Radd

So apparently the "responsible" thing would be for Ranka to just concentrate on her singing career? The responsible thing to do would have been to sing for those mourning after the battle? Staying on Frontier and happily helping to see that those dastardly Vajra get pounded time and again, even when she's begun to realize that the Vajra maybe aren't the soulless killing machines the people of Frontier (and apparently the people making these posts) have been lead to believe? Are people really able to overlook the fact that Ranka might be the only person who can end the war, and that's not going to happen when she's singing for Grace and Leon and only encountering the Vajra during battle? Are people really able to overlook that Leon put Ranka on the spot in a really horrendous way for his own personal gain? Seriously, the Sheryl/Ranka rivalry thing was cute. This deep hatred though, and the straws people are grasping at to justify it, that's just disturbing.

Somehow, over the course of Frontier, the cute little Ranka or Sheryl fan rivalry took a very ugly turn. That's all this is. I really don't think we should be encouraging it.

You know, based on the episode descriptions hidden behind all the spoiler tags, I wouldn't be surprised if we get That could be a really awesome finale, and I can see how they could wrap it up in the next few episodes.

And Ranka might still be in the dark about being able to communicate with the Vajra, and Grace's plan would still be going perfectly. Yeah. That would have been in the best interests of everyone, I'm sure. Because the hydra are normally docile creatures, and are aboard Frontier intentionally. In an earlier episode you even saw one sitting on a meltran's lap at the mall.

Yup, he's still selling them!

I'm still kinda bummed that Skywarp and now Thundercracker look so much nicer than my G1 cartoon coloured MP Starscream.

Er...ja. I mean, seeing Ranka's leaving as selfish kinda misses the point of why exactly she's leaving. She's not going on vacation, or running away from something. She's running head on towards something. She's probably the first character in the show to come to the conclusion a lot of us came to ages ago. That wasn't rushed at all, this soul searching has been going on for quite some time. I thought the whole scene was pretty much perfect, right down to Ranka looking to be on the verge of a complete break down as she saw Alto making all the wrong decisions. For everything people have read far too much into with Frontier, I'm shocked at the things people miss.

This whole Ranka/Sheryl thing just boggles my mind.

Toynami will be bringing all the 1/100 Valkyries to North America? I wonder how that will work with the licensing situation?

Odd. I thought it was a great episode. I wonder what people didn't like about it?

I'll be sure to post here when I hear back from him.

Thank you both! I'll give Takatoys an email and see if he'd still be willing to send a sheet of the 19 stickers my way.

I think people are spoiled. They've become used to the level of accuracy present in Yamato toys where Kawamori has final say in what gets released. And even there fans can find things to complain about. Everyone wants the perfect toy. Everyone has their own expectations, both reasonable and unreasonable. You know what? There's really nothing at all wrong with that. Personally, I've always found that it's incredibly silly to argue with someone that they should simply settle for what they're getting and not complain that they'd like to see better. One could also argue that what we're seeing is the prototype images, and the final version could very well change. Still, that just means now it is especially important for fans to complain, if there's to be any hope of seeing their desired improvements. Why would any company spend valuable time, money, and resources to make big improvements to a toy that is already hearing nothing but praise? They make these changes because they see a demand for them, and wish to sell as many as possible. On the other hand, when I look at the Bandai prototypes shown I notice two things. First, that they look noticeably more "toy-like" in detail and proportions than what we've come to expect from Yamato. Second, I notice, as someone else pointed out, that these toys look to be about $50-$100 less than similarly sized Yamato Valkyries. I'm also hoping the QC will be better, and we won't be complaining about loose joints shortly after they're released. All these things need to be considered. Finally, it is always important to realize that criticism and complaints are not the opposite of enthusiasm, apathy is.

Hey all, Settling into my new apartment I set about unpacking my Macross toys into their respective display cases, and realized that I had not applied any stickers to my 1/60 YF-19. Probably just hadn't gotten around to it since it already has some of the major details tampo-printed on, or maybe I was waiting for someone to announce a nice sticker set since I've the same misgivings about Yamato's sticker sets as lots of other people. I was gone from the site for a while towards the beginning of the year, and completely missed it if anyone did announce any good sticker sets. Today I spent a while scouring the Toys forum, searching back as far as I could, and did not see any mention of 1/60 YF-19 stickers. Oddly enough, found several threads regarding 1/72 sticker sets, but none for the 1/60. I went over to TMPAnime and saw a couple sticker sets but none that I was looking for. And while I'm asking, did anyone ever make a nice set for the 1/100 Konig Monster? Or the 1/60 YF-21? All the toys I've stickered up are decked out in Anasazi37 and Takatoys sets. Thanks much!

This is the version I am talking about. If you look at the centre white section, that's where most of the problems are. If the ship could transform, that section would have to remain as-is, which would just look weird.

I've never seen anything to indicate that this is true. Even the artwork looks as though the ship would not have been able to transform.

Well, the SA was a faction of the Protoculture in the same way that the Varuta are a faction of humans. It's actually a credit to the series that there's so few other races in the story. They could have easily pulled a Star Trek, like so many other shows/anime. And, as I understand the story, humans are not Protoculture "ancestors" in that we came directly from Protoculture, but that humans are the result of Protoculture directly meddling with life on Earth. That narrows the "definition" gap between human and zentradi in this context. Both races are products of the Protoculture via genetic engineering. And the EVIL series are pretty incidental to the Protodevlin appearance in M7. One might as well complain about Zentradi appearing in every single Macross, even when it's been as an integrated part of human society ever since SDF:M. So the Birdman is a machine with bio parts. So are Q-Raus. So are zentradi battleships. Again, where do you draw the line? It seems like a very odd complaint to make. But like it or not, the Protoculture are a big part of the series, and always has been. The Protoculture and the Protodevlin pretty much set everything in motion. Even this far into the third Macross tv series, there are unanswered questions. To be fair, out of 6 series/OVAs (not counting DYRL since it was a retelling of SDF:M, or Flashback since it was kind of an epilogue to both) 4 have dealt with Protoculture themes, and two have been exactly what you're talking about when asking for side stories not dealing with the Protoculture themes. Considering the amount of time between Macross productions, and the questions that have lingered with Macross fans in the time between them, that's not a bad ratio, hardly indicative of a series returning to the "same old thing" to the point where it's ridiculous. I've no problem with the idea of seeing more Macross side stories, like I said I'd love to see more of that, too, it's just that the complaint that all we've seen, aside from Plus, is the Protoculture bio-terror of the week seems like such a silly argument. Especially when it's not entirely true.

Er, the Supervision Army was not a Protoculture biological weapon. The Protodevlin were not Protoculture biological weapons. The EVIL series bodies they inhabited were, but not the Protodevlin themselves. The Protodevlin were also the force behind the Supervision Army, just as they were behind the Varuta forces. And the Supervision Army has never shown up as an enemy for humanity to face, seeing as how they were wiped out after the Protodevlin were originally sealed away. We don't know that the Vajra come from the Protoculture. We have some indication that they are, and some indication that they aren't (if the narration speaking of the limits of the Protoculture and all Protoculture races was translated correctly). We'll see how that all wraps up. So, let's see, out of three series and three OVAs we have two confirmed examples of "biological weapons", if you consider a clone army to be a biological weapon (and if you do, then where do you draw the line? What about humans and zolans?). That would be the Zentradi, and the EVIL series weapons designed to replace the Zentradi but being used by another enemy entirely. The Birdman is as much a machine as a Zentradi warship, or battlepod, or Q-Rau. What more would you expect from a race that's shown to have biologic-based technology? Where do we draw the line? At any rate, we're not exactly seeing a recurring, "What Protoculture bio-terror will our heroes face this week?" formula, with the same story endlessly repeated. Also, Dynamite was another such Plus-like side story, without "Protoculture bio-weapons". I love both Plus and Dynamite, so sure I'd like to see more along those lines, but as it is they're hardly rehashing the same story over and over with SDF:M, M7, and Frontier.

Heh. Have to admit, I started with Robotech as a kid in the 80's, and hated "Minmei". Still, after then getting into DYRL and then SDF:M, I find I don't dislike Minmay at all anymore. Especially in DYRL she comes off as a much more likable character. I thought the whole love triangle aspect was much better done in the movie than in the tv series. I suspect at least part of that is due to how it was stretched out for the tv series when they added episodes. I'm also curious as to the opinion of people who weren't exposed to Robotech (where I believe I read that Macek intentionally made "Minmei" as unlikeable a character as possible because he didn't like her or her place in the series).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wfm3_BMinhg They're coming!

Ja, I really have to admit that a 1/100 parts-swapper is not what I want. I'm just desperate for a VF-4. Like, seriously, it's my alltime favourite Valkyrie. My favourite fighter mode, my favourite battroid. And it gets so little attention. A perfect transformation 1/60 or (dare I dream?) 1/48 would be the greatest Macross toy news ever, for me.

Ah well. At least there's MP Thundercracker on the way. So long as the MP line continues I'll be happy.

So Alternity is smaller than the Alternators? Aww. I saw the pictures and thought it might look great alongside my Alternators collection.

Same here. They made some odd changes to the game, such as making the neutral areas into Federation camps. That removed all the instances where you would run into Imperial characters. If they'd kept that in, they could have done some fun stuff with the dialogue there. They also turned the backgrounds into an overbuilt dystopian future, rather than the burned out wasteland the NES version gave the impression of. And they removed both Hal and the spy! I was sorry to see that. They could have played that out a lot better with the improved new dialogue they've got going in the game. Still, the improvements certainly outweighed my complaints. I don't think the game is all that easier than the NES game. Being able to save makes it seem a lot easier. I've been playing both versions pretty much constantly. ReArmed on my PC at home, and the original emulated on my DS when I'm out. Some things are actually a lot harder in ReArmed. Gottfried Groeder is much more difficult than his NES counterpart. All of the boss battles are, really. Haven't had a chance to finish that last level, though. The game chugs on my system (apparently it doesn't play well on single core machines, even if you've got the specs where it should play well) and I lost a videocard a few days ago, so no more SLi for me. I may upgrade my whole computer soon. I love the remixed soundtrack. So much so that I bought the soundtrack off of iTunes.

VF-4? VF-4! VF-4! VF-4! Now if only that does well enough for someone to say, "Hey! Let's do a 1/60!"