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Seto Kaiba

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  1. Seto Kaiba
    Finished My Wife is the Student Council President+ today... and honestly it's way better censored than non. This could've actually been entertaining if they cut out the nudity and sexual content and just ran with the incredibly screwed up love story. My Crunchyroll queue is growing thin now, at least... I started Love Tyrant today over dinner. So far, I'm thoroughly with Seiji given that his first reaction to supernatural bullsh*t was to slam the door in its face and his second reaction is to immediately accuse them of ripping off Death Note. If he can keep up this "done with this sh*t" attitude I think this might be a lot better than the last few shows I've seen.
  2. Seto Kaiba
    The problem isn't in the frequency of scheduled maintenance... it's in the logistics of stocking variant-specific parts when you're operating six different variants of the same aircraft from the same carrier. Logistically, minimizing the number of variants in concurrent operation is always the best idea. Exactly why the Frontier fleet thought it needed so many different variants is unclear... since most of them are little different from the base model. A Command variant seems like something done more out of tradition than actual necessity, since the VF-4, VF-11, and VF-171 all got along fine without it.
  3. Seto Kaiba
    Ah, no... there is not. I've looked up the thread and posts in question, and the poster you read that from is SEVERELY misinformed. I don't know why they would think that there would be a brothel in the show, given that prostitution is illegal in Japan. What Kakizaki is pointing out to Hikaru in Super Dimension Fortress Macross's 8th episode is a cabaret club, also known as a hostess club. There's nothing overtly sexual about it. It's an overpriced bar catering to men that serves overpriced drinks with the main appeal being that the hostesses are beautiful women who light your cigarettes, pour you drinks, occasionally make flirtatious remarks, and sing karaoke for the entertainment of the male patrons. That's all. It's no more explicit than a Hooters, and arguably in far better taste. If you've ever seen Soul Eater, the bar that Maka's dad hangs out in is a cabaret club. Nothing overtly sexual about it. Likewise, what that misinformed poster is thinking of in Macross: Do You Remember Love? is a love hotel. There's no connection to the sex industry there either. It's just a branch of the hotel industry that caters specifically to couples who are looking for a more private place to hook up. That's why Minmay shoots Hikaru a dirty look and then forcibly steers him away... he unsubtly attempted to score on the first date and she was having none of that sh*t. EDIT: It's worth noting that the script-style short story collection My Fair Minmay does make reference to a "pleasure district" inside the Macross, but that's not quite the same thing as an actual red light district... the businesses congregated there are things like bars, cabaret clubs, massage parlors, and some varieties of establishment that skirt the limits of Japan's ban on prostitution like soaplands (referred therein by their old name as toruko-buro) and pink salons. Nothing of that nature ever made it into the show, though...
  4. Seto Kaiba
    ... this is explained in the very first episode of the show. Vrlitwhai and Exsedol recognize almost immediately that the two ARMD-class ships that attacked their branch fleet as it approached Earth were not Supervision Army warships, and just as quickly they recognize that the SDF-1 Macross is one of the Supervision Army ships they've been pursuing... but modified extensively by the "primitive species" on the planet that had designed the ships that attacked them earlier using the long-lost thermonuclear reaction weaponry. That's 31 different flavors of impossible by Zentradi standards.
  5. Seto Kaiba
    Nope... if that were the case, we'd expect to see them written up along similar lines to the Xaos Valkyrie Works VF-31 Custom Siegfrieds. The VF-25F, VF-25S, and RVF-25 are written up as production variants.
  6. Seto Kaiba
    Well, that depends on what kind of mission profile you're talking about... However, in the VF-25's case we're looking at the opposite problem. The actual differences between its variants are so small that there's really no need to have most of the variants at all. Monitor turrets aside, they're functionally identical aircraft that differ only in some optional software, calibrations, and tuning. Install the S-type's command support software onto the VF-25A and you've eliminated the need for a dedicated command variant. Install the flight control and fire control calibrations and engine tunings from the F-type and there's no more need for a dedicated reconnaissance-in-force variant. We know from the two previous VF generations and one of the VF-25's competitors that ELINT/AWACS capabilities can be modularized to the extent that a normal VF can fill the role just fine with the addition of a FAST Pack or container. There's no need for a dedicated recon variant like the RVF-25. All in all, the only variant that justifies its existence is the VF-25G... which operates in a very narrow role and requires specialized camera systems and fire control system enhancements to do its job as a designated marksman unit. The VF-25F, VF-25S, and RVF-25 could all be eliminated and their functions covered by the VF-25A and VF-25B without difficulty... simplifying the logistics of maintaining a fleet of VFs and keeping costs down at the same time. The VF-31 is exactly like that... you have the VF-31A and VF-31B and that's it. There's a really narrow sort of niche where, if an aircraft can't fill a particular role, a new variant can be made to do so adequately instead of it being more efficient to have a dedicated model that does that job better right off the bat. For instance, the VF-4 was an excellent space fighter but the very design choices that made it such an excellent space fighter made it kind of a sub-par atmospheric fighter. The problem was significant enough and fundamentally tied to the VF-4's design such that it couldn't really be addressed with a new variant, so the VF-1 served alongside it, then the VF-5, and VF-5000, and several other atmospheric-focused 2nd Generation VFs. Contrast that and, say, the VF-19. The VF-19 was a good multi-role all-regime fighter but the NUNS wanted a space fighter... so since it was already a good multirole fighter in air and in space, the simplest approach was a new variant optimized to operate in space (the VF-19F/S type).
  7. Seto Kaiba
    Oh, SMS's parent company Bilra Transport IS flush with cash... they sponsored the Macross Frontier fleet's mission into Vajra space. However, having random civilian corporations buying next-gen military hardware that the military itself doesn't have yet? That'd be a big NOPE for pretty much any government. Xaos is in the same boat WRT its VF-31's. They're on loan from the Brisingr Alliance New UN Forces for field testing under a similar contract. It's not clear how many of SMS's VFs are actually owned by SMS, since even Isamu's VF-19EF/A is privately owned, not SMS-owned.
  8. Seto Kaiba
    Nope... because SMS doesn't actually own any of the VF-25's or YF-25's they're depicted as operating in Macross Frontier and its related materials (e.g. Macross the Ride). Those aircraft - and the aircraft carrier they're operating from - are property of the Macross Frontier fleet's New UN Forces on loan to SMS as part of SMS's contract to be expendable mooks testing the fleet's next-gen weapons in live combat.
  9. Seto Kaiba
    One thing about Macross that I've never been super fond of is the way the New UN Forces gets stuck operating a dozen different variants of one model of aircraft simultaneously... the kind of arrangement we saw with the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Generation Main Variable Fighters is way more realistic. Don't get me wrong, I get that the goal is having multiple variants so a toy partner like Bandai or Arcadia can run out a dozen different variants of one master mold. I just like the more realistic take because, as an engineer, I cringe a little every time I think about what a maintenance nightmare it must be to have to stock or manufacture-on-demand replacement parts for a half dozen different variants all at once and sometimes all for just one unit. There was, at least, a reasonably good excuse for the VF-1J being an early block-only variant that was actually a competing proposal for the format of the standard VF-1 variant. I like the realism in that with the late block VF-1, the VF-4, the VF-11, VF-171, and VF-19 1st mass production type they had standard variants that were one aircraft fits all. Same as with the Macross II VFs. I guess you could make a bunch of variants like the VF-25's work if you had a big and wealthy government with a lot of money to burn... but something like there's one or two highly flexible variants instead of six or more specialized ones makes a lot more sense in terms of initial cost and operating cost. (TL;DR I've lost my mind thinking about the practical aspects of operating large numbers of giant robots.) Then @pengbuzz came along and blew us both away...
  10. Seto Kaiba
    Honestly, My Wife is the Student Council President is definitely a lot more enjoyable censored... the uncensored version stops just short of being actual hentai. It's like ToLoveRu in terms of blatantness, but instead of accidental gropings for mainly comedic effect it's mostly just "how can we make this as lewd as possible". All told, it's definitely not a show I'd consider rewatching or recommend.
  11. Seto Kaiba
    As much as I like the VF-25, I'm not sure I'd agree with the idea that it's the most versatile of the modern Macross VFs. Granted, it fills a lot of roles in the TO&E of an emigrant government defense force... but it achieves that by having a bunch of highly specialized variants on top of the standard type and the expected model conversion trainer. It has a dedicated command variant, a dedicated reconnaissance-in-force variant, a dedicated marksman variant, a dedicated ELINT and AWACS variant, and that's not touching on the other weird corner case variants in Master File like a variant specifically for deploying the Armored Pack, a dedicated aggressor variant, a dedicated planetary survey variant, etc. etc. etc. The VF-31 is, I think, a far more versatile aircraft since the same model can be easily converted to fill almost any role through hot-swappable modular equipment. Nah, this one goes up to 24.
  12. Seto Kaiba
    HLJ's only offering express/priority shipping these days, so shipping's still gonna hurt... but it's odds-on they'll be carrying this book.
  13. Seto Kaiba
    For a while, I was using HLJ almost exclusively... they're good, and their Private Warehouse buying option really helps save money on international shipping by giving you a month or more of leeway about when you ship things. That said, pretty much all their shipping options are Priority shipping of one flavor or another (FedEx, DHL, etc.) so shipping costs can get a bit steep.
  14. Seto Kaiba
    So this is what, 600 pages of rough sketches?
  15. Seto Kaiba
    ... that bad, huh?
  16. Seto Kaiba
    OK, that was just the tip of the iceberg... the uncensored version is basically softcore porn. Goin' back to the censored version. It was more watchable.
  17. Seto Kaiba
    So... I found out what "uncensored" meant within about twenty seconds of starting the first "uncensored" episode. Ui's talking about a VERY different kind of "liberating love" here... she's throwing condoms to the crowd during her speech.
  18. Seto Kaiba
    Thanks for posting the larger image... the version of this I've seen is only like the size of a postcard. This ship looks oddly familiar... Specifically, it looks like the Helios-class tugboat seen on the far right of these shot. The CG model was kitbashed together out of parts of the Edison, Clarke, and Shenzhou for use in the Star Trek: Discovery series, in which they towed the USS Enterprise back to spacedock for repair. I guess you could say that ship looks like someone tried to kitbash a Helios-class together out of spare Galaxy-class parts. Like the Oberth-class before it, one has to wonder how the hell you actually get to the engineering section... do you have to walk through the warp nacelles while they're running? Is it transporter access only? Do they just shoot turbolifts across the gap?
  19. Seto Kaiba
    Yes. It looks like one of the rejected Enterprise-D designs from the TNG Technical Manual.
  20. Seto Kaiba
    I am confused and slightly bewildered that Crunchyroll is now advertising an UNCENSORED version of My Wife is the Student Council President at me... apart from one or two bits, this show's fanservice was pretty tame. WTF is there to uncensor about it?
  21. Seto Kaiba
    My Wife is the Student Council President has been a real trip. I'm not sure why they keep approving these half-season shows... but this one is trying to win some kind of award for brevity, being just eight minutes long per episode. The lengths they went to to make it cheap are amazing in their own right, with occasional 2-3 minute long cutaways to stills with a text crawl over them. It's a fairly generic romcom sort of show... it's just produced so badly that it's kind of remarkable in a way. They say most of an anime's budget goes to drawing the eyes, but in this case I'd swear blind they spent most of the budget animating and highlighting cleavage... on the rare occasions it's onscreen, it's drawn at roughly ten times the detail level of the rest of the series. (It's like every character is Makina Nakajima from Macross Delta...)
  22. Seto Kaiba
    Since the actual point of sale appears to be in China, it'd go before the Chinese courts. China has been trying, in a sort of halfhearted way, to crack down on intellectual property crimes in its borders... at least with respect to foreign companies that are now operating inside China. Big West would actually have a pretty good chance of winning. Japan also has a much more laid-back attitude towards small-batch amateur works like that, as long as they're not out to make a significant profit. This CalibreWings thing, however, smacks of blatant trademark and copyright infringement... and is likely to bring the lawyers out.
  23. Seto Kaiba
    Really, their entire argument is full of unintentionally hilarious admissions like that... it's like they hired Homer's lawyer from The Simpsons to represent them in every international market.
  24. Seto Kaiba
    Yeah, it didn't help... especially since Sonequa Martin-Green kept shooting off her mouth about what an unprecedented coup it was for her, a black actress, be the lead on Star Trek. Nor did it help that CBS kept crowing about how diverse the show's cast was, and immediately tried to make any discussion about the poor quality of the writing into accusations of racism. It's like everyone involved was so busy virtue signaling they collectively forgot Star Trek's first black lead logged 173 episodes and its first female lead logged 168. CBS put a lot of effort into keeping that one quiet, yeah. It helps that they own several of the hobby news sites like ComicBook.com, and can push their own narrative about how well the show's doing through them in defiance of anything resembling objective reality. One of the biggest red flags was that new Star Trek has almost no licensee support. The J.J. Abrams Star Trek soft reboot movies had some halfhearted support but things didn't sell well, since the movies didn't appeal to fans and didn't create new fans of their own. A lot of licensees took a pass on Star Trek: Discovery because of its aesthetic similarities to the J.J. Abrams Star Trek movies that performed so poorly. So Discovery has some apparel, some cardboard standees, a bit of glassware, a novel or two, and that's about it. No toys, replica props aside from a few Starfleet badges, model kits, games, or anything like that. Star Trek: Picard has even less... it's mostly cheap CafePress-style apparel branded "Chateau Picard", some wine glasses, a cutting board, canvas totes, and some pathetically cheap wine from Sonoma County, CA bottled as a "Chateau Picard" bordeaux or a Federation Reserve vine zinfandel. By all accounts, they've done so much damage to the Star Trek brand that their own recovery plan from their spiraling debt doesn't even consider selling it... it's not worth enough to sell anymore. Their valuation has fallen SO MUCH that they're in danger of violating the terms the US Government set for their merger agreement. They were counting on Star Trek, and especially Star Trek: Picard, to save their bacon. Oh yeah, there's Lower Decks coming too... I'm sure THAT will succeed where everything else has failed, right? Do we really need a Starfleet captain with a foot fetish, though?
  25. Seto Kaiba
    It does a bit, in hindsight, doesn't it? All told, isn't that premise kind of obviously untrue? Clearly CBS, Bad Robot, and Secret Hideout were fervently hoping that Star Trek's audience had changed. They gambled on being able to sell Star Trek as a brand they could slap on any generic or heavily derivative sci-fi/action "thriller" and lost... REPEATEDLY. They took everything Star Trek out of Star Trek except for a vague visual aesthetic and tried to reinvent the story as a standard issue summer action movie, resulting in something that was a very poor Star Trek story and a very poor action movie at the same time. Predictably, making it more generic in the name of broadening its appeal just made it forgettable and it ended up failing to launch a brand reboot AND failing to break even at the box office. Discovery's bleak, lifeless take on Star Trek was celebrated by the industry press and predictably loathed by most of its audience and especially by Star Trek's merchandising partners. It doesn't sell. CBS had to play fast and loose with what counted as "subscriptions" to make the picture rosier for their stockholders, and there's almost no merchandising support for it. They had to threaten legal action to stop Netflix from bailing on the show after its second season, and got a heavily slashed budget due to the show's poor performance. They tried it all again with Picard, except they tried to cloak the same dystopian setting and garbage writing in familiar names and faces, and it did even worse. The licensees walked. The show did terribly even on CBS All Access, and gave Amazon Prime a hefty case of buyer's remorse outside the US. The fact that none of these attempts to appeal to that changed audience were commercially successful is a pretty strong argument the audience didn't actually change much, if at all. Really, the biggest and most telling sign that the audience hasn't changed is their latest and last attempt to save Secret Hideout's take on Star Trek is... to go back to the classic Star Trek formula. It's a massive admission of defeat. Oh, they're trying... the problem is that audiences young and old think this new take on Star Trek is crap. The reason they're bringing back characters from older Star Trek shows in greater and greater abundance is that the new characters Secret Hideout dreamed up for these shows are testing INCREDIBLY poorly. The closest anyone came to investment in Discovery's characters was purely representational. Sylvia Tilly got some positive press for being Star Trek's first (explicitly) autistic character and the duo of Paul Stamets and Hugh Culber as Star Trek's first openly gay couple. Even that ended up backfiring, since a lot of viewers predictably put Tilly up there with Wesley for obnoxiousness because of her autistic behaviors and the studio got blasted with accusations of trying to bury their gay couple after they killed Culber off partway through the show's first season. Bringing in Spock and Pike was an author's saving throw intended to salvage the series by diverting attention away from Burnham and onto characters the audience was already predisposed to like. They tried the same tactic in Star Trek: Picard, and it got worse as the show went on. You can see right around halfway when the studio clearly decided it wasn't going to be able to sell the audience on new characters like Rios, Musiker, Dr. Jurati, and co. and decided to shift the story's focus to established characters like Seven of Nine, Hugh, Will Riker, Deanna Troi, and yet another identical damn Dr. Soong. The new characters don't even really contribute to saving the day... Picard, Riker, Seven of Nine, and Doctor Soong save the day while the new kids largely just sit around. Their participation trophy is that they're planned to be pushed even farther out of focus as CBS plans to throw in more walk-on roles for TNG veterans if season two gets made. Star Trek in general had pretty damned good ratings from around season three of TNG in '89 to the end of season three of VOY in '97. You don't stay on TV continuously for fourteen years unless you're doing SOMETHING right. If going back to the classic formula doesn't work, then they're screwed... because the last-ditch attempt to make Star Trek profitable again is Strange New Worlds, which is billed as a return to classic form in the most literal sense possible.
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