F-ZeroOne

Congratulations on your choice...! ( there is, BTW, nothing fundmentally wrong with 1/60s, its just the 1/48 is several notches up the scale! I was completely blown away by mine, and was much more impressed with it than I expected to be. The "head seam" issue is really blown out of proportion... ) Now that you've put your money where your heart is, why not invest a few more bucks in a set of Takatoys excellent 1/48 sticker sets? They're a bit more work - you have to cut them out yourself - but the resultes are well worth it!

I think it should be borne in mind that this is probably a prestige item for the Japanese domestic market. Bandai sells Gundam guitars, there are 1/1 scale anime character dolls, and cos-play is a pretty good market in Japan - you can buy complete outfits if you want, and they're not exactly cheap either... frankly, I don't think Yamato are considering the international market at all with this one.

Small tip: when attaching/detaching the FAST pack laser cannons and/or missile pods, remember that the front part of these pieces are detachable - removing the front parts, inserting/detaching the back parts seems to make things a little easier as at least on my Fokker -1S, its a bit of a tight connection going into the backpack.

Patlabor is truly superb show, and much under-supported. Hope you enjoy the rest of the series, and watch out for the recap episode in episode 23 of the TV series. Its a killer! Anyways, as I understand it, first there was an OAV series. Next came the TV series, and a second OAV series. At some point during the production of the TV series, there came the two movies ( interviews on the collectors edition of WXIII, the latest movie, seem to indicate that the first movie was produced before the TV series, but I don't know that for definite ). WXIII was a long time in development and was released some time after the second movie. I would personally recommend watching the TV series followed by the movies, and add the OAVs to taste, but you can watch all three movies on their own with little prior knowledge of the TV series - generally, only the characters are connected, not any plot points ( though bear in mind that WXIII features the cast of the TV series only in a supporting role, with the story focusing on two new protaganists. Also, don't watch WXIII in the dark. The soundtrack is really creepy! ) Edit: oh, theres also the manga, the English release of which was cruelly killed off due to poor sales. Some people just have no taste...

I suspect you are referring to the incredibly lucky Gray Death Legion, who fight Marauders with Locusts, do indeed fight three major campaigns with an ever decreasing roster of troops that never actually runs out, and grab themselves a Star League cache...

Another classic graphic novel - which was rumoured to be lined up for filming at one point, at an estimated one million dollars a page! - is Watchmen, by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. Once you read that, you will probably never look at comics, or superheroes, in quite the same way ever again. Other fun comics include Preacher and, the Authority, and Planetary. Be warned, at least the first two are for [/i]mature readers.

Of course, we could always draw the short straw... “No-one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than mans’ and yet as mortal as his own… across the great gulf of space… intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic regarded this Earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us.” - H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds.

Thanks for the vote of confidence...! You never know, I might get a bargain two-in-one deal - a flying lesson and a parachute jump...

I got a flying lesson. This is what I get for asking my parents to "surprise me"... I should perhaps explain the background here. There is scale that people like Chuck Yeager, Douglas Bader, and Max Jenius are at the top of. I'm somewhere down at the other end. It took me nine tries to pass my driving test. So, remind me... its back for up, and forward for down, yes?

Ah, Project A-Ko. One of the first anime I ever saw ( after Akira ), and it set an incredibly high standard. It was quite some time before I saw something anywhere near as good again. The directors commentray makes it clear just how ground-breaking it was at the time ( as well as the fact that guy Anno crops up in the most surprising places...! ). If someone asks you to show them the anime that has got the most elements of the medium in one package, A-Ko is the one. Shoolgirls in sailor suits, cute schoolgirls in sailor suits, superpowered schoolgirls in sailor suits, schoolgirls in battle bikinis, aliens, invasions, mecha, space dogfights, slapstick, wordplay, mile-long starships, and, of course, bento... Edit: typo.

I think you'll find thats the gross weight for a shipping carton or container for these things - not one individual piece. Something made of 13 Kgs of metal would have set off the die-cast mass sensors of every Japanese toy freak in the country...!

And just what is wrong with being called Justin, hmm...? <glares> Well, I mean asides from being expected to leap around a stage in a 70s era jumpsuit screaming "I believe in a thing called love!" in a high falsetto... Glad you asked, because now I can tell you about my theory that one of the Antichrist's name's is Justin. Notice it's 6-letter's long, and how many Justin's do you know in your life are evil? Putting a little more on the line, evil in the sense that publicy they seem to be decent people, but when you get to know them a little better they had some evil streak going, of various degrees. I can think of 3 off the top of my head, and when I stated this opinion to 3 other people I know, all the Justins they could think off had a good bit of evil to them as well. Just don't say I didn't give you a head's up. Well, I guess theres nothing else for it, then. FOOLS! I'll destroy you all! WHA-HA-HA-HAH!!! ( I suppose being the Anti-Christ beats all those incredibly original "time" jokes... )

One for the Sci-Fi Cliches list, actually: "Elite, heavily armed soldiers who appear at the start of a movie will all be toast by the end." Aliens vs Hannibal?!

And just what is wrong with being called Justin, hmm...? Well, I mean asides from being expected to leap around a stage in a 70s era jumpsuit screaming "I believe in a thing called love!" in a high falsetto...

No. 8 is a gun from an Orguss, but it doesn't look big enough to be from one of the big 1/40 scale toys, its probably from one of the smaller ones. No. 10 I'm fairly sure is from the Robotech action figure line, I think either from Mospeada or Southern Cross and possibly belonging to Scott Bernard ( going by the shape of what looks like the connector peg, I'd say No.5 is from the same line ).

For a pretty good "hard-SF" book series with a good deal of high-G, thrust vectoring, kinetic impact, gamma-laser bursting, cluster warheaded, anti-matter fuelled action, try the "Nights Dawn" trilogy by Peter F. Hamiliton.

Wow, an animation about two almost underage lesbian singers. Like theres a national shortage of those being produced in Japan...

IIRC, pachinko is a word derived from the sounds made when firing one of the little metal balls into the machine (similar to the way the word gashapon came about). If, after reading the explanation, you're baffled as to why pachinko is such a huge industry in Japan, well... you're not alone. I've played a pachinko machine, and well... I think my Dads theory is the closest to the truth: a pachinko parlour is somewhere where the harrassed Japanese person can just sit down and do nothing but flick a switch for hours...!

I first came across the "anime chara mask" thing when I visted the Winter Wonderfest this year. It was a bit odd at first, but in context with the rest of the cos-playing at the event it works. I'll admit outside of such events, yes, it probably is a bit strange, but I guess it just shows the total dedication Japanese cos-players put into this sort of thing. And it wasn't half as surprising as the Japanese Harry Potter cosplayers...

They didn't. A 3D-based game like that was way too advanced for the time. Games released during 1984 were either vector graphics (Star Wars), 2D sprites (TRON) or LD-based with no game graphics (Dragon's Lair). Universal still has the mock-up unit in one of their backlots, though. Actually... Atari had a crack at it, but it never got beyond uncompleted prototype form: http://www.klov.com/game_detail.php?letter...r=&game_id=8394 and Atari were also not beyond 3D graphics in 1983: http://www.klov.com/game_detail.php?letter...r=&game_id=8172

Manga Video in their difficult "teenage market appeal" phase, need I say more...?

The Shinden is one of my favourite WWII designs, even if it only reached the prototype stage. A beautiful aircraft ( did you know there were plans to fit it with a turbojet engine? ). The Shinden famously guest stars in one story of the Ah! My Goddess manga. The USAAF trialled a similar configuration, the Ascender, as did the RAF with a few prototypes made by Miles aircraft. AFAIK, the largest cannon carried by a WWII aircraft was a 102mm weapon installed on an Italian bomber. Probably the largest cannon ever carried by a propeller-driven aircraft is the 105mm weapon carried by some variants of the Hercules gunship - the "Spectre".

You missed my favourite quote of all: "One Gunstar? Against the whole Amarda? It'll be a slaughter!" "Thats the spirit!" "No, MY slaughter!" Oh, and: "I've always wanted to fight a desperate battle against incredible odds." Not a great movie, but a memorable one!

And the Supermarine Spiteful > everything mentioned so far with a propeller... However... one should always be careful with this sort of thing; the P-47M was a much later model than the MiG-3, although the basic design dates from nearly the same period. The Spiteful only just qualifies as a wartime model - the first production version was delivered to RAF service in March 1945, but full service entry didn't start until November, too late for the war. And its generally considered that the P-47 could dive faster than any other aircraft around, simply because it was seven-odd tons of metal behind a monster radial engine. Performance also varies with altitude, aircraft condition, type of powerplant...

Theres a couple of other possible candidates - IIRC, the Germans experimented or used large-calibre cannons on the Me-210 and Junkers Ju-88, but along with the others I think I'd put my bets on a Henschel-Hs-129. Hs-129 Trivia: the aircrafts cockpit was so narrow that some of the engine instruments had to mounted on the outside of the engine nacelles!