This year’s Shizuoka Hobby Show is now in full swing. As such, the likes of AmiAmi have been covering it. The big announcements are a new kit line (called Reborn One Hundred) and the MSN-04II Nightingale being the first kit in the range (pictured above). To make matters even more fabulous, we’ll also be getting a Ver Ka MG of the RX-93-v2 Hi-Nu Gundam as well as the announcement that a Beltorchika’s Children manga will be serialised in Gundam Ace. Bar that, there will also be a new 1/48 scale kit of the live action Ingram. All in all, it looks to be a pretty kickass show this time around. If you’re at all curious, there is some additional coverage here, here, here, here and here.

It’s been a while since the last entry in the Z series, Saisei Hen, not to mention the noticeable lack of a full blooded Super Robot Wars game on current console hardware. Admittedly we’ve had the odd side story game but no real proper 2D multi-anime series game on either the PS3 or 360. Jigoku Hen pretty much changes all that.

The first in a two part finale for the Z series, Jigoku Hen is also the first major release to have both a home and portable console version. This has produced some very interesting design aspects to the game as a whole. It’s also one of the prettiest Super Robot Wars games around and an enormous amount of fun.

This summer’s Tamashii Nation’s event is in full swing this weekend. We popped over to Akiba yesterday to check it out and naturally took a bunch of pictures in the process. In addition to the reveal of all manner of new toys, there were some other aspects worth mentioning. The first being that a variety of older web shop exclusive toys were given a limited re-release. Doors opened for that at 1pm and as you’d imagine the entire stock sold out lightning fast. The second thing was that the DX YF-30 Chronos had a hands-on section of the event. We played with the upcoming toy and were very impressed. There’s a lot of diecast in it and the detailing is great. The missile pod is also detachable and the head antenna are made of soft plastic. The only minor gripe is that the tail fins are only connected via one point of contact and feel a little flimsy. In addition, if you filled in a questionnaire you got given a 1UP Mushroom from Mario, foreshadowing their Mario release later this month. The big news for us was the Robot Damashii Dragonar and Blue Destiny figures, as well as getting to see the new Layzner Mk2 up close (it’s very nice). Anyway, all our pictures are after the link so enjoy!

After much wait, the Soul of Chogokin Spec Layzner Mk2 has been given a price and release date. Costing 9,180 yen and out this September, it is indeed a web shop exclusive (with pre-orders opening on May 12th). It will also be on display at the Tamashii Nations event this weekend, which we’ll be obviously attending. That aside, the toy looks bloody amazing. It retains the transformation as well as a slew of other gimmicks. Considering that the E-MF-LZ-00X-2 Layzner Mk2 was never properly included in the show, due to its early cancellation, the fact we have such a nice toy of this nearly thirty years later is somewhat bonkers really (though most welcomed). It goes without saying that we’ll be picking this baby up later in the year.

Following the last two gameplay promos for Gundam Side Stories, we now have one that covers the game and story as whole. In addition to confirming the presence of a Cross Dimension 0079 arc, we now also see much more of how the Missing Link story fits into things. Specifically, how the MS-08TX/S Efreet Schneid ends up in Unicorn (as the Efreets were made in very limited quantity). Bar that, the story for Missing Link actually looks quite compelling and it seems that Side Stories as a whole has been given a lot of love. The game is still on course for its May 29th release and you can pre-order the standard edition here.

In addition to the new promos that went up yesterday, we now also have some further and very interesting gameplay footage for Gundam Side Stories. Now we said previously that the fact that the remakes of the older games were using the new engine hinged on whether the new setup was any decent. Well, it very is. The two videos cover both ground and space combat from both the Federation and Zeon sides. From what we are seeing in these videos from a functional standpoint, the game has the potential to be very good indeed. Whilst we would have preferred to have the original games remade as they were, we are happy at least that the new game mechanics look to be very compelling. The game is still on course for its May 29th release and you can pre-order the standard edition here.

We now have the promos for both Lost War Chronicles and Space, To the End of A Flash. Whilst the former was a standalone game, the latter was a side campaign in the PS2 game Encounters in Space. As such it is entirely set in space, compared to the other ground based games. Whilst this looks like the last of the promos, there are rumours that Cross Dimension 0079 will also be included. This is especially strange as that game was a turn based strategy title. Again, it seems that in the case of the Gundam Side Stories collection the games are purely meant as narrative retellings rather than actual remakes. The game is still on course for its May 29th release and you can pre-order the standard edition here.

Courtesy of our good friends at HobbyLink Japan, we’ve been sent a toy from Macross Plus to review. Specifically, the YF-19 with FAST Pack from Arcadia. In addition, to give the toy some context, we’ve also linked some anime and gameplay footage of it in action at the end of the review.

Most people don’t get to see or hear about things like this but From Software has changed owners, from IT company Trans Cosmos to intellectual property magnate and publisher Kadokawa. This new arrangement has had Kadokawa taken an 80% stake in From Software. Now these things happen all the time and normally the company in question doesn’t undergo any changes. However, Kadokawa is a pretty monolithic institution and this could go either way. We are surprised that Bandai Namco didn’t become the new owners though (as they have a vested interest in terms of the Souls series of games, at least outside of Japan). Anyway our collective fingers are crossed at this news and hope our friends at From Software are weathering this change comfortably.

We now have concrete details on Bandai’s YF-30 Chronos toy as seen in Macross 30. Released in August for 21,600 yen this will not be a webshop exclusive. Instead it will be a regular release. This is obviously utterly fantastic news for fans around the world (as ordering from the Bandai webshop exclusive items can be pretty damn expensive if you live outside of Japan). We’ve also checked out the toy at the Akiba Showroom and it looks fantastic up close. So this is something we will be definitely acquiring in August.