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Valkyrie Driver

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  1. Valkyrie Driver
    On a slightly related note, I found one of my PS2 memory cards, which means I may have my old save file of Robotech battlecry, and all the various goodies I unlocked. I'm going to have to give it a go!
  2. Valkyrie Driver
    If you could direct me toward the scenes you're referencing, I'll go have a look. I'm not going to argue about platoon vs team, because frankly that bit is pointless. I mean, the Navy calls their Platoon/Flight sized unit a Division (non aviation side), and has multiple different things that are called squadrons (aircraft can come in squadrons, as can ships, and in varying sizes). The direct translation of the JMSDF ranks basically amount to 3 ranks in what we would call company grade (which are all called lieutenant, with 3 different degrees) and Field Grade (all called Captain with 3 different degrees). I have not found any romaji for the other JSDF branches, but I would think they're similar. The Imperial system is what we hear most, but even then it breaks it down into junior officers and senior officers and then ranks them in order sho (small) chu (middle) tai/dai (big), i for junior officers, sa for senior officers. So Shosa is small senior officer, or a Major/Lieutenant Commander. As for how the squadrons are organized, well navy squadrons are small because space is limited. With more space, you could have bigger squadrons, and it may be a function of not having enough senior officers to command squadrons as they have junior officers and pilot officers. You'll also notice that we've always said usually, because there are annoying exceptions to every rule. Not all squadrons have their full amount of aircraft, nor do all squadrons have the bodies to put in all those seats. As for spinning off an Air Force, technically Naval Aviation is it's own entity in the Navy, and is generally separate from everything else. Also, Japanese is a very descriptive language. Also, the point at which we see that become a thing in the franchise, is way past our current level of military evolution. And who's to say that that the entire military hasn't just adopted a unified command, similar to the Canadian armed forces. While there is distinction between components, there's mobility between them. If you cross train to a different operational specialty, you, in essence, change branches (at least that's how I understand it, Canadians feel free to correct me if I'm wrong). That might be how the military forces in Macross have begun to work post space war one.
  3. Valkyrie Driver
    The wing mounted weapons are a disappointment with the Bandai. I wish it had come with some. Gun pod is a bit wonky the way bandai did it, having the whole gun bend instead of having the grip move. I don't own the Arcadia YF-19, but from what I understand it's almost exactly the same, mechanically, as the Yamato VF-19 toys. Those mechanics are wonderfully done, but it suffers some problems, like those super stiff gerwalk joints that make transforming the toy a terrifying experience. The elbows on the Yamato/Arcadia toys are limited, and you have to fudge a double jointed elbow by using the bicep hinge. Now both toys really suffer in not having a true double jointed elbow, the Yamato/Arcadia toys joints are too spaced out, while Bandai seemed to want to go for a more robust arm mechanism (looking at it, they put the swivel in the only place they could, given the way the arm was designed. Yes it limits articulation in some poses, but I don't think most people are going to notice and/or care that much). Last is the ankles, the bandai's ankles are well executed and this toy can pull off some very extreme gerwalk poses, because of the range of motion the ankles have. The Yamato/Arcadia can't do heel up on the ankles, so it's gerwalk is very limited (unless you use Jenius's ankle cheat). Bandai went the extra mile to make sure that they didn't compromise the integrity of the look in any mode. I can forgive some gappiness, with the fast packs due to how well everything fits together on this toy without them. I'm sure I'd love the Arcadia, but given how similar it is to the VF-19F I already have, I think I'd still enjoy my bandai just as much as I am without an arcadia. I voted for the Bandai, given how close the mechanics of the arcadia are to my VF-19F.
  4. Valkyrie Driver
    The Arcadia triple hinge kinda bothers me now that I've seen how Bandai executed it. It just looks better, and the Yamato was very similar. The Bandai feels like they took the best parts of the yamato, and the arcadia, designed the toy, and redesigned it with the new features they waned to add. While the toy does seem over engineered at first blush, it doesn't seem fiddly enough to be called that. I'm not tempted to get another one in the Isamu Colors, but if they do repaints I'm getting one.
  5. Valkyrie Driver
    I agree with this. I'd still probably pick the Bandai for handling though, because at the prices the Arcadia commands, it's not worth the potential for breakage... The Bandai seems really solid, and me transforming it, and posing it and generally playing with it, it doesn't seem like it's going to break.
  6. Valkyrie Driver
    I must have all the 25's... also, this...
  7. Valkyrie Driver
    I'd say Plus first, for a number of reasons. 1) It's a self contained story, that requires little background information, and it's easy to follow, without the Macross Background. 2) It hits all the Important bits of Macross, the love triangle and the sweet mecha fights. 3) It gets to the action pretty quick, and keeps the pace going. It doesn't drag, so it's easy to watch. 4) It's short, sweet, and to the point. 5) The music is pretty catchy, and makes a nice set piece for the story. Final reason, it cuts out a lot of the esoteric pacifist bullcrap (Last thing you want to do is slap someone in the face with philosophy right at the jump). No Basara or Kaifun like shenanigans, just two old friends, who had a falling out, competing over a military project and a woman, and beating the hell out of each other because of it. Not to mention the animation has held up pretty well, and the main mecha are just friggin cool. As for holding their value, I'm in agreement with Mommar on this. Outside Japan, people will pay premium prices for these toys that are hard to get outside Japan.
  8. Valkyrie Driver
    It is, but the problem is we're trying to get something objective out of an entirely subjective matter. Without Mr. Kawamori saying definitively what it is, we'll end up with a million different theories as to how the rank and operations structures work. I'm maintaining that it's based on the way a navy would work, because regardless of the environment, there are more similarities between surface carrier operations and space carrier operations than there are differences, meaning that the navy would be the go to place for experienced personnel. The same holds true for shipboard personnel. That means the UN Spacy would end up with a Naval tradition regardless, because Navy people do Navy things, the Navy way.
  9. Valkyrie Driver
    It's just so bad isn't it?
  10. Valkyrie Driver
    I tried to watch The Maross Saga of Robotech when it was on netflix, and it just couldn't. The voices killed me. I just couldn't do it, they were so bad...
  11. Valkyrie Driver
    Now to get him to watch the anime... And new convert!
  12. Valkyrie Driver
    Now, why does that sound familiar...? I thought so, but I wasn't sure.
  13. Valkyrie Driver
    If I'm not mistaken the JMSDF doesn't have any carriers (as we would know them). They have some Helicopter carriers, similar to our Wasp class amphibious assault ships. So it makes sense that Kawamori drew inspiration from the JASDF, since that's the only place in Japan you'll find fighter pilots and fighter jets. As for the USAF, They've always been at the cutting edge of Aircraft technology, because that's the USAF's only reason to exist is projecting airpower. The Navy has always regarded aircraft as a supplement to the surface fleet, powerful and capable weapons sure, but you need carriers to get those planes to places, and you need more than fighters to defend a carrier. Air craft can cover large search patterns and fill the gaps in submarine defenses, but ships are the navy's bread and butter, not aircraft. There's also precedent in the world to have everything dealing with a certain aspect of war belong to the branch that's specialized in that area. Israel for example, put anything dealing with the air under it's air force's control, so paratroopers, aircraft, aircraft maintenance, and Air Defense troops, they're all IAF. While All ground forces belong to the Army. It's a greatly simplified way of doing things.
  14. Valkyrie Driver
    I'd kind of like an MP-03 Starscream, or one of the other seekers in that mold. Then do a Yamato v2 VF-1S in Jetfire colors for some G1 fun...
  15. Valkyrie Driver
    A friend of mine noticed my Macross collection and as he looked at them he basically said, "These must do something other than just look good on display." To which I responded casually that they transform. He called BS, and then I transformed one right before his eyes. I think a big part is the engineering. They look like fighter jets in fighter mode, and there's no real indication that they transform, to the uninitiated. You look at one and think, "This is a really cool jet" and "OMG! IT TRANSFORMS!". You look at most transformers and there's a vehicle, like starscream and you look at the top and it's a fighter jet. Look at the side (First run MP-03 Starscream) and it still looks like a fighter jet, but then you turn it over and, oh hey there's a robot in here somewhere. Then there's the cartoon accurate MP-11 which from the side has visible robot underkibble. In contrast, Valkyries try very hard to achieve a clean fighter mode, by stowing all the robot bits as efficiently as possible, and trying to stow as much of the fighter bits as possible in robot mode to make it as clean as possible. Some designs do this better than others, like the VF-1, the VF-11, the VF-17/171. While others fall a bit short, like the Y/VF-19, YF-21/VF-22, VF-25/27 YF-29/30, but still look fresh and clean. I might be off the mark. But that's all I really wanted to add.
  16. Valkyrie Driver
    My introduction to Robotech was through Battlecry for the PS2. I had become familiar with Macross at that point, and recognized the Mecha in the game. Because Battlecry was a side story to the main plot of robotech with a lot of original characters, it was easy to pretend that it was Macross and not Robotech. I have the ADV dub on DVD, and I love it.
  17. Valkyrie Driver
    Sivil seems to be the most memorable (I mean why wouldn't she be...Dat body...), so the body we see her running around in is one of those Evil series super weapons you mentioned? But her actual mind and memories and personality is that of a super-dimensional being? Did the Evil series have any personality to begin with, or do we not have any information on that?
  18. Valkyrie Driver
    I see what your saying about realism. I'm not saying that Basara's character needed to grow, as much as I felt he was just disconnected from the world around him. He just seemed a bit forced is all I'm saying. Basara just stands out as the one thing I didn't like about Macross 7. I thought everything else was pretty fun.
  19. Valkyrie Driver
    If it doesn't follow any specific way of doing things, then why are we even discussing this. To be honest, It's Macross, and I want a good story, and as long as it's even close to sounding right I'm going to be happy, because if I want something that's realistic, I'll go watch Lone Survivor, or American Sniper, or Act of Valor, or Black Hawk Down, because those are the only things that come to mind that have that much realism to them. They also don't occupy my list of things to watch to be entertained. It's nice to theorize, and I'm going to go with my own interpretations, because that's how it makes sense to me. To my knowledge Mr. Kawamori hasn't really said one way or the other, and to be honest, he might have felt that doing that much detail would have gotten in the way of telling the story.
  20. Valkyrie Driver
    I agree with this. I also agree with this. Though with the VF-19Advance, I'm having a hard time seeing it that way, with all the engineering and detail that went into it. Still, My yamato feels like a high grade model, while my bandai feels like a toy.
  21. Valkyrie Driver
    Callsign numbers are not necessarily indicative of how many aircraft are in a squadron. I've seen three digit numbers in callsigns. The Air Force and Army assign callsigns by aircraft name and tail number. The Navy assigns callsigns by Squadron name. The 23 could be a reference to the the Aircraft's modex, but it may be the 23rd aircraft, but that doesn't mean there are at least 23 aircraft in that squadron. Maybe they're using the last 2 digits of the BuNo similar to the way the Air Force does with Tail Numbers, or maybe the Modex numbers are done at a group level and Hikaru's bird is aircraft 23 in the group. Or maybe the number is randomly assigned by position, 2 digit numbers beginning with 2 are team members while 2 digit numbers beginning with 1 are team leaders. The point is, flight callsigns follow a naming convention, and in this case the naming scheme seems navy to me (I've done enough cross service weather briefs to know callsign naming conventions, and this doesn't fit Air Force). You also need to take into account that radio etiquette, you don't say twenty-three over the radio, it's two-three. Actors don't notice these things, and maybe the script writers jacked it up. The Army actually denotes things that way. Platoons get issued callsigns for patrols. So Skull would be the squadron callsign, 2 indicates the team, and 3 indicates who's talking. So Skull actual would be Roy Focker, while Skull 2 would be Hikaru's team leader. I'm not saying that's the way it is, just offering a potential explanation. Unless we have a specific reference that explicitly explains this, we're likely to keep arguing in circles.
  22. Valkyrie Driver
    Congrats and excellent choice! The VF-25 is a great start. My start was a V1 Yamato VF-1A brownie (which I hope to replace with a Yamato v2 soon). While I'm not a huge fan of the VF-25, I still have the Alto, and want the Luca, Michael, and Ozma valks with their respective armors (Ozma in armor, supers for Alto and Michael, and Supers and Ghosts for Luca). It's mostly because I want the SMS skull team, and I also want a CF VF-25A brownie. It's less a VF-25 thing, and more a I like the Bandai DX line of Macross toys, thing. My favorites are without a doubt the VF-19's, I have a 19F/S/P on my to get list, and I already have an F. I just got the VF-19Advance last week, and I am supremely happy with it, if you're a Macross Plus Fan, you should get it, because it beat the Yamato offering, and it's Better priced than the Arcadia. Though it's a frontier era valk toy, it would be pretty easy to customize it into a proper YF-19, with some paint and decals, I have a Yammie, so I don't need to do that... Good luck with the rest of your Macross toy collecting adventure, and we look forward to seeing pics.
  23. Valkyrie Driver
    Another thing to note, is that in Japanese, the name of the rank (at least for officers), Shoi, Chui, Shosa, are all prefixed by the branch name. An Army 1st Lieutenant, would be Rikugun Chui. While a Navy Lieutenant Junior Grade would be Kaigun Chui. The basic rank Chui, does not change, just the prefix. Japanese is a very context based language, where you can drop all kinds of unnecessary words from a sentence and still be understood. You're not going to call a guy wearing a Navy Uniform Kaigun Chui, because you know he's Navy, he's wearing the uniform. Instead you'll just call him Chui. Enlisted ranks are different because enlisted ranks are generally descriptive of certain types of duties. Though the JASDF, and JGSDF generally only differ in the lower enlisted ranks, both are completely different from the JMSDF. Another source of confusion, is that the Japanese military and SDF refers to people by their Command title, if they have one, while western militaries do not. I might refer to my Unit Commander, as my Commander, but when I address him it's always by his rank, not his title. Some militaries make things less confusing, by eliminating the dichotomy all together. The RAF, for instance, uses very descriptive ranks. going up the US grade scale you have O-1 as Pilot Officer, O-2 is Flying Officer, O-3 is Flight Lieutenant, O-4 is Squadron Commander, and so on. In the RAF your rank describes your job.
  24. Valkyrie Driver
    Oh you... On a related note, I'm not sure I ever really knew what the Protodeviln were. Even having seen M7, I'm still not sure. Though there was a lot from M7 that confused me... Can someone explain this please?
  25. Valkyrie Driver
    If you'd read a bit further, I said that's how I perceived it. It's not mentioned in any episode, but I can't help but see it that way. Also Gamlin, told Basara on many occasions to stop getting in the way, so there's that. Please stop just grabbing things out of context and trying to make me look like an ass. I'm perfectly capable of doing that on my own, thank you. That's a good point. However, a Psyops strategy is supposed to target the enemy, and Basara kinda just hosed everyone. JB0 I think you said it best: Distracted soldiers are dead soldiers... Yes it did. Just like they wanted it to. But that brings me to: I had not thought about it that way. Storytelling wise though it just seemed like the cliche "chosen one" routine, which can work, but it just felt a bit forced and hokey. As for frontier, Sure Sheryl is an Idol, and her songs aren't full of deep meaning (at least from what I can tell), but her desire is genuine. She knows what's she doing and why, she wants to entertain, to make people feel good. I can't believe I'm about to do this, but to use rock music of today as an analogy, comparing Basara and Sheryl is like comparing Clutch to AC/DC. Clutch puts out music that they want to play in their own style, and just says "Imma do my own thing", like Basara. While AC/DC kinda went with the mainstream flow and played what people wanted to hear and was just out to have fun and entertain people, like how I perceived Sheryl. Now this is all my perceptions, you might have a different view and I'm not trying to argue against it, simply stating my case. Basara is undoubtedly the protagonist, and I'm supposed to like him, I want to like him, but I think his character was poorly executed and shallow. For the record I'll state that again, I want to like Basara. However, his relation to the rest of the show, the other characters, the setting itself, is so disconnected he comes across as selfish and obnoxious, and I can't help but hate him for it. And maybe that's why I have such an issue with it. Because up to this point, my perception of Macross (I had seen M2, SDFM, Plus, and Frontier before M7) was that it was very concerned with consequences, and how the character relates to them, and that it was more realistic in this regard.
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