April 20, 2001 CURRENT RUMBLE You Say Ya-Mah-to, I Say Ya-May-to Steve Harrison & Matt Alt 4.20.01 The debate began innocently enough, a throwaway comment at the end of an email exchange between myself and old-skool anime guru Steve Harrison. "Oh, and BTW?" asked Steve. "The Soul of Popinika Yamato is toy of the year for 2001. Might as well announce it now, it's over.. :)" "Oh really?" said I. "You're outta your mind. TOTY is most definitely going to be the diecast ARCADIA." It only took a single day for the reply. And what a reply it was. . . he dropped some SCIENCE on my ignorant ass... "The diecast Arcadia, while cool, while surely a thing that needed to be made, doesn't tread any new ground or chart any new way -- basically, from the pics so far it's a metal version of the 1982 Bandai model kit...ho-hum, it's not even right, proportionally speaking. It's about 94% there, if you can get my meaning. But the SoP Yamato... ahhhhh, sweet, sweet design... It's the first Yamato toy or model to have the Journey to Iscandar proportions of the ship, ever. Everything else made since Bandai/Popy had the license in 1978 has had Yamato 2, Be Forever Yamato or Final Yamato proportions (longer stern, among other things. . . or if you want the fanboy take, 'The SoP Yamato is first time the hull design of the inital launch of the ship, as seen in 2199-2200...has been recreated...all other toys and models of the ship have been of the 2201 and later hull revisions' (Ah, fanboy-speak! ;) It comes with Black Tiger, Cosmo Zero and CosmoTiger II fighters! And you can mount the fighters on the catapults! And note the subtle paint jobs in Bandai's pics: the two different schemes for the Black Tigers, the two different "flight leader" colors on the CosmoTiger II planes...that's attention to detail, brutha! Note the folding fin just aft of the Third Bridge. In the show, when the ship is grounded, crew can use the ramp that opens on the Third Bridge to go in and out -- and that ramp actually opens on this toy! Note that the turrets for the Main Guns rotate, and the barrels elevate and depress individually, so you can duplicate the "turret rotating to position, guns clanking home to train on target one...two...three" action as seen in the show! Note that not only is there a lower fighter hanger, but pop open the little upper panel and there's an upper fighter launch bay, too! It comes with a model of the Cosmo Cleaner D, packed in its own little '100 Yen Mechanical Collection' style box, and… MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL... for the first time in any toy or model of the Yamato... THEY HAVE THE CORRECT FIVE WINDOWS IN THE MAIN BRIDGE!!!!! See, every other toy/kit has four windows, which is due to a misprinted promo-illustration from 1974 that has been carried over ever since. There are two flaws I have to concede. They still haven't found a way to do the folding wings 100% accurately as in the show, but really, there *isn't* any way to do that. Also, they don't have slide-down panels on the sides for the "anti-missile missile" launchers. But I can live with..."  RUMBLE INDEX  |  CURRENT RUMBLE