nghia59

I cleaned it up for ya as much as I could. Enought o see that the pilot is Roy Focker. - Nghia

Makes you wish wall scrolls were still in vogue.

From what I hear, Hasegawa released this in very limited quantities and was sold out imediately. I was wondering if anyone here knows if this will get a woder release as I do love the paint scheme and the beautiful box art. - Nghia

Correct me if I'm wrong but are those supposed to be the super nova colors for the 19's? If so I'm a bit dissapointed that they just reused the paint masks from the original 19. Would have prefered them to use the scheme from Model Graphics and the same mask for both with a bunch of racing decals. <_< <_< - Nghia http://www.macrossworld.com/macross/magazi...june02page7.jpg http://www.macrossworld.com/macross/magazi...june02page3.jpg http://www.macrossworld.com/macross/magazi...une02page11.jpg http://www.macrossworld.com/macross/magazi...une02page10.jpg http://www.macrossworld.com/macross/magazi...une02page12.jpg http://www.macrossworld.com/macross/magazi...june02page9.jpg http://www.macrossworld.com/macross/magazi...june02page8.jpg

In case you guys haven't seen this on HLJ, it's a really good deal. http://www.hlj.com/product/YMT00075 For a hundred bones you can get a low-viz 2.0 and woodland cammo GBP. - Nghia

So lemme' ask you guys, what difference does it make now that we can get all this stuff readily from HLJ? The cost for all the new stuff isn't that bad 'specially when the VF-1's have gone back to 1/60. If someone were to import these guys from Japan to the US market you'd still have to pay a shipping difference and since Macross isn't aired here (and the toys have tiny child choking parts) the market would would not be big enough to get a better price anyway. Also you can find this stuff fairly ready at any import toy or comics shop these days. - Nghia P.S. I might be talking out of my ass since I live in Orange County California and anime seems to grow on trees here.

OK, so changing the subject. What do you guys think about how Yamato is going to deal with peeps not buying as much? Is the toy market going to go the way of the trading card and comics market of the early 90's? I just hope they'll still make their production runs available for years to come because there is defenitely a long-term audience out there for them for Macross. I don't mind buckling down for now because I don't have the "gotta' have it now" bug, but would like to continue collecting after I get back on my feet and not miss out on Macross runs having to pay extra $$ for them like those dark days of modding bootleg 1/55's. That would suck man. It was like finding a 1/55 deal on ebay triggered a junkie (or should i say chunkie? ) euphoria. - Nghia

Actually I think the 90's (maybe even the 80's) happened and the rampant use of credit by the average person. We used to buy everything with cash (remember those days?) then something happened in the 90's that made it easier for peeps to start borrowing, and Americans got used to this lifestyle and now we have this problem. I've known friends who are in debt up to their eyeballs and are OK with it up to the point where they keep racking up the debt as if it's the new cool lifestyle. It goes from paying your bills of with your card, to paying off your TV, then paying off your car, then paying off your martgage. Pretty soon they're tens of thousands; even hundreds of thousands in debt. I've seen credit addiction like a bad drug addiction in some people. The banks loan out more money than they have because they're greedy to keep this cash cow going and there you have the situation that we're in now. - Nghia

This reminds me of a story that my friend Toren Smith told me in the early 90's. He was bidding on some manga licenses with another company who was pretty shady and lost the bid to the higher bidder. Well, it turns out that when the other guy finally made all the sales, he never coughed up the high license fee he promised the Japanese publishers that won him the bid. So according to my friend, the moral of the story is that it's easy to promise unreasonable sums of money if you have absolutely no intention of paying it in the first place. I feel the banks were loaning money to people that they never had and knew how to get out of it without having to pay. There's always someone making a decision at the top of the ladder and there's always a plan or at least a plan of escape. The creation of money by the Federal Reserve is exactly that. Devaluation of currency is exactly that. By loaning out cash that is printed out of thin air is in an underhanded way of loaning bits of money from everyone to borrowers. We pay about one third our wages in taxes to an agency who runs the banking system and in return tells us that we make money from it all by paying back only 2% in annual interest rates. Pretty good racket for those cooking the books but not for the rest of us on the recieving end. - Nghia

I don't think the world is so much poor. I think the banks are poor and the lack of cashflow is the issue. Not that there isn't a profit potential out there for businesses. So where did the money go if the banks are poor? To the guys that own them bleeding out the cash from the rest of us. The world isn't done by any degree but it sure as hell makes it lame for collecting. I'm OK as long as I don't spend frivolously, but dammit all to hell Macross was the reason why I had a job to begin with. Not because I necessarily love making games. I like making games just not love. Hey Graham, is there anyway that Yamato can slow down releases at all? They seem to be putting out too much too fast for peeps to keep up with, and it also seems that they are dumping stock because HLJ has new restock at clearance prices. - Nghia

Word. - Nghia

Well for me the issues are... 1.) no immediate income 2.) no prospective employment because of lack of lending to publishers 3.) the games inustry made more money than the history of games last year but is tanking for reason 2 4.) Yamato is releasing too much cool stuff all at once 5.) HLJ seems to be dumpping their Macross stock 6.) cost of living is still rediculous given the economic conditions Man, the stingyness of banks is really messing with how things should opperate. I should be very gainfully employed given the history and track record of where games have gone bussiness wise. But the lack of investment capitol is solely the reason for how this mess is getting out of hand even for profitable industries that are prooven money makers. The game I was working was literally cancled so the publishers could scavange the remaining budget for other projects because of the money crunch. Nothing wrong with the project otherwise. Sad. Oh yeah, and I think something like 15 independent game developers went out of business in the last 18 months while almost everyone outside of Activision and CAPCOM has had lay-offs. - Nghia

Yeah, I'd say that I planned fairly well with some cash saved in the bank and some fairly large tax returns comming for me but it's the companies dissappearing that's gotten me worried. I think I 'll have enought to last 2 years of unemployment with the help of umemployment and some random freelance work but at the end of that, it could wind up being really bad if the rest of the world doesn't get better. I haven't stopped completely buying toys but have to scale back to the absolute essentials for now and will prolly sell off some of the older pieces of the collection if anyone is interested in buying older valk runs. - Nghia

Hey also if you guys can, please let us know what industry you're in. As for me, I'm a game artist. I have a pretty nice collection but now I have to really consider whether I need something or not before I plunk down the cash. Before I was really trying to have a complete collection as it was one of my childhood dreams.

So I've been getting Macross toys since the 80's and have had my personal ups and downs in the different phases of collecting. But recently the state of the economy is really scaring the bejeezus out of me. I've been in the video games industry for 11 years now and finally got to a good place in my career. Then whamo! The economy actually struck in the form of no credit lines available for new and upcomming projects. So to make a long story short, my project was canceled and I was laid off. Normally this wouldn't even phase me as I've never had an issue of getting jobs before but now with so many developers who've gone under in the last 18 months as well as big companies on a hiring freeze it's actually a scary prospect for finding work. I'm actually worried that i might have to start selling off my collection to make ends meet if it gets worse in the summer. So the big question to you guys is... How's everyone doing so far on the collecting and how are you guys coping with problems if you are? - Nghia

Would be nice to see a black and red variant on this one as to get the aiwa nagareru version from the TV series climax battle. :D :D :D :D :D :D

I don't think that anybody who goes out and makes toys for a living whether it be management or production goes out to screw the consumer. You only get into that sort of industry if you really love what you do and belive in it. If anyone is out purely for profit, there are other industries that you can get into that will have a far higher yield in profit than a specialty market than collectors toys. For the most part, I think that the prices are high just because of manufacturing costs and the small production numbers that they cater to. I work in the video games field and it will surprise you at the risks involved on a per project basis. I don't think that there are any employees that I know at any company that is out to screw the consumer. Everyone makes a huge effort in trying to figure out how to make a better product for the fans and are really proud of the work they do to bring something to the table. Let's say that in any current game there is an expectation in quality per asset that we would have to generate to make the end consumer happy. Characters are a good example. The starting cost of a character to build the first base model with textures will be about $14000 US of man hours to get the ball rolling and see it in game to be reviewed. Tack on the next level, rigging and animation will put $30000 on per character. So we are at $44000 per character in the first pass. Now double that to $88000 per character to take it to final and multiply that by the number of characters you see in every game. That's just the cost of business trying to get something as good as it can be for guys like every one on this forum to be happy with it. BTW, that's not even including all the other stuff like programming, environment art, effects, third party apps, marketing, manufacturing, lisencing, equipment, programs, and rent. Believe it or not toy manufacturing can be just as expensive because you actually have to deal with the physical aspects of the end product. Anyone who does this type of stuff does the best they can to keep the consumer happy. Even outside of our personal want for the product to be good we always have management bearing down on the team for more quality every day. So I think that with Yamato's track record of successes given their relatively small size and short history, I can be very forgiving for what they have produced. And don't forget how spoiled we all are these days because of them. People tend to forget that before they came along companies like Bandai wouldn't give two shakes of a rat's ass's attention to Macross fans and just let the lisence laps without even a hint of product development. We had to wait for resin kits (that are not as good as any Yamato) to come out at Japanese toy shows for us to hunt down on auction sites. So all in all, I think that Yamato is doing a really good job of keeping the prices as low as they can or the quality level given the small market we are as Macross fans. And no, I don't think that they are greedy. I actually think that they are taking some fairly large risks given what they are trying to do versus the relative size of their market. I have also been a victim of broken arms on my vf-0a, wrong, stress boken, or flipped joints on earlier 1/72 plus valks, broken or unpainted OG 1/60's, floppy 1/48's, etc... But i can still forgive them for what they're trying to do. - Nghia

Have you guys seen these? http://www.sankakucomplex.com/2008/12/23/m...ro-cds-on-sale/ Funny how they're pushing the stickers more than the music on the CD's. But I have to say I really like the second and third Sheryl drawing a lot. BTW, you have to hit the button to toggle the images on. Not too sexy as the page leads you to believe. - Nghia

From what I know the movie's been scrapped. My friend Jerry was directing it (comming off Gears of War as the Art Director) but Warners took such a hit on both Speed Racer and Clone Wars that they cancled Thundercats altogether. It was also supposed to be an all CG movie not live action.

http://www.famitsu.com/game/coming/1215903_1407.html Just thought that you guys might want to know about this.

Holy crap! :blink: :blink: Just finished watching it! This has to be the best episode to date! Production quality is out of sight! M Frontier team, keep up the great work!

http://www.g-system-shop.com/ENG/eng.htm http://www.g-system-shop.com/cp-zlk/145_1-...0Ming_May/1.htm Check it out! Kinda' expensive but these guys are top notch. B)) B)) -Nghia

Yeah he did them. Saw him at San Diego Con in '88 (jeez I'm old) and he told me that it was his "responsibilty". LOL, interesting choice of words.

Sonoda was the character guy. He designed the hardsuits because they were all part of the character tree. Aramaki did all the mech stuff and there were a bunch of fill in guest artists designing boomers, special cars, guest mecha (DD was designed by Masami Obari) etc... . Megazone 23 Part 1 was designed by Hideki Kakinuma and Aramaki did the rest (part 2 and 3).

I'm not that huge of a megazone fan either, but this thing is really damn nice. I just hope that they make all the mechs from the second series as they are all top notch designs that are a bit underappreciated for the look and design. Most of the anime is in the dark or just horribly composed in action scenes so that they don't get any moneyshot love. But when I got my first art book (back in 86), I was amazed at how nice the designs were. Afterall it's the same guy that designed all the Bubblegum Crisis mechs.