Despite our functional dislike of the Zone of the Enders series, we’ve always admired the designs that Yoji Shinkawa penned for the games. As such, we felt compelled to purchase the recently released Revoltech Jehuty toy. It’s clear from the off that the team at Kaiyodo were obvious fans of the series, as this toy has had a lot of love poured into it. In addition, to give the toy some context, we’ve included some gameplay videos of Jehuty in action from the first game at the end of the review.

Over at GA Graphic they’ve uncovered that Kotobukiya are running a limited edition campaign for various Armored Core kit parts (molded in a gun metal colouring) as well as a clear version of Nineball Seraph. The campaign starts today and the items can only be acquired via their online shop. However, if you ask people like Tokyo Hunter to help out we’re sure they’ll be able to lend a hand. As a rule , Kotobukiya’s kits are normally excellent and each kit’s sculpt is often similarly exemplary.

It’s been reported that veteran director/producer Toshiro Tsuchida will be leaving Square Enix. Tsuchida is effectively the founding father for the Front Mission series. There have been rumours that Tsuchida was quite ill during the development of Final Fantasy XIII, so this departure may be in part due to that. In any case, we dutifully doff our cap to a man that has helped shaped mecha gaming to what it is today and wish him well. Thanks to Chazumaru for the heads up.

Courtesy of our good friends at HobbyLink Japan, we’ve been sent the Robot Damashii L-Gaim Mk. 2 toy from Heavy Metal L-Gaim. To help give the toy some context we’ve also included some videos of it from the original anime and a few games it has been featured in over the years at the end of the review.

Courtesy of our good friends at HobbyLink Japan, we’ve been sent the 1/3000 scale SDF-1 Macross toy from Macross Do You Remember Love? as made by Yamato. It goes without saying that this is quite an important and iconic design to get given such an epic toy treatment, so we were understandably excited to get our hands on one. To help give the toy some context we’ve also included some videos of it from the original anime and a few games it has been featured in over the years at the end of the review.

As posted via Hideo Kojima’s Twitter feed last month at the Yoji Shinkawa Live Art Show, it seems that in addition to the just announced RIOBOT figures, that there will also be a Revoltech version of Jehuty released later this year (shown above). The Revoltech line is known for its dynamic poses, as enabled by a very sturdy joint system, as well as their compact size. This is an interesting situation though, as two separate toy lines converging on a previously dormant series is a bit more than just simple coincidence. It’s no big secret that another Zone of Enders has been in an extended form of pre-production for some time now, do these toys herald something more tangible in the near future? In any case, the Revoltech figure will be available this spring (according to Kojima) or “Q4” according to everyone else. There are even a few places taking pre-orders.

Update: The official Konami site has confirmed the release date for the 15th April.

Over at at the RIOBOT official blog and in amongst some of the recent Wonder Festival 2011 Winter coverage is a teaser that some Zone of the Enders figures are on the way. Specifically, figures from Anubis (or the 2nd Runner as it was known outside of Japan). Whilst we are somewhat unimpressed with the ZOE games as a whole, the production standards and especially Yoji Shinkawa’s amazing mecha designs are something we greatly admire. Considering that none of the mecha have ever been released in toy form, this announcement is wonderful news (doubly so as the RIOBOT line is already renowned for its finesse of sculpt). Whilst there is no specific release date set (bar sometime next year), the three announced figures thus far are Jehuty, Vic Viper and Anubis. Whether Vic Viper will transform remains to be seen but we can but hope.

For years OverClocked Remix, perhaps the most widely recognized fan-based community of game music remixers, has been releasing special collections (albums as they refer to them) that pay homage to a specific game. For the most part, the choice of subject matter has been on a bit of a safe side: Sonic, Castlevania, Final Fantasy, and the like. Hence why their most recent release, which is centered around Armored Core, is particularly noteworthy.

Over at Anime News Network they’ve got a cool little story of an unknown cosplayer donning a full blown GN-0000 00 Gundam from Gundam 00 at Melbourne’s Manifest. This being the base unit from the second season before it later combined with the GNR-010 0 Raiser. You don’t normally get the 00 Gundam on its own very often in game, instead most games opt for the beefier 00 Raiser. However, the Yuke’s developed Gundam Meisters on the PS2 did feature the 00 Gundam as an unlockable unit. Still, it’s pretty impressive work on the part of the cosplayer and we tip our steel rimmed hat to them.

One of the largest Perfect Grade kits has finally been released, that of the ZGMF-X20A Strike Freedom Gundam from Gundam SEED Destiny. Coming in at a whopping 26,250 yen, like the other Perfect Grades it’s hardly very affordable. However, this price tag isn’t without reason; as the sheer engineering involved in the manufacturing of these plamodel beasts is suitably epic. Unsurprisingly, this mobile suit has been in numerous games over the years and the upcoming Gundam Musou 3 will also feature the mecha. As with almost all Bandai Gundam kits, Hajime Katoki has a hand in the sculpt and engineering. This can sometimes cause issues with the sculpt on certain designs (original design here), as he has a habit of somewhat standardising them. The Strike Freedom seems to be mostly okay on this front though. In any case, you can buy this impressive kit over at HLJ and they’re even holding a Perfect Grade sale too.