Seto Kaiba

The Water Magician is going where the vast majority of isekai stories have gone before. New Dandadan today too...

Welcome to the Outcast's Restaurant seems to have run out of ideas a mere three episodes in. I'm tentatively moving this one to my "best skipped" pile. Picked up a new series, Solo Camping for Two, which I'll give a whirl later alongside Hotel Inhumans and Apocalypse Bringer Mynoghra.

Saw a news piece the other day which said that Strange New Worlds aims to end the series with the transfer of command from Captain Pike to Captain Kirk, essentially making a direct segue into TOS. I have to admit, I rather like the idea.

If only the entire film were that campy, I might actually go and see in the theater. The worst thing they could possibly do with a Mortal Kombat movie would be try to take its premise seriously.

I can no longer tell if New Saga is just badly written or if it's actively taking the piss. I'm undecided as to whether that marks an improvement in its writing or not... the protagonist certainly seems to be about as bored with the business of becoming The Hero as I am of watching it, and is actively trying to speedrun the process to the point of rudeness.

According to Exsedol (and Macross Chronicle), there are somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000 Main Fleets active in the galaxy c.2010. These fleets range in size from several hundred thousand to several million warships each. We don't know. Macross Chronicle describes the automated factory satellites as being supported by a fleet of robot ships that mine the necessary resources and warehouse satellites that store the raw material until the production lines need it. The Mechanic Sheet for the Factory Satellite seen in the SDF Macross TV series has a section that notes there are some factory satellites which are outfitted with their own fold systems, while others that are located in resource-rich areas lack them. The implication there seems to be that some factory satellites need to periodically relocate to obtain the resources they require to continue operating (and/or chase the fleets they're supporting), while others are so efficient and/or in such resource-rich environments that there is no realistic prospect of local resources running out during the facility's lifespan. Considering how resource-rich space actually is... it's unlikely the galaxy is in any danger of being picked clean by the Zentradi in any timescale Humans can comprehend. EDIT: Whether the Zentradi (and/or Supervision Army) recycle is another matter entirely. The Zentradi are known to have a rescue and recovery pod of sorts, and we've seen surprisingly little in the way of wreckage from Zentradi ships and mecha in later stories. If they're recovering and recycling corpses and battle pods and maybe even ships to reprocess the material that help the resource situation a bit too.

Can I get a blurry, out-of-focus picture of you to go with the photos of the other cryptids? (I joke, there are plenty of Gundam ZZ fans out there! It's not my favorite, but it's a worthy installment in the UC and in some ways a breath of fresh air after Tomino's relentlessly grim ending to Zeta. I picked those three in particular because they're usually held up as the most impactful... the OG series, the highest-rated series, and that one movie nobody ever stops referencing.) Yeah, that's a pretty reasonable assumption IMO. The NUNS Marines would probably be infantry stationed on the Spacy's warships as well as providing orbit-to-surface work. Kind of the whole "space marine" gimmick anyway. So, when you mentioned this it occurred to me to go look it up and see what the caption on the image had to say. For those interested, that picture can be found in the VF-1X/P section on page 090 of Variable Fighter Master File: VF-1 Valkyrie Vol.2. All three pictures on that page, as well as the two pictures on the next page, appear to depict the same aircraft... a VF-1P Valkyrie with modex 406 and tailcode ZZ. The top image from page 091 shows it's attached to SVC-131, a Spacy composite squadron. The caption on the picture with the two Regults says that it's an aircraft of the Planet Zola Defense Forces, that the Regults it's flying next to are from the UN Spacy Marine Corps, and that both units are en route to a training area for joint exercises. (SVC-131 is presumably an aggressor squadron.) That would make for an interesting series... you could easily work some VF combat into that if there are rogue Zentradi nearby, or the planet is home to some large fauna that are potentially dangerous like on Gubaba's homeworld or the planet from Macross E. The Octos bis is perhaps a bit more explicable. Macross Chronicle notes that the factory producing the Octos for the Anti-Unification Alliance was found and pressed back into service by the UN Forces after the Unification Wars ended. They note that a further 28 Octos units were produced and delivered to the UN Forces before the line was destroyed in the First Space War. Presumably whichever one of the UN Forces defense contractors assumed control of the factory between the Unification Wars and First Space War was able to preserve the design the same way they preserved those of the destroids developed for the UN Forces. Given that Master File suggests both the VF-0 and SV-51 became "phantom" aircraft after the First Space War, presumably much less (or nothing) survived of the specifications or production lines for the VF-0 and SV-51. (Master File has a whole section devoted to Shinsei Industry having to essentially reverse-engineer the VF-0 back into existence based on the wreckage of several VF-0s that were shot down during Macross Zero that was found in a cargo container years after the First Space War. The same was presumably true for the SV-51.) I'm not sure I'd call it a natural resource, at least in the context Humanity and other species are finding it in... Protoculture ruins, old Vajra nests, and Vajra carcasses. Considering where fold quartz is typically found, and that the restrictions on the mining and trade in fold quartz seem to have come about as a result of the Vajra conflict, I'd expect there probably wasn't too much grumbling. The Vajra had all but effortlessly destroyed one of the wealthiest and most heavily armed emigrant fleets in existence, beat the snot out of another, and then attacked a bunch of New UN Government member worlds before the Galaxy fleet's conspirators were stopped. Nobody wants another war with the Vajra. The story of Macross Delta also mentions the New UN Gov't heavily restricts and regulates the mining and trading of fold quartz and banned the use of dimension bombs in war without New UN Gov't approval, suggesting there was probably broad consensus that fold quartz and weapons based on it needed to be tightly controlled to avoid disaster. (Leading right to Cromwell's discontent over the limits placed on the usage of such weapons and other potentially useful technology.)

Turkey! Time to Strike is back... Wasn't this supposed to be a bowling anime?

Topic aside, you should definitely give more of Gundam a whirl... some of mecha anime's greatest classics are in there. The original, Zeta, and Char's Counterattack for sure. WRT Gundam and the Super Prototypes trope, the original series may have more or less defined the trope but ironically almost no Gundam series actually USES it. The majority of Gundams in Gundam are basically bespoke ace custom machines rather than prototypes (super or otherwise) for any future machine or technology demonstrators. Macross thankfully treats its prototypes in a more realistic manner. The final prototype is usually identical to the initial mass production type, and the early prototypes for any given design are usually hacked-together and lower performance than the final model. (There is that weird corner case that is Macross Plus, though the performance difference there is more because two incredibly talented pilots turned unstable systems unsuitable for production into a sort of Disability Superpower.)

Yeah, this is 100% what the Siegfrieds should have looked like the entire time. Those forward-swept winglets never did look quite right, and what a miss it was to not have the protagonists use a delta-wing VF in a series named Delta. They fixed it in the second movie with the VF-31AX Kairos Plus at least.

Caught the latest episodes of Cultural Exchange with a Game Centre Girl, See You Tomorrow at the Food Court, and started a new series Ruri Rocks. Pretty happy with all three, TBH. Ah yes, the ever-present threat of magical bowling balls. How could I forget? 😆

Macross 7 definitely works better as a weekly series. It's not something that benefits from watching multiple episodes in one sitting or a full-on marathon to get through it as quickly as possible. That slow burn start of very nearly 20 episodes is a pain in the butt, in no small part due to the early lack of musical variety, but it does a good job of getting all the main characters established before the plot proper kicks off with the creation of Sound Force. I'd actually recommend watching Macross Dynamite 7 and the Macross 7 movie The Galaxy is Calling Me!. They're much tighter, self-contained stories than the main series and some of what goes on there is a little bit important later on. At least in other side stories.

Gundam almost never actually does that, though. The RX-78 was intended to be an actual prototype, but most of those that came after weren't even technology demonstrators. They were simply showy ace custom units that were in no way intended to refined into something practical, like the Double Zeta, the Nu, or the Unicorn. One of the few exceptions there is the RX-178 Gundam Mk.II from Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam, which was an actual production model that never got mass produced due to the Titans huffily cancelling their order after three of the four trial production units ended up in the AEUG's hands. The one infamous actually-mass-produced Gundam being the Victory from the series by the same name. In both the game version and novel version of Macross 30: Voices Across the Galaxy, Aisha does imply that she (and by extension, SMS and the Shinsei Industry dev team) planned to take the YF-30 design into further development towards a production concept. (Aisha fairly gushes about how the container system's going to revolutionize Valkyrie design.) It's not so much that they didn't have a choice after the events of Macross 30, it's that they were always planning to market the YF-30's innovations not tied to Richard Bilra's personal obsession. The novel version mentions that various SMS branches have been collaborating with the defense industry in a way the military no longer can in order to get their foot in the door of that lucrative market for themselves.

So... Turkey! Time to Strike is a thing that exists. The first twenty minutes of this series are a "What do you mean it's not awesome?" girls sports anime about bowling, in a similar vein to Iwa-kakeru! and Birdie Wing... with a very unsuccessful school bowling team of five girls having one member quit because they're always losing, a match to attempt to persuade her to stay on the team, and then it starts getting weird. The only thing I can say to this is "What." I do not get it even a little.

As a trope/cliche, it has its origins in the original 1979 Mobile Suit Gundam series as a sort of Drama Preserving Handicap. Mobile Suit Gundam was the first "real robot" subgenre mecha anime, and even though the series more or less established the idea of mass producing giant robots as weapons of war the titular mobile suit still had a lot of "super robot" DNA in it. The Gundam was a de facto one-of-a-kind hero mecha that singlehandedly changed the course of the war with its incredible capabilities. Its exotic super alloy armor made it nearly impervious to the enemy's weapons. Its beam rifle and beam sabers were so powerful they could destroy an enemy robot in a single hit. Its learning computer meant that it got better at fighting with every battle it fought and its kid pilot became a better fighter the more experience he gained. White Base's mission was to return the Gundam, Guncannon, and Guntank to the Federation Forces HQ on Earth so they could be analyzed and the data from them used to complete the Federation's mobile suit program. Resolving that thread of Gundam's plot posed a problem. They couldn't very well have the Gundam itself be mass produced without removing their hero mecha's visual distinctiveness and removing any prospects for future dramatic tension in the story. It wouldn't be much of a war once the Federation entered the fray with thousands of identical, nigh-invulnerable robots that could each take on whole squads of Zeon mobile suits at a time. So they created the GM as a "loser" version of the Gundam so the Gundam would remain special and visually distinctive and the Federation could have cannon fodder machines without having to bring the Gundam down to "normal" status. That's the Doylist explanation. The accompanying Watsonian explanation they cooked up to justify the GM's existence is that the Federation originally did intend to mass produce the RX-78 Gundam. The course of the war, the cost involved, and the immediacy of their need for large numbers of mobile suits in the field forced them to compromise and simplify their design to speed up production and get as many units in the field as quickly as possible. They started with the RX-78 Gundam's basic design and started removing everything that was not considered 100% necessary and/or a potential cost or time bottleneck in production. Luna titanium got the axe because it took too long to make and cost too much. Core Block functions were removed as unnecessary complexity. The simpler head design from the Guncannon was adopted because it was easier to manufacture, etc. The end result was the RGM-79 GM, a machine with higher performance than Zeon's flagship MS's but without the invincible hero properties of the Gundam. Had the Federation's need for mobile suits not been quite so immediate and urgent, they would have proceeded to mass produce the Gundam and the final stages of the war would likely have gone VERY differently (and a great deal worse for Zeon). Past that point, though... the writers kind of forget that aspect entirely and Gundams become one-off super machines that Anaheim Electronics makes to try out a new technology or simply because they have nothing better to do. The next few "real robot" titles kind of played with the idea of a mass-produced hero mecha, but ultimately avoided it through plot contrivances. Dougram had the titular mecha be set up for mass production but then the factory and blueprints were destroyed, leaving it a one-of-a-kind machine. Xabungle also implies that the Xabungle is a production machine but a very low volume one with only a handful made. It's not until Super Dimension Fortress Macross that we get our first real robot mecha anime with a truly mass-produced "hero" machine, eliminating the need for super prototypes or super prototype-like plot contrivances.

In some of the line art, it looks like that case might almost be large enough to hold one of the drums... but we don't actually know that the drum is the laser machine pistol's magazine, or where the magazine is. Pretty much, yeah. The 6th Generation prototypes veer heavily towards Gundam-style Super Prototype territory heavily enough as it is. The main thing keeping them from actually getting there is that they're held in reserve as an 11th Hour Powerup for the story's climax rather than being the main mecha, and that in-story the developers absolutely intended to mass produce them as-is instead of watering them down into a much weaker production machine.

According to Macross Chronicle Mechanic Sheet SDFM TV Zentradi 03A "Nousjadeul-Ger", it's a magazine case meant to hold reloads for the Nousjadeul-Ger's handheld weapons like the laser machine pistol it normally wields. One would presume the UN Marine Corps would be primarily naval infantry, with armored and aerial support as appropriate... though we have almost no way of confirming that. There are precious few sources that actually mention the UN Marine Corps. The oldest, the Sky Angels VF-1 Valkyrie tech manual, mentions that there were a substantial number of Marines stationed aboard the SLV-111 Daedalus. Not as Destroid operators, but as a naval infantry force supported by a number of marine aviators to man the helicopters, fighters, and support craft carried aboard the ship. Sky Angels also asserts that there were UN Marine fighter and fighter/attack squadrons using the VF-1 Valkyrie. Macross Zero does show one UN Marine Corps soldier named Katie training with the VF-0 pilots and indicates she's going to be training on a VF-0. Official media does mention the Marine Corps had a purpose-made VF-0 variant of their own (the VF-0C). Hasegawa did a model kit for it back in the day, and the markings they chose to give it were those of UN Marine Corps model conversion training squadron VMFAT-203 Hawks. The Hawks are noted to have been a Hawaii-based squadron that had a number of aircraft stationed aboard SLV-111 Daedalus in 2008. The Hawks transitioned to the VF-1 Valkyrie in 2009 and trained Marine Corps aviators on the fighter for a brief time before being transferred to being a Spacy Marine Corps squadron under the designation SVFM-31 (probably supposed to be SVMF-31) for a period of about two years until they were again reorganized by the newly established New UN Forces and became a Spacy squadron as SVF-31. I wonder if the regular Marine Corps simply got absorbed by, or is interchangeable with, the Spacy Marine Corps past a certain point?

I'm pretty sure they care at least a little, since they have mentioned the Dancing Skulls in other volumes and the references to the VF-3000's classified deployment to Special Forces units is pretty clearly a reference to Macross M3. That said, I'd assume the Neo York Liberation League probably didn't purchase their VF-3000s from Shinsei Industry and wouldn't be mentioned among their legitimate/intended customers. Of course there is also the possibility that the VF-3000s in Macross M3 are being retroactively identified as PMC craft hired by the Liberation League. Cost-effectiveness was certainly a priority for a lot of 2nd Generation VFs, but I think a solid argument can be made that cost-effectiveness was just one of several shifting priorities which were part of the larger generational objective of developing VFs around the evolving (and at the time poorly-understood) needs of early emigrant fleets and planets. Early 2nd Generation Variable Fighters like the VF-X-3, VF-4, and VF-3000 don't mention cost or ease of manufacture as a primary design objective. The VF-X-3 was lost during the First Space War but was said to have performance exceeding that of even the VF-4. The VF-4 and VF-3000 were both designed to address the shortcomings of the original VF-1 in space operations. Larger airframes with more room for internal propellant tanks and sub-engine systems. Larger and longer-ranged energy weapons to reduce their dependence on limited ammunition. Improved live support systems in the event of the craft being disabled or destroyed, to preserve the life of the pilot as long as possible while waiting for a rescue. Both of those models were introduced around the time of the very first emigrant fleet launches. Those 2nd Generation designs that entered development or service after Humanity started to discover habitable planets are the ones that, surely not coincidentally, are described with statements like "inexpensive" and "easily manufactured on developing emigrant planets". Once emigrant fleets started actually finding habitable worlds that they could start colonizing right away, suddenly the need wasn't just for big Valkyries with high operational endurance in space. Now they also needed something light and inexpensive that they could use for planetside service. Something they could manufacture on the cheap without jeopardizing their development plans for the planet's surface. So from there, we get a bevy of low-cost, low-complexity solutions like the VF-5, VF-6, VF-7, VF-5000, and finally VF-9 that all served as supplements to the VF-4. Both Macross Chronicle and Master File generally agree that the thing that did the most damage to the VF-3000's prospects was the fact that it was essentially Stonewell Bellcom (later Shinsei Industry) competing against itself unnecessarily. The company already had a largely complete next-generation main Variable Fighter program focusing on improved space performance under active testing with the New UN Forces... the VF-4 Lightning III. If Master File is correct the VF-3000 may have served as an important test that the newly formed Shinsei Industry was up to the job of continuing VF development and manufacture for the New UN Forces (the VF-4 having been mostly a prewar program), but the final product was still basically redundant as a competitor to a design the New UN Forces had already decided to adopt. Based on what's said in the Macross 30: Voices Across the Galaxy novelization, the events of Macross the Ride straight-up created a market for replicas of those old model VFs. Not only are there other cases of replicas being built, there's supposedly a direct causal relationship between the two. In Macross 30's novel version, Leon mentions in passing that the VF-0 Phoenix in SMS's possession - the one Leon gets stuck with in the game version's tutorial - is a replica which was produced commercially to capitalize on the popularity of a particular Vanquish League racer's replica VF-0 from two years prior. The only VF-0 that competed in the league in 2058 was Hakuna Aoba's VF-0改 "Sieg"/"Zeke", so apparently his participation made enough of a stir that someone (Shinsei?) decided to produce replica VF-0s with modern parts (from the VF-1C and VF-5000) for the civilian market. It wouldn't be at all surprising if Magdalena Zielonaska's SV-52γ, which participated in the league for far longer than Hakuna Aoba's VF-0改 did, created a similar stir and demand for a commercially-available replica machine. Replica SV-51s are found on Uroboros in 2060, and someone has to be making them and selling them to civilians. It wouldn't be all that surprising if they were already commercially available before 2060 and the manufacturer was engaged with the film's production as a product placement or something. As far as we know, yeah... the 2059 film Bird Human was the first time the recently-declassified events of the Mayan Island incident were dramatized. I'd assume the films Master File is referring to here are dramatizations of other incidents previously mentioned in Master File or possibly other sources like Macross the First. They don't specify, though. There are at least two other major engagements mentioned... the attack on Grand Cannon III in Africa and the ill-fated plan to attack the UN Forces HQ at Grand Cannon I in Alaska that was almost literally foiled before it could get off the ground. Incidentally, I'm told the remark about the one time the VF-3000 played the role of the SV-51 by being painted black is almost certainly meant to be a reference to Top Gun, which used US Navy F-5E's painted black as the fictional "MiG-28". Very dubious indeed. Epsilon Foundation absolutely has access to the Sv-303 since they make the bloody things, but regular enemies? In Macross Delta: Absolute Live!!!!!! they're presented as a production (or production-intent) unmanned fighter that outclasses even the 5.5th Generation VF-31 Siegfried and Sv-262 Draken III. Even Xaos's VF-31AX Kairos Plus - which Master File asserts are a hasty and incomplete conversion of the VF-31 Siegfried into a experimental/developmental 6th Generation test machine - were only barely able to keep up with them one-on-one. Max's 6th Generation YF-29 was the only machine that really outclassed them... which probably owes at least as much to Max's own over-the-top specs as it does the YF-29's. 😆 Eh... I mean, that was kind of already explicitly the case going the other way from the YF-29's introduction in Macross Frontier: the Wings of Goodbye. Fold quartz in general is quite rare. It does occur in nature, but it's implied that the vast majority of what's out there is synthesized either by the Vajra or the Protoculture. The 5th Generation VFs like the VF-24, VF-25, VF-27, and VF-31 use the stuff sparingly and only where it's absolutely unavoidable. Namely, the Inertia Store Converter protecting the pilot from the incredible g-forces the fighter is capable of. The rest of its systems use high quality synthetic fold carbon. The fold quartz they use is of a size and purity that's common enough to make ISC systems with reliable output in bulk. Presumably it's similar in size to what we see them pulling out of Vajra carcasses... an oblong sliver of gemstone around three centimeters or so long. (Maybe 20 or so carats if we assume a comparably sized and shaped diamond?) In short, 5th Generation VFs can be mass produced precisely because their fold quartz is comparatively low quality enough to be accessible in bulk. The size and purity of fold quartz needed to make a working Fold Wave System for a 6th Generation VF is explicitly borderline Unobtainium, however. The YF-29's Fold Wave System needed four 1,000 carat pieces of ultra-high purity fold quartz to function. Sure, 1,000 carats is only 200 grams, but that's still a gemstone of about the same size as a regulation baseball at a purity level that Macross Frontier says can only be found in Vajra queens. Master File claims that reproducing the performance of Alto's original YF-29[A] is essentially impossible because fold quartz of the requisite size and purity simply does not exist in any accessible form and that all subsequent YF-29s are lower-performance copies of the original due to inferior fold quartz. Even ignoring Master File, such high-quality fold quartz is so impossibly rare that officially only a double handful of YF-29s have ever been built and they're all essentially irreplaceable. Macross Delta's VF-31 Siegfrieds and VF-31AX Kairos Pluses are equipped with an economized version of the FWS which uses less (and lower purity) fold quartz. The required material is still incredibly rare and expensive, but it's at least affordable enough for them to field half a dozen of their FWS-equipped custom VF-31s with reduced performance as the main consequence. (Master File alleges this version of the FWS also needs an external fold wave source to operate.) Eh... I think that still creates the problem of having a unit of invincible godmode sues whose VFs have no limits.

Starting a new one... Cultural Exchange with a Game Centre Girl. After one episode, it feels like light "feel good" sort of entertainment. Nothing deep or complex, just people having fun together and learning about each other. If I had to sum it up in a short punchy remark... "It's a vibe". A very cheerful, upbeat vibe at that. Another new one... See You Tomorrow at the Food Court. Between the general weirdness, the constant non-sequiturs, and the shortform stories it reminds me a lot of Azumanga Daioh.

Private Tutor to the Duke's Daughter has a new episode... and it's probably going to be the first series I drop this season.

That is definitely another possibility, yes. To be honest, I kind of hope that Macross's creators don't go that route yet. The scarcity of fold quartz and its amazing potential to revolutionize technology has been the centerpiece of two major conflicts in the setting thus far. Unless we're moving way down the timeline it would feel like too much progress too quickly for Humanity to suddenly go from needing to scrounge around in Protoculture ruins and old Vajra nests for leftover fold quartz to being able to manufacture the stuff on their own without limit the way they do fold carbon in a measly few decades when it took the Protoculture a century or two. Not to mention what a massive, massive game-changer it would be for every aspect of technology.

We've got no idea what's in store for the next Macross series... which is going to be a Bandai Namco project IIRC. The one thing I'd expect there is they'll want to have 50,000 variants and equipment options so that they can milk those plamodel molds. Of course, if there's ever any proper official media coverage of Macross Delta: Absolute Live!!!!!!'s mecha the backstory in Master File has a coin flip's chance of being replaced outright with something else entirely, so we probably shouldn't take it as read that the Sv-300, Sv-301, and Sv-302 exist in the official setting at all. Right now Master File is literally the one and only source that talks about both the VF-31AX and Sv-303 in any significant detail, so it's kind of the answer by default. Given what Macross Delta's extra features and Master File have said about the state of new VF development, I'm really wondering how far the envelope is going to be pushed in the next series. Macross Delta: Absolute Live!!!!!! is set nine years after the events of Macross Frontier and its movies. Back at the start of Macross Delta, Kawamori indicated the VF-31 is in the final stages of operational acceptance testing and is set to enter service as the Brisingr Alliance New UN Forces next main fighter c.2068-2069. They're a good seven to eight years behind the wealthier emigrant fleets and planets that started transitioning their forces to 5th Generation Valkyries as early as 2060, and it's likely that they'll remain their main variable fighters for at least 20 years. The concept for the 6th Generation Variable Fighter was teased by the extra features in Macross Delta's home video release and bluntly spelled out in Master File. If that's the real direction they're going, what we can expect to see from future hero Valkyries is: Manned-Unmanned Teaming (aka "Loyal Wingman" platforms) where a manned Valkyrie is supported by and controlling multiple drone fighters in the field, similar to what the VF-2SS does in Macross II or the Sv-262 and Sv-303 do in Macross Delta. Fold wave systems as a standard feature. It's implied that the presence of a fold wave system or derivative thereof is what makes the Siegfried and Draken III "Gen 5.5". Fold quartz-enhanced engines as a standard feature, like the /FC2 or /FC3 designs. Beam gunpods as standard The main roadblock to production and adoption of 6th Generation Variable Fighters has been established to be fold quartz. Humanity can't independently synthesize it. Supplies of the stuff are finite, it's a heavily restricted material due to the dangers involved in its procurement and its weapons potential, and fold quartz of sufficient size and purity to create a fold wave system is indicated to be vanishingly rare and nearly impossible to obtain even on planets with large deposits of fold quartz. One has to wonder if we'll see an extension of the idea Master File tabled where the New UN Forces are willing to accept a lower-quality fold wave system made using the best and highest-quality fold carbon Humanity can synthesize (which is said to be only 1% as effective) or if they decide to reinvent the 6th Generation and ditch the fold wave system as one of its key requirements. I'm kind of surprised that we haven't seen a DX Chogokin Sv-303 yet. It's a main mecha in the movie and it's been literal years now. They literally had Bandai's toy division help with the designs for the movie so that they could maximize the profits from merchandising, so it's weird that the only new DX's we got from it are the VF-31AX and Bogue's Sv-262 "Red Knight" version.

Oh boy, more "Adventure slop"... The Shy Hero and the Assassin Princesses is back... Scooped Up By an S-Rank Adventurer has a new episode...

Yeah, those old VF-11s are hard to come by. I think I paid about 25% more than that when I got mine. If we ever get a DX Chogokin VF-11 that price might collapse a bit, but I've been holding out hope for that for ages... (partly because I want a Mina Forte VF-11C).

Been a long day... let's see what Crunchyroll's found anything in the Summer '25 simulcast season that's actually worth watching. New Saga has a new episode today... Tedious in the extreme. I'm strongly considering dropping this one. Betrothed to My Sister's Ex has a new episode... which I am feeling MUCH more enthusiastic about! Still fun, I have a feeling this one's going to be my favorite for the season. Secrets of the Silent Witch also has a new episode... For what it's worth, when I read (and later watched) Attack on Titan I felt that the sense of mystery surrounding the Titans and the Titan Shifters and the foreboding that went with it was an essential part of the story. It was the very embodiment of Nothing is Scarier. (I am admittedly a great big fan of horror as an art form so my bias is going to be on full display here...) The idea that the world within the Walls was all there was of civilization made the entire rest of the setting into one massive liminal space. The sense of isolation within desolation and oppressive emptiness of the world was the fuel for a great sense of horror and foreboding throughout the first half. This was made doubly effective by the Titans themselves. Normally seeing a person on the horizon in such an isolated space is cause for great relief. Attack on Titan turned that on its ear and made it cause for terror. Anything remotely person-shaped outside the Walls is a Monster that will Eat You without a moment's hesitation. Not knowing where the likes of Ymir, Grisha, Reiner, or Annie came from helped maintain that sense of mystery and oppressive horror. Was there some other, isolated city out in that vast desolation? Did the Titans have a civilization? Are these monsters really as mindless as they appear or was there malice behind them? These mysteries helped keep the story engaging. IMO, the Big Reveal that history as it was known to the protagonists was one huge lie, that the world of Attack on Titan was largely similar to ours in terms of its geography, culture, and technology aside from the existence of the Titans, and that the rest of the world was not only not utterly desolate but positively thriving really fatally punctured the horror with mundane explanations and real world familiarity. The only thing that remained mysterious was the Titans themselves, and that was demoted to essentially "just magic". Eren being a completely unrepentant heel for the entire second half of the story really was a poor creative choice, IMO. I know it's that kind of story, but it'd have been nice to see some progression or the idea that he was at least struggling with what he felt was his preordained destiny to destroy the world. Instead, he just kind of flips from a tyke bomb who hates the Titans with a thoroughly understandable passion to a Misanthrope Supreme and Omnicidal Maniac all at once. It would have been nice to see more of a moral spectrum besides just "awful person" and "extremely awful person"...