Renato

Hi there! Hope we have a chance to get the gang together and grab a few drinks or something. Wi-fi, yeah, I dunno what the problem is, but Japan really wants you to pay for your on-the-street wi-fi. I think thy just want you to buy those Wimax or Elecom things, which I still don't understand. Everytime I try to get online outside, there's always some catch, like you have to register with whatever. Technically you can get it almost everywhere in Tokyo (even on some Shinkansen trains), but you have to jump through hoops. I've been in Tokyo since April and the only place I've found so far with free, no strings attached, no potal BS, proper wi-fi has been a certain area of Shinjuku which I won't divulge here just in case the powers that be notice this breach in their totalitarian security stronghold and choose to patch it immediately. I'll show you when you come over if you like. That one area came in very helpful when I absolutely had to check my hotmail account immediately one day.

I started watching it recently again (long train rides), I'm up to episode 35/36 now. Sivil has just reawakened (sort of) and Basara and Gigil roam Planet Lux in search of her, while Mylene and Gamlin try to catch up. These are some key episodes where Basara does not sing at all because he is beginning to question the power of song (and thus, his whole existence) while Gigil is the one who started to sing instead. Also, there's just something I love about the episode with the dinosaur-type monsters in it. They had some interesting designs.

Thanks for the info, Tochiro. Shame about the lack of good extras, but I guess I'm happy with a slightly heavier wallet because of that, so it's not so bad.

I admit I don't know all the details, but it sounds logical to me that if you are answering a distress call or something, you shouldn't have to tip-toe around the set of a stupid movie. "Even if he was a bomb-squad member on call"? Seriously? Are we on the same wavelength? If someone I knew was killed in a bomb blast because the rescue got held up due to production of overblown-budget entertainment, I don't think I would be most pleased to say the very least. I feel somewhat at ease to hear that he wasn't the only authority on the scene responding to the call, but in any case, this is real life, and I think it takes precedence over a movie.

Oh yeah, what does FNG stand for? Fairly New Guy?

Let me get this straight. That was a real police car that crashed into the Camaro? As in, it was actually answering a 911 call? If so, that means that may have been another life endangered essentially by this bloody movie? Jesus Christ. There are no words.

I don't see how that example supports your argument more than it does mine, though. I just said all these products were based on nostalgia. The Tread didn't come out in the 80s because Gakken pulled out of the toy market as I understand it. Then it didn't come out in the tumbleweed-strewn 90s because there was no market which would support it, just like there wasn't one to support high quality Valkyrie toys, either. Yamato tested the waters with the Macross Plus stuff in 1999/2000, and the products eventually got bigger, more expensive, sophisticated, but eventually the market's momentum slowed back down again and now we're entering the tail end of things. You could have all the patience in the world and wait another 10 or 20 years but I highly doubt it's worth keeping faith that maybe in 2030 they will finally release some rare toy from an anime that only a handful of old-age pensioners remember. This whole phenomenon correlates with our current life stages and you saying you prioritize your family is actually a great example of the reason things are slowing down now. Not that I blame you personally, of course! I cannot stress enough, our generation represents pretty much the whole of the "high-end valk market", and we peaked in spending power sometime around 2005.

It's not the story or concepts in Zero that I personally have a problem with, it's the pacing and characters in the show. The plot does not flow well towards the latter half, and the protagonist does not really do anything until the end. The relationship he forms with Sara is rushed or at least unnaturally developed. Considering the episodes took so much longer to produce than originally planned (they had a two-year plan which eventually became a four-year production just for five episodes), I don't doubt that there were many, many rewrites and the last two episodes were a result of trying (but failing) to keep the plot cohesive. The opening 20 seconds of episode 5 is a total cop-out, a blatant flashing sign that reads "OK, we don't know how to write ourselves out of this one, so let's just skip all the details and pretend a bunch of stuff happened, OK?" I think the podcast on this over at DestroyAllPodcasts-dot-com hits all the right points on the matter of Zero.

I don't see how they will get better from our perspective. Let us say the economy improves significantly in a couple of years. That's a couple of years that the main target consumer will have aged. We have to remember that all of these products exist as a method of cashing in on nostalgia for a specific generation. Once that generation gets to a certain stage, there will be no more consumers. Frankly, I'm amazed it's lasted this long, but I wish older fans passed the torch a bit more, and younger fans would show some interest. Alas. Girly figures seem to be doing quite well, though.

We're not talking about the 1/60 Kai, we're talking about the Yamato YF-19 and the Hi-metal VF-19kai. Confusing, I know. I believe that was FLEX, wasn't it? If so, they could have engineered the hi-metal too since I heard that they did the VF-27 for Bandai.

Oh, well! It's the same as the Gold Book I have back at home which has the film strip of Exedore and Britai's backs as they watch the monitor! Anyway, did anyone actually watch any of the extras? I really want to know what else is on the disc that is good apart from the game and the movie. There is that Toro-chan thing which features the making of the movie, right? Any good?

Yeah, I mentioned this a few months ago on this board I thought I made a thread about it but it must have been in some other thread. I had the chance to attend a press screening in either July or August and I was going to write a full review somewhere but I never managed to do so. Instead all I managed to get into print was a tiny anonymous quote in the latest issue of "Great Mechanics DX". I agree with the Colony Drop review in that Redline is certainly a miracle of a movie, one that we had thought a movie of its caliber -- 2D cel art only, no 3D CG -- would never get made again. Well, it did get made, and I have to second the motion that everyone should watch this film, just because. That is not to say it is the greatest movie ever made. In fact, it makes me sad, in a way, because it only reminds me of how awesome anime was in the 80s. Had the movie been released in the 80s, it would have been well-received, but probably not a classic. I watched it all the while thinking, man, what happened? Why is this special? Is it special just because all other new anime sucks? Well, that is pretty depressing! Another thing is that story-wise, it's pretty standard, nothing much to talk about there. Overall, I liked it, it has a sense of style, and I admire the work put into it. Visually, it was very impressive, but personally I am still more impressed with the likes of Akira, DYRL, Wings of Honneamise, the opening scene (and later Unicron's transformation) in Transformers the Movie, and such. I guess I just wish we were back in the late 1980s, when Japan reached the pinnacle of cel animation. Redline is an attempt to show the world that Japan can still create amazing 2-dimensional visuals, and it proved that in a way. Certainly, their aim was to achieve what still cannot be done (easily) with 3D rendering. But more than anything, it proved that Madhouse is still Madhouse. I don't know if I want the "Madhouse style" to equate to the whole of 2D anime. Wishful thinking: if this is the start of an all-2D trend, then I want to see many different styles of detailed, fluid animation appearing, and I want the young generation of animators to learn the techniques of yesteryear from veteran animators. One more thing, Kimura Takuya is the voice of the lead. I thought he did quite well, but, yeah, make of that what you will. Edit: Found an old post I made about this, with some interesting info I had forgotten about. I still think there was a separate thread, though. http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?showtopic=29490&st=35&p=861125&hl=REDLINE&fromsearch=1entry861125

No, they didn't. You think they are deliberately stifling their own potential sales?? They made the decision to go web-exclusive because they feared they wouldn't shift enough units through normal retail avenues. Essentially they were made to order. Look at the way Frontier is advertised. Hell, look at the poster for the new movie. It's all about the Moe and the pretty boys now. The market for valks is shrinking, especially for these high-end ones. No one cares about robots anymore!

OK, strictly speaking you are right, but there is evidence that Bandai did reverse-engineer it from the Yamato YF-19, you can see it in the early development photos.

Agreed. To those of you effectively going, "what about the VF-19, then, huh??": Do you honestly believe that Yamato didn't make that one until now because they thought it was unprofitable? Like I said, it's more likely that it's just because they simply COULDN'T. It seems they worked out some deal with Bandai or Bandai gave up their exclusive rights and only then did we finally get VF-22s, VF-11Cs, and now the Fire Valk is coming... and we may even get the VF-17 in 1/60, if rumour is worth anything. But Bandai have already hinted that the next Hi-metals will be the YF-19 (again) and the YF-21 (again). That sounds very much like playing it safe to me. On the other hand, the markets for 1/60 and 1/100 scales are quite different, mainly due to the price point. So a Hi-metal VF-4 may be more profitable than a Yamato 1/60 one. Who knows. I'm just saying, it ain't likely.

Because it goes without saying.

I love this pic:

I get the feeling Bandai stays away from those designs because they figure "Well, if they ain't good enough for Yamato, we ain't doin' them either!" Basically, they seem to use Yamato as market research. If Yamato deemed something unprofitable (e.g. VF-0D), then it follows logically that Bandai would want to steer clear and stay with the guaranteed bestsellers (HOW many times has the VF-1S Focker been re-released by Yamato now?). Bandai is welcome to prove me wrong, though, I invite them to. I'd definitely like a small VF-0D.

I would say Takara is the major mold-milker. Bandai, not so much. Remember they had the Macross 7 licence for two decades and did not let go until recently, and yet only gave us four toys, two molds. They could have made more variations: a VF-19F, but no. A VF-19P, but no. A VF-17T, but no. As for the 1/55s, they re-released a few variations, but not the ones that everyone wanted. Then there's the Hi-Metals... Well, let's see where that line goes. The Max 1J being an exclusive is not a good sign at all. I think there is an extremely small chance of ever seeing the Prophecy in toy form from Bandai.

Oh, I don't know anymore. There's been so many threads on the movie and so many pages in each, I don't really want to go through them. As well as that, there's the Kawamori interviews since the first issue of Macross Ace which I remember mention that.

That "someone" is Kawamori, he's been saying that since even before the release of the first movie.

Wow. Tochiro, you are somethin' else, man.

Yeah it's a new serialized feature starting soon in either Dengeki Hobby or Hobby Japan magazine, I forget which.

Funny, the info above that post reads otherwise, but I could have sworn this post was made in the year 2000. To paraphrase Minmay's song, "Time flows away, love flows away... and we're still stuck in a rut."

Yeah. "Misa, Hikaru and the Megaroad" being the focus of the next show is probably the oldest thread topic from the very beginning of this board. Let's all just take a look at how wildly different all Macross sequels have been for the past decade and a half and then see if any of the suggestions on here would have even a passing chance at plausibility. Who would have guessed after SDFM that years later we would get a story about super-robot-styled valks outfitted with speakers piloted with guitars by a Space John Lennon? Or that a decade after that we would get a show about a retired Kabuki female-role actor piloting a robot, battling space bugs with a magical earring? Where was THAT suggestion?? Anyone who had that idea would have been laughed right off the boards. No offense to the advocates of the long-proposed "Destroid pilot during Space War I" side-story and whatnot, but I feel you're mostly all being extremely conservative. Stop holding back! I think we should all think way outside the box, because at this point the pattern seems to be that the wildest idea has the most likelihood of being realized. I firmly believe the likelihood of the next series focusing on the escapades of a zentradi-sumo-wrestler-turned-opera-tenor who falls in love with a sentient transforming robot-plane (and who wouldn't resist his melodic charms -- "Nessun Dorma" is public domain now, isn't it?) is as much if not more than, say, anything to do with the Macross 39 fleet finding protoculture ruins using their new VF-5754s, piloted by Magellan Jenius, great-nephew of Max and Millia. Oh, and that includes an animated version of Macross the First. EDIT -- For some reason, I didn't notice Jenius's post nearer the top of this page, which seems to have summed up what I was trying to say in a much more concise manner. Sorry!