of perfectly functional Zor ships in orbit and the war isn't really over...

That's more likely an issue of Japan not being able to spell English words than things being done in a hurry. Hooray Engrish!

I'm sure US-based online stores are perfectly capable of ordering the replacement part from Yamato USA.

Why the hell did you watch Gundam Wing? That was your mistake. Go watch the original Mobile Suit Gundam 0079 movie trilogy or Gundam 08th MS Team or something. And do not expect anything particularly good from a Gundam video game.

You mean you have to look for the elements that HG weren't successful in filing off? That's like saying, "In Robotech his name ISN'T really Rick Hunter even though that's what everyone says because it says H. Ichijo on his plane!" The issue is more that it RT was done in such a hurry they missed a few things they were trying to hide. It's been like six months since I last watched SDC Southern Cross and longer since I watched RT: Masters, but I remember the humor being the usual lame Robotech "gee golly" stuff. SDC SC's humor is more typical anime stuff, pantyshots and stuff. I don't remember Bowie saying he was in love with Jeanne... what episode is that and what was the context? SDC SC has a lot of stuff that is introduced but never properly developed thanks to the show's truncation.

I really didn't like Robotech: Masters very much, but when I saw SDC Southern Cross I changed my tune. It actually makes -sense- now, Jeanne doesn't piss me off like Dana does, and you see that there is really deep character development. This is also probably why the show failed. It has entire episodes with no fighting. It is more concerned with character than kewl mecha action!!!! and the development is slooow. It's also -much- easier to appreciate when you sit down and watch it in big chunks than weekly or whatever. But bottom line, the Robotech adaptation is really unusually poor for SC, much poorer than Macross or Mospeada. Turning Seifriet into Zor Prime totally robbed him of all his motivation and everything that was cool about him and ruined the character. The fact that the Bioroid pilots are just clones/androids/whatever (they keep waffling on this) instead of kidnapped humans ruins that whole arc, and there are lots of other problems. Now, I don't think SC is better than Macross (though design work aside, it's better than Mospeada, IMO... Mospeada has really simple plotting, almost no overall story arc, and veryyyy limited character development), but if you watch the original Japanese show, it's a pretty good little series.

Well, sure, but Bowie is from Southern Cross, not Mospeada, so what's your point?

The Gatchaman thing is interesting. Is HG involved with the recent ADV release of Gatchaman at all? I dunno. I'm pretty sure Streamline was involved with the 90's Gatchaman OAV, right? I don't think HG was involved with the old Rhino Battle of the Planets DVDs, though, right?

Don't forget the straight Spacefortress Macross/Super Spacefortress Macross/just plain Macross VHS releases of DYRL, which are the same dub as the Clash release, but uncut video. And forget "now watch jet jockey", it's all about, "You can schtill fight when yer drunk!"

Diversity in mecha does not equal quality in game. M3 has a huge variety of mecha to choose from, and it still sucks. Mix between arcade and sorta real flight sim. Yeah, jack of all trades, master of none. Mediocre at best. You're also totally ignoring my criticism about plane on a string never getting anywhere, stupid low ceiling, and crappy graphics.

You're wrong. F91, Seabrook is a Newtype. The F91's bio-computer is sort of psycommu backwards. Instead of relaying the pilots intentions outward to the robot, the robot relays outside information directly into the pilot's brain. Like the Alex, it works with regular pilots, but it achieves its potential with a newtype at the controls. Watch the final battle between Seabrook and that Raffelsia thingy.

Okay kids, let's try this again: Orguss is a Toyko Movie Shinsha production, -not- Tatsunoko. The rights issue is not complicated at all. US Renditions had the US license, they went out of business, Manga did not feel like picking that one up, probably since it was an uncompleted dub of a full series and not just a short OAV like the other crap they got from US Renditions. If someone else wanted to license Orguss from TMS they probably could. Orguss is a Studio Nue/Artland/TMS project, but TMS no doubt has all the distribution rights, being the producers. Artmic went out of business many years ago. AIC produced most of their shows and ended up with most of their rights (see Bubblegum Crisis for more information.) The fact that Tatsunoko/HG has been making Mospeada-derivative crap sure suggest they have the rights. Who the hell else would have them? Certainly not AIC. Even if Tatsunoko is now gone as a company name, Tatsunoko has -definitely- been working on Shadow Chronicles. Back at AX2004 I kept picking Tommy Yune's brain for Japanese names (which is how I was able to confirm no one from Artmic was working on it, only Tatsunoko people, not a shock when you consider Shinji Aramaki has better things to do with his time than a kinda sorta Mospeada sequel, like directing Appleseed movies). Tatsunoko has a lot of really famous properties that I wonder about the fates of, too, like Mach Go Go Go/Speed Racer, Casshan/Casshern, Gatchaman/Battle of the Planets, Hurricane Polymar, blah blah. But not Orguss.