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Seto Kaiba

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  1. 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."
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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...
  5. 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.
  6. 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.
  7. 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.)
  8. 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.
  9. 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.
  10. 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.)
  11. 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.
  12. 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.
  13. 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.
  14. 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.
  15. 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.
  16. Seto Kaiba
    Bounced this one off my girlfriend, who is my resident Potterhead, and she pointed out that Newt says the Swooping Evil venom he used to erase New York's memories removes bad memories. If nothing else, it's a safe bet the time he spent with Queenie doesn't count as bad memories. The thing with the explody-rhino aside, he seemed to be quite enjoying himself. I've never been able to buy the argument that Snape is heroic. The guy was a first-class arsehole who verbally and emotionally abused the kids in his classes for at least a decade. He had basically zero problem with letting Voldemort kill Lily's husband and son if he could have her himself, until Dumbledore called him on it. He tried to have an innocent man sent back to wizard torture-prison over a childhood rivalry, and ruined another man's life when he was thwarted in the attempt . He spent six years making Harry's life horrible and taking evident pleasure in it because he reminded him of his schoolyard bully. On more than one occasion he tried to get Harry expelled. He all but admits to Dumbledore near the end that he doesn't give a crap about Harry, he's only in it for revenge for Lily. Harry suddenly going from "golly this guy's a prick" to "I'mma name my kid after him" is one of the worst What The Hell, Hero? moments in the books. He was 100% onboard with Wizard Hitler 2.0 until his childhood crush was threatened.
  17. Seto Kaiba
    Plenty. Assuming we're talking strictly about built-in engine systems rather than detachable ones like the VF-0's Ghost Booster or a Super Pack: The VF-4 Lightning III was the first to have multiple main engine systems. It had six engines in total: 2 thermonuclear reaction turbine engines, 2 hybrid rocket motors inside the nacelles (shoulders), and 2 thermonuclear ramjet/scramjet systems built into the wing itself. The VF-2SS Valkyrie II was the first to have more than two thermonuclear reaction turbine engines. It had four: two main thermonuclear reaction turbine engines in the legs and two smaller sub-engines at the base of the stabilizers. It's not explicitly stated, but the VA-1SS Metal Siren appears to have an almost identical engine configuration. The VAB-2/FBz-99 has four thermonuclear reaction turbine engines mounted in pairs on its shoulders and two thermonuclear rocket motors in its legs. The VB-6 Konig Monster has four thermonuclear reaction turbine engines and four plasma rocket engines. The YF-29 Durandal has four Stage II thermonuclear reaction turbine engines. The production model VF-27 Lucifer, which was completed based on stolen YF-29 data, has four Stage II thermonuclear reaction turbine engines, albeit not as powerful. If we throw the floor open to bolt-ons and Super Packs, that's basically any VF with a Super Pack, the VF-0 with its Ghost Booster, the VF-27 Super Lucifer with its Goblin Booster, the Sv-262 Draken III with its Lilldrakens, etc. ... well, I don't suppose there's anything stopping them from having wing binders and so on like in the Gundam franchise, or an extra arm kicking around like Scirocco's The O. The most Gundam-y of Macross's offerings did have at least one mecha that used its wings as an extra set of limbs and had a fourth mode that was more like a reverse-GERWALK (battroid with a jet bottom half) called Gundroid (the Metal Siren). There is that one weird proposed Super Pack in Macross the First (1st Ed.) that had a Tomahawk destroid arm sticking off one side. Whether those are "legs" is debatable... the Octos is, according to Junya Ishigaki's line art for it in his artbook Robo no Ishi, a mecha modeled on a gorilla. We've never seen it use those as arms, but it's not out of the question. A fair number of them have already been adopted into Macross in one form or another. The AF-49's older version, VA-X-3, was adopted into the technical continuity in Macross Chronicle. The Advanced Valkyrie Alpha and Beta's combined form is the VF-11 Thunderbolt. The Sturmsoln and Messergern were incorporated into the Varuata Forces as partial inspiration for the Fz-109 and Az-109. The top one in your last picture is the VAB-2, which was the New UN Forces bomber basis for the Varauta FBz-99. There are a number of others that were adopted too, like the V-BR-2, VF-T-11, etc.
  18. Seto Kaiba
    Given the overwhelming abundance of music in the series... I suspect it probably wouldn't lend itself well to dubbing anyway.
  19. Seto Kaiba
    One can't help but admire the attention to detail that went into replicating 1920's New York on the studio backlot and in the script. They even went to the trouble of making sure the characters who are natives to the city are from the correct neighborhoods for the period by heritage. I'll definitely be hoping to see more of that thoroughness in The Crimes of Grindelwald. The only worry I have is Depp as Gellert Grindelwald. I've never felt he had a lot of range, and on those occasions where he snags a role that isn't either deliberately goofy or Tim Burton-esque, he comes across as in a permanent state of dull surprise like in From Hell. Didn't Dumbledore in the books admit he sat on his hands while Grindelwald went all Wizard Hitler because he was afraid he might learn whether he, his brother, or Grindelwald was the one who'd accidentally killed his sister?
  20. Seto Kaiba
    Well, this promises to be interesting. I enjoyed Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them rather more than the Harry Potter movies, so this actually has my proper attention. It's half Harry Potter, half pre-WW2 period piece, which is a nice touch IMO. Not super thrilled with casting Johnny Depp as Grindelwald... or that his makeup for this looks like a graying version of Gary Oldman's Dracula from Bram Stoker's Dracula.
  21. Seto Kaiba
    As far as we know, yes. Per Macross Chronicle, the YF-29 Durandal used by Alto Saotome during the final battle of the Vajra conflict was the initial prototype that Shinsei Industry and LAI had started building back in 2057 but were only able to complete in 2059 when the Vajra conflict provided the necessary fold quartz.
  22. Seto Kaiba
    Yup, that's one of the two... the more polished version of the design done for Variable Fighter Master File VF-25 Messiah, called the VF-25WR Wyvern-2. The one in Macross Ace was more retro-looking, with the propellers up front over the top of the wing and the nose done with a bolt-on cover that made it look like a single-engine Cessna without the propeller. An upvote for you, good sir! Smashing job finding that custom model. Any idea who made it, so that we might give props where props are due for this model's excellent props? Non-canonically, but yeah... twice. Both based on the VF-25. Your memory serves you well. The Wyvern and Wyvern-2 conversions were (non-canonically) developed to permit exploration of regions around Vajra hives on the recently-colonized Vajra homeworld. By using conventional propeller engines and keeping the FF-3001A engines off, the GIC systems at the heart of the reactors wouldn't be producing any fold waves that might prompt the Vajra to investigate the fighter or see it as a threat. Per Master File, neither seems to have made it past the design proposal phase.
  23. Seto Kaiba
    The data's minimal, but there's sufficient information to answer your questions. So far, the most detailed source talking about the DAS-03k "Draken Fang" assault sword is Bandai's 1/72 scale Sv-262 Draken III model kit instruction booklet. Its specs section describes the DAS-03k assault sword as a folding sword composed of energy conversion armor material. Making the blade section from energy conversion armor was a structural concession meant to reduce its mass so that it wouldn't unbalance the fighter in flight, though as a result the blade is too fragile to use in a fight unpowered. The DAS-03k's energy conversion armor blade is normally powered by a connection to the Sv-262's main power system through the manipulator (hand) holding it. For backup power, the sword's hilt contains a high-energy capacitor with enough power for 3 minutes of continuous operation.
  24. Seto Kaiba
    ... that's actually been done once already. No, really. I'm not kidding. It was done for Macross Ace magazine. It was a biplane conversion of the VF-25 called the Wyvern, and Variable Fighter Master File: VF-25 Messiah has a refined version called the Wyvern II.
  25. Seto Kaiba
    Starting over.
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