Chronocidal

"MECHA-SHIVA!! MECHA-SHIVA!!" One of my friends bought the first boxed set, but I haven't seen this show in quite a while now. I forget how it got arranged, but I know we randomly caught the episode with the "Mars the Bringer of War" bit while the henchmen got dressed, and almost died laughing on the spot. The rest of the episode was good as well, especially the parts where Brock killed a guy with a caulking gun, and Dr. Venture's eye pops out of it's socket and starts waggling around, and you actually get to see his perspective on it.

Lol... Ranka wearing

Don't think so... grrrrrrrr. and the waiting begins.. on the bright side, maybe I'll be able to finish my homework before it finishes

*monty python bit plays in head* at least they didn't call it the jehovah *waits to be stoned*

I honestly can't even see enough of her head in that video to tell one way or another, but just looking at the feet, she seems to swap directions on her own regularly, without me even thinking about it. I think it has to do with the perspective... With the natural focal point of the picture in the middle, the feet seem like they should be above you. So, whichever foot is higher looks closer. The problem is, there's not always one foot higher than the other.. and sometimes, the same foot stays above the other. Eh.. I always screw these kinds of left brain/right brain tests up anyway.. I can write any combination of forwards or backwards simultaneously with both hands to begin with. Used to creep my friends out.

My jaw just hit the floor and did a double take at the same time... so it hit the floor twice. O_O I don't want to get too optimistic about this, but this could mean very good things for MacF in the US with Bandai's involvement.. The fact that Toynami has been using the DYRL label for some things recently could mean they decided to go straight to the original source. Now, my big question... I wonder how much this could be related to the idea of a robotech movie that's been bouncing around.. Toynami toys haven't been so mainstream that you can find them at the average walmart (at least I haven't seen any, if someone can correct me, please do).. I remember seeing robotech toys in the past, but outside of collectors shops, I've seen nothing since the 80s. On the other hand, you go anywhere near the Transformers in toy stores today, and you might get bowled over by the amounts of Gundam stuff. So... is it possible that Toynami is looking to Bandai since it doesn't think it could keep up with the production requirements that would go hand in hand with successful merchandizing of a movie? I don't know about anyone else, but if I saw classic chunkies sitting on a shelf in walmart next to a stack of Optimus Primes, I'd probably need new pants. As for them remaining unchanged... well, I don't know how big Toynami is as a company, but I'm gonna bet Bandai could buy them out ten times over and not break a sweat. Any changes by Toynami to the 1/55 would be like a direct slap in the face to Bandai. I don't know what that might cause in the business world, but it couldn't be good for Toynami.

Thank you, that makes much more sense now.

Wow. That was good even without the dialogue, but I can't wait for the subs... stupid old keyboard.. *looks around for a spare F5 key* Btw, someone mentioned something about the plane above the high school not looking quite like a VF-1.. In most shots it's a little distorted, but you can definitely make out the shape and even some markings in the opening.

As far as the speech around the bridge goes, this even spills over into the episode 1 Deculture edition. The entire comm transmission to the ship with Sheryl aboard starts out in English, then moves to Japanese as the conversation becomes more informal. That's natural though, especially in terms of air/space traffic control. Unless I'm remembering incorrectly, the official spoken language of air traffic control is English, no matter which country you're in. I think it has to do with making sure everyone is on the same page for safety reasons, and other things like that. At the very least, the English alphabet is still sometimes used in communications using the old "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot" etc. speech.

My only real complaint about that AT-AT is the size of the head.. yes, I know it's so they can fit a figure in it.. but the crazy proportions of the head compared with the rest of the body make it look like a cartoon.

I'd guess they're both in their late 20's to early 30's actually... say Ozma's 30, Cathy's about 28. Take it back 11 years, and you've got 17 year old Cathy in the Miss Macross pageant, and Ozma's a little older than Alto is now. It could work. I don't think they're that far apart in age. If someone has confirmed how long ago Cathy was in the pageant that'd give a good frame of reference. Making Ozma young at the time he finds Ranka also would help explain why he adpoted her as a little sister, rather than picking up a parent/child type relationship.

I can definitely see it as Alto possibly injuring/killing someone else in his squad. If we really want to screw with the formula, just think of what it'd do to the story if he wound up actually killing Ozma somehow.. I don't think SK would be that cruel, but admit it, it would throw the entire story into the unknown, not to mention toss Ranka's sanity to the wolves. As far as a worst case scenario, I'd say it's possible. What I'm really hoping for this Sterne character is that he doesn't turn out to be a Basara wannabe, with another musical fighter craft.

Lol.. I kind of half-drew it.... I basically took a pic of Konata, redrew her with KK's clothes/hair, and colored it in. I posted the bigger version early in the Ep4 thread.

ROFL. *drools over good tie fighter design* Me likey. I'll have to start looking for one of those once I get my own apartment.

They're all part of SMS, since they've all got the same uniform jackets, share the same facilities, etc.. plus they were all at the same SMS party at the restarurant. With SMS's status as a testing group, it makes sense that they'd have their own recon teams, since they'd need someone to scout out proper testing areas for whatever they happen to be working on. As for them hiring kids in SMS... I'm almost tempted to think they do it for similar reasons to why Willy Wonka wanted to give his factory to a kid. Do it early enough, and they may not be jaded by military rules and regulations. Plus, SMS seems to me like they don't worry as much about strict rules and such, so they probably have more leeway with who they hire. On a side note, it actually doesn't surprise me much age-wise, considering the situation today. Was talking with some navy folks recently, and what people are finding is that the current popularity of video games is producing a bumper crop of people with incredible reflexes from very early ages. I've personally been crazy about flight simulations since about age 8, and while I don't pretend to know jack about combat, I'm pretty sure I could jump in a fighter and fly it if I was given the opportunity (although the aeronautics degree I have would certainly help too ). The earlier you get people into planes, the more adaptable they will be. I'm not saying that we should start recruiting middle schoolers into fighter squadrons, but the ability may still be there that early.

I wouldn't necessarily bet that the Hasegawa battroid and fighter kits are exactly the same proportions, but they'd probably very be close. I've used lots of Hasegawa kit instructions before for modeling, Macross and other aircraft alike. Whatever processes they use for making those schematics usually result in near perfect consistency, making the modeling methods shown in these videos work really well (putting the schematics on a box of appropriate size). I'd be willing to bet that Hasegawa designs all their kits by computer now, and the instructions are made with lineart renders of the models themselves. In terms of the VF-0 though, I'd almost assume that keeping proportions between modes would be a done deal.. since the original model is entirely CG, it would only make sense for Hasegawa to make their molds based on the original computer model. Assuming they didn't use any warping magic with the transformation, that would mean the design itself is completely consistent in all modes... provided Hasegawa used the same model for both kits, it should be possible to make a rough duplicate of the original. Might have to scale a few things here and there, but it's nothing like the inconsistencies that pop up in the VF-1.

Hmm.. yeah, the X-Wing there isn't quite 1/18.. the figure may be that scale, but he only fits in the cockpit because there aren't any other things like consoles and joysticks (and seat cushions) to get in the way. The actual scale of those X-Wings works out to something like 1/22. The actual film miniatures in ANH were a little bigger than the FX scale ones, I think a little over 2 feet long, but still only around 1/20th scale. Actually, judging by the photos I've seen of the movie props, the ships may have used pilots that were only 1/24 scale.. The cockpits of the props were never actually seen well during filming, so they didn't ever bother to make them match the sets used for the cockpit shots (which is why the ERTL X-Wing kits had such fugly cockpits and pilots - they were based on the props alone, with no attention to the movies). The props always looked like they used some sort of race car driver figure judging by the helmet and posture (maybe gripping a steering wheel). Btw, that full-sized paneled tie fighter is awesome. I have the old midget version somewhere, but I'm tempted to get another one now. Tell me though, did they ever fix the back end to be accurate? My old one has some funky looking box stuck on the back (hyperdrive mod?), not the round hatch-looking thing with the black hexagon on it.

Hmm.. you're right, although her having amnesia may play into that. My thought was that from the way they described the incident, there shouldn't have been any survivors. Still probably up in the air from differences in translation. They may just be worried about her relationship to SMS getting made public.. I can't tell yet if they're supposed to be a secret organization or not.

K, glad someone is keeping track of the dates, I forgot when Mac7 took place. Good to know it's not a possibliity then. The fold dislocation I would assume just means a miscalculation of some type... possibly ending up with the ship defolding within an occupied region of space (ie, the middle of a planet). It could also mean something like a misalignment of the fold region.. like with the SDF-1 taking a chunk out of Earth with it. Instead of bringing extra stuff along with it, maybe individual fold fields intersected in some way that had a swiss-cheese effect on the fleet, only transporting certain portions of the ships. As for the emotion angle, I think that's essentially what spritia was always meant to be anyway.. don't think it has to be connected with music (mostly, drums aren't vocal or melodic, they're essentially just hitting things to a rhythm but that didn't stop Veffidas). Emotion just happens to go right along with music most of the time. It's more the involvement of the person in the music that brings out the emotion. I don't really think they suspect Ranka of having some sort of power yet though, otherwise they'd probably be studying her more already. Right now it just looks like they want to cover up the fact that she somehow survived a disaster that they want to keep as secret as possible.

Stupid, idiotic, impossible theory time. K, Ranka's 1/4 zentraedi, her voice has weird powers, etc. etc... *pause for effect* So she could be Basara and Mylene's kid, right? *ducks flying vegetables and other assorted blunt objects* As ridiculous as that may be, it fits in a few more ways than I care to think about... if the research team was actually conducting experiments in deep space about spiritia, and just happened to accidentally attract the vajra... As much as I hope this isn't the case, I do think its at least vaguely possible. That would also explain Ranka's weird abilities. And actually, aside from any possible relation, Leon's supposed rigging of the votes does make a lot of sense from the military side of things... They have her blood sample, and probably know she's a survivor of that lost research group. If she ever got into the limelight and revealed that there were survivors of that incident, the military would be in a serious pickle. You kinda don't just accidentally survive when your fleet blows up or gets lost from a bad fold. Any proof of survivors kills the current military alibi.

Looks pretty good, but as fast as he's going, the methods he's using can result in a pretty inefficient model if he isn't careful (lots of excess polygons from divisions, etc). He obviously has great command of the 3ds Max interface, but I'm surprised he isn't using more splines. No doubt it's pretty though. Looks like he's sticking with a pretty low polygon count, so this might be for a game of some sort.

I believe I'll happily trade some action to get to see Ozma pelted with various kitchen utensils by a jealous Ranka. Love how he dodged the flying knife, only to get clobbered by a wok. And yes, I second that avatar comment. I watched that scene about 20 times. I didn't realize it at first, but it looks like KK has the same movable hair feature as Ranka, judging by the part where she starts fuming.

My guess about only firing the shoulder cannon once would be either it's high power gives it a longer recharge time, or she was just startled by it not working the first time. The shot that sent her spinning later looked like it damaged the suit as well, so she may not have been able to shoot after that. The various weapons fired by the vajra so far have very nearly matched what humans have, at least up to reaction weapons. What I really wonder about though is the strange burst countermeasures they used in the first episode.. it was hard to see them, but they looked like a cross between chaff and a forcefield. The way Ozma was dodging, it looked like they were semi-solid objects that appeared. Also, the glowy nature of the vajra missiles reminds me a little of the weapons used by the Aphos. We have yet to see them pull any punches the way Sara was able to do (making the weapons just disappear into thin air), but it wouldn't surprise me if they have the ability to do so.

Wow.. that shuttle is a beauty What makes the large scale x-wings appealing is that they seem to be about studio scale, minus a few interpretive changes. The action figures really are still slightly too big for them, but the ship is large enough that it doesn't matter, and they still fit in the cockpit. The y-wing is another story entirely.. if it were made in scale with the x-wings, it'd be easily another 6-7 inches longer, making it about two and a half feet long. The toy y-wing they did produce looks like an SD version. Actually, a lot of the off-scale vehicles tend to remind me of Joke Machines. I don't worry about the vehicles being in scale with each other so much as I do them being in overall correct proportions.. The sizes of some vehicles makes it very easy to make them accurate, while others just get butchered. They did really well with some, like the A-Wing, Snowspeeder, and Naboo N-1 (the N-1 is huge, it may actually be in full scale with the figures, since the ship in the movie really isn't that big compared with an X-Wing, but it's bigger than the FX scale one). Even the Tie fighters are pretty good, if you exclude the shrunken panels on the standard fighter. The interceptor, bomber, and DV's Tie all looked pretty decent.

The big question is, did you catch the flying model VF-25?? The minmay doll was at least on screen for more than one frame, but I managed to freeze one frame where you can see a VF-25's leg with purple trim, right below the flying pan. As for reaction weapony though, I always thought that referred spcifically to nuclear weapons. I'd have to watch SDFM again to be sure, but I think the point where they recognize reaction weapons being used on them is when one of their cruisers gets nuked. They're pretty startled by it, as if it had either been forbidden for them to use, or they had lost the technology long ago. I don't remember seeing any similar reaction when the Valks started blowing micro missiles every which way.