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Seto Kaiba

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  1. Seto Kaiba
    We've had a fair few implied love triangles with at least one same-sex side in the last few shows, it wouldn't surprise me. Macross 7 had that one episode with the tabloid journalist trying to get the Gamlin x Basara shippers going. Macross Frontier had the Nanase's crush on Ranka and Ranka's borderline crush on Sheryl, a preemptively resolved Cathy-Ozma-Bobby love triangle, and what could've been implied as an Alto-Michael-Klan love triangle since the origin of Alto's nickname was later established to be that Michael had actually hit on Alto when Alto first joined Mihoshi Academy as a performing arts student (and was, at the time, dressed as a girl for a theater performance). Then, of course, Macross Delta had a rather more than implied Messer-Keith-Roid love triangle.
  2. Seto Kaiba
    As far as I'm aware, there is no difference in the development backstory for any of the VFs between the Macross Frontier TV and Movie versions. The VF-27 doesn't even have a Mechanic Sheet in the movie section of Macross Chronicle, it only got one for the Super Pack add-on. Courtesy of the liner notes from the sixth volume of the Macross Frontier Blu-ray release. Offhand, I think that remark is also corroborated by the Mechanic A-sheet for the VF-27 in Macross Chronicle's Macross Frontier TV grouping.
  3. Seto Kaiba
    The poses are unnatural-looking, and the gunpods have that weird Liefeldian thing going on where they look like someone realized they ought to be holding something only AFTER the art was finished and hastily added it in Photoshop.
  4. Seto Kaiba
    Hey now, I haven't solved any dubious puzzle boxes... This almost isn't terrible as long as you don't look at Roy or that knockneed VF-1S in the background. Side effects may include nausea, headaches, insomnia, constipation, oily discharge, severe deja vu, stiffness in joints, blurred vision or temporary blindness, loss of life, diarrhea, thrombosis, and rectal bleeding.
  5. Seto Kaiba
    They got deleted... sparing our eyes the horror.
  6. Seto Kaiba
    I confess I'm not sure what the significance of the gender symbols is supposed to be... the Canaanite god Shahar was male, and so was his twin Shalim. There was, however, a Shahar ♂ in the YF-27's series of prototypes in addition to the Shahar ♀. The YF-27-3 Shahar ♂ was assigned to Maj. Brera Sterne of the Galaxy fleet 52nd Fighter Wing "Antares" platoon. It's implied to have a four-engine configuration, and it's noted that it was outfitted with an ISC despite its unstable engine output and has some lag in its control system. The YF-27-5 Shahar ♀ was assigned to Maris Stella, the Project Stella "cyber-grunt" prototype and was used for illegal combat data collection via black ops. It's a two-engine version which has no ISC, and thus is slower and has lower output than the YF-27-3, but it's better armed and a more stable aircraft overall. (It's hinted that this version was made to mislead people as to the level of capability of the final craft.)
  7. Seto Kaiba
    As I've seen it explained, the YF-29 Durandal belongs to a separate development program that was running in parallel to the YF-25 Prophecy program that Master File calls Project Triangler. It wasn't (intentionally) related to the YF-25, (YF-26,) or YF-27, though the production-intent YF-27/VF-27 is an aircraft completed using stolen development data from the YF-29 program. The YF-29's designation comes from its status as the new VF debuting on the 29th anniversary of the Macross franchise. The name is a nod to an existing tradition of giving VFs with design series numbers ending in "9" to be named for swords. The VF-19 series set the bar there pretty high by using Excalibur, a mythical sword, and riffing on that theme for special variants like the VF-19EF's "Caliburn" and VF-19ACTIVE's "Nothung". "Durandal" is a fitting name, as the mythical sword the name comes from was reputed to be the sharpest in existence and indestructible... per Kawamori, the YF-29 is the strongest VF in Macross. There may be a very subtle nod to Sheryl there, as she was shown to be fluent in French in the series and the mythical sword Durandal is the sword of a French paladin (Roland) in French epic literature (e.g. The Matter of France). The stories that make up the Arthurian mythos come to us from a number of different languages including Welsh, Latin, French, and German. As a result, there are no shortage of variant names and alternate spellings. "Percival" is only the most accepted English spelling. It's also been rendered as Perceval, Parsifal, Parzival, etc. It's possible they started with one of those. It's also possible that's just a typo... like what happened to the YF-27-5. "Shaher" is a nonsense pseudoword. The correct spelling, "Shahar", is a Hebrew word that was translated as "Lucifer" in the translation of the Book of Isaiah from Hebrew into Latin. Translating foreign words into katakana is a somewhat imprecise science due to differing rules of pronunciation between languages.
  8. Seto Kaiba
    Maybe the license expired and someone else got it, like Diamond Select? Not too long ago, I got a few of Diamond Select's Star Trek offerings (an ENT-A and ENT-B) and they're pretty darn good. I'd love to see someone tackle the unused Enterprise Season 5 NX-01 (Columbia-class in the EU).
  9. Seto Kaiba
    They never took it to the level of Nina Einstein's crush on Princess Euphemia in Code Geass's first season1... but Nanase wasn't exactly hiding it either. Like in Ep8 of Macross Frontier when Ranka has her first day at Mihoshi Academy, when Ranka holds her hand Nanase's expression leaves no doubt that she's enjoying herself far, FAR more than if it were just a platonic friendship.
  10. Seto Kaiba
    Granted, it's not unusual for one or two members or an idol group to stand out in a performance environment... but it's not like the ones who don't just disappear into thin air between shows. Walkure are supposed to be Macross Delta's main characters, and the only one of them who was anything like a fully-realized character was Freyja. Mikumo was the group's star, and they didn't bother to give her any character development until she became a Macguffin three episodes or so from the end. Kaname was the group's leader, and the only development she got was when her love interest creepy antisocial stalker died suddenly and messily. Makina and Reina are a bit less glaring, I suppose, but it's still rather bizarre for a main character to get less development than a recurring background character. Having an idol group and only actually using one, maybe one and a half members of the group is pretty wasteful, no? That wasn't so much a curveball so much as a pitch so straight you could use it to calibrate lasers. Seriously, an anime series with a large satellite group of nominally school-aged young women who are utterly uninvolved in the main romance subplot? Regardless of whether it's played for comedy or fetish appeal, it's practically mandatory to have either a lesbian couple or at least a lesbian one-sided crush going on. So much so it's almost a required trope for magical girl or idol series, and it seems safe to say Macross Delta has a foot in both camps there. Macross has done this before... Nanase Matsura, Ranka's gag boob-owning bestie, had such a painfully obvious crush on Ranka it was only missed by Luca. What was less predictable was the apparent unrequited gay love triangle between Keith, Roid, and Messer. A certain amount of ho yay was only to be expected with a cast full of prettyboys who fill the standard table of reverse harem character classes, but not playing it for laughs was a surprise since it's almost never not outside of that kind of story. Keith did more to eulogize Messer in less than a minute than a whole episode of the main cast, complete with a "how dare you stand where he stood" caused by Hayate taking up Messer's VF-31F and threatening to kill a teammate who badmouthed him. We definitely need a more focused story in the next series. "Show, don't tell" needs to be a bit more of a hard rule too. Macross Delta seems to be leaning in the direction that the Vindirance-Latence conflict in 2050-2051 was a Second Unification War, at least in its novelization. It'll be interesting to see what they come up with for antagonists in the future, since the anti-government forces left are predominantly Earth supremacist remnants like Fasces, the Zentradi are a thing that can be managed, the Vajra hive at the galactic core is gone, and Windermere's bottled up and hamstrung so badly they'll probably be down to just harsh language and postwar reserve weaponry in five years.
  11. Seto Kaiba
    Oh, give it time... it's pretty clear that they're headed that way slowly but surely. When they're not tracing from JCPenney catalogs, porn from Google Images, or Macross toy/model box art, they're already deep in Liefeldian realms of anatomical improbability. Even then, it's pretty obvious they're not giving it their A-game. Compare the quality levels of their Robotech comic to their other work and marvel at the extent to which they're phoning this one in. Wasn't a fair bit of the Comico stuff drawn by Carl Macek's wife? IIRC the Comico stuff was done on the same kind of shoestring budget that became the norm for all things Robotech in the late 80's and beyond. (The "As Seen on TV" label is kind of a big red flag for quality whenever it appears...) ... for some reason, this reminds me of Professor Farnsworth's reaction to a blind Leela's attempt at applying her makeup. "You look beautiful! Incidentally, my favorite artist is Picasso."
  12. Seto Kaiba
    Because the combat in Macross Frontier takes place almost exclusively in space, they seem to have preferred to use FAST Packs to lug their missiles around. Stories set mostly or entirely in atmosphere like Macross 30: Voices Across the Galaxy aren't at all shy about having the VF-25s use their underwing pylons. Every VF-25 in-game uses the six pylon stations on the wings for varying mixes of weaponry including the multi-lockon missiles, the single lockon Itano Circus variety, and occasionally reaction missiles. It does, in fact, have wing hardpoints. Four, to be precise. Why they weren't shown until 2011 is anyone's guess. It may have something to do with wanting better passive stealth c. Macross 7, since fighters with 3rd Gen active stealth systems hadn't been introduced on more than a trial basis and improvements in detection systems had shifted design emphasis back towards passive stealth designs like the VF-17 and VF-22.
  13. Seto Kaiba
    The name alone is arguably an early spoiler of Dilandau's true nature... Alseids (Greek: Alseides) are a type of nymph, an exclusively female Greek nature spirit/minor deity. It is a bit reminiscent of the Sv-51's head. Call me a cynic if you must, but I'm pretty sure it had more to do with covering a list of standard character-based fetishes. ... there is some powerful irony there. That the bustiest character is also, by dint of having the least character development, technically the flattest of the show's flat stock characters. It's unusual enough having obviously flat characters in a Macross series. The franchise's creators normally do an excellent job developing the cast of any given story. Having flat characters be the majority of the show's main characters was just an unforgivable screwup on the part of the writers. Who makes a show about idol singers and then only gives character development to one of five of them? Honestly. Ranka was semi-perpetually out of focus in Macross Frontier and even she got a LOT more character development than plot-critical Mikumo Guynemer. Makina's so bad off that of the lot, hers is the only bio that's purely informed ability. We see Reina hack things (badly), we see Kaname lead the group, we see Mikumo being The Ace, and we see Freyja being the rookie... but Makina is never actually shown being the ship's head mechanic despite that the assertion that she actually is taking up fairly half her official bio. They definitely gotta get on the ball with writing in the next series. You can't build a show around main characters who get less development and screen time than nameless background cast members.
  14. Seto Kaiba
    Because Docker. 'nuff said. At least we got two moments of badass-ness from it. Gamlin swiping a VF-11C Super Thunderbolt and proceeding to hand the Varauta forces their asses with it early in the series, and then Kinryu's roaring rampage of revenge in that Armored Thunderbolt. They were pretty ugly...
  15. Seto Kaiba
    Well, we know the progenitor of The Vision of Escaflowne did end up rolled into Macross and at least one of its designs did become a Windermerean fighter: Fanelia's LV-7 Valorous Rapier "Excalibur" became the Sv-154 Svard. Kawamori's never been one to let an old idea or design go. Still, I'm left to wonder if we're going to see some of the Macross franchise's trademark reinvention of itself with each new installment is going to be de-emphasized in favor of more frequent new releases ala Gundam. This new series supposedly debuting later this year is coming a lot sooner than usual. As noted earlier, I definitely suspect that we'll see less in terms of new mechanical designs.
  16. Seto Kaiba
    For a while now, I've felt that Macross 7 is a show that is better on the second viewing. It is, yes, about twenty episodes too long and as a result it drags badly in the beginning and it starts out painfully repetitive, but in terms of its adherence to Macross's main themes I feel it's actually one of the stronger and more important entries in the metaseries. The one thing I've found helps getting through it is to NEVER watch more than one to two episodes in a sitting. It's not a show that should ever be marathoned, considering the aforementioned repetitiveness of the first half. The original Super Dimension Fortress Macross seems to have been almost the perfect length to suit Macross's particular style of storytelling. Three cours let them pace out the story and left plenty of room to develop a reasonably large cast without sacrificing pacing on the altar of exposition. The shorter two cour shows, Macross Frontier and Macross Delta, both had kind of rushed pacing in their last few episodes as the writers scrambled to tie up the loose ends in a satisfying manner. Macross Frontier managed to maintain near-perfect balance in its storytelling and did a fabulous job developing its cast. Macross Delta had a lot more trouble with it due to its overwhelming focus on music leaving a good deal less time to develop its large cast and its plot, terminating in a graceless stumble to a halt thanks to lost momentum from the exposition dumps. At almost four cour long, Macross 7 had the opposite problem... way too much episode left at the end of the story, and would've benefited greatly from a reduction to three cours forcing it to start developing the main plot earlier. Personally, I felt the mecha weren't so much "meh" as a mixed bag. The VF-11C Thunderbolt, VF-17 Nightmare, and VF-22 Sturmvogel II are great... but the Sound Force customs are absolutely hideous. There were a few that were pretty good back in the day, like the English version of Tenchi Universe's opening theme, but yeah... a lot of them were terrible. The English version of "Pioneer" from the Tenchi Muyo! OVAs was appalling. Doing English versions of the songs is also pretty expensive, which makes it an unattractive option even if you do have a voice actor who can sing worth a damn (which most don't seem to be able to). Like the "Mylene Jenius sings Lynn Minmay" album that Tomo Sakurai recorded a while back, I maintain there is no amount of alcohol on this Earth that would make that mess an enjoyable experience.
  17. Seto Kaiba
    There's some quality irony to be had there... given Walkure's evident popularity in Japan and abroad, it's highly probable that they'll be the only part of Macross Delta anyone remembers (in-universe or out) in the future. Kind of like how Isamu and Guld get swept under the rug and the only part of Macross Plus that usually gets referenced is Sharon Apple. Honestly, no... there are some superficial similarities there, I guess, but probably purely coincidental. Hayate's nothing like Van Fanel, that's for sure. Van did his level best to convince the audience that he'd had his sense of humor amputated at the neck, breakfasted on iron filings, and sat down abruptly on a broom handle. Keith and Alan are arguably only alike in that they're both blonde-haired prettyboys. Alan had an illegitimate child, Keith was the illegitimate child. Never mind that Alan was into girls and both of Keith's implied love interests are men. Alan also had a sense of humor, where Keith smoulders with generic rage 24/7. Bogue and Dilandau were both hotheads, for sure... but Dilandau was in charge and a badass, while Bogue is the youngest Aerial Knight and treated like a junior even by people who joined the Knights after he did (Qasim and the twins). There isn't a sniff of a distressed damsel in Bogue's backstory either, where Dilandau WAS the distressed damsel. The Aerial Knights also don't really cut it as elite mooks either. They're a prettyboy platoon like Dilandau's Dragon Slayers, but the similarity pretty much ends there since they're not sneaky or genre savvy. Most of them are honor-before-reason idiots who were entirely dependent on the edge given to them by the Song of the Wind and their more advanced fighter, and couldn't hold their own against skilled troops on a level footing. One thing you can say for Dilandau's troops... it took someone with plot armor to actually start killing them, and even then it took a lot of work, justifying their role as The Dreaded. Everyone was kind of betting, going into Delta, that we'd be getting Der Ring des Nibelung in space... boy were WE wrong. Which is kind of a shame, since Macross Delta only superficially built on the Protoculture-Norse theme that was going on in Macross 30. All things considered, I suspect they'd wonder why the show has a character whose only role is to show enough cleavage to hide a small armored cavalry squadron in. (Theres nothing wrong with a bit of fanservice, but it does get a bit jarring when a character exists for that reason only... Klan Klan was arguably Frontier's Ms. Fanservice, and she managed to have an interesting character arc and a lot of development. In such a character-driven series as Macross, there really is no excuse for a flat character.)
  18. Seto Kaiba
    Nah, the VF-22's legs are totally disposable sub-nozzles for the main engines. Thrust for flight or hovering in battroid mode is from the main nozzles on the back, and GERWALK mode takes some very unique levels in weird by having main engine thrust diverted into the sub-nozzles in the feet and bypass air from the outside of the turbine vented through a series of shutters in the bay that holds the limbs (and bombs) in fighter mode. For all practical intents and purposes the Sv-154 is a reuse of the LV-7 Valorous Rapier from Shoji Kawamori's Air Cavalry Chronicles concept... the engines were in the legs there too. The tail's set up a bit like the F-4 Phantom, with two nozzles side by side separated only by some structural elements from the tail. Thus far, all 5th Generation VFs save possibly one (the Sv-262) are derived from a common source: the specs for the "monkey model" version of the YF-24 Evolution that the New UN Government had circulated to its member nations in 2057. It's reasonably likely the Sv-262 is also derived from the YF-24 Evolution spec, but strictly in terms of new technologies. YF-24 Evolution → VF-24 Evolution (Earth/Full Spec) YF-24 Evolution → VF-24 Evolution (Monkey Model) YF-24 Evolution → YF-25 Prophecy → VF-25 Messiah YF-24 Evolution → YF-26 → Canceled YF-24 Evolution → YF-27 Shahar + Stolen YF-29 data → VF-27 Lucifer YF-24 Evolution → YF-28 (Rumored rival program to YF-29) YF-24 Evolution → YF-29 Durandal → YF-29B Percival YF-24 Evolution + YF-29 Durandal → YF-30 Chronos → YF-30B Chronos → VF-30 Chronos YF-24 Evolution + YF-29 Durandal → YF-30 Chronos → YF-31 Kairos → VF-31 Kairos (Units colored Orange are, at present, exclusive to Variable Fighter Master File.) When there's a common ancestor to pretty much every current-gen VF, it does seem a bit unlikely we'll see any really radical designs cropping up... unless Fasces or one of Latence's other surviving splinter groups from the Second Unification War manage to develop something new based on the Queadluun-Alma or the Elgersoln, Panzersoln, and Zaubergern units that Fasces went to so much trouble to recreate in Macross the Ride.
  19. Seto Kaiba
    I meant more in the sense that dubs of music-heavy shows tend to be rather poorly received on the whole, since redoing songs usually isn't an option and it's pretty jarring to have characters suddenly switch voices. Macross 7 is one of the most music-heavy shows out there. That's been the rumor going around for ages... though I've never seen it actually attributed to any one individual or event. Something about, back in the 90's, JVC wanted potential licensees for the TV series to license Fire Bomber's entire discography instead of just the music that was actually in the Macross 7 series proper. With something like eight albums in the space of two years and four singles or so prior to Macross Dynamite 7, it would've been a monstrously expensive undertaking. You'll find relatively little disagreement... most of that filler being the first twenty or so episodes of the show's glacially slow run-up to the main plot, where Basara sings "Planet Dance" OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER until the audience goes quietly mad out of despair hoping for a new song.
  20. Seto Kaiba
    Its first, last, and only sortie... as Alto abandoned it mid-flight, and apparently nobody bothered to recover or repair the most expensive aircraft in the entire fleet at the end of the movie. (One would assume the YF-29 Durandal [Alto Saotome type] in Macross 30: Voices Across the Galaxy is a trial production YF-29 that's just been painted in Alto's colors, since the fighter that he comes to Uroboros in is a VF-25F.)
  21. Seto Kaiba
    ... I can only assume that toxic fumes or controlled substances were involved. You're being traced from a photo of a porn shoot, Minmei. That's what's happening to your face.
  22. Seto Kaiba
    ... y'know what, I'm just gonna come right out and say it. Johnny Depp's Gellert Grindelwald is one flame-patterned polo shirt away from looking like his evil master plan is to establish Flavortown USA rather than build Wizard Auschwitz.
  23. Seto Kaiba
    *cough* There are a couple VFs that don't have their main engine system in the legs/feet... the VF-22, VA-3, VAB-2, FBz-99, and Feios Valkyrie for instance. The VAB-2/FBz-99 is on the list of ones having four main engines too. It has large B-2 style intakes with two engines in each, which are built into its shoulders. The VB-6 has its main engines in the feet, but it has two thermonuclear reaction turbines in each foot. Arguably at least four of the six engines the VF-4 has constitute main engines too, and only two of those are in the legs. The other two are in the structural wing body between the shoulder and the neck. The Sv-262 is still a twin-engine VF. The two engines just happen to share one thrust-vectoring nozzle, same as on the VAB-2/FBz-99 with their 2x2 four-engine configuration. I'd imagine that, if it were built for space, it'd probably do away with GERWALK... several sources have indicated that GERWALK mode is largely useless in space.
  24. Seto Kaiba
    Yup. That's what stopped me and Talos from doing a translation of Macross the First. I'm a decent-enough translator, but my Photoshop-fu is embarrassingly weak.
  25. Seto Kaiba
    One of the giants of academia, gone. He will surely be missed, and his work will doubtless continue to shape our perception of the universe for many years to come.
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