Of kites and men OR: Ghost on the machine

I accepted a long time ago that I will not amount to anything significant in life and while that would cause most people to eat antifreeze, it is liberating in that it gives me license to indulge in toy robots. For every Ben Frankin there's probably a hundred guys who accomplished nothing of note with their lives but they had tons of fun flying kites in a storm. As those men of little note risked their lives, so do I risk my future financial security by buying toy robots now with money that should be saved for retirement. With all the crazy ways there are to die a random unexpected death nowadays I may not even live to see retirement and hell, getting hit by kite lightning is an awesome way to go!

Which brings me to my latest toy robot obsession, the upcoming September release of Yamato's 1/60 scale VF-0S with QF2200D-B Ghost Booster. If the name means nothing to you, just know that it is another awesome $100+ toy robot that looks like two airplanes are humping each other. It was in a 2002 Japanese cartoon called Macross Zero that never got released in the US. You can get torrents of it and I think it's worth watching. It's another of Shoji Kawamori's incredible robot operas. At times the "War sucks, machines of war suck, we must live in harmony with the trees and the volcanoes" message is a bit heavy handed but thankfully that doesn't get in the way of the awesome scenes with big robots warring each other and blowing up trees and volcanoes.

Thanks to some legal issues over who owns North American distribution rights of Macross product, the toys will never see release here. I've bought Yamato robots before-the last one I got was the 1/48 Super VF-1S Hikaru from DYRL, which looks like a really big Jetfire but with the red and black reversed and the armor is greenish blue. It was created as proof of higher intelligences at work in the universe and so that mankind may know salvation. Usually I wait until a second production run on Yamato stuff because the first runs are buggy or they release better versions of the same robots later on. Like with the 1/60 VF-0S. First they released it by itself, then they released a VF-0A with the Ghost Booster, now they're doing the VF-0S with the Ghost Booster. So it's tempting to jump in early but I've learned that if I wait then they'll do the combination of features I want.

I'm sure that Yamato will eventually come up with a Reactive Armor version but I don't like the Macross jets all covered up in armor that makes them look like Gargamel's worst nightmare. So I'm happy with preordering the one with the ghost booster. Hey, I ain't afraid of no ghost!