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Seto Kaiba

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  1. Seto Kaiba
    Well well well... happy birthday to me, it seems. Seems like everything ends up marked "Limited Edition" these days... but yeah, this'll be the one to get with the decently informative liner notes and all.
  2. Seto Kaiba
    Something that shows up a fair bit in model kits for the Super Dimension Fortress Macross series version of the VF-1. The series animation budget being what it was, they didn't show the pylons holding the three RMS-1 thermonuclear reaction missiles to the wings in Ep27, so it looked like a three pylon configuration to the viewer. Macross: Do You Remember Love? later showed that there was a double mount pylon for those RMS-1s. Variable Fighter Master File also picked up on the three pylon configuration and cited it as being an alternate wing configuration for the VF-1 Valkyrie.
  3. Seto Kaiba
    Not as such, no. Big West and Tatsunoko's copyright confirmation filings in the Japanese courts in the early 2000s ended with essentially zero changes in the disposition of rights to the original Macross series. To keep things simple: Big West and Studio Nue own the intellectual property of the original Macross TV series, and as such are the only ones who can use or authorize the use of that intellectual property in new works (e.g. sequels). Tatsunoko Production owns the production materials from the animation production which they bankrolled, and the rights that were given to them under contract as payment for bankrolling that production process. In short, Tatsunoko owns the copyright on the actual footage itself (but NOT the IP it contains), and the international distribution and merchandising rights to the series which were given to them as compensation for funding the animation production. Those rights are the ones Tatsunoko licensed to Harmony Gold USA in 1984. Put simply, Tatsunoko does not OWN the mechanical designs of the original Macross series, and they're not able to authorize anyone to use the designs in new film works... but they DO own the exclusive right to use those designs in merchandise outside of Japan. Along with their exclusive right to distribute the series outside Japan, what they have is essentially a proper subset of the copyright rights to the series. That's the basis on which Harmony Gold is bringing this lawsuit against Catalyst and Piranha. It's alleging that the designs named in the lawsuit are derivative of those in Super Dimension Fortress Macross, and that as such those designs violate their exclusive right (under license) to exploit the mechanical designs of Super Dimension Fortress Macross in merchandise in the west.
  4. Seto Kaiba
    Giving them props would be premature. That motion to dismiss was a Hail Mary that not only didn't pan out, but actually backfired rather badly by putting HG in a position to request and provide more documentation from Big West and Tatsunoko proving their rights under license. (Amusingly, from the statement from Tatsunoko, both they and Big West are in HG's corner on this one, since HG is essentially compelled to defend the Macross IP in court on their behalf under their license.) I don't believe so. Tatsunoko owns the international distribution and merchandising rights for the original SDF Macross series, and the trademark is filed in a region where Tatsunoko's rights make them the sole entity able to commercially exploit the series.
  5. Seto Kaiba
    Variable Fighter Master File: VF-19 Excalibur's Caution Signs and MODEX section would probably be the most complete version.
  6. Seto Kaiba
    SMS and LAI did. The reason it's a 改 is the base frame was an actual VF-0A before Katori got her mitts on it, and it's a kludge of parts provided by LAI and General Galaxy. By that point in the story, Hakuna Aoba's past as a NUNS Special Forces pilot had come out and he was eyebrow-deep in the whole conflict with Fasces. After getting royally REKT in his VF-1X++, presumably they felt compelled to give him something that he'd be able to not die in when the enemy was using 4th Gen equivalent or better fighters.
  7. Seto Kaiba
    I can only assume it was either a drunken bar bet or a dare... or Katori Brown Robbins wanted to see how much gear she could guilt LAI and the General Galaxy Guld Works into giving her. Considering part of the race takes place in a vacuum, it's a safe bet an unmodified VF-0 wouldn't be entered... a VF-0+ might be. Just throwing a YF-25 into the race probably wouldn't have gone over well. There was enough grumbling over the way corporate teams like Team Shinsei were fielding custom 4th Generation VFs that no civilian could possibly afford, leading to an accusation that the corporate teams were trying to dominate the league through sheer financial power.
  8. Seto Kaiba
    Anything derived from the YF-24 Evolution uses EX-Gear natively... that's the YF-24 Evolution, VF-24, YF/VF-25, YF/VF-27, YF-29, YF-29B, YF-30, VF-31, and VF-31 Siegfried. If they canonically exist, the YF-26 and YF-31 would have as well. As for non-5th Gen VFs... the VF-171EX was the first time a 4th Gen (now technically 4.5 Gen) adopted EX-Gear in-series. In events dated before that in Macross the Ride, the VF-19EF Caliburn and VF-19ACTIVE "Nothung" had it. As a Caliburn derivative, it's very likely Isamu's VF-19EF/A Excalibur Advance has it as well, as well as the VF-0 Kai "Zeak" (which is built mainly from YF-25 parts). There is also the VF-1EX in Macross Delta to consider, which was an EX-Gear-retrofitted VF-1 for training purposes.
  9. Seto Kaiba
    I have absolutely no idea. I'd love to know, since all my notes say is that it was selected by a fan contest. There are some amusing potential linguistic answers. "Feios" is Portuguese for "Ugly", and there's no denying it's certainly that. Must be... Timothy Daldhanton was the leader of Black Rainbow, and the one who clued the VF-X Ravens into the fact that Gilliam was still alive and that Latence was a thing. Advanced Control Technology for Integrated ValkyriEs. It's a nod to the F-15 STOL/MTD and F-15 ACTIVE. The VF-19ACTIVE "Nothung" was a technology demonstrator Shinsei Industry and L.A.I. built in the Macross Frontier fleet to prove out certain technologies intended to go into the YF-25 Prophecy and VF-25 Messiah.
  10. Seto Kaiba
    As far as I know, it's a reference to the sanskrit word for the Sun which is also the name of the Hindu sun god. This may have something to do with one of the partners being "Bharat", which is the Hindi name of the country/region the west calls India.
  11. Seto Kaiba
    That was probably me... from the Bandai B-Club Magazine #79 feature on Macross's influence on the mecha genre. Zeta Gundam was probably the biggest title listed. Macross II itself, of course, was a new Macross OVA with more than a few Gundam veterans working on it at the time. As far as a Gundam show that's like Macross... we kinda had that too. It was exactly as terrible and forced-feeling as you'd expect an attempt to port Macross's sunny disposition into a franchise which runs on dark and depressing like Gundam. Mobile Suit Gundam: A Wakening of the Trailblazer was just a frigging train wreck start-to-finish, as Gundam's first foray into the subject of actual alien life and first contact. (Sentient life, mind. I don't count the dead space whale in SEED or that bacteria from the Crossbone Gundam: Ghost manga.) These days I certainly find the new AU stories more enjoyable than the Universal Century... barring messes like Build Fighters, Build Divers, and Age. Gundam Unicorn and the Re:0096 series really didn't make much of an impression on me. I've seen both, and neither was engaging enough for me to get invested in the story or so dull that I couldn't stand to watch another minute. Universal Century Gundam show plots are pretty much a foregone conclusion as a rule since the Gundam's side always wins, but because it was set between a pair of older Gundam shows all the fuss and noise about the world-altering implications of Laplace's box in the series fell completely flat because the audience already knew nothing was going to change. If they're determined to keep doing Universal Century stories they need to move to a date beyond what's already been done for the timeline. Side stories like Unicorn and Thunderbolt don't make a meaningful contribution to the setting, because we know going into it that any drama on their part has literally zero impact on the setting. Any consequences the characters incur have no weight to them, because the shape of the future is predetermined. It's like watching a recording of a recent sporting event after you've seen the final score. You can appreciate the technical perspective, but there's little excitement when you already know the outcome.
  12. Seto Kaiba
    We had one of those... Well, more like two... Maybe three if you count the original concept for the SDF-1, which was a White Base knockoff that turned into a giant Gundam...
  13. Seto Kaiba
    I feel like we can get some indecent exposure jokes out of that... Still, that story was kind of a downer even by Universal Century standards, what with Bright having to execute his own son...
  14. Seto Kaiba
    Did Gundam Unicorn really need a sequel? I mean, its plot was pretty self-contained and all and didn't really impact the greater Universal Century any...
  15. Seto Kaiba
    Until @ManhattanProject972 pointed out the A6M Zero connection, I would've said "I have no idea"... since they romanized it "Zeak" in the Visual Book, it just sort of slipped by. That would make it the second VF in that story to have a World War II name reference, the other being the VF-22HG Schwalbe Zwei. That one is a double reference to the Me 262 fighter version (Sturmvogel having been the fighter-bomber configuration) and Messerschmitt's Me 262 V9 Hochgeschwindigkeit (abbreviated HG, lit "high speed") series of test aircraft. The usage of the kanji "改" (kai, lit. "revision") in a context like a vehicle's official designation/model number indicates what might commonly be called an aftermarket modification. For example, Basara's VF-19改 "Fire Valkyrie" started out as a VF-19F1 Excalibur before undergoing extensive modifications to be outfitted with Sound Force equipment. Same as Ray's VF-17T改 and Mylene's VF-11MAXL改, which started out as stock VF-17T and VF-11MAXL units. The VF-0改 Zeak that Hakuna Aoba received in Macross R was a VF-0 airframe that was extensively retrofitted using modern materials and parts from the YF-25 series. 改 wouldn't be used for a one-off or limited production VF that was built to different specs than the mass production model, because it was designed and built that way by the manufacturer. Shinsei's VF-11MAXL Thunderbolt is an ace variant that's built to order for a particular pilot, but because it's delivered that way by the manufacturer it doesn't merit a 改. The same goes for Chelsea Scarlett's VF-19ACTIVE Nothung. It's a one-of-a-kind technology demonstrator, but because it was designed and built to that spec rather than being a VF-19 that was modified after the fact, it isn't a 改. There are a few cases of inconsistent usage. Macross 2036 flipflops on referring to the upgraded VF-1 Valkyries the characters use as VF-1改 or VF-1R. The 改 usage in that case is inappropriate, given that the VF-1R series (VF-1AR/JR/SR) is a production aircraft in its own right that's like the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet to the VF-1's F/A-18C/D. Macross Delta's Siegfried units should properly have been designated VF-31改, since their backstory indicates Surya Aerospace delivered them as trial production VF-31As and they were subsequently modified by Xaos into their present forms. 1. Per Macross Chronicle Mechanic Sheet ALL 01B. Variable Fighter Master File: VF-19 Excalibur takes a different view, and asserts that it was a less heavily modified VF-19E Excalibur instead.
  16. Seto Kaiba
    Yeah, the Robotech fan film group from (IIRC) Serbia that got hit with a cease and desist before they did went the same route... ditch the Robotech IP and repurpose the original aspects of their existing work as the starting point for an original science fiction series. Mind you, those two groups got their projects nuked for very different reasons. UEG Productions' fan film Robotech Genesis got slapped with a cease and desist when they refused to surrender all rights to their work to HG in exchange for the fan film being exhibited on robotech.com. HG has asserted, in documents provided for the lawsuit between them and CGL/PGI that they shut down that Valkyrie Project fan series under orders from Big West (via Tatsunoko)... though, if true, the decision was probably motivated by HG having publicly endorsed the fan film. Hiring the Valkyrie Project guys was a desperate face-saving move, since HG had previously given that fan film their blessing and then shut it down. Doubly so since the rumor at the time was that Harmony Gold was shutting down these fan film projects because they were angry that those fans were creating higher quality material than they were.
  17. Seto Kaiba
    Back when the book was written, that was a bank-breakingly massive, downright unreasonable sum for a development program... almost double what was projected for the first 5th Gen fighters, in the same way the individual unit cost of the VF-1 was a good 4-5 times what a modern fighter jet at the time was.
  18. Seto Kaiba
    Ach, my bad. The cost cited for development was $50 billion. (That figure comes from the pre-DYRL? Sky Angels tech manual by Masahiro Chiba.)
  19. Seto Kaiba
    Spring or Summer 2004, IIRC. It was one of a few designs trotted out for the Variable Fighter Experimental Requirements Review (VFERR) column.
  20. Seto Kaiba
    Volume 1's cover is Hakuna Aoba's VF-1X++ Valkyrie Double Plus and Chelsea Scarlett's VF-19ACTIVE "Nothung". Volume 2's cover is their respective "mid-season" upgrades... Chelsea Scarlett's YF-25 Prophecy w/ Paladin Pack (SPS-25P/MF25) and Hakuna Aoba's VF-0改 "Zeak", which is basically a VF-0 rebuilt with YF-25 parts.
  21. Seto Kaiba
    Before that, when Mirage takes him up in her VF-31C and he barfs all over her on landing.
  22. Seto Kaiba
    As @sketchley said, it's the Russian word for "Eagle"... the Sv-52 in question even has wings designed with feather-like control surfaces (primary remiges). Magdalena Zielonaska is, evidence would suggest, Polish rather than Russian. Her family's company has a name referencing an offensive in the liberation of Poland by the Red Army (Vistula & Oder, the two rivers in Poland that marked the approximate bounds of the Vistula-Oder Offensive that reclaimed most of Poland from the Nazis).
  23. Seto Kaiba
    Huh... so are they measuring that with an onboard accelerometer, or are they computing it from slow motion footage? I imagine they're probably less worried about injury than they are about some hotshot putting himself into G-LOC and putting his plane into the spectators (or the ground). The human body can take astonishing amounts of g's as transitory split-second loadings without incurring lethal damage... IIRC the standard benchmarks for injury start at around 50g with death being around 75-100g depending on the body part pulling that load... but sustained g-loads become injurious at much lower levels. One can only wonder how many g's Guld was pulling when he died, since his fighter was equipped with an inertia vector control system to buffer high g and he STILL incurred lethal g-loads. For that matter, it makes one wonder were the buffer point starts on an inertia store converter. Hayate was clearly pulling several g's when he got violently ill in his first flight with Mirage, and that VF did have a very good quality inertia store converter in it.
  24. Seto Kaiba
    Yes, that is Ogol 7312... self-styled as Naresuan after adopting Earth's culture in the wake of the First Space War. Fun fact, he took the name of one of Thailand's most revered monarchs, also known as Sanphet II. He's the leader of Fasces, and a former NUNS Special Forces squadron commander (of SVF-473 Etoile Filane - french for "Shooting Star") who mentored both Hakuna Aoba (right book left dude in the orange jacket) and Angers 672 (the one standing next to him). Very true... which is why I restricted referencing them to corroboration of things said in more official publications. (IIRC, doesn't your site list them as "Expanded Universe"? Incidentally, you have a LOT of AwardZone broken link notifications on the Glossary pages.)
  25. Seto Kaiba
    Safe bet it's Harmony Gold. After all, Catalyst and Piranha submitted that motion to dismiss alleging that Harmony Gold didn't have the rights under license that it claimed to and thus didn't have the standing to bring the suit against them and this is arguing the opposite. I suppose I can't definitively rule out that they might be so stupid they'd refute the entire premise of their own motion to dismiss though, in light of the fact that they keep getting caught trying to commit precisely the same crime over and over again like they're an even less competent Team Rocket.
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