I just spent nine hours posting things to the eBay.

So, anyone need any Transformers toys or random lots of comic books? Why not browse through the crap I'm trying to get out of my house?

Actual content later this weekend.

This is the one I want.

Atom @ CollectionDX reviews the MegaHouse Mospeada Ride Armor VR-052F (Stick Type). Looks pretty good, though I'm a little worried by the comments of having to chase popped-off parts 'round the room. Both modes look pretty cool, tho..

Note that THIS is the one that Toynami is going to be selling remarked imports of in the near future (if not now -- thought I saw one of both this and the Rey type with Toynami stickers on 'em on the ol' eBay).

I stole this picture from my sister for all of you.

Found at my sister's LiveJournal: a Macross Frontier cream puff. I wonder if it's as completely insubstantial as the show is, or if it is utterly derivative of other, better cream puffs that have gone before.

Yeah, you're going to just have to deal with me ragging on Frontier every time I bring it up. I really, really hated that show. It made me angry.

Read About Reading Material.

Image of Silverback variable jeep featured in the new Shadow Chronicles Role Playing Game book.

-- MedMapGuy finally got his hands on The Art of Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles and felt the need to blog about it. Honestly, I would agree with most of his criticisms, especially about the overuse of the ROBOTECH font and the choices made regarding which pictures are big (screencaps) and which aren't (production art). Hell, I probably made most of those very same criticisms either here on the blog or on one of my YouTube videos when I went through the book six to eight months ago ... but to be honest, I don't remember anymore.

-- The Shadow Chronicles Role Playing Game is out! John @ Roleplay Life reviews it here, and Taalismn reviews it at the Forums of the Megaverse here. Also at the Forums of the Megaverse, an errata/nitpick thread filling up with things they should probably fix in the second priting. Also, here's some impressions of the book at RPGNet. Meadows will be talking about it on Liberty on Friday.

If anyone sees any other thoughts on the new book, or has their own thoughts to share, let me know.

(And yes, in the interest of full disclosure, as has been pointed out, my name's in the book, though I didn't have time to do much for it, just proofread the character bios and the big long article about the Invid and offer my observations and two cents and point out an odd omission here and there. What's really irksome is that I just know I'm going to be reading the finished product and go, "Aww, hell, if I'd had more time to read over this, this would've been fixed, and THAT would've been fixed ..." and so on and so forth.)

-- In totally unrelated news, Jeremy @ Destroy All Podcasts loves Macross 7 and isn't afraid to let everyone know it. At least, that was the impression I got from the now-vanished comments thread that was attached to that episode of the show; haven't had time to give the show a listen yet.

Lookin' Good, Lookin' Not So Good

-- Caught the above pic from the February 29th Palladium Press Release concerning the RPG via Kevin McKeever's blog. Maia and Rick are lookin' good, Marcus less so -- is it that his eyes are too close together? Is it that he seems a wee bit too broad-shouldered and manly? I dunno. Something about that art just seems off to me. But that's OK, because I'm not all that fond of Marcus anyway.

-- Moving on to more recent Palladium news, The Shadow Chronicles RPG book either has shipped or will be shipping today. Can't wait to lay my hands on a copy! (This person seems to think, despite being charged for the book already, that it's going to miss the shipping date. Mind you, the remark seems a shade tongue-in-cheek, but you never know -- it is the internet.)

-- A.J. Wells, enjoy your second link from this blog: fan buys vintage Matchbox ROBOTECH figure of favorite character, finds it lacking. Actually, Exedore's is one of the better character likenesses in that lineup. Breetai looks like a pin-headed vampire, Khyron looks like one of the Beatles, and poor Miriya looks like a dude. Let's not even talk about the 3 3/4" range and their poor, misshapen sculpts ...

Bonus trivia: Exedore's orange Zentraedi Cizion on the action figure is probably the result him having an orange Cizion in the style guide Harmony Gold provided to licensees. Check it out.


Chances are good that if you find something bizarrely off or wrongheaded on a piece of vintage ROBOTECH merchandise, it probably has its origins in the 1980's Style Guide. It is quite the font of misinformation that could have been straightened out by reviewing the show itself. (I'm half-shocked he didn't wind up with the teal trim instead of the proper green on his uniform, now that I look at the figure again.)

This is the kind of stupid trivia I thrive on. That's why it goes before the recent toy news you might actually give a crap about.

-- Moving forward in time to much, much more recent toys, Josh tells us that the Megazone 23 Part 2 Proto Garland is awesome, and (deep breath) Cyclones, Cyclones, and more Cyclones -- the MegaHouse one looks awesome but apparently has a more "intentional disassembly"-style transformation, Yaco provides some excellent comparison pics of various Cyclones, and Beagle is apparently still going to make their 1/10 scale version. Which means if we still get the Toynami version that's been shown off for years, that'll be four different Cyclone toys in the span of about a year. Crazy.

-- Also, I see that someone (it says "Roger" -- could it be our old pal Roger Harkavy?) told Yaco that the Toynami Betas are going to be $150 each, not the $80 that BBTS listed them as initially. I see that they have corrected themselves accordingly.

-- And on a personal note, I just won this item off the eBay ...



I don't care how much of a two-dimensional raging maniacal tool he is, I still kind of like T.R. Edwards. He amuses me.

Post #400 is a MASSIVE LINKDUMP OF DOOM.

-- According to ROBOTECH.COM, the Shadow Chronicles RPG should hit retailers around April 3, which is my birthday, which is awesome news to hear. Also, it is over 100 pages longer than they originally thought it would be but will still for this first printing remain at the originally publicized retail price of $16.95. Hope this doesn't cause a big problem for the folks at Paladium -- they could use some good fortune at this point!

-- At BigBadToyStore.com, preorders are open for the two Shadow Chronicles Shadow Fighters and ... drumroll please ... THE FIRST TWO TOYNAMI BETA FIGHTERS! Now mind you, BBTS is the place where the Toynami Cyclones were up for preorder with late 2007 release dates around this time last year, so this is all tentative, but it looks like Maia's lavender Shadow Fighter will be out in April, Marcus's white and gray Shadow Fighter will be out in July, and the Betas will be out in the 3rd quarter of the year (sometime from July - Sept.).

And the Betas are apparently going to only be $80 apiece.

o_O

Wonder how they pulled THAT one off.

-- MAJOR COLLECTIONDX.COM LINKAGE ... First, a New York Toy Fair conversation with Toynami's George Sohn. Looking forward to those rebranded MegaHouse Ride Armors, if the price is right! Then, the Destroy All Podcasts guys take on Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles (hint: they didn't like it). And finally, disappointment rears its ugly head when Josh picks up the new CM's Ride Armor (Stick Type) and it all falls to pieces. (Please note that this is NOT the same one I'm expressing hope for in reference to the Sohn interview. TOO MANY CYCLONES!)

-- Hey, the recent Canadian airing of ROBOTECH on SPACE hooked someone who'd never seen it before ...

Keeping Lancer intact was just another part of Robotech’s weirdness. Is it better or worse than most anime jobs of the time? It kept in the stuff edited TV dubs normally take out, but altered things in much more radical ways.

I’m part of the “Pokemon Generation”, at once too old and too young for Robotech. After reading about it in Toyfare once upon a time, I wondered “...did he [Carl Macek] really do that?” Part of the reason I watched it was to see how it was pulled off.

-- Elsewhere, someone has mixed feelings about The Shadow Chronicles ...

I wouldn’t say it sucks totally but it’s not exactly great either. The storyline was straightforward if it’s wee bit dry, if you get my meaning. The biggest flaw for me was that I am totally unable to empathise with any of the character. I mean when one of the Romero sacrifice himself in a blaze of glory, I was thinking “fair enough, but not GAR material either”. And is it just me or does the Haydonite looks like a rip off of the Cylon from Battlestar Galactica?

-- And finally ... these words look very familiar to me. Hmm, where might I have seen them before?