Hobby Link Japan once again announces a sale on select Macross Related products.

Schedule for release on January 7 will be Macross Chronicle #39, while on the 21st of January will be Macross Chronicle #40. As a preview for the Macross Chronicle 39, it will feature for its mechanic sheet the VA-3C Invader, which bares a striking resemblance to the A-6 Intruder of the US Navy.

Just saw this at HLJ’s website. Announcement for a special sale on certain Yamato products. If you are a Macross fan (like I am) you’ll see a lot of the very popular Perfect Transformation 1/60 Macross VF’s with slashed prices. 30% off the shelf price is what I’m seeing.

2003 was the year Yamato toys starts to ramp up production of their Macross line with a large volume of new product releases. 2003 was also the year where the 1/72 line of Macross Plus toys was coming to an end as after this year they didn’t release anymore products of this scale. The good news is that the perfect transformation 1/48 opened up the way for the 1/60 perfect transformation VF’s. List of Macross Toys created in 2000-2002 by Yamato can be found here.

2003

Its hard to believe that Yamato Toys has been producing for almost 10 years already toys from the Macross Franchise. What started it all was the 1/72 YF-19 of Isamu Dyson from the Macross Plus series that was initially released in July of 2000 then followed in December by the 1/72 YF-22 of Guld Goa Bowman. Both of which were capable of transforming to the 3 states of Fighter, Gerwalk and Battroid. And I have to say that building a real life miniature replica toy from its line art that is capable of transforming to three different states is no simple feat and speaks greatly of the skill employed by the folks at Yamato Toys.

From there they expanded their line to 1/60 and 1/48 scale. Then they added the Valkyries of the original Macross and the Macross Zero VF’s. They also made the small scale, non transforming GNU line up. More recently also they branched out by including the non-VF Destroids from the original Macross series then this year they started producing VF’s from the Macross Seven series.

Was having a discussion with a friend who loved anime and our topic touched on Macross Frontier. She had never watched any of the Macross series nor movies before but she heard that Macross Frontier was a great anime. A diehard fan like me would just love to get another one into our fold, our discussion however was cut short before I could continue with my discourse on the wonders of Macross.

I saw this little interruption as a fortuitous event, since I could have ample time to better arm myself with factoids to show her what Macross is all about without giving up much in terms of plot elements to spoil it for the first time fan that she was. I am not saying that this list is perfect, but for me this is what made Macross great and worth watching

Its been 11 years since Cowboy Bebop came out in 1998 but its only now that I was able to watch it. I have to say that I wasn’t disappointed, only slightly, not by the story or the characters, but rather by the ending. I hate it when series creators leave the major plot line hanging in the end. So did he or didn’t he?

Cowboy Bebop is a story of a group of bounty hunters who go around the solar system catching people with bounties on their heads. I’m not saying criminals because even in the future one is presumed innocent until proven guilty. “Cowboy” is the term that is used to refer to a bounty hunter. Bebop is the name of the ship that everybody resides in and uses as their base of operations.

Two variants of Isamu Dyson’s YF-19 is to be released by Yamato this August 2009. They are the Unit 3 Bird of Prey and the Unit 4 Double Nuts. The Bird of Prey variant comes in orange trim to commemorate the color of test planes used by the United States. While the “Double Nuts” variant will come in Blue trim. Personally I prefer the Double Nuts version over the Bird of Prey.