yaiba

The TZ-IV gun cluster is rather inaccurate on this model. It only has the grenade launcher, flamer, and 32mm machinegun mounted, and is missing the laser and 12.7mm machinegun. The front locator pin needs to be removed for parts 16-17 or there will be an unsightly lump in the barrel of the grenade launcher.

I used Evergreen plastic strip to create rifling in the barrel

The hatch covers were removed. The red circled area will have to be removed to add an interior to the missile launcher.

The launcher will be modeled after the Mk 11 Hedgehog. I temporarily fitted a missile spigot to get the correct angle for the missile. Only 11 more to go on this side.

Nice job on the Q-rau. I've been really tempted by this kit because of all the great builds people have been doing, but have managed to resist due to the scale...

I wish they had made a 1/72 one. I really wanted one at that scale.

I second the sentiment!

I've started building an Imai 1/72 Spartan that I got from 007-vf1. I have uploaded sprue scans in the folders section.

The hands go together easily, but are a little misaligned, so some filing and filling is necessary to get everything flush.

The locator pins for parts 49-50 and 51-52 need to be cut off for the circled feature to be aligned correctly. Unfortunately the missile pod doors are molded shut.

If the pins are cut off this area will be a little off, and the inserts will not sit properly in their positions. The crossbars at the rear of the shoulders were glued only after dry-fitting the inserts. They will have to be clamped to hold the proper alignment until they dry. Some filing and filling will still be necessary.

I may have to perform the dark arts on these parts so I can have something to work on to make open missile pods...

I'll continue to post build progress here if there is any interest, but you can also visit my blog for progress.

Kinda perplexing though, just seems like a totally random release, not that I'm complaining

I finally break down and buy an Imai destroid, so of course someone announces that they are releasing a new kit

Oh well, I'm not complaining either.

I kinda sorta want to choke you through the internet.

If you don't like my "art" that's fine. Say so. "coloring is not art; the shadowing was done incorrectly; her bow is too big; you spelled Shiozaki incorrectly." These could all be legitimate criticisms. If you prefer to see a naked Ranka straddling a heart that's your own choice. Sorry I could not accomodate you. Making threats about it is uncool.

Ranka in her senior year.

with apologies to Yuji Shizaki.

They now have the image of the special decal:

Ranka Guard!!!!

Damn I'd like to get a sheet. The original art for that VF25 was in trainer orange though wasn't it?

And no, I probably don't want to be convinced...because if I were, I wold also be convinced that the ending of Frontier was very badly written indeed, and I don't accept that it was. Plus, there's the fact that everyone who has tried to convince me me that Alto chose Sheryl has also felt the need to insult me at the same time, which (SURPRISE!) makes me less inclined to take the theory seriously.

But I would like to know...if it's all so obvious, why do only the Sheryl Shippers see it?

I guess this is why under Forum Rules and Guidelines it says:

Section I: Prohibited Behavior

1. No religious or political debates.

And just in case someone needs it:

And someone in IRC pointed out.....Alto's indecision now made Michel's death more meaningless since he died while knocking some sense into Alto about being decisive.

I think he drew a more important conclusion from Michel's death. That declarations of love are fatal. He didn't make a choice, and everybody got to live. QED.

the only way to solve this without Sheryl x Ranka fan wars is for the movie to skip several years and start with Alto being married or in a relationship with some other person - a completely new character.

Unfortunately for Alto, in a couple of years, Ranka's Zentraedi genes will kick in, and she will take on her Meltran heritage and turn into Ryofu Housen.

Not sure if anyone posted images, but here is a link to some images from Comiket last month:

[Otaku2] Comiket 74 Cosplay

I've gotta say that Ranka has some great legs. As for Sheryl... Well, you can see Ranka in the background in most of the pictures

Best of all though: Twin-tails Minmay... .

Hmmm, can't believe Sheryl got slapped... can't the poor girl just be left alone to die in peace?

I wonder if I'm the only one who felt sorry that poor Grace got whacked... that was also most unfair.

That slap was payback for all the Sheryl lovers/Ranka haters....ain't it a b#tch!

No, I too felt bad for Grace. She was one of the best looking characters in the entire series, and I was hoping that Ranka could snap Grace out of her evil ways before she got whacked, but it was not to be. She, did die with some grace (no pun intended), when looking down the barrel of the rifle there was a look of recognition on her face; it was as if she thought: "I know I've got this coming!" Really sad but we knew it was coming. At least we got to see her birthday suit in cyberspace before she left us!

Yup, payback's a b!tc#, but who says that Grace is really dead? That look she gave could have been of resignation as in "back to the drawing board" rather than "I'm so dead".

I wonder if the speech gave by burning Grace about "the blood of both Ranshe and Mao initiating the destruction between both species..." meant that she killed both Ranshe and Mao or that she started the attack on the 117th fleet using Ranka and causing their deaths in the process...?

she is talking not about blood in the literal sense but bloodlines, as in ranka (the daughter of ranshe) and sheryl (granddaughter of mao).

More interesting would be what she meant by "both species". Did she mean humans and vajra, or humans and zentraedi?

Since it appears Bandai has taken interest in expanding the 1/72 line, that means there's a good chance we could see a three pack Ghost set to tag along with Luca

What they really need to do is to get the 1/72 destroids reissued. Oh yeah, and a 1/72 Queadluun would be nice too.

In Japan its abit more specific by having the word "sempai" which refers to any general person that is more experienced than you in any particular activity. School, work, yakuza, etc.

Actually the yakuza would probably use "aniki" (older brother) rather than "sempai", but otherwise I agree.

Also, what's with future battle strategy?... Charge in with Island-1?! What are they thinking? How could they consider that a good idea? Also: Why don't the humans bring out the big guns right away? Suddenly all the Vajra decide to pull back and fire all at once and it's hits for massive damage?! Bah!.... *throws arms into the air*

I get the feeling that Island-1's situation is really, really desperate. Hence the rush to get it planetside ASAP, while the military cuts a path.

As for the Vajra beam spam... there are a lot more Vajra than hoomies. At least, I'm assuming so.

I doubt that the situation is so desperate that they couldn't wait until the battle was over. What Leon did was about the same as landing a tourist bus in the middle of Omaha beach during Operation Overlord. At the very least he should have saved the abandoned islands to act as decoys.

and another thing, why didn't Battle 25 just fired it's Macross cannon on the vajra queen location??? I don't think there was any evidence of the Vajra being resistant it...

Are you kidding? They want to colonize a planet not a wasteland.

"She was clad in a tunic of satin, yarded with spangles of Egyptian gold, and on her head she had a silken kerchief, fringed with blue. She wore rings in her ears and bracelets on her wrists and rings on her fingers, with beazels of precious stones, and held in her hand a rod of Indian cane. She came up to the brazier and thrust the rod into the frying-pan saying 'O fish, are you constant to your covenant?' And when the cookmaid heard this she swooned away. Then the damsel repeated her question a second and a third time; and the fish lifted up their heads and cried out with one voice, 'Yes, yes:

Return, and we return: keep faith, and so will we: Or, if thou wilt, forsake, and we'll do like to thee!'

With this the damsel overturned the frying-pan and went out by the way she had come, and the wall closed up again as before. Presently the cookmaid came to herself and seeing the four fish burnt black as coal, said, 'My arms are broken in my first skirmish!' And fell down again in a swoon."

Yes, but the biological science that is the basis of the Vajra 'infectoin' is patterned after current molecular biology and virology. A lot of what is shown "medically" is also comparable with current tech, unlike the tech stuff dealing with the mechs.

It's oddly convenient to put medical science so far behind when they clearly have microscopic technology. Using current methods that are being used for immunologic therapy though may be "too boring" for the writers. I dunno though, since I'm kind of like "oh, this problem is kind of easy to solve if Frontier has a minimum of year 2008 biological techniques at hand."

I need the other docs to back me up here, but the link above is real life science being done this year. It is not inconceivable that real life science can be applied years in the future, unless Frontier has no biologists sitting around.

The technology behind the science described is at least 15 years old, if not older. I'm more familiar with the applications related to cancer, but infectious disease applications are a no-brainer.

I'm guessing Frontier's biological research funding is much, much smaller than military research funding resulting in the gap between the two technologies.

My question though is when Ranka was examined in the earlier episodes, didn't they say she was clear of viral exposure? Circulating antibodies would have been a clear sign of exposure.

O don't know, from a moral point of view I can't see AltoxSheryl not happening, no matter what happens to Sheryl she's at a point where she has nothing, the least she deserves is "getting" Alto. And I'm not saying this because I'm a SherylxAlto fan, if the roles would have been reversed, then I would have felt the same for Ranka.

Alto will end up with Nanase, epi.23 has proven that (the hospital scene where he's kinda stared at her asset) . He doesn't deserve to end up with Sheryl or Ranka.

I agree totally!!! Alto doesn't deserve Ranka or Sheryl. Shoot, he doesn't even deserve Bobby!!

People like to throw this word around a lot, but you know what? Deserve's got nothing to do with it.

However, there are other types of viruses that don't destroy the host cell, they only modify it. I think they're referred to as enveloped viruses, and what they do is turn the host cell into a virus production factory that produces new virus material that leaves the production cell by natural cell reproduction methods...

Actually budding viruses end up killing their host cells as well. Just not in such a spectacular fashion. The rest of what you said was very close to how I see the viral mechanism as working. Essentially Ranshe would have been infected, and transmitted the virus to Ranka and possibly Brera through the germline. Which is to say the virus was incorporated into the egg that would be Ranka. The integrated virus would probably be a defective virus that does not produce any of the self replicating factors, but does produce the factors that make them capable of producing fold waves. This would explain why there was no sign of infection in Ranka, since the virus would not be replicating, and her immune system would most likely not have been exposed to the virus itself (actually I'm kind of fuzzy about viruses crossing the placental barrier, but am too lazy to look it up - I think that in reality most likely they can, but being as these are big giant phage, who knows).

I've got a question, being serious for a moment; Could somebody explain to me exactly WHAT SHERYL SEES IN ALTO? I mean with Ranka, I can see that it could just be a crush( given her age) but why is Sheryl going after him? What does Alto offer Sheryl that somebody else could not?

He is her density.

he brain-washes Alto and tells him that he's the best actor, that he's still acting in his fighter-pilot role.

n the thick-skull seems to be buying it. duh.

There seemed to be a lot of acting during the Alto x Sheryl dinner as well (on both sides). The forced cheerfulness was bordering on annoying. Whatever she feels about Alto, she still cannot fully open up to him.

So Alto joins NUNS now with their new VF-171EX toys, but he still wear SMS uniform. Also did I hear Leon ordering Frontier to do emergency fold jump to the Vajra homeworld? Very suicidal, I mean he taking the entire Frontier Island cluster with it, did he plan to conquer the planet and colonize it? Whoever win the battle, Frontier is doomed.

Sheryl is a far more compelling character because of her tragic story. Which is why she is better thank Ranka, who is just a sci-fi plot device.

Don't know if I agree with these statements, but if Sheryl gets a magic cure... that would be a feeble plot device, and the tragedy would become melodrama. For her story to be tragic, she has to die (after trying to defy the odds), anything less is just cheap pandering.