Xard

I think having big pictures spoiler tagged would solve the problem. X___X

Quantum of Solace was a badly directed mess with horrible action - the opening action setpiece is collection of all features that is wrong with modern Hollywood action films. Worst action editing ever. With Sam Mendes at helm I trust there's no way they can hit the rock bottom like they did with Quantum. Not exactly a fan of his, but still

Just a reminder that the POLL CLOSES PRETTY SOON: Voting – Polls close at 23:59 EST on 3 June if you haven't yet given your vote for Macross or have hesitated now is time to act!!!

TIME HAS COME! VICTORY FOR VFs AND ALL MACROSS FINALE IS WITHIN OUR REACH IF YOU GIVE YOUR SUPPORT! http://saimecha.wordpress.com/2011/05/26/nevar-fourget-how-this-awful-pun-is-inversely-proportional-to-how-awesome-the-sai-mecha-semifinals-is/

yeah, I don't know if the seller changed or if he/she just upped the price from $30 to $79,99... I bought my copy some time ago already and the listing ended yesterday. With any luck he'll stack up more soon enough...but who knows, really, given how rare they are well don't get your hopes up... for a moment I thought some staff member had seen the truth and beauty hidden in Ranka/Sheryl OTP...

If you guys are really desperate you can get it on ebay for murderous 79,99 dollars price (ditto for other two). Only positive is that they're completely new and the shipping is free... You can also buy previous two creator files from there. For the same price. Ouch. Me, the fact I narrowly missed release of that book while in Japan bugged me enough to make me pay the sum. It's a ripoff, but if you're big fan enough I guess it's worth it (at least for me it was...still hurt to pay that much). If you can get it for more decent/reasonable price (I think they cost 2000 yen or so in Japan) it's definetly worth getting. Anyway, lots of lovely art in there. I always look up the most for whatever insanity Kawamori has come up with (certainly didn't disappoint ) and May'n and Nakajima's take on their characters. Singing aside, I think it's pretty easy to tell which one of the girls is better at drawing... Nakajima draws really lovely Rankas while May'n's Sheryls are...interesting to say the least I hope Tenjin's great Alto picture gets proper colour treatment somewhere soon enough. And the retro-Macross artwork makes me wish next Macross would be steampunk, heh. For those who have the File: Anyone else feel extremely trolled by the delicious yuri manga?

oh god more I learn more I want to read this out of morbid curiosity

(Ahh, I thought you were fluent in japanese. Sorry) In that case you can probably confirm if this kind of summary is correct: I wasn't sure if I wanted to rage or facepalm more when I read that. So if I understand this correctly If above happened I don't know what to say... I agree the art is excellent though

WAT Jesus. That's retarded. Have you read volume 3?

I was going to buy the magazine from CDJapan but they sold out before I got to it! Ridiculous yet kinda incredible! It's great honor for Macross to get on cover of Cut Magazine, and I like the artwork too I'm not that interested in the article itself but the interviews should be good. There should be those of Kawamori, Kanno, May'n and Nakajima at the very least! I hope someone can translate that stuff...

Well, it really follows classic shoujo pattern which I find interesting and fun to see in Macross franchise. So that's where the reminder comes from. It's just that all developments are rushed or poorly paced, at least in first chapters. And changes to core story of MacrossF it ends up covering are just...no good. No good at all.

Too bad there's no cover yet...

Delicious. Too bad the first vid makes me want to watch Sayonara again, guhhhhhhhhhh. BD/DVD can't come out soon enough...

lol sup SA In capable hands Kiss in the Galaxy could've been really good, and the bits about Sheryl's backstory are definetly interesting. Soon after beginning however it reaches the "current" Frontier timeline and becomes its own substandard version of the story (though it resembles the film storyline more than series). I haven't yet the final volume but based on what I've heard the changes mangaka introduced to Sayonara were just...poo.

Thanks for the replies guys! ...oh wow don't I feel like a comlplete idiot now. Damn. That's so obvious now that I think about it, at that point Project Fairy was still going on >_< Well, Mishima said this in ep 15 She was a survivor from the 117th fleet, but her blood tests revealed nothing, and she didn't have any memories either. Even then, I thought she might be useful at some point, so I continued my surveillance on her. To think that... I actually hit the bullseye. so he did have interest in Ranka from the start. And yeah, I never thought there was any sort of foul play going on before but there's that angry, "knowing" face Cathy pulls the moment Leon starts to talk to director about Ranka. Why include that if there wasn't something fishy in what he was doing? Oh yes, it's not that I thought they couldn't come up with good cover story. I guess I was just always bothered why nobody bothered to ask her. She kinda just walks in Sheryl's room and everyone is "oh, you're alive" "yup". I would've naturally asked "well just how did you survive" but everyone just kind of...accepts it. It always bothered me. I guess it's not a plot hole per se but just a bizarre lack of curiosity... On the other hand Ranka loses it in space in ep 23 after Vajra kidnap her, so maybe the control device was just similar in shape to further mindscrew Ranka... that said, I think I figured this out satisfactorily on my own today. I've been rewatching Macross Frontier eps here and there (hence all these questions ) now that I'm back home to get reminder of how things were in tv series in comparison to the (bloody amazing) Sayonara no Tsubasa. Today I rewatched eps 23 and 24. In there they specifically mentioned implants with fold quartz. Brera clearly has one but I didn't ever really realize the harmonica had the similar shape to Brera's hairpin. So while the harmonica isn't implant per se it also uses fold quartz in its functions. That it dissipates into the violet "sparkles" associated with fold effects proves it. This explains why it could breka simply through Ranka's mental effort, the fold waves she emits are powerful indeed. It breaking simply due to Ranka's "power up" ( ) wouldn't make much sense if it was just normally mechanical, but it being part of the whole fold field/network would certainly explain things. So I guess there isn't conflict symbolically breaking free and having the device literally malfunction ************** I'm still wondering about Ai-kun's behaviour in ep 23 though. Did the full power of Vajra hivemind take him over or what? Reason I ask this is because in general it exhibits a degree of "individualism" (Vajra Queen didn't control the drones like robots like Grace did) and bonding with Ranka and when the guardian Vajras first attack Brera and Ranka they violently also crash against/on Ai-kun who has so far peacefully flown next to VF-27. But next time we see him he lures Ranka out the ship and kidnaps her. So I still wonder whether Ai-kun planned to "save" Ranka this way from the start or not...I guess there's no official material in form of interviews or something that would help with this thing? oh, and is there answer to question to just how large extent Mr. Bilrer's plans differed from those of Galaxy and Grace? He was after fold quarts, Vajra network and "uniting the Galaxy" as one without faults but he never gave off the impression of being at all interested in the whole hivemind project.

GREAT NEWS! INCREDIBLY BOTH VF-1 AND YF-19 SURVIVED TO THE SEMIFINALS!!!! As much as I was hoping for it I still didn't believe YF-19 could win Gurren Lagann (especially since GL got some votes even from here it seems ) but that happened! What this means is that we have a chance for ALL VF FINALE!!!! BOTH semifinal matches will truly be something and I think the first one will actually supercede the finale. Time has come for Evangelion and Macross franchises to duke it out with their most iconic units! We can't let VF-1 to lose this one, can we? Meanwhile YF-19 goes against the most classic grunt mech of them all, Zaku II, in a Gundam vs Macross showdown. Macross is the only franchise left with two mechs in the play and this means if things go well we can secure double victory over Oedipal, raging monsters and the mecha equivalent of imperial stormtrooper So, the upcoming semifinals: Earth Side Shield Contenders Evangelion UNIT 01 vs VF-1 Valkyrie Colonies Side Shield Contenders YF-19 Excalibur vs Zaku II Voting has not started yet, however. I'll make another post when it starts Certainly. Still, I think Eva-01 vs VF-1 and Zaku II vs YF-19 are more than worthy matches to replace this one. (oh, and YF-19 decimated scopedog so I don't even dare to wonder how much a steamroll it would've been if scopedog had gone against legendary VF-1 )

Might as well throw in a bunch of MacrossF (tv series) questions that have always bothered me a bit: 1. First of all the bit about Ranka's website(s) getting constantly hacked in ep 9. Elmo mentions it, puzzled, in episode 9 when he discusses ways to promote her with Bobby. Then it never comes up again. Initially I thought that maybe it was Ozma or something as he isn't all that happy with Ranka's choice of career but obviously that doesn't make any sense. So I presume it was Leon/Government goons but I'm not really sure about the motivation. At this point they didn't know about her power and effect on Vajra either so... 2. related to above, for a long time I used to think Ranka simply lost to Miranda in ep 4 competition. But then there's the bit of Leon looking at Ranka's file and calling the director, which makes Cathy clearly frown. So did Leon arrange it so that Ranka would lose? Again, I'm not sure what the motivation would be, perhaps he thought she'd be easier to survey if she was just "average girl" but I'm not so sure about this either. 3. This is one thing in series that still baffles me and makes me wonder if it is a plot hole. How/why did everyone accept that Grace survived back from Gallia IV without hitch? Last time anyone saw her was in the Gallia IV base that got swallowed and she had no private VF with her. So did she make up story of Brera saving her or what? 4. In finale when Ranka breaks free, aided by Sheryl and Alto, the harmonica she had around her neck broke. Was the harmonica symbolic or real, and if it was real how could it break?

I love Gurren Lagann the series as much as the next guy but the mecha design never appealed to me and is pretty boring in comparison to Kawamori's VFs. Isamu is also much better pilot than either Kamina or Simon ever was and YF-19 really is mecha that depends on pilot skills to large extent. More Macross units in next round the better, I say. Last thing I want to see is to see Eva-01 vs Gurren Lagann finale, which is very likely option if Valkyries drop from the game.

(Sorry, not sure if correct subforum but seemed closest as this isn't about Macross series per se) As some of you may know there's Sai Mecha tournament currently going on, not surprisingly a mecha variant on Sai Moe concept. So yes, mecha fans nominated their favourites and now we've already gone through few rounds of brutal voting, with only eight mechas remaining to contest for the position of one to rule them all. Good news for us Macross fans, out of three Valkyries participating in the tournament TWO ARE STILL GOING ON!! VF-25 was kicked out the tournament when it was pitted against Eva-01 but the original classic VF-1 and Isamu's YF-19 still go on, hopefully towards eventual victory for one of them! The next rounds are TOUGH however, and especially worried I'm for YF-19 as it faces nothing less than massively popular Gurren Lagann. Meanwhile VF-1S goes against Sinanju from Gundam Unicorn, a worthy opponent for sure. To bolster chances of beloved Variable Fighters I'm following Ghostlightning's advice: As part of Evangelion fanbase I know they've been mobilized to extent to push Eva units to victory - I think it's just fair to counterbalance things a bit Perhaps they come to regret their inconsiderate words "I love eva too much to let it lose to some wussy Macross junk"... VOTE HERE: SAI MECHA - THE SUPER DIMENSIONAL ROBOT TOURNAMENT The ongoing matches are: Eva 01 (Evangelion) vs Tachikoma (GitS SAC) VF-1 (SDF Macross) vs Sinanju (Gundam Unicorn) Zaku II (Mobile Suit Gundam) vs Escaflowne (Escaflowne) YF-19 (Macross Plus) vs Gurren Lagann (Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann) Hopefully if we all come together we can pull this off! Long live Macross! Let's see it gain upperhand in duel with Gundam and kick out overblown super robot with transforming real goodness

Shops in Akihabara had piles upon piles of these on 16th and I figured I'd buy one later. Next day I walk in GAMERS (I think that was the name) there's three copies left. Of course I natched up one too as I realized if I wait even one more day I might not be able to get it. Definetly the correct choice because the book is pretty much perfect. Couldn't ask for more, really. I definetly recommend it

This is so awesome. Damn. With Mikimoto and Megumi too? Gaaahhh *insanely jealous* How did that happen? ****** it's really too bad I had booked the return flight for last Friday. If I had known of this I would've definetly stayed for a little longer. The first two creator files I picked up from Animate were awesome... is there any hope of some webstore carrying vol. 3 in future?

Just out of curiosity, is the interview distinct or identical with the one really, REALLY long in the official complete book for second film that was released on 16th? Oh, and is there any chance of getting that translated, at least the track commentary part... for me instead of Valkyries the main pull has always been the music (and Kanno's involvement probably explains why Plus and Frontier are my favourites overall ) so this kind of stuff is very, very interesting to me...

Ah, so the first two vols I saw at Akiba are basically "official" doujin by staff members? Guess I should go pick them up today then (I had no idea what they were before and so hesitated from buying) - too bad I won't be around anymore on next sunday...

The film is absolutely amazing - it smoothens out whatever flaws the original had and completely blew my mind, despite the spoilers I had unfortunately encountered. If I hadn't...well damn. Just how powerful experience it would've then been... Anyway, that the film has blown my mind three times in a row and that I want to watch it again by the time credits roll tells that Kawamori did something right here. Seeing this in theatre was worth the price Hopefully I get to see the film one last time tomorrow before I must fly back to Finland...idea that I don't get to see it again for months and never again on big screen depresses me. Speaking of that, it's pretty much only thing that worries me a bit. I feel like film demands that it's seen on big screen. Sayonara is one of those flicks... And the soundtrack is freakin' amazing and no, you won't get its power without seeing the film... that they capped Frontier with two of the best songs ever written for the franchise (title track HOLY poo + Hoshikira, dshudistab is fine too) is just icing on the cake. The emotional impact and beauty of Hoshikira gets me every time I hear it, whether in theatre or just listening to OST... I might feel embarrassed about it if there hadn't always been some people crying in the theatre after/during ending credits... I guess I'll make more elaborate and analytic post sometime later but for now I think that's enough. Bottom line is: the film is well worth watching. It improves on tv series in pretty much every way - and I loved the tv series in the first place. Best Macross film since DYRL. There are couple of scenes/lines of dialogue I'd like to hear from members more adept in japanese language than I though, just to make sure and this isn't exactly related to the film but just how rare are those new maiko/geisha Ranka and Sheryl Ichiban Kuji figures? I've searched for them in Akihabara and Mandarake at Nakano in vein quite a bit...do you guys have any ideas where I might find them?

Thank you!