kazuo

Crazy news from AX this weekend. If you asked me last week if I thought they'd release Frontier in the West, let alone 7... I would've just laughed at you. Jokes on me now! Adrian Lozano squashed the 7 music rights allegedly being a problem a while back, so the holdup was never about the music, it was always about HG, nothing more, nothing less. Now that HG has been dealt with, there is basically nothing stopping anything Macross outside of Space War I and the Movie from being officially released in the West. The main things I am curious about: What about the Macross 7 Movie? Is Macross II going to be a new film transfer, or is it going to be an upscale? (barf) What's up with the randoms releasing Plus? Is Plus just going to be a copy-paste of the Japanese Blu-Rays? I'd gladly pay 2x for a new film transfer. Will Plus use or at least include the Neil Nadelman subtitles? I don't like the revised subtitles on the JP discs. I HAVE QUESTIONS. But I'm also very excited!

There were maybe half as many people this time around (10 or so?) but to be honest, I didn't try to count or take a super good look. Seemed less full though. Sound was fine. Movie started on-time, no issues with the screening at all. The bonus videos at the end were a nice touch, glad I stayed through the credits but I wish they had told us about it at some point. Maybe they did and I was too busy eating nachos? I had fun watching it.

Sound was fine for me. In fact it was probably too loud. LOL. Video quality... was not great. You can tell they are streaming this using some really crappy compression, and it was most noticeable over the subtitles. I honestly cannot/do not understand why they can't just send the theaters a USB stick with the video file on it. Probably because streaming it is cheaper. 😛 Macross Plus had the same problem, so I kind of expect this from Fathom at this point. It looks better at my house on BD. My theater had maybe 15-20 people? So not bad. It's about what I expected, and comparable to the Plus screening. This may have even been slightly more full than Plus. The movie itself? ...Yeesh. I haven't watched it in years, probably since it was new, and it hasn't aged well. Some of it is interesting, a lot of it isn't, a lot of the fan service of literal underage girls is mad cringe, but it's better than Delta? So there's that. I thought the pacing was a little odd as well, but perhaps that's from me knowing they're just rushing through the story. I'll be there again on Thursday though, since it is fun watching niche things like Anime that I sort of like in a theatrical setting.

I think it's COVID+we're superfans living a bubble, thinking that Macross Plus is gonna sell out the house. It's not. Especially not with the minimal amount of advertising it got; I found out mostly by accident, and I follow the official Macross account and @giantrobo on Twitter, but that's beside the point. I think some of us are overestimating the reach of Plus, as good as it is. Anyway, the script is a refined version of the BD English subtitles, and yes, it's "Marge" in the script they used. The script also needed better QC, because I picked up on at least two grammatical errors, maybe even some others I forgot about between all the teeth grinding I was going through during the screening. I wouldn't expect anyone to use the old Manga/Nadelman script anymore, likely due to licensing reasons - that ship has sailed. You can always download it from the 'net and roll your own custom BD IMG or MKV. I also very immediately noticed all of the additional garbage "pew pew" laser effects and such, evoking very terrible memories of the old Rhino re-releases of Transformers where they had to add a shitty sound effect to every single thing. And the sound mix was terrible, absolute crap. The voice and BGM balance was way off, with the voice often completely overpowering the music; this was most apparent during Information High - you could barely hear the music! Awful. I also noticed the "noise" / "toys" echo thing during Information High, and I'm pretty sure it was an intentional change to the sound mix. Why would they do this? I hate being so negative about this, but with the sound mix being so bad and the dodgy subtitles, I probably should've just stayed home and watched the BD. Would've saved ten bucks.

I honestly couldn't even speculate on why they won't release the Blu-rays for all of these concerts. Japanese companies do so many things that make little to no sense. Regarding the 40th, they will absolutely have a concert. You should plan to make the trip if you can. I wanted to go to the Frontier concert that is finally happening soon, but I can't for obvious reasons.

I went for Day 2. Here's the setlist: https://web.archive.org/web/20190628172046/https://aniuta.co.jp/contents/247250 The setlist was not announced in advance that I know of, but nobody expected Day 1 to be much different from Day 2. Yes, Kasahara was there and did "Love you again" from Macross II. Akino Arai and Yoko Kanno did not perform (sadly). I don't recall if they stopped in to say hi. I think Yoko Kanno MAYBE did? It was a couple years ago and I was extremely tired at the time (I literally arrived two hours before the concert started and I missed Ai Ijima's entire set because there was a delay at immigration control). Some of the details are fuzzy. Even though I wanted to see Ijima, I was honestly most excited about Fire Bomber (despite really not being a fan of 7 at all) and Sheryl (May'n). I got what I wanted, it was totally worth it lol. I even enjoyed Walkure even though I couldn't care less about Delta. The stupid part is, there has to be a recording because they simulcast it in theaters... I wish they'd just let us buy it already.

You need to be careful with peroxide and painted or glossy surfaces. It will almost always damage or ruin the finish. This is really best used on "bare" plastic, or plastic where the color is mixed into the plastic itself (i.e. not painted on). It will also most certainly damage or ruin any decals.

It seems like these are rarely released for purchase. Unfortunate. I was there and would love to relive this someday.

SAL/Surface has been available for quite some time (to the US, anyway). I wouldn't expect Air Mail or even EMS to come back online until Japan reopens to tourists; as others have pointed out, those packages are heavily reliant on commercial airline traffic to move them back and forth.

Shop is still down, huh?

Wow, thank you! Will give that a try. Kind of rolling the dice because they can refuse entry/kick you out if they think or can prove you bought scalped tickets, but whatever!

I realize I might be barking up the wrong tree, seeing that most of the members here don't live in Japan, but... anyone know any other avenues for getting tickets? A friend and I entered the lottery but we were unsuccessful. Buying event tickets on the secondary market in Japan is difficult to say the least, and is generally frowned upon and will soon be illegal (as of June 8th of this year). Fingers crossed!

The reason those armor pieces ended up splotchy is because of uneven application of the creme solution and/or inconsistent exposure to UV. My recommendation based on extensive attempts at de-yellowing is: don't do it If you insist, I would: Buy a container large enough to fit the parts; line it with tin foil Buy a UV lamp/bulb. UV light strips work even better since you can mount them inside the container easily If the parts are small enough to submerge easily, use liquid solution, and not the creme For larger parts, use a brush to apply the creme, then place the parts inside the container Turn on UV light, walk away for a few hours ??? Hopefully it comes out the way you expect

This is correct - that is standard practice for Amazon JP shipments. Also worth pointing out almost no third-party sellers on Amazon JP ship outside of Japan, so if you are buying directly from Amazon JP, you are either buying a product carried by Amazon JP, or you are buying a product supplied by a third-party seller which is fulfilled by Amazon JP.

His location says he is in Japan, so presumably he'll just walk into a local retailer and buy one.

Not too bad, it's the usual bullshit that comes with the complexity of the design of some of the toys in this hobby. Not sure what that other guy was on about with the broken head laser, 'cause I haven't read that at all, but it ranges from broken tail fins / vertical stabilizers, issues with the wings, some shoulder and chest complaints... I feel some of it is not knowing how to properly transform the toy, but a lot of these guys seem to have the Advance as well, which makes me think it's an actual QC issue... we'll see. I wouldn't freak out just yet. Regarding returns... I think you're probably SOL, I don't think most vendors (aside from Amazon) would accept returns. I ended up purchasing a second one just in case I end up with a lemon out of the box.

Lots of complaints on JP Twitter about various QC issues. You can currently buy through Amazon JP for around 31K yen, with 1200 yen shipping to the USA. Be sure to purchase from a seller offering Prime shipping / fulfilled by Amazon, as other offers will not ship to the USA.

If you have a credit card that has no FTF, pay N-Y in JPY, and use the slowest JP Post shipping option, you can get it for ~$285 USD delivered.

Rakuten orders are being canceled because the sellers won't ship overseas. Your best bet is to use a forwarding service, such as Rinkya or Shopping Mall Japan if you are willing to pay the forwarding fees, on top of the reseller markup. Personally, I'm not willing to risk paying even more later if I'm not able to get one, so I bit the bullet and got one from Amazon JP using a forwarding service. Amazon orders can be canceled through the end of August, which I am comfortable with, just in case I end up finding one at retail.

This is correct, the photo with Macross The First looks to be fake. The poster with BGC and Mospeada is genuine, as folks who were in attendance took photos of it at the booth, including Yacopu, who posted it to Twitter.

No, I don't see anything like that in the tweets. Re: Sentinel's company name in Kanji, it's Ateji which is why it can be confusing to read.

No indication that it is limited based on those tweets. Also no indication of a release date. He does say that this version transforms differently than the previous version (Beagle I guess?) in that the armor wraps around the rider from below like the anime. Should be interesting to learn more about this one!

Why would you want to remove film grain from a film? Messing with the brightness to hide the grain is "better" than excessive DNR, but still garbage, in my view. At least they restored the censored scenes from the previous release.

FTFY.