It's a quarter past midnight and I'm sitting on a bench.

Which has nothing to do with the links that follow, but right now I'm enjoying the novelty of sitting at my computer in a well-lit park square and shooting things through the air into the internet tubes.

Yeah, yeah, I know ... welcome to the 21st century, Jonathan, glad you could make it!

Quiet, you.



JoshB from CollectionDX has posted coverage of what all was at the Toynami booth -- including (and this is the part that separates their coverage from the rest) video, with Toynami head honcho George Sohn taking time to point out what's what.

Elsewhere on the internets:

A friend of mine (with whom I went to see The Shadow Chronicles on the big screen in St. Louis) reflects on Roy Fokker's death as one of her top 10 TV moments. (It's #2.)

A.J. Wells's fixation on Exedore continues. This one's about the broccoli-headed DYRL version. Also: discussion of the Sentinels novels. Always fun.

Someone reviews Robotech: Battlecry years later and doesn't much care for it. Skimming it, it seems they really didn't like the escort missions and base defense missions. Also: yes, the characters are all total knockoffs of other ROBOTECH characters. I totally agree with these sentiments myself, but I still like to pop it in every once in a while. Maybe I'm more tolerant of these flaws? I dunno.

The Roboblog Chronicles Episode 25 - San Diego Dreaming

The second episode from North Central Wisconsin, in which I talk about some of the ROBOTECH stuff out of San Diego (kind of redundant if you've been paying attention to the blog over the weekend) and basically say my last word on the whole Warner live action thing until some SERIOUS news breaks, in light of recent films I've seen.




From The Things I Doubly Don't Want To Do Dept.

I'm selling some of my stuff on eBay, and if you're interested in Japanese-style robots and anime and manga and such (I'm curious what you're doing here if you aren't interested in at least ONE of those things), take a look and see if there's anything you'd be interested in bidding on, if you don't mind. If you see something you like, do bid on it and help reduce my clutter and keep me fed and caffeinated, OK?

Also:

You know, I actually am on iChat/AIM from time to time these days. See that little link to my screen name in the sidebar? Go ahead. Use it. Bother me. If I'm on iChat, it usually means I'm not doing anything all that important anyway ...

RobotechX.com hits the highlights.

It makes me weep that I am not out there in the wilds of San Diego when I see things like this:



Someone made a giant hat shaped like the tuna head from episode 4 of Macross, and Steve Yun wore it. Huh.

For more photos like that, a quick & dirty rundown of what was said at the Harmony Gold ROBOTECH panel, and shots of the RobotechX.com gang's grand ROBOTECH fandom booth, check out RobotechX.com.

Meanwhile, more photos of the panel and a podcast covering what went down (in addition to other mecha anime news from San Diego) can be found at the Gundamn!@mahq.net blog.

Toynami & Their Promises - Looking at the SDCC Picture Gallery

Flip through this picture gallery and give me your thoughts in the comments thread. Here's what I took away from it.

1) I think this is the first time they've been so audacious as to show us all four Beta Fighters they intend to release. The Shadow Beta is pretty damn eye-catching, if you ask me. Do we have any release dates?

2) There's a 1/55 scale Veritech line featuring all-new head sculpts coming up -- and yes, I said Veritech and I mean Veritech. Had the ROBOTECH logo on it. Gotta wonder, are they just slapping new show-accurate heads on the old Takatoku/Bandai molds? Because looking at the -1D they had on display (especially the toy's hands), that's what it looks like.

3) The GBP armor system for the 1/100 Valkyries looks rather crap.

4) The 1/100 Battlepod, on the other hand, looks solid, if a bit static. I like it a bit better than the sorta weird, wiry Revoltech Regult that Kaiyodo released a few months back.

5) Maia's lavender Shadow Fighter comes out in December, if Toynami is to be trusted this time. Marcus's gray & white Shadow Fighter then comes out in Spring '09.

6) Yellow's Ride Armor/Lancer's Cyclone from MegaHouse was on display. I MUST OWN THIS TOY.

7) Right next to it was the Masterpiece Collection Scott Bernard w/Armored Cyclone. Offhand, I'd say this is a COMPLETELY different toy than the one that's been making the rounds for years. The one photo Figures.com has makes the red uniform parts look like they're made of cloth. The head was rather different -- looks like a swappable head thing, where before it looked like Scott had a removable helmet (easy to do with Scott's classic slicked-back hairdo). My Spidey-sense tells me this is actually the last of the three Japanese molds that have been in development -- the one from Beagle.

Ah, yeah, it is. Look at this early stuff I found linked through ToyBox DX's forums. Way to go, team. That'll show all those naysayers! Rebrand a few toys here, claim a toy for your own there ... in-house development? Who needs in-house development?

Anyhoo, the three things I'd probably snag out of this lot are Maia's Alpha (really want to do a VF-1S Skull One and Shadow Fighter Skull One back-to-back thing) Yellow's Ride Armor (LANCER ACTION FIGURE OMG!!!), and that Battlepod (because, hey, how often do you get a new Battlepod toy?).

The Beta? Ehh, don't have the room right now. Maybe later.

And you?

Robotech DVD news ...

According to Anime News Network, ADV will be discontinuing their release of ROBOTECH on DVD. (Check out the original story here.)

Hmm, I wonder, who might be standing by to pick it up? Who might want the rights to ROBOTECH on DVD? Who's been snapping up what ADV's been dropping lately?

Methinks we might want to have our eyes and ears open during San Diego Comicon weekend.

The Roboblog Chronicles Episode 24 - What's Wrong With Edwards

First ROBOBLOG CHRONICLES video from the new digs, running more-or-less on autopilot, talkin' about one of ROBOTECH's more problematic characters. Check it out.