Grand Theft Auto – Medicom Kubrick Sets

Perhaps the only official merchandise that ever blessed this long-running Rockstar series. GTA 3 set was more mild on accessories, whereas Vice City set even came with a beach post-card, Kubrick style.

Steel Battalion – Vitzh

Sometimes, just one good shot and some simple editing is all you need to capture the essence of a figure. I will most likely cover this great game in its own post later on.

iA – AV-98 Ingram

Incredibly iconic mech from the classic show Patlabor via Bandai’s ancient in Action line. These were brethren to all the Gundam figures from various other shows. Later the line gained a more appropriate name- Offshoot in Action, symbolizing deviation from Mobile Suits.

Ingram does not disappoint one bit. It comes with plenty of the accessories- 2 heads, various hands, pistol that stores in the leg compartment and extending hand gimmick for picking it up, stored and extended batons, shotgun with and without deployed stock, and TV an movie versions of the head. Other than that, all of the proper markings are present like Noa’s Alphonse signature name and even its license plate. Another notable point was the double-hinge joint in the knees which was a feature far ahead of its time for in Action line.

MSiA – EMS-10 Zudah

Yet another pleasant surprise from Bandai, to go with the MS igLoo series. And very obvious, yet somewhat unexpected was seeing the other two units released as well.

The story behind this test unit was its competition against Zaku I for the mass production spot in Zeon’s growing army prior to the One Year War. It had much better speed and armaments than its competitor, but suffered from the massive thruster instability at high levels of output and thus lost the race while it was under the EMS-4 model number. The later attempt at development of the suit under a different model number ended up a failure since the prevailing stability problem was solved only in its title and took the lives of two of its new test pilots as the result.

So here’s the Zudah next to its prior competitor, the whole test unit, and U.C. Arms Gallery Zaku II style machinegun comparison. Leftmost Zudah is at its optimal loadout, Commander with standard equipment, and unit IV with the bazooka. Interesting gimmicks are the functioning pistons in the arms and movable shield mount points on the shoulders.

MSiA – RX-121 Gundam TR-1 [Hazel]

It warmed my heart when Bandai started releasing figures of variations and from various side stories of the gundam universe. Hazel in particular is from Advance of Zeta: The Flag of Titans and was the test unit that was later developed into the iconic Gundam Mk.II.

Hazel resembled its base, GM Quell/GM Custom (from 0080 War in Pocket) and sported experimental beam rifles with stacked magazines, which was a brand new technology at the time. The 3 massive thrusters doubled as shield per depletion of the fuel and though they added incredible speed to the unit, their weight often crippled the developing machine. Same went with the additional armor, similar to that of Gundam Alex (0080 War in Pocket).

So here’s the pretty little bugger and a comparison of his stock rifles with the U.C. Arms Gallery variant.

A Proper Upgrade

If I do say so myself-

Freshly discounted (decided to get local juuuuust in case, gotta love Micro Center’s 15 day return policy- no questions asked) Nikon N5100 with 18-55 VR lens. So far, I’d say so good- it does all the basics I needed in a photo apparatus that SX nor anything below it could offer by default. Where and how this new, proper specimen will take me only time will really tell.

Here are a few, downsized random test shots from this evening:

Auto mode, no flash, about 2MP size for the pic.

SX20

D5100

MSiA – MA-08 Big Zam

The biggest mobile armor from in Action line and is only rivaled by GP03 Dendrobium in the overall size and bulk. Biggie features removable toe missiles, very tight foot ball joints, and clicky joints in knees and waist to support its heavy torso, movable main cannon, and lots of sheer awesomeness.

MSiA – MRX-009 Psycho Gundam

One of the giants from the in Action line, with near-perfect transformation, hidden compartment for extra pieces, and moveable fingers on the open set of hands.

MSiA – PMX-003 The O

Old, but absolutely excellent figure. All the proper gimmicks included, joints nice and tight, and enough articulation given such an old figure.

June 7Eleven Gintama Campaign – Sougo and Hijikata

Never got around to taking and posting pics of these 2, courtesy of Mi-chan. And one shot next to last February campaign Gin, courtesy of Nao-kun.

Quick recap on how this all works- during the time of prize campaign, you buy a blind ticket from participating stores via 500 yen. You then open the ticket and see what tier of prizes you can choose something from (A=1st/best,B,C, and so on down the alphabet). Gin, as always, was the A from feb. Sougo and Toshi were B and C from June.