Saruta

Maybe... talking to Mari about Minmay IRL is like talking to Minmay inworld about Space War I? That one incident that made her famous and overshadows anything she might do later? The kind of glory from which Minmay ultimately escaped into the unknown void of space? The Genghis Cohen being a Chinese restaurant makes things even weirder. It's *hard* not to see Minmay in Mari, though really Mari is the original, Minmay is, maybe and to a degree, the portrait. But: ignoring Mari's later work is just silly even if one does "see her as Minmay". People always ask what happened to Minmay... but the answer was right under our noses all along? The songs she wrote, the only answer that matters? If I had a chance to see her live and ask her to perform one song from her entire repertoire, it would not be any canonical Macross song, it would be "Survivor". I can't find an embeddable link. but it is playable in Spority etc, and one can google it and see it on YouTube Music with an ad. And what should not be so hard is not to bug *her* with Macross, as she very correctly points out. What one has as a "headcanon" is one thing, how one treats a living person is another. Especially if the equivalent treatment of the actual inworld Minmay (asking yet another question about That One Concert For The Enemy) would be just as insensitive.

I wanted to mention "Protoculture remnant colony" but was beaten to it I have a fanfic out in Russian where Minmay (with the rest of the Megaroad) is actually stuck on a Protoculture remnant colony. I guess it would be too much to see that as canon... but protoculture something anyway My personal preference for music would be symphonic metal, a la Tarja, which could be presented as "serious Protoculture business". But I don't know if the subgenre even exists in Japan to start with.

A kinda Love Live/Macross crossover happened Two Love Live Nijigasaki seiyuu, Chiemi (Rina Tennoji) and Kaorin (Shizuku Osaka), recorded a drunk karaoke cover of Lion.

Thanks a lot! I wonder - are the cameras manned/staffed, or just controlled from a remote camera operator room?

Question: how are live concerts filmed? There are many different takes of a stage that in some cases appears to be surrounded by people on all sides. Here is an example: So where do all those camera angles come from? Are there drones flying above the spectators? Are there some kind of long arms around the edges of the hall, with high-zoom cameras on them? And/or some other ways? (I would expect camera isles in the crowd, but can't detect these on the video? besides some angles seem to be above the crowd?)

Thanks for the tip about the new release. Looks hopeful. I'm still hoping for more Walkure character development and now it might actually happen.

Wait, he began at four years old. That's actually a scene in the movies. I don't think the moment with Alto's childhood photos as a stage girl was present in the series though? Perhaps this was pure coincidence in the series, then they found out about it and added stuff from his biography in the movies? And I do wonder what Taichi - being 17 when Macross F was ongoing - thought when he saw "a version of himself" on the screen, same name and all. Perhaps some interviewer asked him? One would need to be able to google in Japanese to find out, though. (A google in English shows that tvtropes has already noticed this)

Hello, I just learned about Taichi Saotome, a kabuki-style actor active since 1995 (when he was a teenager). Saotome is a chosen stage name, apparently a Ranma 1/2 reference. But he was a young onnagata-style actor, who also was not actually very happy about being famous for female roles and wants to do something else... Might Alto be a hidden-in-plain-sight reference to a real similar actor? And I also wonder what Taichi himself thought of all that. (Though Alto is really not the worst anime counterpart to have, being a rather good pilot and having all of two singers in love with him). Wikipedia about Taichi Saotome: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taichi_Saotome

You got me Well Walkure, unlike Nagisa in AKB0048, do have personal gear for that (apparently involving anti-gravity, which is definitely a thing in the Macross world since SDFM), but what with the *actual raging battle*, it's still broadly in the same box.

AKB0048, however, seems to pride itself on fun unrealistic antics, starting with literally jumping onto a moving plane from a bicycle. It was outdone by Zombieland Saga but that took a few years. I don't think there's much of that with Walkure Also I just realized that the title "Ultimate Live" might mean we are going to see a generations movie after all. If so... please. Please let Mari Iijima outright write the new Minmay song (realistically there can probably be just one new Minmay song, what with the time all the others need). There is simply nobody who would understand older!Minmay as a musician any better, except perhaps major music dignitaries like Yoko Kanno and Yuki Kajiura, who are unlikely to be involved. It would also book-end the story; the very first Minmay song we get to hear (SDFM ep4) is written by Mari Iiijima and this would be the last one. The performer writing major stuff for Macross is not unprecedented (Yoshiki Fukuyama).

With everyone wanting more Valks, I'll be the odd one out as I want proper characterizations and character development for four Walkure members (sans Freyja who already got hers in the series, it being probably the only decent writing work there). Darnit. A passionate and beautiful woman who is actually three years old and a clone, but at the beginning does not seem to remember here recent past at all - but seems to be trained in martial arts apart from singing. Not the most original character out there but definitely a worthy one. I want to know more of her story, of her training, of her eventual realization of what she is. (In the movie version, seems like the realization happened already in Windermere custody and helped "break" her into their aims for a time, as opposed to "klaatu barada nikto" doing all the work?? Makes sense, and might be a callback to Ranka).

Regarding ranks, I'm coning in from a global perspective (originally from Russia) and I would suggest a hypothesis that kinda mixes these things, and, I think, works with everything on-screen. - In 2009, the officers on the restored Macross are all Air Force and use Air Force ranks similar to army (we see some of those on the Cat's Eye). But Global was pulled in from the Navy and retains his Navy-style ranking for the time being. - At some later date, post the 2010 catastrophe, there is a merger of all remaining forces, with all ranks restyled based on Air Force, but translation of ranks was not done by Americans. This explains the "warrant officer" status of Alto. This is not the modern American Warrant Officer - they simply redesignated the former naval rank of Ensign as Warrant Officer. It might not make much sense in NATO terms, but there could well be a dictionary mess somewhere. In Russian terms, where a "praporschik" (commonly translated as warrant officer) is equal in rank to a "michman" (a naval rank that is functionally a warrant officer, but is often translated as ensign). As an aside, while in English there is no inherent clarity in what a "colonel" commands, Slavic languages do have such clarity. A Colonel is a "polkovnik" in Russian, and "polk" is a regiment. So the rank is basically "regiment-man".

I still want some effective storytelling and character development and interesting and emotional arcs. And I'm fine with them being about an idol group fighting a galaxy-wide danger (beats fighting closure of a school, at least).

Well for me another memorable - perhaps the most memorable - song is "Walkure wa Uragiranai" and in that particular case, as well as Absolute 5 surrounding it, the lyrics actually have a lot of relevance to the story. But this was the movie. Apparently, they realized the problem and this was a fix. There is a great song from the series with lyrics relevant to the story, though! It's "Bokura no Senjou", an actual song about aerial warfare for a change. But I don't even remember *where it is* in the series. (Another one I really like is "Love Thunder Glow" but not sure if it even was in the series at all. It appears to be a JUNNA solo, the only difference from other JUNNA solos like "Vai Ya Vai" being its release via Walkure? And yes I just want more JUNNA solos and am trying to work out how to buy them off iTunes given that I use Linux). The lyrics dissonance seems to be one of the story points they, so far, missed the chance to explore. So we see this power-clone Mikumo sing a song about being madly in love in a very, er, sexually engaged way, "Ikenai Borderline", while kicking some bigtime ass. But - she never was. She never could be. She is three years old! Yet she speaks Japanese (or whatever language she sings in, if "translation convention" is in use) so knows what she is singing about. What is this doing to her? What is it like to power the world with emotions you have no experience, nor education, to understand? Yes, this thing explicitly happened to her in the Sigur Valens... but it was also going on *from the start of the series* and no writer batted an eyelid to tell us any detail? Perhaps *that* is why the baddies could use her comparatively easily? (One sincerely hopes JUNNA also never was by the time she recorded the song, being 14 and all, so it is yet another "close to home" moment). If they were to explore this all in the second movie it would be great. They would need to provide for some mecha action for it to be Macross and to pull a triangle from their, er, backside - or give Mirage a knife already. But whatever. Mikumo is the one I really want to know about, whether or not she is in a triangle. (I do doubt they would go for my preferred triangle with Mikumo - Freyja - Hayate in THAT order, but whatever, just Mikumo and the huge level of angst this story calls for).

I have just done a binge listen of Love Live (both generations) and Idolmaster (Cinderella) music for my own research purposes. The obvious difference from Walkure is a far narrower emotional range. Walkure can be angsty. Waklure can be mad-power-tripping. These girls can only be cute and/or inspiring and/or happy and/or hopeful, and perhaps slightly sad, despite having many more songs than Walkure does, and despite some of the creator names involved being the same (Takuya Watanabe, whose work I liked in "Absolute 5" and "Uragiranai", also wrote "Happy Party Train" for Aquors). This, of course, might be because of the "cute girls doing cute things" trope, heavily used by the LL and Idolm@s franchises and pointedly defied from the very beginning by the Macross franchise. So I wonder - are there any Japanese idol groups that would actually have an emotional range comparable to (or greater than) Walkure? I really don't know much outside those that got animated (the latter includes AKB48 thanks to Kawamori but I'm not through too much of their work yet but they do seem rather narrow emotionally from what I saw so far). What, if anything, *should* I be looking at? Japan only, not Korea.