MaxFactory: 1/20 VF-1A/S Valkyrie ...

[jcf]

The iconic metamorphing fighter from Macross, in 1/20th scale. 
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/VF-1_Valkyrie

http://www.taghobby.com/archives/121520

[Captain Canada]

Woah that's huge !

[KiwiZac]

Madness. This belongs with the HPH 1/48 B-36!

[Dizzyfugu]

OMG!? Even looks like an IP kit? I have seen RC models of the VF-1 in similar size, but as a "standard" kit?

[Steel Penguin]

 
that's is going to be mahosive!
and a wonderfully bonkers thing,   it needs a smaller scale version on strings under its hand like a puppet!

[NARSES2]

Shows how out of touch I am but I was expecting to see a fighter version of the XB-70 ! 

[KiwiZac]

Shows how out of touch I am but I was expecting to see a fighter version of the XB-70 ! 

IN 1/20?! 

[jcf]

Shows how out of touch I am but I was expecting to see a fighter version of the XB-70 ! 

Well that means you've been out of touch for decades. 

[NARSES2]

Shows how out of touch I am but I was expecting to see a fighter version of the XB-70 ! 

Well that means you've been out of touch for decades. 

Indeed, was I ever in touch ? 

Seriously this whole genre of Sci Fi/Fantasy (which is it ?) has completely passed me by

[Old Wombat]

Seriously this whole genre of Sci Fi/Fantasy (which is it ?) has completely passed me by

As former Treasurer of the Adelaide University Science Fiction & Fantasy Association I can categorically state "Possibly!"

Actually, they are separate genres.

However, over the last few decades there has been a blending of the two as more & more metaphysical stuff gets used in "soft" SF (social, often environmental based), which sells better these days than "hard" SF (tech-based, sometimes realistic (eg: Arthur C. Clarke), often fanciful (eg: David Drake)), although the metaphysical does find its way into hard SF, too (Use the Force, Luke!). While a lot of non-Sword-&-Sorcery Fantasy is going steam/diesel-punk, which is, at its core, SF.

Personally, I like my SF hard (including steam/diesel-punk) & my Fantasy Sword-&-Sorcery. Not keen on the melding of the two at all.

Vampires, werewolves & zombies, generally, fall under the Fantasy category but I quite like the 28 Days/Weeks Later & Max Brooks more Science Fiction take on zombies (Max has an interesting parentage if you look him up).

I'm not an anime fan, generally, although I like some of the hardware, but I think the Macross series is more "hard" SF than anything else.

[jcf]

Personally I've never considered Star Wars as 'hard SF' it's
always fallen into the Science-Fantasy realm for multiple
reasons, particularly the 'Force' nonsense.

[KiwiZac]

I don't know about that last bit - the Force is with me and I am one with the Force. 

Anime is a MASSIVE genre which many of us in the West have totally missed. It's a real rabbit hole!

[Dizzyfugu]

There are many SF anime genres, and Macross (as well as Gundam, Dougram and Dorvack, later also Patlabor, to name the best-knwon) were part of the "real robot" genre/movement in the early Eighties. While the stuff is colorful and looks sometimes a bit childish (like the samurai designs in Gundam), the TV series' the designs come from a pretty serious military dramas at their cores. A lot of design effort was put into the machines. One can argue how "realistic" or practical such huge humanoid things are, but the background and the fictional universes they belong to are/were pretty serious. Very different from the later US violations like the Transformers franchise. It's actually a shame when you see today's Micheal Bay films and know where those robots come from.

As a side note: there has been for years the plan to make a real-life Macross movie, and an impressive fan film/trailer fake with CG animations can be found in the WWW. But I am afraid that the whole original military setting and the story would be crudely compromised in the hands of a Western/US writer or producer (just look at the recent "real" Ghost in the Shell movie, which is visually brilliant but totally fails to meet the manga/anime movie's depth). Still, I'd love to see such a "real" retro mecha movie, true to the original and with today's technical possibilities.

There has been, some years ago, a real world adaptation of the Patlabor universe in Japan - but it ended like a comedy musical and must IMHO be considered a fail, even though the original manga has lots of humor, very different from the two movies (which are IMHO great mecha stuff, too, but "different").

[zenrat]

"Anime" simply means Japanese animation and ranges from porn to horror to romance to sci-fi with everything else in-between.
To my nephew (13 and so obviously knows best) it just means shouting and fighting  (e.g. Dragonball Z) and he refuses to acknowledge there is any other sort of anime despite being sat down in front of most of the Studio Ghibli output at one time or another ("that's just a cartoon Uncle Fred, its not anime").

[NARSES2]

I quite like Steam Punk and even went as far as to pick up the Osprey book - Soldiers : Uniforms and Weapons from the Age of Steam  make for some interesting Wargames armies.