Matt Bellamy

Well, Tekkaman Blade just got 2 figmas... So I honestly have no idea how they decide what they will make next. That being said, I hope they do more than just Guyver 1... I missed out on all but 1 of the BFC figures, and REALLY do not want to pay ebay prices to get the set of 3 Guyvers. Just Guyvers 1, 2 and 3 is all I ask. ... Ok and I guess Female Guyver 2. ... Ok and maybe Murakami. ... Ok and maybe one version of Aptom. ... Ok and maybe... You know what? I'll stop there. For now. Either way, this will be my 4th Guyver 1 figure, so even if that is all we get, at least he will fit in with the rest of the crowd.

Considering it's been three years since the last... Which also included A recolor for Gignatic Exceed, and the Alkpanphel proto-type... Both of which have still not been released... I HIGHLY doubt it. Guyvers popularity has dropped back down to where it was to years before the revival in 2005. The ONLY possibility I could see, would be a Figma release ( since they did just release Tekkaman Blade and Evil... But Blade has appeared in a few video games somewhat more recently). You never know though...

Damashii's are pretty awesome. They are action figures, and can be a bit more expensive than kits. But they do come fully painted and some with a ton of accessories. I don't personally own any Gundam Damashii's ( though I want to get the Wing TV set. Love the TV designs), I have Damashii figures from other series and they are a fine choice for collecting. They tend to be around the 1/144 scale, which again, is good for action figures. I will note that SOMETIMES the paint apps are a little wonky in some places, and parts can get bent in the package. But that is something any collector has to put up with. Also, I hope I didn't discourage you from trying to build a few kits. Once you get a few under your belt, you will be absolutely fine, and they will normally look much better than the Damashii's. By a couple simple ones to start off with ( the AGE-1 series and the feddie grunts from AGE are all great for starters, and are newer thus easier to get and cheap.) You just learn as you go when they throw new stuff at you ( like transforming MS). The only thing I would recommend is getting a pair of hobby clippers. Even the instruction manuals will note that you should use them. But they are like Magic for clipping parts off of the trees.

Since I tend to build a lot, and rarely ever paint, I'll break down how I see the different sizes. 1/144 HG - High Grade - Smallest of the kits, but still action figure sized. Sometimes needs a lot of stickers to compensate for smaller piece sizes not being able to be molded in their own color. As well, the bonus with the 1/144's is the sheer amount of kits they release. Older kits ranging back to Gundam Wing and such require a lot more work... But more recent series ( Seed, 00 and AGE) try and make them as best looking as they can, with as little stickers as possible. One of the most popular sizes to buy because they are always show accurate in proportion and looks. The one thing about them is that the difficulty on some ( not all) can range drastically. A simple MS or Gundam can be a great startingkit... But transformable or gimmicky suits can be frustrating even for experienced kit builders. 1/144 RG - Real Grade - The "Master Grade" in 1/144 size. Only a very limited number of MS available so far... But these are pretty amazing little kits. Would recommend some 1/144 building experience before tackling them if you find one you like. 1/100 HG - High Grade - Much bigger in size to the 1/144's, they had many more piece molded in color. Some of the more simple ones only had stickers for the eyes and cameras ( very similar to the Master Grades). Sadly, AGE didn't get any 1/100's. The Seed and 00 1/100 HG's were fabulous though, as were some older series. The biggest problem with them was the fact you usually did not get many suits from a series. You'd get sometimes 2-3 1/144's released for each 1/100. So usually you got the main characters units and the occasional popular grunt. 1/100 MG - Master Grade - Only the most popular MS get MG kits... But when they do, they are usually spectacular. And I say "Usually" because they are not show accurate designs. They "updated" and "Stylized" versions of most things. Some are more show accurate than others. But when they do the improvements and get them looking much more awesome? Yeah, it's a good thing. Usually a ton more pieces and the difficulty is quite apparent from the above two releases. Stickers that are provided are usually only for eyes and cameras. Also included dry transfer decals to add further details and such that are not necessary, but can look cool. 1/60 BG - Big Grade - Not very many in this category. They are basically just HG kits in very large form. Great show pieces to be sure, and fairly easy to put together. Though they tend to suffer from the fact that they are just big HG's and do not get very many new features, if any. ( the 1/60 Strike Gundam was almost EXACTLY the same piece by piece of the 1/100 HG... Except it's hands had movable fingers) 1/60 PG - Perfect Grade - Details. OMG the details. Basically meant that if you remove armor bits, it will look like ( and technically have) moving parts underneath. Definately the highest difficulty of all the kit levels. And expensive. So you'd definitely want lots of experience before building one. Personally, for the longest time, I preferred the 1/100 HG's... Especially after a bad run in with the crappy 1/144 Wing kits... But newer series 1/144 kits have gotten so much better in quality that the 1/100 line seems to have been phased out... Which I am actually fine with now. I really am enjoying the 1/144 AGE kits ( Earth MS only... Vagan scum!... Ok I did buy the Legilis...).

I'm excited and skeptical at the same time. Skeptical because of the fact season 1 was so glorious, that I don't see how it could get any better without seeming "Used" I am excited though, because of the fact the first season was so glorious, that I trust the creators to do awesome with the second season. So basically, I am conflicted for the same reason on both ends.

What's kind of sad, but also kinda awesome... Judging from the designs of certain parts of Blades armor... I could see them doing a recolor of Blade, in Tekkaman Blade 2 colors. And if it would be normal price I would still buy it in a heartbeat... Though IF it were made, it would be an "exclusive" and probably $100+. And it would STILL be tempting... Since I liked the main color changes from TB2. Speaking of the Armor Plus's, which do you have? I'm a bit behind, as I only have Blade, Evil and Blastor Blade... But thankfully, other than Blastor Evil, ebay's prices on them seem pretty average.

WEEK 02 - Chibi Movie Iron Man Mk 7 This time a chibi... An Iron Man Chibi. The Mk 7 Armor used in The Avengers movie. There is still a whole lot of armors I want to do... Including the Iron Man 3 designs... Despite the horrible color choices. [attachment=0]IMmk7002.jpg[/attachment] So far so good!

WEEK 02 - Chibi Movie Iron Man Mk 7 This time a chibi... An Iron Man Chibi. The Mk 7 Armor used in The Avengers movie. There is still a whole lot of armors I want to do... Including the Iron Man 3 designs... Despite the horrible color choices. So far so good!

DOOM! Ok, maybe not so much. Now to quote my DA page: Yep. Going to try this and see how it works. I am going to draw and upload something ONCE A WEEK. It could be a finished color piece, a chibi, or even a finished sketch. BUT THERE WILL BE SOMETHING DAMMIT! I got a new sketchbook to break in, as well as my tablet and such, so I have no real excuse. And I am dissapointed/mad at myself for WANTING to draw a lot of things ( Mass Effects chibi's, how have I not... Garrus/Tali ftw!) but never actually even sketching anything. Plus I only did 8 images all last year, and only 7 in 2011... When in 2010 I did 54. I WANT to draw. And I swear I have the free time to draw a lot more. Time to fight the lazyness and do some drenn. ROW ROW FIGHT THE... not so much POWWWA! So let's get this started! Take note this is LAST weeks entry. Just posting it a bit late. ----------------------------------------- WEEK 01 - Gigantic Guyver Alfa The first image actually comes as fanart... Fanart. There is a fairly new Guyver fan artist on Devianart.(http://lucithea.deviantart.com/) Well, the artist has an original character, who has a pretty original design in my eyes, despite all the watering down by drawing the countless Guyvers that I have done over the years. My mind then thought " She'd probably look good as a Gigantic." And oddly, my muse woke up and agreed. [attachment=0]alfagig001.jpg[/attachment]

DOOM! Ok, maybe not so much. Now to quote my DA page: Yep. Going to try this and see how it works. I am going to draw and upload something ONCE A WEEK. It could be a finished color piece, a chibi, or even a finished sketch. BUT THERE WILL BE SOMETHING DAMMIT! I got a new sketchbook to break in, as well as my tablet and such, so I have no real excuse. And I am dissapointed/mad at myself for WANTING to draw a lot of things ( Mass Effects chibi's, how have I not... Garrus/Tali ftw!) but never actually even sketching anything. Plus I only did 8 images all last year, and only 7 in 2011... When in 2010 I did 54. I WANT to draw. And I swear I have the free time to draw a lot more. Time to fight the lazyness and do some drenn. ROW ROW FIGHT THE... not so much POWWWA! So let's get this started! Take note this is LAST weeks entry. Just posting it a bit late. ----------------------------------------- WEEK 01 - Gigantic Guyver Alfa The first image actually comes as fanart... Fanart. I am sure everybody is aware of Cannibals art thread, in which he shared another fans work? Well, the artist has an original character, who has a pretty original design in my eyes, despite all the watering down by drawing the countless Guyvers that I have done over the years. My mind then thought " She'd probably look good as a Gigantic." And oddly, my muse woke up and agreed.

The first few eps of SAO are pretty bleh in terms of the shows later theme... Which is the relationship between Kirito and Asuna. It is mainly because the episodes without Asuna are basically extensions of the story from after the original lite novel, and were added to try and flesh out Kirito a bit more and add some of the newer side characters into the plot. Once you get the about episode 5, that starts dealing with Asuna again it does start to fit together a bit better. Though 5 and 6 do have to do with a heavy death theme again... Once it gets going though, the idea of their relationship is there through the rest of the show. I really liked eps 1 and 2, so I soldiered through 3 - 6 and found myself not dissapointed with the later episodes. And I don't think it is much of a spoiler to say that, after episode 7 they stop with the really large time skipping, so things feel a lot more fluid. But then again, if you didn't like the first 2 episodes very much, even getting to the good relationship parts probably wouldn't be easy.

Figure Dump! Some good looking figures coming... LATE, despite when the show ended. Asuna Nendoroid Kirito Nendoroid Kirito Figma Asuna Figma I normally am not the type to buy girly figures, but I do make exceptions... But since they are releasing both Asuna and Kirito... I gots to get them both!

Lesse... on my 360... Borderlands 2 - Playing through a 2nd time, this time with friends and as a different character, so progress is kinda slow. But new DLC is still coming! Halo 4 - Waiting on season 2 of Spartan OPs, and slowly making my way through Legendary Campaign solo. Farcry 3 - Got to finish a few of the co-op missions with my bro, but done the campaign. And now I have DMC: Devil May Cry, Bioshock Infinite, Aliens Colonial Marines, Gears of War Judgement, and Dead Space 3 all pre-ordered... Nothing on PS3 right now... On my (NEW) Vita I am playing: Assassins Creed Liberation - Not that far into it, but feels like a decent Assassins Creed game. Ragnarok Oddyssey - Picked it up on a whim... Light on story, but is a solid action RPG. Feels very much like Phantasy Star Online, which is not a bad thing. Just need to find other people to play with. And over on my 3DS... Heroes of Ruin - Kind of a Diablo clone kind of dungeon/loot game. But playable with friends locally or over the net. Simple game, but fun with friends. But that's it. So far.

I got this when it first came out... God... That was YEARS ago. Damn I'm old! lol! Not posable at all, but still a very impressive and light weight statue of Guyver 1. Though I honestly cannot remember how much I paid for it way back then. Its size is still very impressive against the size of most figures.

The Armor Plus Figures? They have a few out now. Blade Evil Blastor Blade Blastor Evil Rapier/Miyuki Aki from TBII Sol Tekkaman Unit 2 Sol Tekkaman Unit 1 Plus Figma Blade was recently released, and Figma Evil is coming soon.

This is why I am glad I left Marvel comics after the Thanos Imperitive, and before Fear Itself. Not only did they "Kill off" two of my favorite characters ( Richard Rider/Nova Prime and Darkhawk) after making so much effort to revitalize them, but then they just ended one big crossover and start right into another. These large crossovers were great a decade or more ago, because they were RARE. I remember The Age of Apocalypse, and how epic everything felt since they took over the regular releases. Then there wasn't a big one for a while. But over the last few years there has been a large crossover practically every year... Basically only giving individual comics a few issues ( 5 at max) to do their own thing. There should be at LEAST a year between these events, if not two. And now Marvel has ruined big crossover events by over saturating the market with them. So now they have to go and pull a stunt like this in order to dig up some press. Sad.

Oh crud, that's right... He did have his stats reset. Yeah, that kind of screws up any plans for GGO. And all they needed to do was not say that line and it would have been fine. Though I am sure if they really wanted to do it, they would come up with an excuse to somehow still do it. Could just relogin to Heathcliff's account and alter his stats, lol.

Yeah, I felt the ending itself was a bit less dramatic than I expected. Was nice to see the other girls aren;t giving up... But they will have a hard time convincing Kazuto to leave Asuna. Was never a big fan of Suguha liking her own brother. It would have been ok if she had just liked Kirito, and freaked out when it turns out he was her brother... But the Brother X Sister/Cousin thing just didn't sit right with me. As for GGO... Isn't it pretty short? They could probably do it as a movie or an OAV. In the ending of SAO he did mention that people were able to transfer accounts between games, so it could be set up... I just don't seem them doing another full season if GGO can't fill on itself. I just don't see them doing Alicization... It seems to be too big of a change. People want more Kirito X Asuna. They don't want a character like Kirito starting a new adventure not remembering anything from his past.

I basically meant, "In the hands of a lesser director, this would probably have been a B-Movie with a lower production budget and crappy special effects." Don't know why I didn't just say that, lol! But Del Toro has the weight to pull around now, and can demand a good sized budget for his projects. And yes, the "B-Movie" type that I am refering to, is the kind of movie that goes straight to DVD. Usually lower budget movie with lesser known actors ( with the occasional known). Granted, it's not that they are BAD movies by default. I have seen some really good "B-Movies" ( Dark Hero anyone?). They are just movies that don't have the backing and star power for a full theatrical release. This includes movies with aging stars who aren't as popular anymore ( Steven Segal, Jean Cluade Van Damm, Dolph Lundgren etc...), or low budget sequels to existing movies ( Starship Troopers, Universal Soldier, Darkman etc...). There is an untold variety of movies that never get any hype, but are just as entertaing ( sometimes more so) than big budget films. This is why I hate the fact that movie rental places are practically gone now... Some of them were full of old B-Movies that were definately worth a rental.

Using GLaDOS's (Portal/Portal 2) voice/tone for the computer was sheer genious. I don't care what anyone says. That being said, using 2 pilots ( one of the Jeagers uses 3) seems a bit overkill... But I still am optimistic. As for people saying it seems like a live action Evangelion movie... One of the things mentioned in some of the promotional info, is that the main Jeager, Gipsy Danger, is an older Jeager ( first one ever created if I remember correctly) and may have been made differently than the other Jeagers. Similarily like how Eva Unit 01 was made from Lillith and not Adam like all the other units. Rumors are it may not be entirely mechanical in nature... Thus the bit of Eva similarity. Using the monsters to create mecha to fight the monsters. That and a few of the Jeagers have a somewhat similar look to the Eva's ( or at least Jet Alone...) This certainly is one of the movies that could be totally a straight to home video B-Movie with crappy special effects. But DelToro being the director gives it hope for great things.

It can feel very slow at times, and does have quite a few episodes that feel like filler episodes or "Monster of the Week" episodes. But the plot itself is very good, and the drama is handled well. As mentioned in an older post, the animation can be really bad sometimes... But really high quality sometimes too. They used multiple studios to make the series and sadly you can tell very easily. It's one of the flaws that can really turn somepeople away from the series.

There was a lot more edits than that throughout the series. If you wish to see "Tekkaman Blade" the only way to watch it is the original Japanese version. You probably won't be missing out on much if you only stick to the Teknoman series though. I've heard from many people that it still covers all the important stuff... Just with a lot of regular editing ( like blood etc...). It was edited for TV... But not US TV, so not as heavily mauled. Like for instance, spoilers of course:

Anyone else see it yet?

No, the book I got is all from the Out of Control OAV. Those look like they are from the OAV Series, or the 2005 TV series It's all mostly art with some small notes around the character work.

Nope, scanner at work is too small. Damn. Going to need to find a full sized photocopier that can scan for this thing...