F-ZeroOne

Having now seen the picture - wow, strange how you don't recognise one of your favourite aircraft when its pointing backwards! - it feels to me very "German Focke-Wulf". So, how about the Arado-95: http://www.fach-extraoficial.com/fotos/maq...ar95_mpm_72.jpg There was a later monoplane, the Arado-196, which might be even more suitable, but unfortunately the very first search I did turned up the phrase "models of this plane basically don't exsist in 1/72 scale... "

You're welcome. I kind of figured the Spitfire would be a bit "wrong", but I couldn't resist mentioning it. I only found out about the floatplane variant recently, and I love the fact they tried it twice - once with the Mk VB and then later with my favourite Mk. IX...!

Well, you could steal from the most kick-ass float-plane there ever was: http://www.modelsforsale.com/catalog/produ...oducts_id=45651 (well, almost - they later made a Mark IX version that could do 377mph. With floats!) The Japanese made a lot of floatplanes: http://www.hlj.com/scripts/hljpage.cgi?HSGNP11 including some much later ones (such as the N1K1 Kyofu). You could also try looking at Fairey Swordfish models; there was a floatplane variant and kits of the popular Swordfish would probably be reasonably common. You could also look at kits from the Miyazaki anime-inspired "Porco Rosso" series; but I'm not sure if they do a kit of the Curtis racer-inspired twin-float bi-plane that appears in that.

I think you may have seen a model kit based on designs by Hayao Miyazaki - I seem to remember seeing a Miyazaki-style tank with pig crew-members somewhere (a la Porco Rosso... )

Two thoughts: 1) How about a song lyric from the show? I don't think its possible to go wrong with "Konya wa Hurricane!" (you'll have to come up with some other way of adding a storming guitar sound, though...!) 2) Or "Story of Knight Sabers 2032" - I believe this appears in at least a couple of the actual episodes, in a somewhat strange curved font...

It was ever thus... its been estiamted that in previous conflicts, enemy action was third on the list of causes of crew/aircraft loss, behind accidents, and - most lethal of all - weather.

I suspect that if he read this, Sir Arthur would be very amused... "The Foundation" was written by Arthur C. Clarkes good friend Issac Asimov (I believe Asimov once dedicated a speech with the words "from the Worlds second greatest science writer to the Worlds second greatest science fiction writer... " ) , though given the friendly rivalry between the two its possible Asimov had Clarke in mind...

Keith, I've got Ultra Fire! As far as I can tell, the songs mentioned are not on that either, although two of the listed tracks are only named in Japanese, so I can't be completely certain. By the way, it took me ages to work out what the little shield/badge thing was that came with it... ...its a guitair pick!

Whats really bugging me is that it reminds me of something - not a SR-71 - from somewhere. Did we ever see the human spaceships in the film "Enemy Mine"? Edit: or maybe it was Stargate SG-1?

The one thing it isn't is a SR-71. I'm sure David will be having fits about now but a real SR-71 has much, much bigger engines - nearly as wide, if not wider, then the main fuselage "tube" (I'm not counting the "chines"), among many other things; a SR-71 also has triple landing gear wheel sets under each wing, not what appears to be the single wheels shown here. My guess is that its a prop from a TV or low-to-mid budget SF series, possibly a Japanese one?

Actually, the Amiga did have a rival - at least in Europe; the Atari ST. Slightly less powerful but much beloved by musicians for technical reasons I'm not qualified to understand. As for the Spectrum being crap... yes, it did have graphics issues, but while arguments like this can basically go on for ever - and have done - have you ever played a Spectrum game called Driller? Its been pointed out that it had a more advanced 3D engine than Doom several years later. You could look up and down, and crouch, and even fly. Mind you, it did run at about 1 frame per second though...

David, regards the mystery "CR-601" missile - I believe this may be a Chinese-built copy of either a Silkworm or Exocet anti-shipping missile. As for no replies yet - I guess everyone is still going "wow".

Anyone who grew up in a school playground in 80s or early 90s Britain would, at some point, have taken part in the "Speccy" vs "Commodore" wars... (the 48K ZX Spectrum - marketed under the Timex brand in the US - against the Commodore 64. Everything in Britain - I'm reliably told by outside observers - is about class; the Spectrum was the working class underdog, while the C64 was the "posh" persons computer). The impression I've always had is that in the US, PC vs Mac and later, Nintendo vs Sega, were the battlegrounds of choice whereas in the UK, console games didn't really take off until the MegaDrive (US Genesis) appeared, Overlooking Lego is certainly a very huge oversight on this list. As for "snottish" - well, I guess it can work both ways. 1-up.com is currently running a list of the essential 50 video and computer games. They're currently up to 47. Whilst they've covered such things as Tetris and Zelda, and its not quite complete yet, from a UK - and possibly European - viewpoint, a list that doesn't include Sensible Soccer or Elite (arguably the most influential space combat game of all time) looks rather strange...

That scene is actually Raiders of the Lost Ark. Temple of Doom has a similar scene, but Indy remembers too late he left his revolver in his other hat...

Christmas is coming... I also got the impression that Orguss toys appear to be relatively common finds in Japan. Not exactly everyday items, but with the exception of things like the "Olsen Special" (sp?) they seemed reasonably easy to come across, at least in Tokyo.

In Hiroshima once I saw a cafe called "Cafe Asse"...

Kimagure Orange Road movie - now theres how to end a romantic anime series, by ripping one of the central characters - and the viewers - heart into little bits and throwing those bits into a wood-chipper... Its an interesting question. In some cases, production difficulties are to blame (Evangelion, His & Her Circumstances). In others, its because no-one wants to slay the golden goose (almost anything with the name "Takahashi" attached [1] with the very hounourable exception of Maison Ikkoku). Theres also a theory that the beginning of a series should set up the ending, but not the ending that anyone expects - Macross is a good example; we're never in much doubt as to whether or not the good guys will win, but the cost - Roy, most of the Earths population, the love of Minmei - is the thing. Someone I know got very annoyed about the Escaflowne ending, which seemed to be heading towards a really big conflict at the end. Someone else pointed out that the fact that the ending went somewhere else instead was the whole point... And then sometimes people just write themselves into a hole (the Matrix sequels... ) Some of my favourite endings: Haibane Renmei Gunbuster Revolutionary Utena TV (not that it made much sense getting there, but I liked the way it ended... ) Nadia of the Mysterious Seas Future Boy Conan [1] Please note that I am not having a go here, I love much of Takahashis work.

Sorry to but they are very real. Which is the whole point of Engrish.com because some are so bad you gotta wonder why they even botehr trying to put signs up in English. Hell, some music is pure nonsensical Engrish like the opening music to the Hellsing series. I've only seen a couple of episodes of Hellsing, but it was interesting to see how the Japanese portrayed my home country. I'm pretty sure the Eurostar staff at Waterloo station don't really bow to their passengers...

Wait, you mean they installed the whole damn gun back in but it _cant_be_fired_? Or was the ammo deleted? Perhaps the only thing that can match British aviation genius in making such aircraft as the Spitfire, the Harrier, and the Lancaster bomber, is our politicians complete and utter insanity when it comes to making aviation decisions. We are the country that decided that manned aircraft were obselete and should all be replaced by guided missiles. Then someone decided that manned aircraft were OK after all and we went about building one of the greatest-that-never-was, the TSR 2. So superlative was it for its time, that the politicians scrapped the programme and decided to buy F-111s from the US instead. Boy, that worked... The Typhoon is simply following on a long tradition of what the RAF refer to as "Blue Circles" - after a famous cement company; early Tornados also carried concrete ballast in the nose due to radar problems...

We had full size carriers. Then the government of the time decided we couldn't have them, so we got "through-deck cruisers" instead. Then the Falklands happened, and it suddenly turned out aircraft operating from carriers were quite a good idea after all. Luckily for us, Hawker-Siddeley did some lateral thinking back in the 50s and 60s and invented the Harrier [1]. Flash forward a few years, and we currently have a couple of aircraft carriers - proper ones - on order. However, if you're aware of British military procurement history, don't hold your breath... [1] I've just been reading a book by someone who worked for Hawker, and he describes an incident where an aircraft overshot a 7,000 foot long runway and had a rather harder-than-intended landing. The aircraft involved was a Harrier. A jump jet. Think about it, and then wonder just how much runway this pilot must have needed...

Its probably not quite so silly to the Japanese. They are very close to a number of nations that have very good reason not to like them very much (at least two of the Japanese islands are actually in Russian hands) and who have long memories. Japan is still - and hopefully will remain - the only country to have been attacked by atomic bombs in anger. That tends to focus the populations thoughts a bit; its unlikely the Japanese public would give much support to any politician who suddenly took an interest in aircraft carriers (and in US service, the Harrier is a Marine support aircraft - and those large countries near Japan would take notice of an acquisition of an aircraft that could potentially support an amphibous assault. For the UK, the Harriers role is a little different, mainly because its the only adequate aircraft that can operate from our current aircraft carriers).

Noriko, thanks for the link - nice wallpaper ("Humankind had its chance"...!) An Appleseed TV series could potentially be awesome (if they don't grab Yoko Kanno to do the music I will do something nasty to the producers...! ) and I've always felt it would make a good live action movie, though I always had in mind something with a big Hollywood budget, but done sensibly - an intelligent SF film with kick-butt action scenes - just like, er, the manga...

Heres an obscure one - several years ago, Marvel Comics ran a parody comic called "What The?!" ("OhmiGod! We forgot the FIGHT SCENE!" and that kind of thing). One of the strips took a pop at Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. Depicted were some S.H.I.E.L.D "air-cars", which were an exact match for the Zentraedi non-combat shuttle pods as shown in Macross TV...! Marvel would repeat a similar trick years later when it introduced a Sentinel variant that bore more than a passing resemblance to mecha from Evangelion...

Shotguns? There were shotguns in that picture? Oh... there they are. Didn't notice them at first, for some reason... :-)

I did wonder - after all, I'm about six episodes into ZZ and only one person has died... :-) (whilst working on the earlier Zambot 3, Yoshiyuki Tomino allegedly earned the nickname "kill 'em all Tomino", due to the very high character death rate... )