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Seto Kaiba

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  1. Seto Kaiba
    Might be for the best... I'm not sure what it says about them that they couldn't even succeed at crime.
  2. Seto Kaiba
    Anyone who didn't already know the VF-2SS Valkyrie II is my favorite from my long time here would be able to jump to that conclusion pretty damned quick after seeing my collection... I've got six Valkyrie II's from Evolution Toy (a full Fairy Platoon of a Sylvie and three yellows, a Nex Gilbert, and a spare Sylvie for my office), three Bandai Hi Metal R's (two Sylvies and a Nex), and two of the Bandai 1/100 plastic kits (Placross?) for the Nex Gilbert custom... plus a few of the 1/250 scale minifigs too. After that, I think the next model I have the most of is VF-31's (DX VF-31A, F, and J, and a plastic C kit).
  3. Seto Kaiba
    Well, if nothing else, it's got the YouTube rumor mill and accompanying gutter snipes all riled up... Doomcock is on form tonight.
  4. Seto Kaiba
    Nah, the comic was always gonna be an alterniverse story like Robotech vs. Voltron... because the continuity of the animated TV series is a sacred cow to Robotech fans, and woe betide anyone who dares tamper with it. HG learned THAT lesson from the fan backlash over Robotech 3000 and later Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles. Demonstrably so... but most of its collapse has already occurred, so what we're seeing these days is small numbers of ultra-hardcore Robotech fans finally becoming disillusioned with the franchise and walking away. The pace of deterioration isn't nearly as brisk as when HG and its volunteer mods were banning and harassing anyone who spoke critically of Shadow Chronicles, or when the massively toxic fandom was driving away casual fans by the hundreds in the flame wars over comics vs novels vs TV. This decline is most evident in the decline in the quality of Robotech's licensees... thanks to the diminishing returns caused by the slow shrinkage of the fanbase. Back in ~2001 when Robotech was riding high (relatively) on its reboot plans, their toy partner was Toynami and they were making a variety of different toy lines for the franchise. They had TDK Mediactive and Vicious Cycle making video games. They had new comics coming from DC's imprint WildStorm. There was a new RPG coming from Palladium Books. It isn't much, but it was still coming from well-established and reasonably respectable (at the time) manufacturers and publishers. Nowadays, their home video releases are print on demand due to low demand, and everything else is coming from small-time and indie manufacturers and publishers if not actual bootleggers. Their one and only comic series is by a smaller, specialty publisher leaning heavily on alternate covers for collectors to inflate sales. They have no video game licenses, only a few cheap cardstock board games from indie publishers and a quick and dirty RPG rushed out by another indie publisher. Their toy partners are small time indie operators and East Asian bootleggers, one of which was in such dire straits it literally went out of business before it could produce anything. Instead of partnering with a professional anime industry (tweening) studio with a serious portfolio for future development like DR Movie, the development of Robotech Academy was done by a small-time CG animation house in South America at quality levels appreciably worse than many Source FilmMaker solo artists and DeviantArt amateurs. HG's survival strategy for this merchandising extinction event is to focus exclusively on Macross and visibly brand everything they're putting out as Macross as well as Robotech. They're wishing and hoping and praying that enough Macross fans will cross the line and buy Robotech-branded Macross merch from them to keep the brand's head above water. They are in full-on survival-at-any-cost mode right now with no sign of a live-action movie or animated feature on the horizon.
  5. Seto Kaiba
    Granted, but it still came out of left field waaaaaaaaaaaaay before he was revealed to have been the architect of the Clone Wars themselves. Bringing him back now, after spending two movies on his tacky replacement goldfish Snoke, is definitely a cheap trick though. Oh, they could have been... but they weren't. There were sidequests here and there, but pre-Disney Star Wars continued to prominently feature the remnants of the Empire and the Sith as a main antagonist faction for decades after Return of the Jedi. Disney's Star Wars is little different to what LucasFilm Star Wars was doing with the Expanded Universe, it's just got less time to beat the same dead horses the Expanded Universe had been determinedly tenderizing for decades. About the only respect in which it materially differs from its EU predecessor is that it's the new kids doing all the heavy lifting instead of Luke, Leia, Han, Chewie, and their closest friends and family members solving every galactic crisis for three decades without so much as an afternoon off.
  6. Seto Kaiba
    To be entirely fair, the same was true of the old Star Wars Expanded Universe... and the Star Wars fanbase LOVED that sh*t. The Empire stuck around for ages after its defeat, remained a threat,and even briefly reconquered the galaxy before being taken over by the a new Sith Lord. Our boy Palpatine engaged in some downright memeworthy shenanigans to make death into an almost-literal revolving door and came back from the dead multiple times... never mind the Empire's ongoing fixation with apocalyptic superweapons. The Jedi return, only to nearly get wiped out by one of their own on several different occasions... one such Jedi-turned-Sith Lord who essentially toppled the Republic was even Han Solo's son. So... exactly like the pre-Disney Star Wars continuations? This was inevitable. The series is called Star Wars. Star Stable Government, Peace, Diplomacy, and Rational Thought goes by the shorter, rather punchier title of Star Trek. Any kind of a continuation of Star Wars inevitably means a Happy Ending Override for the conclusion of Return of the Jedi. The only way to have a resurgent Empire threaten the galaxy once again in thrall to the Dark Side of the Force is for our heroes to have failed utterly in the wake of Return of the Jedi's events. Keeping that action going means the Star Wars Galaxy Far Far Away needs to be a grim, hopeless place semi-perpetually mired in hopeless wars against genocidal totalitarian powers puppeteered by devotees of the Dark Side. There will never be a true and lasting victory for the forces of light. The best they can hope for is to briefly hold the darkness at bay before it once more overwhelms the forces of light and drowns the galaxy in darkness, oppression, and misery so the next generation of plucky rebels can fight the exact same good fight and briefly triumph before evil sneakily triumphs again while they're busy resting on their laurels.
  7. Seto Kaiba
    Unfortunately, not a belief founded in reality. The ATM shut down over a decade ago, which is why the "Shadow Saga" OVA was cancelled after producing just one episode. The Agramas put up a minimal (<$1 million) budget for development and producton of the OVA's first episode on the condition that any subsequent episodes would be bankrolled by the sponsors that Tommy Yune promised this new series would attract. After RTSC's embarrassing debut and lukewarm-at-best fan reception, sponsors were lining up none deep to put their money into Robotech. The inevitable result was that a budget for Parts II thru IV never materialized because there were no sponsors willing to foot the bill and the Agramas were true to their word in refusing to fund further development. This is why Tommy and Kevin spent so much time insisting that Shadow Rising really wasn't cancelled, that they were just waiting for the live-action movie to attract sponsors to the brand. That was the only way they were going to get the funding to make parts II-IV. It's also why, when Tommy tried to pitch Robotech Academy, they had to try to bankroll the project through Kickstarter. There was no money forthcoming from the Agramas or Harmony Gold itself. Yeah, probably. The only thing that's going to finally kill Robotech will be when the fanbase shrinks to the point that there's no money to be made in merchandise licensing. That point isn't all that far off anymore... they've got one comic series going, and the only licensees willing to touch the brand are bootleggers and indie outfits. Harmony Gold can't even count on the distant possibility of extorting licensing money from the Macross franchise anymore now that their network of trademark registrations on the Macross name, logos, and key terms is being dismantled piece by piece by a series of legal challenges from Big West.
  8. Seto Kaiba
    Unfortunately, I can't really capture my true reaction in plaintext... that noncommittal "ecch" noise in the back of my throat. This didn't really do anything to make me want to see the movie when it comes out.
  9. Seto Kaiba
    Four episodes into Jojo's Bizarre Adventure Part V: Golden Wind and holy sh*t I am ALL IN. Golden Wind doesn't just remember that Jojo is supposed to be an action series, Giorno seems to be on track to claim the coveted title of Most Hardcore Jojo. Four episodes in and there's already a body count! The apple didn't fall far from either tree, between Dio's attitude that the wittiest reaction to opposition is murder and the Joestars belief in awesome justice and punching things really fast while yelling a lot. I'm not sold on the art style yet... Gold Experience in particular has this creepy, androgynous look to it that I find vaguely unnerving... but I guess it was named for a Prince album so a certain androgynousness is to be expected.
  10. Seto Kaiba
    The sarcasm's so thick on that post you could cut it into blocks.
  11. Seto Kaiba

    Hi-Metal R

    Seto Kaiba replied to joppewo's topic in Toys

    ... I'll take eight!
  12. Seto Kaiba
    The most recent venture in the Robotech franchise was actually released by Lionsgate Home Entertainment, not FUNimation... the bastardization of MOSPEADA: Love Live Alive. They're also the ones who were handling the last couple rounds of print-on-demand DVD re-releases. FUNimation got sick of Harmony Gold and dropped them after Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles came out to a decidedly chilly reception even among Robotech fans and dropped them entirely after a few years when Parts II thru IV of the OVA turned out to not be coming after all. I doubt Crunchyroll would be interested in Robotech... they're more about simulcasts and streaming cult classics with lapsed licenses. I dunno, FUNimation has (bad) history with Robotech and Harmony Gold...
  13. Seto Kaiba
    Oh my, no... if this were Harmony Gold's idea of retaliating against Big West, that'd be absolutely f*cking hilarious. This is nothing more or less than the latest round of the Robotech streaming rights changing hands like the regifted fruitcake that license is. Harmony Gold goes through this every few years, when whatever streaming platform the show is currently on informs Harmony Gold that they don't intend renew their license because its average viewership and ad performance isn't meeting expectations. Harmony Gold cuts its asking price for the streaming license and shops it around until they find another service to carry it for a few years. Lather, rinse, and repeat. If nothing else, this is a pretty good indication of how desperate Harmony Gold has become in the face of increasing pressure from Big West and Macross. That Harmony Gold ended up back at FUNimation's door is some pretty hilarious karma, given that HG acted like they were too good for FUNimation back when FUNimation had the license to Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles a decade ago. Robotech was a D-list property whose owners made demands like the franchise was a AAA property, and that arrogance was part of what caused FUNimation to drop the license after a few years. Now Harmony Gold is crawling back to FUNimation after breaking up with garbage-tier streaming services like Crackle because nobody else will have them like a bad ex-girlfriend sending desperate texts at 3am. I bet FUNimation took them to the cleaners on the cost of the license. This is Robotech down on its knees, pleading with tears in its eyes that it's still relevant honest!
  14. Seto Kaiba
    Antarctic Press were the worst offenders, but far from the only ones... it was something that started early on and got progressively worse as time went on. Titan Comics is arguably the new worst offender, since they started at around Antarctic's level of blatant-ness with the rampant tracing, blatantly stealing designs from Halo and other franchises, and having allegedly stolen fanart then attempted to pass it off uncredited as their own work (according to the artist, anyway). Titan Comics seems to be acting on HG's desire to have Robotech regarded as "American Macross" the same way Star Blazers is "American Yamato" by Macross-izing everything.
  15. Seto Kaiba
    Well, yeah... it's hard to argue that Southern Cross has much in the way of commercial potential when the series debuted during the mecha genre's heyday and still managed to get such poor ratings that the network airing it earmarked it for cancellation barely 1/3 of the way into its broadcast run and its main merchandising partner decided it wasn't worth producing merchandise for. Really, the fact that they got the rights for a song should've been Harmony Gold's first clue they'd bought a lemon. It'll be interesting to see if they try. My expectation is that they'll do the math and come to the same conclusion that Robotech's previous licensees did... insufficient expected ROI to be worth the effort. Toynami could, at least, keep costs down by basing its designs on existing Macross and MOSPEADA toys... but a Southern Cross toy would have to be engineered from scratch, which is much more expensive. To be honest, all that time was spent using the MOSPEADA designs because using Macross designs was off the table for various legal reasons and nobody liked the Southern Cross designs very much. It wasn't really a voluntary creative choice. That said, the Legioss was more or less made to be an imitation-brand VF-1 Valkyrie in Japan so it served the same purpose in Robotech as an adequately similar substitute for the fan-favorite VF-1. This is, of course, also the reason the Waltrip Robotech II: the Sentinels comics and the new Titan Comics Robotech series kept the VF-1s around instead of introducing the MOSPEADA designs. Comic books are legally merchandise, so since Harmony Gold could authorize the use of those designs in merchandise there was no compelling reason to swap the VF-1s out for another design. The legal restrictions that forced HG to use MOSPEADA designs in their animated sequels don't exist for comics due to the differences in their legal status. I doubt Robotech Remix's continued use of the VF-1 and Macross characters has anything to do with whatever Tatsunoko is cooking up for Genesis Breaker MOSPEADA 2083. Well, Harmony Gold and Carl Macek did put a LOT of time and effort into indoctrinating Robotech fans with the idea that Macek had taken three unpopular, unsuccessful, deeply flawed shows from Japan and "improved" them to make one allegedly-amazing series (Robotech). The reality, of course, being that Macek took a highly popular, highly successful series, a cult classic, and a flop and he edited them together into a series that got weak-to-middling ratings. Some Robotech fans just aren't willing or mentally able to cut ties with Robotech because they're convinced against all evidence and reason that Macross is somehow worse for not being a dark, gritty, war drama like they think Robotech is but it actually isn't. That's Robotech... cutting corners and infringing upon copyrights since 1985. That's a big part of why HG punted the old comics out of the universe entirely. There was so much blatant copyright infringement that flew under the radar back in the day but would absolutely get them sued if they did a reprint now.
  16. Seto Kaiba
    He's not. @TehPW was expressing confusion/annoyance that someone actually hit Like on one of his posts so his terrible karma went up fractionally. I don't doubt for one second he'd still be getting downvoted to hell if the upvote/downvote buttons were still enabled, since he does come here in what I can only characterize as a well-meaning but profoundly over-optimistic effort to keep people informed about an ongoing Robotech project as if we were likely to greet such a painfully bad comic with anything but derision, scorn, and a very slight touch of the same kind of compassionate pity one might feel for an animal that was beyond medical help and in desperate need of euthenasia. If anything, Robotech Remix really does prove that it's time to take Robotech out behind the shed and put it out of its misery in the manner of Old Yeller. The franchise has essentially given up on the idea that any part of it besides Macross is marketable, and in so doing has become the very thing it was always accused being: a terrible Macross fanfic.
  17. Seto Kaiba
    OK, so you just watched Phantom Blood. Yeah, that's a short arc but it's hard to get through because it's SO dense and only actually serves to set up Dio's origin story. The show gets much, MUCH better after that very short arc, so if you can bring yourself to simply push through it you'll get to the good parts fairly quick.
  18. Seto Kaiba
    By first season do you mean Phantom Blood or the combined Phantom Blood and Battle Tendency?
  19. Seto Kaiba
    So, I started watching Jojo's Bizarre Adventure V: Golden Wind today... and boy is it weird. Feels a bit like a return to form after the slower, more upbeat start of Diamond is Unbreakable. Very little messing around, it's right into the action and we've had THREE Stand battles and one one-sided beatdown in the space of the first episode... Giorno vs. Koichi twice, Leaky-Eye Luca, and then Bruno. I have to say there's one thing that always takes me right out of any Jojo show... when our heroes are running around looking for the enemy Stand user and never once does anyone in the franchise say "ignore the normal people, look for someone dressed like a flamboyant moron". Koichi is legitimately surprised that Giorno is a Stand user, despite Giorno looking as out of place as a peacock in a penguin exhibit. Giorno is wearing a fuschia gakuran with gold trim and a basketball-sized heart-shaped keyhole cutout over his pecs. On the scale of 1-10 for conspicuous clothing, he's sitting comfortably at 5x10^8. Giorno's confusion at meeting someone else with powers like his is at least understandable, since Koichi's gakuran is a lot less ridiculous-looking than, say, Josuke's or Jotaro's. Bruno's the first other Stand user he's met who dresses like a Stand user... which is to say, like he got dressed that morning by mugging a runway model during a power outage in the middle of a particularly auteur fashion show. I guess beating Koichi down is a pretty good way for Giorno to introduce his Stand's power, since Koichi was always subject to The Worf Effect in Diamond is Unbreakable despite how many powerups his Echoes got.
  20. Seto Kaiba
    I dunno, but it occurred on that half-sarcastic response of his from yesterday.
  21. Seto Kaiba
    For her, this is trading up... better dead than rewritten into an obsessed stalker-turned-homewrecking ho Jason and John Waltrip made her into in their Robotech II: the Sentinels comic run.
  22. Seto Kaiba
    Not gonna lie, this series takes about 20 episodes to actually get moving on its actual plot. Basara's pretty frustrating throughout, but there's a pretty excellent case to be made for Mylene being the actual protagonist.
  23. Seto Kaiba
    That was your first mistake. ノ・クオンメント。 A point of order, if I may... the "poorly redesigned Alpha" is, in actual fact, a "poorly de-designed" Alpha. The reason they called it a Vector Fighter was because the design is a reuse of one of the early drafts of the design that eventually became MOSPEADA's AFC-01 Legioss from fairly early in the show's development when it had the tentative title of Descent Soldier Vector. Titan Comics isn't the first one to go digging through the so-called "Imai Files" unearthed years ago by Roger Harkavy. Palladium Books did the same in the "UEEF Marines" sourcebook for their second edition Robotech RPG because they were fresh out of actual official material to adapt after just three and a half books. (The -and-a-half comes in with the New Generation sourcebook having been padded like a menstruating firehose because the mechanical designs had already been adapted in the core book.) It was pretty inevitable that Titan Comics was going to use as little of Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross as they could get away with, given that the Robotech fanbase's un-favorite by a MASSIVE margin and all but the most blinkered and ignorant Robotech fans will often cheerfully admit Southern Cross's design works were hot garbage and that its characters were nothing to write home about either. This attempt to keep the Robotech story going is leaning almost exclusively on Macross, so it's not surprising they'd give as much of what remains a Macross facelift in the hopes that the fans would perhaps actually care about it. (Let's just say there's a reason Robotech's merchandising is pretty much exclusively Macross-based.) So, normal Robotech writing? While the rewriters failed to dumb the original three shows down to the level their intended target audience of the K-5s were at, the narration certainly didn't miss that mark... it's as bad as Metroid: Other M's, where the narration is a mixture of nonsense and stating the obvious. So, normal Robotech writing?
  24. Seto Kaiba
    Nah, it looks like they've thrown it out almost completely (one of the first good decisions they've made) in favor of making up their own story. Harmony Gold doesn't - and never did - have the rights to Super Dimension Century Orguss, so that's unlikely to occur... However, the plot of the Titan Comics Robotech series did have a vaguely Orguss-like plot with the SDF-1 being the instigator of a mostly-stable time loop that kept producing dystopian alternate realities (the various incarnations of Robotech), which culminated in those alternate realities invading the one the final loop iteration occurred in for various reasons. They seem to be carrying this multiverse nonsense forward into their Remix series, though they seem to have enough sense to not want to actually adapt Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross and replaced the Zor/Masters with something that looks like DYRL Zentradi. This kind of multiverse crossover nonsense is the last refuge of the terminally bankrupt comic book writer... which is, at least, a sensible admission they know Southern Cross's story would get them cancelled.
  25. Seto Kaiba
    Fate is just waifu fodder... like so much else that's coming out these days. The stories haven't been worth a damn since the original, and they've got like three good character designs so they're forever reusing the original Saber, Rin, and Sakura with slightly different builds and outfits.
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