F-ZeroOne

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!

Batou is right - the picture in Perfect Memory does indeed have "UN SPACY" down the leg; however other shots in other modes don't. The same goes for other Valkyrie model variants in the book, but the few colour scenes from the TV series which feature the VF-1J don't have it...

Actually, I've come across the same story in a couple of books on Japan I've read - though where the original sources spring from, I don't know. It does seem to be a fact that gay characters are more accepted in Japanese manga and anime than they are in the West. Whether it was more common than in any other occupations at the time I've no idea. If it is true, its perhaps yet more evidence for Arthur C. Clarkes assertion that homosexuals should be prevented from taking military careers - if only because [/i]they're too warlike by far!

When I saw Alien 3 a few years back I also thought it was a touch underrated. Its not as good as the two before it, but I don't think it deserves quite as much hate as it gets. There are far, far worse films out there. I will say that I do tend to think of it as the "British" Alien movie, due to the casting...

I haven't seen this film yet, but I was rather amused by the publicity shot thats appeared in this thread. Having had the opportunity to wear a set of samurai armour once, I couldn't help but think "The wuss! Hes not wearing the helmet!" (its heavy and nearly made me fall off the horse... ) Also, when I saw the trailer recently, theres a shot where they're walking up the steps under this huge temple/shrine [1] gate. At the back of my mind, I couldn't help thinking "now just pull the camera back and show us the roadway thats right in front of that shot... " [1] There is a difference, I knows theres a difference, and I can never remember it...!

I love Urusei Yatsura - along with Patlabor on TV (which shared a lot of the same creative talent) - its perhaps my favourite anime TV series and the movies are wonderful. This website might help you: http://www.furinkan.com/tomobiki/uy/index.htm And I probably won't do my credentials much good by stating that my favourite UY theme is "Born to be Free" from the opening of Remember My Love...

Heh, can't resist this Stargate SG-1 quote, as two of the team are running down the checklist for a new fighter: "Inertial dampers?" "Inertial dampers?! Cool! ... ...and, er, check."

Hmm, seems like Kawamori has been taking cues from the Russian Mi-28 Havoc helicopter (which has a small compartment for a couple of people, despite its anti-tank role ) and the Israeli Merkava tank, which can also carry a small squad of soldiers if its ammunition load is reduced - having seen the size of the hatch they go through, I'm not sure how they fit in there either! Possibly people carrying Octos lose some weapons/ammo capacity when acting in a troop carrioer role?

Sigh... I don't really think its anything to worry about ( well, obviously asides from the deceased and the accuseds relatives ). In almost every case of this kind that I've heard of, there is always some other factor that made the person more inclined to react in a violent way to something they read or saw (drug habit, problems at home, etc... ) Frankly, by the sounds of it, it could have been almost any SF-related item from the past hundred years that could have set the guy off; Evangelion isn't unqiue in its bleak outlook for humanity - heck, H.G. Wells had much the same view over a hundred years ago. Besides, if Evangelion really was the direct cause, then we should have been looking at a vast murder spree from the time of its broadcast to the present, and yet this is the first case I've heard of since then... ...frankly, the only desire I had after watching End of Evangelion was a sudden need to grab someone and have them explain what the heck had just happened...

The S-Tank does indeed look cool, and its certainly a novel concept. However, the British Army tested the type a while back and found it had a number of drawbacks; it could not fire with any great accuracy while on the move and had to expose a large area of the vehicle when in a hull-down firing posistion. I would imagine there are drawbacks to not having a turret as well ( for example, I've often seen on the news US tanks traversing Iraq in a staggered column, with each tanks gun covering a different direction; I'd be interested to know how the S-Tank would do that...! ) Also, given the general downsizing of most NATO armies recently, I would imagine the Leopard 2s were available and the Swiss army felt they represented better value for money than an up grade. I can't believe I'm going to say this next bit, but... the S-Tank is actually a guest star in at least one episode of the infamous "Legend of the Overfiend" series, for reasons that can only be be guessed at...