The Old School Otaku Lounge

Your Gecko Defense Force in the storage room probably modified your robots. Now there's a Mobile Suit Gecko and an Ultra-Gecko in there.

I had to deal with roaches last weekend. A few weeks ago, my wife found an adult climbing on the kitchen door curtain and apparently it must have left an egg behind. For the past week or so, we've been finding little baby roaches, killing 7. So on Saturday we smoke bombed every room in the apartment and left for 3 hours to attend a local matsuri. When we came back, all the little idiots were strewn across the floor. Love how they become little drama queens, running out into the open, gasping for air. "Tell me again about Disneyland...ACK!" Since these were only babies, we hope we broke the cycle before it starts. We had to deal with the crappy German roaches at our last apartment in America, and those were hard to kill.

So if it is summer all year long in Hawaii, do the roaches not hibernate in winter since it never gets cold?

It does get cold in Hawaii, but not cold by my standards. I suppose that they would migrate to places where it was dry (like someone's house), because the winter season, while not cold, is very wet. But I'm no entomologist. All I need to know about roaches is: if I see one, it dies ASAP.

I heard talk of large German-style roaches in the islands, but I guess I was just lucky; I never actually saw one. The common local ones were no bigger than the end of my finger, and were easy prey for geckos. Apart from the occasional mating call in the dead of night, and the oddly dry dung left on the window sill, we never saw our pest controllers.
That, BTW, is why it's considered bad form to kill the little lizards. In fact, it's considered good luck in Hawaii to have a gecko in the house. A roach is merely a target to a bug bomb, but to a gecko, it's breakfast.

UGH! Let's talk about something else...

Heh, sorry. So did you ever collect any Macross, Mospeada, and Orguss toys back in the day? Those are so cool. My friend from Mexico said that they would sell bootlegged Japanese toys there, and he had a transforming Orguss toy. He never new it was from a TV show until much later.

greg wrote:So did you ever collect any Macross, Mospeada, and Orguss toys back in the day? Those are so cool.

Yes, indeed. I've got the original Takatoku version of the SDF-1, and all the Valkyrie versions except the ELINT one, as well as the GBP-1 Valkyrie armor.* I know the Orguss is in those crates somewhere, and I think the Ishkick is there as well. I'm not sure about the Olson Orguss anymore.

As mentioned before, Mospeada wasn't aired where I was, so I knew it only through the magazines and such; it wasn't until Robotech that I actually saw the show. I always thought of the Legioss as a less-elegant Valkyrie, stubbier and more businesslike.
I found only one of the Mospeada toys before Gakken went under (Bernard's Armo-Bike), but I found a Legioss or two in Hong Kong. They'd been repackaged, but they were the real thing. Alas, one was extensively damaged during a move. I couldn't bring myself to throw it away, and it's in a box with the rest of them.
A few years ago I read of someone selling an Armo-Bomber (aka "Beta Fighter") on eBay. As I understand it, that was the very last toy Gakken made, and only 12 are known to exist. Its owner wanted $19.5K for it. I wonder if he ever got it...

*Kudos to those who know what the "GBP" designation stands for!

WOW. How can only 12 have ever been made? That's crazy. It's like they stopped the factory before they even began making them.

There's a real cool YouTube channel called CollectionDX, and they also have a website and forum. In the past few years, a Japaense company (I think it was Yamato, but not sure) made an Armo Bomber toy. While it was cool, apparently Toynami's Robotech Beta toy is superior. The Japanese toy has perhaps better colors, but the American toy has better detail, proportions, features, materials, and sturdiness. They made like a half hour comparison review video. I figured I'd get bored, but I ended up watching the whole thing. I probably won't ever get around to buying one, but it was interesting to see an American toy company beating out a Japanese toy company.

I have collected quite a lot of anime-related plastic models over the past 8 or so years. I have a transformable Orguss (by IMAI), several Macross Valkyries (by Bandai, ARII, and Hasegawa), and only one Legioss Armo Diver from Mospeada (I forget the manufacturer). I haven't really built many of them, though.

greg wrote:I have collected quite a lot of anime-related plastic models over the past 8 or so years. I have a transformable Orguss (by IMAI), several Macross Valkyries (by Bandai, ARII, and Hasegawa), and only one Legioss Armo Diver from Mospeada (I forget the manufacturer). I haven't really built many of them, though.

Neither have I, but I didn't let that stop me!
Gakken made model kits too, but your Legioss is probably from Imai, especially if it's the 1/48 transformable one.

I'm at home now and confirm that the Legioss model is indeed by IMAI, a 1/72 scale stuck in Gerwalk mode. I've been wanting to put this together for a while. I have so many other unfinished projects at the moment, though.

AnimeSennin wrote:Aging otaku get-together in Hawaii?

You might be pleasantly surprised. There's lots of middle-aged men there who'd probably join you if you started singing the old Kikaida theme on the bus.

In fact, about nine or so years back there was a revival of that show in Hawaii. The actor who played the role was invited over to the Japanese Cultural Center, and the place was packed. He appeared later at Ala Moana Shopping Center (the biggest in the state, right in the heart of the city), and again the place was packed. He's come back regularly since then, the original series was released (with subtitles) on DVD, and it's still going on; click on www.generationkikaida.com and see what comes up.
There have also been anime conventions for most of the past decade in Hawaii. Distances are great, expenditures are large, but they continue, and even some Japanese anime celebrities have been known to attend.
And come on...who really needs an excuse to visit Hawaii, anyway?

There's another forum member on here living in Hawaii who is a dear friend of mine, Ganalef. Unfortunately, he's underwater most of his life, and doesn't get to spend much time on forums. He says he doesn't like Hawaii. Too much humidity curls up his books, he says. He used to stationed in Misawa, up until a few years ago. Like you, I think he'd rather be back there.