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Seto Kaiba

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  1. Seto Kaiba
    It's not hard to pick out which of its design features are intended for anti-Vajra use and why... though the reason I've argued that the YF-29 suffers from crippling overspecialization is that it has no real operational versatility. Its weapons are exclusively short-range, intended for visual range dogfighting. It has no pylons, and no optional gear that would let it mount any weapons that would give it medium- or long-range offensive capabilities. Its anti-Vajra focus also makes it impractically expensive to actually use becuase at least half of its armaments require fold quartz to operate, as does its all-important fold wave system. By the standards of 5th Generation VFs so far? Kinda, yeah. The YF-30 Chronos has a heavy quantum beam gunpod and a pair of coaxial 12.7mm beam machineguns, but other than that its armament is all tied up in the ordnance container. If it takes the beam turret container from the novel, then it's got no missiles. It lacks a built-in fixed-forward gun (a design standard since the 4th Generation and a common feature since the 2nd), wing pylons, and internal ordnance bays or micro-missile launcher systems. If you look at its military spec derivative, the VF-31 Kairos, you'll see all those features present. It has fixed-forward railguns, six internal micro-missile launchers, two internal ordnance bays, and wing pylons. It also lacks the 5th Gen's standard close combat blade. Compared to its facing competition, the YF-29B Perceival, the YF-30 REALLY seems under-armed since the YF-29B has a hundred internally-carried micro-missiles, multiple built-in beam cannons, an almost identical gunpod, a bayonet and an assault knife, and Ghost support. Yeah, the Sv-262 Draken III arguably has an even better claim to suffering from crippling overspecialization since the design is SO overoptimized as an atmospheric dogfighter that it has to resort to FAST Packs to have any missiles at all and its transformation left it with too little internal fuel to be an effective space fighter. It theoretically could counter one of the YF-29's shortcomings by having a FAST Pack with long-range or medium-range missiles instead of micro-missiles. With what little's been said about the Draken III, the transformation design seems to have been a deliberate choice to misdirect the enemy about the VF's design and capabilities. The Sv-262 was developed by a design group that, until recently, had been an operating unit of General Galaxy before it was sold to the Epsilon Foundation subsidiary Dian Cecht. The Sv-262's transformation is modeled closely on that of General Galaxy's first big seller, the VF-9 Cutlass.
  2. Seto Kaiba
    Started The 8th Son? That Can't Be Right! today... it's another bloody isekai series, and it may be giving Isekai Cheat Magician a run for its money in terms of "laziest isekai story". Usually, this kind of boring minimum-effort copycat production at least bothers to establish that the protagonist died somehow and was reincarnated into a fantasy world or somehow was transported to said fantasy world via a summoning spell. This show's main character falls asleep waiting for his rice to finish cooking and wakes up a 5 year old boy in the standard issue Eastern take on generic Western Fantasy. The real killer is that there's an incredibly lazy scene right before the opening credits (in the middle of the episode) where they establish the main character is the 8th son by just having a clumsy "as you know" bit where everyone spells out their familial relationship for no clear reason. The opening bodes ill for the series as a whole, between the unmistakably cheap CG animation and art assets that very obviously were "inspired by" (read: "borrowed from") Overlord, The Rising of the Shield Hero, and possibly Those Who Hunt Elves from the look of it...
  3. Seto Kaiba
    So... on a lark, decided to watch Reincarnated into an Otome Game as a Villainess with only Destruction Flags, since it just premiered. The first episode made a generally favorable impression. Instead of the standard "transported to a MMORPG world" Isekai setting, the protagonist is reincarnated into the setting of a romance genre visual novel... and not as the player character, but rather as the story's principal villain. She's left to use her memories of the game from her previous life and the genre savvy she possesses to navigate the plot in a way that won't get her killed or exiled the way the villain in the visual novel was.
  4. Seto Kaiba
    Valkyries use the compact thermonuclear reactor inside their engines in order to run their engines as thermonuclear fusion rockets in space flight. While the VF's engines are not very efficient while operating like this, the main advantage to doing it is that you only need to carry one fuel material because the reaction mass is plasma produced in the same thermonuclear reaction that's also generating your electrical power. Internal space in a VF's fuselage is already at a premium, so a fuel system that makes optimal use of that internal space was a priority. An alternative method that is used extensively in Gundam's Universal Century is the nuclear thermal rocket, which uses heat from the reactor to explosively flash-heat an otherwise-inert propellant to generate thrust. That, of course, requires multiple fuel systems that are easier to pull off in a non-transforming mecha. Argon slush is a fuel intended for use in ion thrusters, which are a lot less powerful but a LOT more fuel-efficient... usually run off low-output power sources like batteries or radioisotope thermoelectric generators.
  5. Seto Kaiba
    The year 20XX, eh? So right around the time Megaman is repeatedly foiling Dr. Wiley. And with that one pose they use in EVERY. FREAKING. BOOK. Seriously, even the Gundam ones.
  6. Seto Kaiba
    Seems sensible enough, yeah.
  7. Seto Kaiba
    Yeah, I'll likely buy two copies... one for my own personal enjoyment and one for my translation group's library. From the description on Amazon, it sounds like they intend to do something along similar lines to the Master Archive Mobile Suit: MSV Ace Pilot Log book that they did for Mobile Suit Gundam back in Autumn 2018. The book was more about the featured pilots than the mecha, discussing the military careers and One Year War service of five selected top-scoring ace Mobile Suit pilots: the Principality of Zeon's Johnny Ridden, Gabby Hazard, and Ian Graden, and the Earth Federation's Tenneth Jung and Lydo Wolf. That reminds me, I still need to order the RX-93 Nu Gundam Master Archive...
  8. Seto Kaiba
    Well, that depends on how the timelines shake out... specifically, if the events of Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles recur in each instance of the history. In DC/Wildstorm's Robotech: Prelude to the Shadow Chronicles, the SDF-3 is critically damaged by a surprise attack from the traitor General T.R. Edwards and has to be basically rebuilt from the keel up over the space of a year. That was the explanation for why the SDF-3 in Shadow Chronicles looks nothing like the one in Robotech II: the Sentinels. For the most part, it isn't even really the same ship. To be honest, this is the closest I've seen to an intelligent discussion of Titan's Robotech comics as well... most Robotech fans on Facebook are either cringing constantly over the comics, bitterly complaining about their Macross-centric story that dispensed with the other sagas entirely, or just pointing and laughing at how terrible the comics are. The biggest, most active Robotech group I know of is firmly in that third category. The comics are basically a joke.
  9. Seto Kaiba
    Not gonna lie... I have a bad feeling about this one. There wasn't anything special about Roy Focker's VF-1S in Macross... it was a perfectly ordinary Block 4 VF-1S that was no different from any other. This feels like we're about to descend into Robotech-isms about Roy's VF-1S being a super-special one-of-a-kind custom job or maybe the original VF-1 prototype or some BS like that. Also, this is the fifth bloody VF-1 book... I'd like to focus on something else for a while, like maybe the VF-17 and VF-171, or the VF-3000, VF-5000, and other 2nd Gen VFs.
  10. Seto Kaiba
    Not quite... it means you're alert to injustice in society, be it racism, sexism, etc. Political correctness is avoidance of anything that might offend or disadvantage a particular group in society.
  11. Seto Kaiba
    Another one? This is the fifth bloody VF-1 book in the series... the fourth if we don't count Squadrons. I have a bad feeling about this one. There wasn't anything special about Roy's VF-1S apart from the fact that it was Roy's.
  12. Seto Kaiba
    Now, if I had to theorize as to why... The Robotech and Robotech Remix comics seem to be trying to find ways to justify Rick's central role in the Robotech animated setting. Even when he wasn't present, he was still this all-important character whom the plot essentially revolved around because he was the one who deprived Earth of most of its defenses in the Masters Saga and then was dispatching soldiers to Earth to recapture it in the New Generation. He was still plot critical in Shadow Chronicles, with the whole story essentially being "whatever happened to Rick?". It felt like Titan was trying to justify him still having such a central role in their own version of the story by making him Neo from The Matrix and giving him superpowers on top of making him more like the alleged badass Robotech's sequels tried to make him out to be. Part of it, I suspect, is dictated by Titan's or HG's legal counsel. It's dangerous enough for Robotech to continue to use Rick Hunter/Hikaru Ichijo because of HG's inability to use the Haruhiko Mikimoto character design in new film works or make derivative designs based on it (which is why the Sentinels design was deemed too close and was ditched in favor of making him unrecognizable in Shadow Chronicles). Max and Milia, however, are probably the most dangerous/risky characters for Robotech to use in post-Macross Saga stories, as the Macross franchise has made extensive use of those characters in its own original sequels like Macross M3 or Macross 7. Trying to continue their TV series relationship in sequels would pose a lot of risks and require a lot more oversight from legal to make sure they weren't visually or narratively converging on their Macross counterparts in any way that Big West might consider legally actionable. Not having their relationship is the easiest way to make sure they remain legally distinct, short of just not having them present at all. That was what Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles did... it killed off or otherwise disposed of characters that were too risky to use like Breetai, Exedore, Max, Miriya, and Minmei before the OVA actually started. More like someone was desperately trying to make Rick Hunter into the elite badass that Robotech's various failed sequel efforts talk him up as... despite that always turning out to be dialog writing a check the story can't cash. That, I suspect, is why he's been made into a top ace with superhuman powers stolen from The Matrix sequels. To be fair, Robotech's Max is kind of a weenie... Cam Clarke makes him sound more like an introverted shy guy with self-confidence problems than Sho Hayami's humble badass ladies man. Robotech also basically demoted him to a background character in Sentinels and then to Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Film thereafter for legal reasons. This is more or less standard practice in the Robotech franchise. Harmony Gold and its licensees knew from a very early point that Macross was the only part of Robotech 99% of Robotech's fans gave a damn about, and so almost every attempt to develop an "original" continuation of the Robotech animated series has leaned on Macross heavily despite their inability to use Macross designs in new film works. The Robotech fan base may not want to acknowledge that Macross is infinitely more successful than Robotech, but every Robotech sequel effort except Robotech 3000 was basically just a bad Macross fanfic. Titan's Robotech Remix is just more blatant about it than usual.
  13. Seto Kaiba
    Eh... I don't think you can dismiss it that easily. I'll grant you there are a lot of bad movies, TV shows, comics, etc. that are bad because they're ill-conceived, under-developed, and/or poorly executed. That doesn't preclude the existence of works that are bad because of a particular creative choice with sweeping implications for the story. Yes, there are movies and TV shows and comics and so on that are bad because they are "woke". When people complain about "woke" entertainment, they're usually not complaining about the message itself. The objectionable part is that the author has done such a terrible job of working the message into the story that it comes off as grating and preachy, wildly out of place, or otherwise significantly detrimental to the story. Not really a problem for Robotech though... that fandom is full of Comic Book Guys, and most of Robotech's "creatives" know it. Their problem is more the paradox of not liking anime and finding anime tropes offensive but liking Robotech, which is anime. Titan Comics kind of found themselves in a merciless case of Morton's Fork where they tried to take their new comic reboot of Robotech away from its anime roots and got blasted for it by the fans and reversed course only to get blasted for making it more like anime in Robotech Remix. You just can't win if you're trying to satisfy Robotech fans.
  14. Seto Kaiba
    Probably, yeah... there were a LOT of ships in that general area (Earth orbit). That'd be the SDF-1 Macross. General Higgins is the Chief of Staff for the New UN Forces in 2040, and a leading proponent of unmanned fighters. The Macross in this era is essentially the space pentagon, the headquarters of the New UN Forces.
  15. Seto Kaiba
    Now, in all fairness, the vast majority of the political spectrum seems to find the entertainment industry's deeply insincere ("fake woke") attempts to convert the various key issues that social reform advocates are pushing for into cashflow terribly obnoxious. It's not JUST the basement-dwelling neckbeards rolling their eyes as Marvel and DC attempt to one-up each other with hilariously ill-advised attempts to pander like Marvel's newest superheroes: Screentime, Snowflake, and Safespace. The basement-dwelling neckbeards and all the time the comics industry spend pandering to them are part of the problem, though, since pandering to their tastes meant comic books quickly drove away almost everyone else and left major publishers with a serious problem of slipping sales as the fanbase shrunk. Very similar to Robotech's problem, really... except in Robotech's case the franchise's obscurity and lack of innovation over entire decades keeps casual audiences away and the fans are even more unpleasable that comic book guys because the Robotech they love exists exclusively in their fabricated memories. I think you're using that word wrong... Really, Titan's Robotech and Robotech Remix were never going to be hits because they slaughtered the sacred cow that was the Robotech TV series story and then tried to market their bad Macross fanfic to an audience that doesn't really care for anime tropes either... they didn't consider who their audience was.
  16. Seto Kaiba
    Eh... I think the actual Aesop here is that Robotech should stop trying to be a low-rent Macross knockoff and focus on developing its own original story. Either that or, if a job's worth doing it's worth doing well... and if it isn't worth doing, give it to a Robotech licensee because they literally have nothing better to do.
  17. Seto Kaiba
    Granted, that's absolutely and demonstrably not helping matters... but mainstream comics have been in trouble for a long time now thanks to risk-averse creative management that stagnated every brand they have. They repeat the same tired stories and plot beats over and over again, resort to crossover events when sales slip past a certain point, and when a crossover can't arrest the slide they reboot and repeat the same mistakes all over again. No character ever gets to have any lasting character development, they never see a proper end to their story that gives them and the audience closure, and never ever make any kind of lasting progress to their stories. Playing the identity politics game and resorting to trying to sell on the basis of terribly tone-deaf new representational characters is a symptom of the larger problem. The smaller publishers are less impacted by it, but it's a choice between obscure properties, terrible licensed comics, or poor quality... unless it's Robotech, which is all 3.
  18. Seto Kaiba
    Really, it's not surprising... despite the popularity of comic book movies (well, the Marvel ones anyway) the comic book industry has been headed for another crash for a long time now and I've been inclined to suspect this'll be the one they don't recover from. The mainstream industry as a whole is so innovation-averse it'd astonishing they've lasted this long. Going digital-first might help them stay afloat a little longer, but they haven't really had anything fresh since the 90's. Superheroes are played out and "indie" comics really can't fill the gap.
  19. Seto Kaiba
    Modern satellites, sure... satellites made with OTM though? All things considered, that seems rather appropriate given that First Contact was in this case two Zentradi picket ships being destroyed by an autonomous firing of the Macross's main gun and then the Zentradi counterattack on South Ataria island.
  20. Seto Kaiba
    Not entirely... it sounds vaguely like the USS Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor. That said, I think "commemorative" probably strikes slightly the wrong context in English. Kinenhi would normally mean a stone monument bearing an inscription or a plaque with an inscription, wouldn't it? Maybe "Satellite Monument"?
  21. Seto Kaiba
    Amusingly, it was on "will resolicit" status before Diamond shut down. My money's on the comic having been the victim of a stealth cancellation.
  22. Seto Kaiba
    It's a bad habit a number of different franchises have picked up in recent years... they seem to believe they can boost sales of supplemental material for otherwise unpopular work if they lock essential context for the story behind an ad hoc paywall. Star Trek did it three times in a row from 2009 on... with the Star Trek '09 movie leaving much of its backstory in a limited comic nobody read, Star Trek: Discovery leaving essential backstory for a bunch of characters in tie-in novels and comics, and Star Trek: Picard only bridging the gap between Star Trek '09's backstory and its own in a novel.
  23. Seto Kaiba
    So... I think it's safe to say Robotech Remix #5 did not, in fact, come out this past week. Given that the comic book industry in general seems to be circling the drain with Diamond Comic Distributors shut down due to the pandemic and the frankly hilarious idiocy of the big two making it worse, I wonder if Titan will even bother attempting to continue their Robotech license of if the losses incurred during this period will prompt them to shed the licenses in their catalog that aren't turning significant profits.
  24. Seto Kaiba
    It's just something that's bugged me ever since I noticed it was wrong in the Manga Entertainment DVD release of Macross Plus. They incorrectly translated his name as "Yang". I'm not sure what made them assume he was Chinese... maybe just the fact that he's a short guy with glasses? Blue Rhinoceros Corps was a ground combat unit, according to dialog in Macross 7 PLUS "Spiritia Dreaming". Macross Chronicle's two brief discussions of the Spiritia Dreaming VF-14 stop just short of calling it a Special Forces version, though I know there have also been some vague remarks that suggest it was either a Zentradi-use derivative model or the mentioned-but-never-seen VA-14. That's one reason I tend not to take Kawamori's views too seriously unless they're actually corroborated somewhere. That's one of the main reasons people suspect it's the VF-14 Vampire "Spiritia Dreaming type"... Macross Plus and Macross 7 were developed and produced concurrently, so designs in the background of Macross Plus are mainly things that were developed for Macross 7. The VF-14 was designed as the originating model for the Fz-109, and debuted in the Macross 7 PLUS episode "Spiritia Dreaming" in the October 1995 release of Macross 7 Vol.8. It would've been on the drawing board right around the time that Macross Plus episode was being produced.
  25. Seto Kaiba
    This is a translator pet peeve of mine... there's no グ in his name. Just ヤン. It's "Jan Neumann", pronounced "Yon" in the Germanic/Scandinavian style... fitting given he was named for Dr. von Neumann, a Hungarian who styled his name in the German fashion. There is one other Macross aircraft we've seen it on... or rather, one other Macross canon immigrant we've seen it on. The V-BR-2. True, this was actually an Advanced Valkyrie design but Macross Chronicle puts it in the Macross setting via Technology Sheet 01Q as a Second Generation VF. The shape of the nose and engine nozzle are wrong, but a third possibility is we're seeing some relative or prototype of the V-BR-2's. Personally, I'm sticking with our original hypothesis that the unknown aircraft behind Dr. Neumann is a VF-14 Spiritia Dreaming type.
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