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Liking that Viking Mecha

 Frozen Ocean wrote:
The A-Toll actually looks like it could be a Retribution of Scyrah Warjack. Colossal, obviously.

G Gundam also has a character in latex for some reason. Apparently it's not latex at all, it's "nanomachines" that cover the body so that the suit responds to the pilot's motions. Definitely not fanservice.

For what it's worth, the guys wear the exact same outfits. Domon's butt gets the exact same focus during his own "transformation" scene. Granted, he's a little less... submissive about the entire process.

His isn't pink with a bunny suit and black latex elbow gloves and thigh-high latex heel boots, though. That would be interesting.

 Frozen Ocean wrote:
His isn't pink with a bunny suit and black latex elbow gloves and thigh-high latex heel boots, though. That would be interesting.

I wouldn't call it a bunny suit.


And really, it's G Gundam, everyone looks silly in the pilot suits.

MECHA VIKING!

 Cyporiean wrote:
And really, it's G Gundam, everyone looks silly in the pilot suits.

Spoiler:

Anyway, the Terror Mirage and A-toll look kinda cool. What is that from, anyway? And I'm not sure who Volks are.

 Sidstyler wrote:
MECHA VIKING!

 Cyporiean wrote:
And really, it's G Gundam, everyone looks silly in the pilot suits.

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

Is that a fething horse?

G Gundam is absurdly crazy in the absolutely best possible way.

The training suits are piloted by steering wheel.

 Sidstyler wrote:

Anyway, the Terror Mirage and A-toll look kinda cool. What is that from, anyway? And I'm not sure who Volks are.

They're from Five Star Stories, a manga that's been going on since the mid/late 80s until now. It had one movie that the author hated and never let animate it again. Volks are just one of the model companies that makes kits for various less known series, I think they did some in resin too.

Another company, Wave, also made plastic kits from it.

Volks is one of the old-school garage kit companies. They've been around since at least the mid to late 80s. I've got an old issue of Hobby Japan from 1988 that has a bunch of Volks ads in it. They seem to have been making Five Star Stories garage kits from the start, so they've been around at least as long as Five Star Stories has. It's only the last few years that they've started making plastic models. Aside from garage kits, they're also known for making high-end dolls.

 Daba wrote:

 Sidstyler wrote:

Anyway, the Terror Mirage and A-toll look kinda cool. What is that from, anyway? And I'm not sure who Volks are.

They're from Five Star Stories, a manga that's been going on since the mid/late 80s until now. It had one movie that the author hated and never let animate it again.

Is Nagano still doing new manga releases in this series? The English release got most of what was out at the time (everything but the last two volumes), but that ended a while back. And I don't know if anything new has been released in Japan since then.

And because Gundam, Nagano also did some of the designs in Z Gundam, including the Rick Dias and Hyakushiki.

 Fafnir wrote:

 Frozen Ocean wrote:
The A-Toll actually looks like it could be a Retribution of Scyrah Warjack. Colossal, obviously.

G Gundam also has a character in latex for some reason. Apparently it's not latex at all, it's "nanomachines" that cover the body so that the suit responds to the pilot's motions. Definitely not fanservice.

For what it's worth, the guys wear the exact same outfits. Domon's butt gets the exact same focus during his own "transformation" scene. Granted, he's a little less... submissive about the entire process.

For what it's worth, that's a clip from episode thirteen of the series. The proceeding twelve episodes include various guys going through the same suit up process, and include trips to fight an American boxer Gundam, an Egyptian Mummy Gundam, and a drug induced flash back episode.

I think at some point the writers made a check list of everything they could possibly include in the series, penciled each item in for one or two episodes, and then started writing.

Wow...this thread is full of so much design bad that you'd swear it was of all Gw. From the design team that brought you space vikings who stole Santa's sleigh, comes robospacevikingXXL! Some assembly required. MechaMoustache sold separately.

 warboss wrote:
Wow...this thread is full of so much design bad that you'd swear it was of all Gw. From the design team that brought you space vikings who stole Santa's sleigh, comes robospacevikingXXL! Some assembly required. MechaMoustache sold separately.

I'm inclined to believe you, but it's useful to remember that these are pop-culture designs coming from a country that has very different history of design, and aesthetics in animation (and in most everything else for that matter).

That said, I personally, find most mecha in the "Gundam-ish" style to be a bit over the top for me. My mecha aesthetic leans much more towards Macross/Battletech, CAV, Votoms, etc.

It is definitely a matter of opinion. I recently had a friend who couldn't stop laughing at the Macross Valkyrie design when looking through my Robotech Tactics book. I grew up with it and think the original VF-1 is one of the coolest robot design out there but to him it was just ridiculous.

Eumerin wrote:

 Daba wrote:

 Sidstyler wrote:

Anyway, the Terror Mirage and A-toll look kinda cool. What is that from, anyway? And I'm not sure who Volks are.

They're from Five Star Stories, a manga that's been going on since the mid/late 80s until now. It had one movie that the author hated and never let animate it again.

Is Nagano still doing new manga releases in this series? The English release got most of what was out at the time (everything but the last two volumes), but that ended a while back. And I don't know if anything new has been released in Japan since then.

And because Gundam, Nagano also did some of the designs in Z Gundam, including the Rick Dias and Hyakushiki.

He started working on his OVA (Gothicmade), and then did some crazy redesigns and is re-releasing the series from the start.

I think the English ones weren't complete to the latest story though.

He did Qubeley as well from Z Gundam.

My eyes didn't deceive me, did they?

They're actually going to do a new Dijeh kit? Talk about nostalgia.

That was one of the very first kits Barzam and I's other brother ever built- he got a Dijeh that I helped him put together, and I got a Rick Dias. Heck, Barzam could probably count how old he was on one hand at that point!

There's another one of you guys out there?!?

Highlord, Barzam... and...?

Please tell me he's on Dakka Dakka - or will be soon!

 Daba wrote:
He started working on his OVA (Gothicmade), and then did some crazy redesigns and is re-releasing the series from the start.

I think the English ones weren't complete to the latest story though.

They're not. The last two Japanese volumes (i.e. the last storyline) were never translated.

I have the complete set of English translated volumes, and the last translated storyline has a major tonal shift. It's weird.

Which arc did the last English one go into?

 Eilif wrote:

 warboss wrote:
Wow...this thread is full of so much design bad that you'd swear it was of all Gw. From the design team that brought you space vikings who stole Santa's sleigh, comes robospacevikingXXL! Some assembly required. MechaMoustache sold separately.

I'm inclined to believe you, but it's useful to remember that these are pop-culture designs coming from a country that has very different history of design, and aesthetics in animation (and in most everything else for that matter).

That said, I personally, find most mecha in the "Gundam-ish" style to be a bit over the top for me. My mecha aesthetic leans much more towards Macross/Battletech, CAV, Votoms, etc.

Personally I find that replacing giant, hand-held swords and rifles with integrated weapons ala Battletech goes a long way towards making Gundams look non-slowed, together with a sensible military paintjob.

 Alpharius wrote:
There's another one of you guys out there?!?

Highlord, Barzam... and...?

Please tell me he's on Dakka Dakka - or will be soon!

Nah, our other brother is far too high falootin' to play games any more. He's much more into fashion and design, cutting edge art, or obscure bands and records from decades past in lesser known parts of the world. His wife is a total enabler too since she's into the same exact stuff.

Which is a shame, because with both of their senses of design and tastes in art, they'd probably both be pretty good figure painters/ modelers.

Plus they've got a lot of local players in Nagoya, so I'm hoping at least while Barzam is there visiting he can do some Inception- like messing with our brother's head and bring him back in to the fold.

Make it happen!

Can you imagine the Highlordin' and Barzamin' that would be going on in here if you guys can pull it off?!?

 Daba wrote:
Which arc did the last English one go into?

The arc where the story shifts into slapstick comedy and idiots.



It's been a while since I last glanced through it, but iirc the last arc translated was the arc after Jabo Beat's death. IIRC, we were introduced to a bunch of kids with rather misguided notions of how a headliner should act.

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 Eilif wrote:

 warboss wrote:
Wow...this thread is full of so much design bad that you'd swear it was of all Gw. From the design team that brought you space vikings who stole Santa's sleigh, comes robospacevikingXXL! Some assembly required. MechaMoustache sold separately.

I'm inclined to believe you, but it's useful to remember that these are pop-culture designs coming from a country that has very different history of design, and aesthetics in animation (and in most everything else for that matter).

That said, I personally, find most mecha in the "Gundam-ish" style to be a bit over the top for me. My mecha aesthetic leans much more towards Macross/Battletech, CAV, Votoms, etc.

Personally I find that replacing giant, hand-held swords and rifles with integrated weapons ala Battletech goes a long way towards making Gundams look non-slowed, together with a sensible military paintjob.

For what it's worth, battletech mechs look plenty ridiculous, with their complete lack of agility and overall clunkiness making them feel like poor replacements for tanks. Additionally, short of main character suits (executive meddling and all), most MS, at least in the UC universe, are fairly militaristic in their paintjobs.
The original creator of Gundam actually went on to write essays explaining why humanoid mecha would be used within his universe, using the limbs to control orientation and direction in space (MS were only intended to space operation up until executive meddling kicked in), allowing for a finer degree of movement, similarly to how astronauts orient themselves in space. As for why they don't use integrated weapons, both Zeon and the Federation use a standardized system of weapon attachment (at least as of UC 0096), allowing most MS to connect with and operate most weaponry in a pinch and giving improved modularity and versatility to any given MS. As for why they use hands instead of simplified locking mechanisms... well... it looks cooler, I guess.
Also keep in mind that, due to Minovsky particle (fictional physics principles developed for the UC universe, which interferes with electronics) interference, long range targetting and communication systems were left extremely unreliable, pushing combat into closer quarters where camo-based paintjobs were largely ineffective. Colours were generally used to denote affiliation in order to avoid friendly fire, or for psychological effect (for example, after the One Year War, the Federation painted most of their flagship MS white in order to scare Zeon pilots, due to the stories around the original gundam).

It should also be noted that most Mobile Suits do have integral weaponry. The weapoms mounted internally on Mobile Suits can vary wildly, but nearly every one of them has something built into it. This is even moreso the case in Gundam The Origin and in the novelizations.

I happen to like the carried weapons. We *get* them very intuitively because that's the same as what people do. An externally carried rifle or sword or shield is very intuitive to the viewer while a little gun port on the shoulder doesn't necessarily give the same effect. The gun ports also often require set up shots where you spend a scene showing it shoot for no other real reason than to let the viewer know to expect it to be able to shoot like that in the future, for when it matters to the story.

This probably won't see much action in 40k.. But was browsing HLJ and noticed that the new Bandai X-Wing kit comes with proton torpedos included. Not sure if they thought this one through

Oh, come one. The scene in the movie makes it totally look like the torpedo is making at least a 45 degree turn into the exhaust port.

I saw the X-Wing, TIE Advanced, and 1/12 Darth Vader yesterday. Very nice looking kits.

Just noticed this little gem. Chibimaru Type 10 tank. No measurements, but based on box/sprue size it would be around L 14 cm, W/H 8,5 cm.

I saw that very same Sd tank today at the Volks hobby shopnin Osu along with Fujimi's other SD military kits. There's a bunch actually. Various ships, planes, and tanks. There's a few based on the old Capcom game, 1943, too.

Also saw a display sample of the Shamrock from Valkyria Chronicles. It looked really nice, but fairly small.