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Seto Kaiba

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  1. Seto Kaiba
    Yup... though Kawamori is known as something of an "out there" director who does unconventional things as he pleases. Oh, likely. After all, the 5th Generation Variable Fighters are tipped to be the "last manned fighter" in Macross the same way that real world 5th Generation fighter jets are tipped to be the "last manned fighter" before unmanned fighter aircraft take over. Given concerns about the usage of unmanned combat aircraft it seems unlikely that the 5th Generation will be a final one for manned fighters in the real world or in Macross, but it's wearing the real world parallel on its sleeve. ... no, it's not taboo. It would just be completely unfounded nonsense. And no, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are not a common theme in 70's and 80's anime. Outside of a few rather niche and very strange titles, Japanese media tends to avoid or downplay the Second World War and the rather touchy subjects therein. There have been whole franchises cancelled for the suggestion that they were in some way glorifying Japan's... behavior... from that period. The one real influence from World War II that you'll find in sci-fi/mecha anime most of the time is the taboo against the "good guys" using nuclear weapons... which is frequently worked around by the simple expedient of either calling nuclear weapons something else or explicitly having some form of ersatz nuclear weapon that is just as destructive but is explicitly non-nuclear. Even then, both Gundam and Macross buck the trend by explicitly featuring the protagonists using nuclear weapons.
  2. Seto Kaiba
    Macross does tend to mirror real world issues in its setting fairly often. It's not surprising that modern anxieties about unmanned combat aircraft would find their way into the story in one form or another, not just in terms of general anxieties about arming robots but also in terms of the revelations from whistleblowers about the frequency with which drone strikes were killing people other than the intended target (a whopping 90% of the time). Macross Dynamite 7 was perhaps Macross at its most blatant in that regard, being a spectacularly blunt Aesop about whaling.
  3. Seto Kaiba
    That was kind of inevitable the minute they announced it was getting an Autumn release. Here's to hoping there's no more pandemic-induced disruptions to the release schedule.
  4. Seto Kaiba
    There is at least a promotional screening mentioned in November: https://macross.jp/news/?id=1489
  5. Seto Kaiba
    It might be... and the exact reason that the VF-19S has so many guns is unclear. That said, the VF-19S is actually carrying two different types of directed energy weapon on its monitor turret. The VF-19's first mass production type - the VF-19A/B/C/D/E? - had only the one Mauler REB-30G anti-aircraft laser cannon on its monitor turret. It was replaced by a small bore particle beam cannon on the VF-19F and VF-19S and the VF-19S adopted that quartet of anti-aircraft laser cannons in addition to it for reasons unclear. Macross Chronicle's Mechanic Sheet for Docker's VF-19S notes that the laser cannons can also be used as a laser communication system, suggesting that's part of the communication robustness improvements that tend to come with the "S" variant command specification, but offers no further justification. I'd almost argue the extra laser cannons are simply a New UN Forces tradition at this point to make it look more like the VF-1S. Master File has a rather odd (unofficial) take that the VF-19F/S type also normally uses the REB-30G laser cannon that the initial production types used, that the particle beam cannon is not an entirely stable system, and that the lasers were added to the VF-19S type to provide a backup in the event that the beam cannon fails.
  6. Seto Kaiba
    But he's looking for the... Cannon... answer.
  7. Seto Kaiba
    Same with Azumanga Daioh, as it happens... the parallels are stacking up.
  8. Seto Kaiba
    It's definitely worth a watch, IMO. It's a lot more grounded than Nichijou is, with more focus on the actual characters, though it does have some truly bizarre and surreal moments.
  9. Seto Kaiba
    ... it definitely has a vibe reminiscent of Azumanga Daioh to it. That said, I don't think I like it as much as I did Azumanga Daioh. A lot of the humor here seems to just be "random things happen", which can be funny if done right but it feels a bit overused at 5 episodes in.
  10. Seto Kaiba
    My backlog slog continues... on to Nichijou, and my first thought is "it's Azumanga Daioh but on even more drugs".
  11. Seto Kaiba
    That does appear to be the case in the Macross Frontier audio drama Luca and the Three Ghosts. In that, L.A.I. obtained special dispensation from the Frontier Government to work on developing a high-performance, fully-autonomous air combat AI for a next-generation Ghost. I don't recall where I read it, I think it was Great Mechanics.DX 14, but I remember it being said that fully autonomous unmanned fighters are restricted as heavily or nearly as heavily as the usage of (thermo)nuclear weapons and that their usage was strictly prohibited except in very specific circumstances.
  12. Seto Kaiba
    So... yeah, Macross Chronicle's Mechanic Sheet for the AIF-9V Ghost "V-9" does mention that it was outfitted with autonomous air combat functions that contravene the New UN Gov't restrictions on AI usage. It's said that its AI is the same type used in the Ghost X-9. Incidentally, Luca Angeloni's three modified AIF-7S Ghost wingmen (QF-4000) also use the same autonomous air combat AI software used in the Ghost X-9.
  13. Seto Kaiba
    Macross Chronicle doesn't put quite as much emphasis on the self-preservation instinct aspect. On the Glossary Sheet (17A) entry for it, it credits the New UN Government's ban on the technology more to the fact that the chips produce unpredictable behaviors that have a significant chance of the AI running on the chip going out of control. Given that the Macross Concern was using data from the Sharon Apple project and bio-neural processors themselves in an attempt to make their next-generation unmanned fighter more effective by making it able to respond in less predictable ways, it seems like Myung's neuroses were the Grand Central Station for calamity.
  14. Seto Kaiba
    Admittedly, I'm up for almost anything that takes the piss out of Messer... though I don't think any of it could be quite as well done as the Macross Delta shorts where Messer is a pizza delivery boy.
  15. Seto Kaiba
    That's not why the New UN Government had outlawed bio-neural processors well before the Sharon Apple incident. The reason that technology was banned was because it was dangerously unstable. It was intended to improve the performance of unmanned fighters by allowing the non-sapient AI to react more flexibly and less predictably. In practice, the bio-neural chips tended to become too unpredictable and exhibited dangerous unintended behaviors that were often linked to the chips developing self-preservation "instincts". It wasn't an ethical concern, it was a safety concern about a microprocessor technology that resulted in standard sci-fi computers-gone-rogue, much like Sharon Apple herself did in the wake of being fitted with one. (Future attempts to improve the reliability and autonomous operation quality of unmanned fighters hinged on similar approaches to pre-bio-neural chip Sharon... virtual modeling of the human mind and personality. In the Macross Frontier audio dramas, L.A.I. is working on a successor to the AIF-7 Ghost that uses human personality AI systems modeled on real people: Luca Angeloni, Alto Saotome, Michael Blanc, and Nanase Matsura.)
  16. Seto Kaiba
    Well, yeah... Basara's emotional responses are definitely atypical, but in a way that suits his conflict-averse beliefs and the story's themes. Can you imagine what'd happen if a hack like Michael Bay got ahold of him? Basara's a great pilot but he's basically a non-action protagonist, since he refuses to actually fight anyone. Michael Bay would turn him into some kind of gung-ho punk in order to get the action scenes he can't live without and ruin the story's themes in the process. Imagine Macross 7 where the role of Basara is played by Nathan Explosion.
  17. Seto Kaiba
    If anything, that might actually be worse... Macross 7's Basara is a technical pacifist, which is about as far from what Bay can work with as it gets, and while there are some explosions a lot of the story revolves around Basara's general unwillingness to hurt anyone.
  18. Seto Kaiba
    Can any of us even hope to rival the nearly Lovecraftian horror that @Einherjar keeps reminding us already exists? It'd be almost exactly like that, except everything would be on fire or exploding. Well, he is a massive walking American stereotype after all...
  19. Seto Kaiba
    Oh boy, wait 'til you hear about Gundam... Get your masked space nazi ace pilots with sister complexes in red uniforms in the money saving twelve pack!
  20. Seto Kaiba
    Freyja kinda ran away with that one, IMO. She's a very similar character to Macross Frontier's Ranka Lee, but Freyja is a more upbeat character who shows initiative in chasing her dream to be an idol where Ranka was indecisive and very passive unless she had Alto, Michael, or Grace twisting her arm. Her inexperience and enthusiasm made her a lot more likeable right off the bat, especially as it allowed her to make mistakes in ways that were comedic but also furthered her story and character development. Ranka was kind of Frontier's chew toy and got a lot of her development from being in depressive episodes until someone else came along to kick in the arse and make her do something. On every level Freyja's just... better Ranka, and almost instantly likeable for it. (Of course, the tradeoff was that Macross Delta had Great Value brand Sheryl Nome in the form of Mikumo "My main character trait is that I have no character traits" Guynemer.) It's energy conversion armor, right? That's also an additional power draw, and possibly requires additional electromagnetic shielding for the cockpit.
  21. Seto Kaiba
    Finished The World Ends With You. Holy hell, this was Angel Links levels of bad. So much so that it's legitimately worrying that something like this got approved. For the writers and director, it should be more like Your Careers End With This.
  22. Seto Kaiba
    He's not unfortunate, he earned that laser beam to the face by being a cretin. I mean, he starts off as that one incredibly abrasive and toxic coworker who thinks he's better than everyone else. Yeah, he's the ace... but he's the ace of a low-rent, bush league PMC that's based so far out in the space boonies that you can't go much farther without leaving the galaxy altogether. If that were all, he's just be unpleasant... but he's also super creepy. He's basically Kaname's stalker. Her performance touched his heart, so instead of joining the fan club or maybe buying some Walkure merch he... followed her to another planet, and applied to the company she works for in order to be close to her always, then follows her everywhere at work. That's not romantic, that is 3/4 of the way to being an episode of Law and Order: SVU. I really hope they just leave any mention of him out of this next movie.
  23. Seto Kaiba
    Some folks... still aren't clear on the narrative and thematic differences between between authentic Macross and what we'll call "the Macross [they] have at home". Authentic Macross isn't a gritty, action-packed, Things Blowing Up war series. It's a love story and character drama set against the backdrop of a space war. Some things do blow up, but it's a secondary concern to what's going on between the characters. You hire Michael Bay if you want to make a mindless action movie full of Things Blowing Up. He's no good for compelling character drama. It's like hiring a coked-up Gary Busey to be maître d' at your fancy restaurant. He's perfectly capable of showing up for work, but he's fundamentally incapable of producing the desired result.
  24. Seto Kaiba
    So, what you're saying is we need to go deeper... dig up someone's MLP/Star Wars fic so we can kill two birds with one stone by beating an incestuous dead horse? That might be too much, even for people with a truly refined appreciation of sadism. (FWIW, the memes are better than the actual movie IMO.) EDIT: Something something the dark side is a pathway to many topics of discussion some would consider... unnatural.
  25. Seto Kaiba
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