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Seto Kaiba

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  1. Seto Kaiba
    No kidding... I have to imagine that a fair amount of that difference is not having to license pre-existing dubs from the 90's and not including extravagant extras like a ~200pg art book. This appears to be basically the exact same box set as the Japanese "Premium Remastered Edition", but MUCH cheaper. That was around $151 US (¥21,478) when it came out. With the CRAFF15 discount code that @Master Dex found and the Crunchyroll "Mega Fan" discount, it's $81 shipped, so a bit more than half the Japanese retail price. Looking back at it, the Japanese edition was actually more expensive than Macross Plus's Blu-Ray Complete Edition in Japan... that sold for $119 (¥17,000) with both the movie and OVA.
  2. Seto Kaiba
    https://store.crunchyroll.com/products/macross-zero-ova-series-blu-ray-limited-edition-crunchyroll-exclusive-5037899090947.html It looks like Crunchyroll has put up preorders for a domestic release of Macross Zero now. EDIT: Crunchyroll's store has automatic discount pricing for members, and @Master Dex found a coupon code CRAFF15 that will knock 15% off the top for you at checkout.
  3. Seto Kaiba
    But for the disquieting tendency to explode, yeah. Berthier's choice of VF is said to be something like a self-imposed challenge, since he's a cyborg with an augmented nervous system that gives him superhumanly fast reflexes. Almost certainly, given that the Varauta VFs are technologically upgraded versions of the existing VA-14, VF-14, and VAB-2 that the Megaroad-13 defense forces used. Macross 7 was the only series to use the ejection of the cockpit block as an "escape pod" prominently in actual combat, but the actual capability goes back to the original series and the VF-1. You probably remember how Roy ejected the cockpit block of Hikaru's disabled VF-1D and took it with him when he evacuated from South Ataria. Masahiro Chiba and company wrote up a fairly detailed explanation of how VF ejection mechanisms work in the original Sky Angels VF-1 tech manual. It describes ejecting the entire nose as a standard ejection method for space or very high altitudes, while more traditional ejection methods are used at lower altitudes. There are some remarks made in connection with the VF-25's APS-25A/MF25 Armored Pack that suggest that ejecting the cockpit block is probably still one of the standard VF escape methods even in 2059+. It seems that we just don't get to see it because the few times we've seen a pilot have to escape an aircraft in recent titles have either been catastrophic loss of the aircraft while stationary or flying at low altitudes (e.g. Alto's first VF-25F, Michel's VF-25G, Hayate's VF-31J). I'd love to see them go back to the late 2010s or 2020s and show us the heyday of the 2nd Generation VFs before they were replaced by the VF-11. Or go back to the late 2040s and 2050 and show us the Second Unification War.
  4. Seto Kaiba
    Yeah it's really that small. The VF-9 Cutlass is a very small, light duty, low cost variable fighter meant primarily for atmospheric service on emigrant planets. Basically it's made to be small and cheap and extremely maneuverable in atmospheric flight for planetary defense purposes. Apparently this also made it quite an excellent air racer. Vanquish League racing champ Nicolas Francoise Berthier used a VF-9E as his ride in Ultimate class races and managed to remain undefeated despite many of his opponents using significantly newer aircraft.
  5. Seto Kaiba
    Unless the next series is going backwards in time into the gaps between the original and Plus or 7 and Frontier, I suspect we're in for at least one more round with 5th Generation VFs derived from the YF-24. Both Macross Frontier and Macross Delta used the exact same excuse of PMCs being contracted to do the final phases of operational tests before rollout to the real military. Once they officially enter service, they've got a good 20+ years as main fighter ahead of them before their eventual replacement enters the picture. That'll get us to at least the 2080s in-universe since the VF-25 is said to enter service in the early 2060s and the VF-31 c.2069 or 2070. Without a major new threat to drive fast-paced advancement, the 5th Gen could easily hang around into the early 22nd century. Especially considering what's been said about the 6th Generation in materials for Macross Delta and especially Absolute Live!!!!!!. Unless the definition of the 6th Generation itself changes, 6th Generation development is likely to remain stalled until Humanity either discovers a MASSIVE cache of ultra-high purity fold quartz or improves the techniques used for fold carbon synthesis to the point of being able to synthesize the high purity fold quartz necessary to make a working fold wave system. Right now, the best they can do is to produce very small numbers of halfhearted 5.5th Generation units like the VF-31 Siegfried Custom or an even smaller number of 6th Generation prototypes like the YF-29.
  6. Seto Kaiba
    Gah... that, I think, is the first time I've seen someone successfully riff on Escaflowne's name. Considering Kawamori almost never seems to be willing to leave a design on the cutting room floor, I'm wondering how long it'll be before we see concepts like the ones from the main mecha in Air Cavalry Chronicles... which had FAST packs to turn into things like a boat.
  7. Seto Kaiba
    Yeah. Kivas Fajo was the villain of the episode "The Most Toys". He was an eccentric collector who faked Data's death and abducted him in order to put him on display in his private collection of rare and valuable artifacts. Fajo vaporized the girl who helped Data try to escape, and threatened to kill more people if Data didn't comply so Data opted to prevent any future murders by killing Fajo only to be beamed away at the last second by the Enterprise, with Fajo being placed under arrest soon after. https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Kivas_Fajo The guy we see Tendi's pirate crew roughing up is a member of the same unnamed species as Kivas Fajo's friend Palor Toff, a collector who visited Fajo's ship during Data's time as part of Fajo's collection and whom Data used to publicly humiliate Fajo by pretending to be a statue. https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Palor_Toff
  8. Seto Kaiba
    No, but a member of that same unnamed species was a friend of Fajo's Who visited his ship to see Data in "The Most Toys". It's possible it's meant to be that same character (Palor Toff).
  9. Seto Kaiba
    We have a reasonable idea of what it looked like, since the Sv-154 Svard is one of those Kawamori trademark reuses of a design concept he made for a prior non-Macross project. Specifically, it's the LV-7 Valorous Rapier "Excalibur" from Air Cavalry Chronicles. Air Cavalry Chronicles was a further development of the cancelled Advanced Valkyrie project which also never made it to production. Its story and design works would part company with each other as the story underwent a genre change to become The Vision of Escaflowne and the design works finding their way into Macross 7 and Macross M3. Early emigrant fleets don't seem to have been very large, all in all. The 1st, 3rd, and 5th generations of emigrant fleets seem to each be separated by an order of magnitude in population. Megaroad-01 was said to have around 80,000 people in its fleet in total, with 25,000 living aboard the emigrant ship itself. Those Zentradi ships are physically big, but they don't actually hold a huge number of people or mecha because the crew themselves are 125 times the size of a human (5x in all dimensions) and the ships have to be supplied for long-duration spaceflight. If you work backwards from the Boddole Zer main fleet's total population, the size of the average battleship's crew is something like 1,500 people tops on a ship that, to scale with its crew, is about the same size to them as a Nimitz-class carrier is to us. (So around 1/4 or less the crew of a comparably sized Human naval ship.) With a composition like that, esp. early on, you'd probably be far more likely to have Regults than Destroids. (The old Sky Angels book does assert that postwar carriers used a lot of Regults.)
  10. Seto Kaiba
    No.
  11. Seto Kaiba
    I believe it's an extra feature on the Macross Frontier digitally remastered edition box set.
  12. Seto Kaiba
    Yeah, that's the one. I don't think I've checked the newer Frontier Blu-rays for subs... haven't rewatched the series since I got the last set. But yeah, with subs on the way from US distributors we'll get it one way or the other. I kind of expect we'll also see a re-release of the original series with English subs in Japan as another end-run around Harmony Gold's ongoing-but-reduced stupidity.
  13. Seto Kaiba
    It's just showing the points of articulation for the transformation.
  14. Seto Kaiba
    None mentioned or shown, so presumably not. Windermere IV's War of Independence against the New UN Government was, by in large, the Great Offscreen War. We hear a great deal about it in the course of Macross Delta and related works like the gaiden manga White Knight of the Black Wing. We just never get to actually see it. The Macross Delta TV series showed us archival footage of disaster that ended the war (the Black Storm) and White Knight of the Black Wing shows us something of the lives of the Windermereans before and during the conflict, but we never really get to see the war itself. All we see for the equipment used in the war is the New UN Forces VF-22 and VF-171 and the Kingdom of the Wind's Sv-154. Considering the Aerial Knights who serve as Windermere's military were an aerial mounted cavalry force before transitioning to a modern air force, it strikes me as unlikely that they'd bother with infantry combat or armored combat in a land war. Likewise, since the Human settlers on Windermere were from Megaroad-04, it strikes me as unlikely they'd have a significant ground force or any Destroids since their emigrant ship was quite small by modern standards.
  15. Seto Kaiba
    "Truly wonderful, the mind of a child is." That one crosses the bounds of generations, but it's as bad as it sounds. That's "this is disturbing/upsetting to look at"... like how unintentionally creepy photos have been called "cursed images" for about a decade now. The sense that there's something deeply wrong with it in an almost supernatural way. I just don't find him funny at all. Like in Borderlands, he tends to play the comic relief character whose idea of humor is either self-referential meta humor or fart jokes and who drags every joke out WAY too long. He's excruciating to watch and to listen to, and he tends to make already bad movies much much worse for his presence.
  16. Seto Kaiba
    Weird day, getting weirder. This is one of those movie ideas that just seems like a mass hallucination. Pretty sick of Jack Black, though... that alone is enough for me to seriously consider passing on it.
  17. Seto Kaiba
    And don't take your eyes off that monitor! NGL, I'd buy it... and I don't even smoke.
  18. Seto Kaiba
    Big West was adding official English subs to select Macross releases well before that point. IIRC, they started with one of the Macross Frontier re-release box sets before making that standard practice from the Macross Delta TV series Blu-rays onward. It is nice that they didn't walk that strategy back after the distribution agreement though, so we can still import legitimate copies of the titles that weren't licensed with English subs.
  19. Seto Kaiba
    Probably not. After all, the reason NERV built Tokyo-3 and its defenses the way that they did was because of the inherent limitations of the EVA units. Their not-actually-a-giant robot didn't have a usable internal power source and was dependent on a network of extension cords connected to high-voltage generators in the geofront under the city proper. Without the power supplied by external generators over the umbilical cable, an EVA unit's maximum operating time on its internal backup batteries was less than five minutes. Like a gaming laptop, the EVAs had just enough juice to get them to the next wall socket and no more. Even something as simple as leaving city limits under its own power was out of the question, so NERV designed their defenses around fighting inside city limits. They designed much of Tokyo-3 to drop into the geofront in the event of an attack and build a ton of buildings in town that were actually weapons silos and spools of charging cable connected to the geofront and its rail system. It wasn't until EVA-01 went absolutely apesh*t and ate the 14th Angel that it acquired a working S2 organ and thus a working internal power source able to sustain it indefinitely and free it from the neverending search for a free plug socket. None of the mecha in Macross have such a limitation... even if their range left something to be desired, the earliest Variable Fighters and Destroids that used gas turbine engines for power instead of compact thermonuclear reactors carried enough fuel to operate for at least several hours. Once compact thermonuclear reactors were in play, that became days or weeks between refuelings (planetside). They could roam freely, so there's no reason to potentially endanger a city or town by waiting until enemy forces reach it to fight them. They can attack enemy forces hundreds or thousands of kilometers from any conurbation and destroy them with massed firepower (because they don't have to deal with bullsh*t like AT fields) well before civilians are in actual danger. That kind of eliminates the need for weapons caches within city limits, unless the military base those Valkyries and/or Destroids are coming from is in town and then it's less a cache and more just the base's armory. WRT the Spartan, its hands aren't really made for using firearms. It has that electrified truncheon it can use in Zentradi riot control duty, but in practice it's not meant to carry any weapons in its hands. It's meant to throw hands. The manipulators are a reinforced type meant for punching and tearing as much as gripping and are said to be its main weapon. Not that I'm aware, no. The closest you get is a military base in, or directly adjacent to, a city like the Zentradi Marine Corps base on Al Shahal or the Aerial Knights being barracked in a hangar attached to Darwent Castle in Macross Delta. Macross Frontier did imply that there are some Destroids parked inside of Island-1 as last-ditch air defense, but that's for when things have gone TRULY pear-shaped like having to roll out the tanks to fight inside the domes.
  20. Seto Kaiba
    HG's a privately owned company, so the Agramas would have to be willing to sell... ... and it's unlikely they'd be willing to, for fear that Disney's attorneys and accountants would find things the Agramas would rather remain unfound while examining the company's books.
  21. Seto Kaiba
    True... 31 December at 23:59:59 is still technically "this year". I will laugh long and hard if that's the case, because I rules lawyer deadlines that way at work all the time.
  22. Seto Kaiba
    Wistoria: Wand and Sword has finally managed to have an entertaining episode... what a pity it's basically unrelated to the actual plot. Apparently what this painfully half-arsed "Harry Potter if Harry were a muggle with super-strength" fantasy series needed to inject some entertainment value into the proceedings was... [checks notes]... It really is a shame that they pivot away from that amusing little fight to more of the incredibly lackluster protagonist Will and his dealings with the school's top students (despite being basically the lowest ranked student). (That "Harry Potter if Harry were a muggle with super-strength" seems to be an emergent genre of low-effort fantasy anime is distressing in and of itself. It was funny when Mashle did it but that kind of thing is only really funny once.)
  23. Seto Kaiba
    Impressive work... easily the most faithful rendition of the Logan I've ever seen. It looks more like a proper toy/model prototype than some professional efforts I've seen from the official licensees. Maybe you should be sending Toynami or the others your CV? You've probably shown more love for the Logan than the people who actually designed it at this point.
  24. Seto Kaiba
    Just ordered mine. It is going to be sooooooo nice having a legit English subbed release of this movie instead of having to mess around with a media server to add a separate subtitle file to it.
  25. Seto Kaiba
    They're really dragging this release process out. 🤣 I'm glad that the Japanese releases are getting official English subs still, because at this rate it'll be 2025 before the biggest anime market in the west gets anything.
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