I’m currently building Hasegawa’s 1:72 scale Armored Valkyrie Battroid kit and featuring it on my YouTube channel. Although I may not buy them, Hasegawa is already releasing variants on this kit, which is cool.
Imai did the same back in the ’80s. I have their standard VF-1J Armored Valkyrie kit in 1:100 scale, but they made others. from Macross. The artwork on these old model kits from the ’80s were fantastic and unfortunately once built, these models never really look as great as the box art. I found these box scans on the old legacy Macrossworld site.
Imai 1:100 scale Armored VF-1S Valkyrie Battroid. Macross fans will notice that an Armored VF-1S was never seen in either the TV show or the movie. This is an original design. Check out the cool “nose art” on the leg! I don’t have this kit, so I cannot confirm if it comes with a decal for that.
Another design not seen in the show or the movie: a VF-1A Armored Valkyrie. Neat stuff.
This lamp was over half off on Yahoo Shopping Japan, with free shipping. I couldn’t resist. It arrived last night. It now sits on top of my CD rack, next to my Diamond Select TWOK Enterprise, under my fabulous Nadia poster. This is on my side of the bedroom.
Ever been to Jungle in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles? Here is the original Jungle in Osaka, which became famous for being a laserdisc-selling powerhouse in the ’90s. This pic is from 2001. It has since relocated.
There’s a scene in Project Eden which Mughi is watching a video screen in which several Easter egg still frames were inserted. Here they are, not necessarily in order.
Crusher Joe! Yes, before Haruka Takachiho wrote the Dirty Pair novels, he wrote Crusher Joe.
Images are rapidly flashed of the original version of the Dirty Pair from the SF novels written by Haruka Takachiho. These original character designs are by Yasuhiko Yoshikazu (Gundam, Crusher Joe, Venus Wars, Reideen, and many more anime).
Want ads from what appears to be Starlog Magazine. You see the ad with the Enterprise? That’s Space Station Studios from Massachusetts. I learned about them from ads in old Starblazers and Robotech comic books. I sent away for a catalog, and half a year later they finally sent it to me. I ended up writing a check for about $50 worth of stuff, which they cashed and never mailed me the merchandise I ordered. This was in the early ‘90s, and I’d never spent that much money before and was pissed. Fortunately I was a member of the Robotech Echo at the time via the local Anime Archive BBS in Phoenix, Arizona. I was able to bring about the wrath of Harmony Gold upon those buttpuppets and it turns out they were selling bootleg Macross/Robotech merchandise which landed them in a heap of trouble with HG’s lawyers, who don’t mess around. I very promptly got a refund. I’m glad that HG has finally worked out a deal with Bigwest to bring Macross officially to viewers internationally. They’ve been villains since the ‘90s for preventing Macross to be officially released globally and expecting everyone to only care about Robotech. Still, I’ll always be grateful with how they stuck up for a teenager who got rooked out of his money by a retailer that was either crooks or extremely half-assed and incompetent at the very least.
You see, due to an ignorant jury, Harmony Gold was able to win a case they really had no right to win, and since then they’d been using that ruling to stake a claim on the international rights of Macross that they actually do not have. This whole time, they din’t want people to be interested in Macross Frontier, etc. but just wanted people to forget about all of that and only like Robotech. But now it seems that those bastards are finally going to let international Macross fans own legitimate, English-language versions of Macross. It’s crazy. HG would even allow American toymakers to produce DYRL movie-version Valkyrie toys, but have refused to allow the movie to be released officially in English. Bastards. Well, hopefully things will start to change now. I still couldn’t care less about Macross 7 though. The first time I saw it, I was rolling on the floor laughing at how stupid it was. Anyhow, back to the easter eggs.
More want-ads. This one is for conventions.
Spock! The creators of the Dirty Pair show were definitely Star Trek fans (the design of the TV version’s Lovely Angel ship is definitely Trek-inspired). It came full circle with Star Trek: TNG with plenty of Dirty Pair references. The show’s set designer (I forget his name) was a big fan of the Pair. Even the robot Nanmo was used in the show as a robot that services the ship’s Jeffries’ Tubes. IIRC, there’s a Dirty Pair poster in one of the characters’ living quarters, but it was never shown on-camera.
She looks familiar, but I dunno who this is. Is she from Gundam? If you know, let me know.
There are some other freeze frames, but I couldn’t make any sense from them.
I recently picked up Mighty Orbots: The Complete Series on DVD. It’s a 2-disc DVD set of all 13 episodes of this fantastic, short-lived anime show I loved as a kid. I was already a Voltron fan when this show aired, and I watched it every Saturday morning and then discussed the episode the next day with my friend in Sunday school at church. Then suddenly it was no longer being aired. Then another week went by, and I couldn’t believe that Orbots had been cancelled. It was animated in Japan for the American audience.
So now I’ve got the DVD, and I can watch these episodes that I have not seen since grade school. One cool thing I’ve noticed is the ship flown by Dia, a member of the Galactic Patrol. It’s almost like something between Macross and Lensman. Neat stuff.
Pretty badass-looking ship, I think. Check out it’s landing cycle:
That vertical stabilizer folds up and back out of the way as the landing gears extend. Pretty cool ship design.
Up for some science fiction movie viewing for summer? 1982 was the most prolific movie for science fiction films. I have set about collecting Japanese promotional flyers (chirashi) from Yahoo Auctions Japan. Here they are.
Blade Runner
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
Tron
The Thing. In Japanese, the title is 遊星からの物体X (“Object X from Outer Space” is the best I can translate that as.)
The Dark Crystal
Fire Fox
Mega Force (this one I actually do not own. It’s a pretty silly movie, but I may get this later.)
E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial (another one I do not personally own)
Space Adventure Cobra: The Movie
And although it isn’t a movie, it is worth noting that in 1982 Super Dimensional Fortress Macross aired on TV in Japan.
Here is my hobby room, late at night. This is where I keep my retro game collection, my plastic models and hobby bench, and my Linux desktop. You can see my Pac-Man lamps, my Dragon Quest Slime lamp, and on the wall my Pac-Man LED neon lamp. The pixel art is done with iron beads. The posters from left to right are: Puyo Puyo 2 (SFC), Cardcaptor Sakura Tetris (PS1), Bubblegum Crisis, Sakura Taisen (Sat), and Dead or Alive 2 (DC).
I went ahead and ordered the Galaxy Express alcohol I was unable to find locally. I stopped by a large liquor shop in Maebashi called Yamaya that specializes in imports and even they did not have any.
Here we have Captain Harlock’s highball and IPA beer. I don’t even know what IPA stands for, so I looked it up: India Pale Ale. Well, okay.
The other two are the Maetel Weizen and Conductor’s Porter, but this time in beautiful, cobalt blue glass bottles. Neat.
