Skip to content

All mecha, great and small. <3

WTF G1: Exhibit A-“Sea Change”

WTF G1: Exhibit A-“Sea Change” published on 2 Comments on WTF G1: Exhibit A-“Sea Change”

Nostalgia is a damn powerful thing, especially for 80’s spawn like myself. The opiates of ‘toys’ and ‘cartoons’ were allowed to intermingle and form some sort of new, more potent form of marketing methamphetamine. That’s probably why our generation has the same problem resisting the urge to banter about My Little Pony and Etch-A-Sketch that the last few generations had with recounting how many Nazis they could kill with only their scrotums and moxie.

But, again, since I’m not part of that generation, all you people are going to have to make do with me regaling you with the story of how, while re-watching a cartoon I grew up with, just how batshit the original source material for the sprawling merchandising machine was.

But where to begin? The Giant Purple Griffin? An episode that basically tells kids gambling is ok, and the only thing better is cheating at it? How about one revolving around a hypnotic superdisco?

No… No, we can do even better than that. We’re going to dive right in and see how the hell mermaids fit in with the Transformers universe!

Continue reading WTF G1: Exhibit A-“Sea Change”

I Don’t Want To Set The World On Fire…

I Don’t Want To Set The World On Fire… published on No Comments on I Don’t Want To Set The World On Fire…

Or… do I?

Last day of vacation here, it’s been a pretty good ‘catch-up’ break for me so hopefully that means the end of the site’s dry spell. I’ve finished chapter 24 of Revolver and updated the first timers’ summary page if anybody’d like to give the comic a shot but don’t have time to read the whole archive right away. There’s also been a few tweaks to the character page, mainly removing incidents of the word ‘mysterious’ for characters whose motivations and natures were revealed months and months ago. Chapter 25 starts Friday. And with a totally different set of characters.

The scene change goes nicely with me being sick of drawing Kenji in his little Sol Badguy headgear thing. (Technically it’s a ‘modern’ Surrenian Army visor, but who paid that much attention to Z’s flashback chapter anyway?)

(Once I ‘fix’ the RK hub page, the comic related blurbs will probably stay there for the most part since I know there’s a subset out there who think the comic promotions are kind of annoying and just want to see more gaming stuff.)

On that note, and since I’ve saving my vinegar for full length pieces, I’ve been enjoying the daylights out of Macross Ultimate Frontier for the PSP, something of a delayed Christmas gift from Jake (longtime readers might be getting the impression I’ve pretty much only got one friend in real life, and that’s a blatant mistake- I have three!) The ‘giant robot’ genre of action gaming is bizarrely empty of quality titles, especially if the stuck-in-the-cockpit perspective of Mechwarrior isn’t your cup of tea. MUF does a pretty admirable job of recreating Macross dogfighting, with missiles twisting everywhere in wild patterns and familiar series background tunes. While the designs in the sequel and prequel series are awesome, the most fun I had was blasting through the classic Macross series since I was a Robotech addict when I was younger. About the only gripe I have for the game is that it looks amazing in action, but when you see the stills on loading screens or when a model moves just the right way, they look really cheesy. Since when you take the poly count down on a Zentraedi battleship, it’s basically a giant death pickle.

Maybe that’s what my next stupid doodle will be. Death pickle. Yeeeeeah.

I Don’t Know How To Feel About This.

I Don’t Know How To Feel About This. published on 4 Comments on I Don’t Know How To Feel About This.

Terminator: Salvation must have dropped this. Oh well, they won't notice!
Terminator: Salvation must have dropped this. Oh well, they won't notice!

[16:25] Manic: ballchin comes to mind

It’s summer, and you know what that means… if you’re an annoying, sociopath of a children’s toy collector. Yes, Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen merchandise is leaking into stores, well, the stores who wittingly or unwittingly are breaking Hasbro’s ‘street date’ for the toys. Yes, sometimes even toys have big important street dates, though nobody’s being sued or whatever like with the final Harry Potter book.

So, my store was among one of them, and put out the first wave of Voyagers (the 20 dollar guys) and Leaders (the well, leaders, and other ‘big’ dudes.) They yanked the display today, presumably because Hasbro sent agents armed with guns that fire spring loaded missiles two and a half times the size of the actual gun and painted neon, because god forbid someone be hurt by a lethal weapon. But not before I got my hands on the two pieces from the line I actually give a crap about, and scrutinized the rest of them. So, without further ado:

3/2’s SUMMER BLOCKBUSTER MOVIE TIE-IN-ACTION FIGURE LINE HANDS ON PREVIEW TEASER THINGContinue reading I Don’t Know How To Feel About This.

Funny Words of Heroism

Funny Words of Heroism published on No Comments on Funny Words of Heroism

Aha. My flawless computerized brain’s plan came to fruition- by making a ‘theme’ for the month, I made it harder for me to go on endlessly about my JAPANESE FIGHTIN’ ROBOTS fixation. I spent a good chunk of it indulging in the fandom of it, though, so at least I enjoyed myself in March Mecha Month. But I can at least provide a few capsule reviews of things I wanted to bring attention to, plastic things mainly:

Revoltech: One of the greatest things to happen to mecha fans/collectors- small, yet highly-poseable PVC figurines of a surprising range of super robots. The trademark of the line are small ratcheting ball joints. As a result they’re not only highly poseable, but able to hold those poses pretty readily. A wide assortment are out, and new ones are being released at a monthly rate. Of late they’ve even started a few sub-lines like Fraulein Revoltech, which is good if you like flexible girls. Er, small, plastic ones. With a product line encompassing Transformers, Macross, and Diebuster (a.k.a Gunbuster 2), who knows what they’ll come up with next!

(Hint: Gurren-Lagann. Sco’!)

Lego Bionicle: Having touched on Exo-Force, I’d probably be remiss not to mention the Lego building figure line that actually seems to sell well. I won’t attempt to analyze the story behind the toyline, since every time I try to look up information on it I walk away with a headache and an irrational need to sock a Maori. That much said, they’re actually pretty cool figures. The parts used are somewhat less easy to use in customs and jerry-rigs since they’re molded specifically to be ‘Bionicle guy arms and legs’, though Technic peg-holes line their bodies so add-ons are possible from regular kits. What really makes them cool are the array of spring loaded weapons they come with. Whether it’s a hard eyeball-seeking marble or a gatling-style storm of choking-hazard sized missiles, it’s a fond reminder of when all good toys could potentially kill someone. Past that, the biomechanical aesthetic and use of ball-joints for maximum poseability make them pretty fun figures once assembled, though they tend to be a bit same-y other than who totes what gun, and what color they are. I’ve got a few of these now thanks to a store discount and clearance event, so far I think I like the new ‘combiner’ pairs best. Consisting of a large figure (a ‘Toa Phantoka’) and a small partner who forms a backpack, they’re built around an air battle theme.

The title of this posting, and why I get a headache reading about these things comes from all the odd vocabulary and intricacies of a plot that’s probably simple but being acted out by characters with names and titles like “Toa Hewkii. wearer of the Kanohi Mask of Stone, transformed into a Toa Mahri by the something something–”

SPLATTER

NeoShifters: MegaBloks’ attempt to cash in on the Bionicle thing, in a nutshell, though these are transformable. Somewhat unfortunately, all they turn into are balls. Ball robots with a smaller ball-bot that curls up and resides in the chest. Additionally, there’s a light-up head (I would say ‘eyes’ but it’s actually a big cyclopean orb that you place a mask over), launching missiles, and a launcher for the inner robot. All in all, they’re actually a pretty good deal for the play value versus the price tag; pre-assembled, the ten-dollar Shifters would probably have as much functionality as the average twenty-dollar Transformer. The drag of the line is that they’re even less customizable than their ‘brand name’ competitors, each one pretty much only good for building the thing that’s on the front of the box. Though the instruction book for my Atlas:Raan did offer an alternative mode by opening the ball’s sides into crude VTOL wings and sticking his gun on the large robot’s ass. I passed.

In an odd twist, the small price point versions come in more varieties than the large ones, turning into crab-like walkers and hovercraft, while the larger ones are all essentially the same kit with a different color scheme and face mask.

So ends the March which came in like a Galeon and when out like a… quick, name a huge mechanical lamb. Back to the usual errata!

Primary Sidebar