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Seto Kaiba

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  1. Seto Kaiba
    Reenacting the Zentradi classic, Fifty Shades of Green.
  2. Seto Kaiba
    Well duh, as I said earlier we're not here because we're interested in the comic itself... we're here to gawk at the terrible, TERRIBLE art. It's like watching a train wreck, or crash testing of a Chinese car... it's so horrible you can't bring yourself to look away. Breetai and co. 'bout to drop the hottest apocalypse of 2010. Seriously, this looks like the cover of a rap album. Dear Tommy, nobody liked Shadow Chronicles... you literally had to ban 90% of your website's members for that. Stop trying to mention it! ... what the everloving hell is with the poses in this? I mean, I know they're tracing... but from WHAT? I don't know what pose that is that they traced for him blowing up that balloon, but NOBODY stands like that! ... I swear they traced this from the cover of a Wonder Woman comic. I'll find it on Superdickery.
  3. Seto Kaiba
    Caught up with a friend of mine in Japan who occasionally hunts rare artbooks for me and the Mecha Manual this morning after a teleconference, and got his surprisingly favorable impression of the film. As he put it to me, Macross Delta: Passionate Walkure is a marked improvement on the series in almost every regard. The pacing, apparently, is the real game-changer and makes it feel like a completely different story. Without the full-stop exposition dumps, big lipped alligator moments like Messer's memorial, or most of the Walkure-goes-undercover stuff, the story flows much more naturally. The faster pace doesn't leave any time to dwell on characters being undeveloped or underdeveloped, and apparently doesn't even give you time to properly notice the animation issues mentioned in the ANN review. The only complaints he raised about the film was that he wasn't happy with there not being a proper love triangle in a Macross story, and that he felt they spent too much time on characters who've been reduced to bit parts in the film instead of properly developing the Aerial Knights. who are still sort of left as designated antagonists without a clear reason for their all-consuming hatred of humanity. Weirdly, from my involvement with a fair number of mecha anime groups and sites, and business travel occasionally putting me within reach of cons in North America and Europe, I've had the opposite experience talking to fans. If we exclude the old farts who complain about "magical girls", the writing is about the only thing I've seen people complain of... and with very few exceptions, it's about the writing in the show's second half. I've encountered very few fans who had any issues with the character or mechanical designs, and practically zero in terms of complaints about the setting or the music. It's all been about the writing and pacing, and it's usually the same handful of issues with: The show's exposition-dump and flashback episodes frequently bringing the plot to a halt The show neglecting to develop the Aerial Knights and their motivations for hating humanity (and ultimately dumping it into a gaiden manga) The late reveal and failure to explore Mikumo's origins as a three-year-old clone The lack of closure in the ending The low number of mecha sequences in the buildup to the climax The love triangle becoming one-sided from ep14 on (mostly from #TeamMirage) The whole Lady M's identity tease-and-denial routine (esp. after they hinted at a Megaroad-01 connection) I'm not certain if that's just that I'm doing this mostly with mecha anime enthusiasts or what, but almost nobody I've spoken to since Delta came out has been overtly critical of any part of the show except the writing. The only other significant group? A half-dozen or so people who thought the Draken III was kind of ugly.
  4. Seto Kaiba
    My apologies all the same... I'll have to be more vigilant with my spoiler tags. Still, it was kind of the Un-Reveal, considering Jason Isaacs is not someone you'd hire except to play an Evil Brit and had an introductory scene that stopped just short of a Disney villain song. (My one regret is that he didn't go out cursing those meddling kids and their Kelpian.) Apart from Tomorrow Never Dies, Star Trek: Discovery is the only thing I've ever seen her in and I didn't much care for Captain Georgeau... they way they killed her off seemed pretty excessive and gratuitous. I'd welcome recommendations from her filmography tho.
  5. Seto Kaiba
    Not a boy band, IIRC... but rather, some kind of VF flight demonstration team/squadron. Tropes-wise, the end result was an almost dead-on copy of a standard reverse harem cast.
  6. Seto Kaiba
    An ad hominem? Seriously? And not even an accurate one. I'm not sure if I should put [Citation Needed] or "Very Poor, see me after class". If you'd actually read my posts about the series, you'd notice that - much like this ANN review - my main issue with the series was that the writing was a sh*t-awful mess. For pretty much the entire first half of the series, I was one of the show's more vocal defenders in the review threads here on MacrossWorld. Then the writing went completely to pot and watching the series became a chore. Go back and read... and you'll find the one criticism I consistently level is that the individual pieces that make up the series are all excellent, and that the writers dropped the ball resulting in a whole frustratingly less than the sum of its parts. You'll find frequent praise for the main characters (I've often said Freyja compares favorably to Ranka1), mentions that several songs from the series rank among my all-time favorites from Macross (incl. Our Battlefield and Forbidden Borderline), and my discussions of the mecha have frequently seen me describe the VF-31 as being arguably the best-looking 5th Generation VF so far2 and the Sv-262 as a unique and interesting design, and that the both of them are criminally underutilized by the series. I do not "hate everything Delta". About the only part of Delta I do hate is the weaksauce writing. "Enjoyable enough" is pretty subjective. A B- is only marginally above-average... the reviewer notes multiple, significant, often jarring issues with the film but that it was fast-paced enough to still be enjoyable despite those flaws. The problems with the story were severe enough that that aspect of the movie DID get a C. IMO, given that Walkure are indisputably the main characters of this film, that the animation and choreography of their performances are noted as one of the film's main weak points would be a pretty big problem. 1. That's actually putting it rather mildly, I've suggested several times that replacing Ranka with Freyja and giving Alto some of Hayate's upbeat nature would've resulted in Frontier being perfection itself. 2. To the extent that the VF-31 is the second-most numerous VF in my collection by a significant margin. I currently have seven: 1 DX VF-31J, 1 DX VF-31F, 1 Bandai 1/72 VF-31J w/ Super Pack, 1 Tomytec VF-31J, 1 Tomytec VF-31C, and 2 Tomytec VF-31A's; plus a DX VF-31A on preorder that'll make eight when it arrives. The only VF I have more of is my all-time favorite, the VF-2SS Valkyrie II... I've got fourteen of those (incl. 3 Bandai kits, 6 Evolution Toy, 2 HiMetal, and 3 1/72 kits). As I write this, there's literally a VF-31J on display less than three feet from me.
  7. Seto Kaiba
    Er... there's actually a fair amount of evidence that the USS Discovery is, in fact, too advanced for the timeline. The most often cited example is the holographic communications tech that's all over the Discovery, which was previously established in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine to be a brand new system only just being introduced to Starfleet in 2373, 117 years AFTER the date Discovery is set, and ones that could actually roam a room instead of being confined to a ring of holoprojectors on the floor were presented as an entirely new innovation that even Starfleet didn't have yet in 2379 (the first and only appearance was in Star Trek: Nemesis). Having a spruced-up classic USS Enterprise is going to be a bit of a problem, continuity-wise. The USS Defiant in the Star Trek: Enterprise mirror universe episodes was shown to be identical in just about every respect to the classic TOS USS Enterprise. ENT deliberately averted the "Cosmetically Advanced Prequel" trope for the Defiant, so having it now is a bit jarring. I'll admit I never got any shades of Mary Sue-dom from Burnham... my biggest problem is that she's written so inconsistently that the only possible interpretation for her behavior is that she's a massive hypocrite. She spends the first few episodes after being imprisoned moralizing at people then doing 180s on her allegedly firm morals so fast it makes your head spin. Like in "The Battle at the Binary Stars", she has absolutely zero problems with attaching a photon torpedo warhead to a Klingon corpse. Attaching booby traps to wounded or dead persons is very much against the Geneva Protocols... and the very next episode, she's ripping into Lorca over her suspicions that he's developing biological weapons banned by the Geneva Protocols. She's totally and unapologetically racist/xenophobic when it comes to Klingons, but is somehow deeply morally affronted when the Terran Empire is revealed to have the exact same attitude towards all aliens... and then does ANOTHER 180 when she brings the Emperor to the prime universe and the crew all decide to lie to their superiors so they can put the genocidal despot mirror-Georgeau in charge of the Discovery so she could end the war for them by committing the very same kind of genocide in the prime timeline that they were so disgusted by in the mirror universe but are all apparently fine with now. A little moral consistency would be nice, y'know? Then again, we are dealing with a "Starfleet" crew who were handpicked by an omnicidal maniac from the mirror universe who is such an extreme xenophobe that Emperor Georgeau was the lesser evil.
  8. Seto Kaiba
    Two books I know of have line art for him. Macross VF-X2: Perfect Official Clue File has various views of his head along with a one-liner bio on page 10. (He shares a half-page with Mariafokina Barnrose.) He's also present in the line art for a character group shot/height comparison on page 81. (He's the grouchy-looking git with the beard.) Macross VF-X2: Official Visual Guide gives a more complete line art profile of him on page 12, but again he's sharing a page with another character... in this case, Manfred Brando. This one has a full-body line art of him from the front, a knees-up view from the rear, and the same assorted face shots from the other book. I don't believe the game gave him a mission eyecatch screen like the last few characters that you posted about. The ones in the gallery in the Official Visual Guide are Aegis Focker and a VF-1X+, Gilliam Angreat and a VF-19A, Syun Tohma and a VF-17D, Suzie Newlet and a VF-11B, Timothy Daldanton and a Feios Valkyrie, Manfred Brando and his VF-17S, Mariafokina Barnrose and her VF-1S/X, Suzie and Syun with a Konig Monster, and then three with the bridge girls in front of a VF-22, VF-11C Fullarmor, and VA-3M.
  9. Seto Kaiba
    There doesn't appear to be any obvious theme naming going on, besides ending in -ion. I can't find any mythological connection there, and can't shake the feeling that those look more like the names of Pokemon. (Maybe Xaos acquired GameFreak at some point?) ... y'know, I didn't even notice that. The design is so busy. That said, I don't really have a problem with the guns facing backwards in fighter mode. It's not the first VF to do so, and, honestly, considering how acrobatic dogfights in Macross are, there's a decent design case for including a strong disincentive for someone to stay on your tail. Interestingly, it also looks like the barrels are retractable, They'd be a pretty poor imitation of the Tornado Pack's heavy quantum beam cannon if they couldn't... and we've known for bloody ages that the YF-30's beam cannon container was a VERY good imitation of the Tornado Pack's beam cannons. Arguably better than the original, being more deadly and more compact. Look at the shape of the center mounting, they're backwards. That yellow bulb thing is facing rear.
  10. Seto Kaiba
    Maybe they've finally developed a sense of humor about the proceedings and are actually trolling us all? Who's up for a Macross series featuring Babymetal?
  11. Seto Kaiba
    ... did y'all skip the parts where the reviewer complained that, even in the first half, the film's story was an unfocused mess that unceremoniously drops plot threads and shifts focus without rhyme or reason? Or that it became nigh-incomprehensible in the second half, that the climax hinged on a character who the film forgot to develop, that the new animation is spotty and has jarring quality issues, or that the choreography in the idol performances is weak? If you actually summarize this review, it'd be: "I like the designs, the music, and the mecha action sequences, but the animation has some major issues, the story's a mess, and I had no idea what was going on 90% of the time". That their overall score for the film was a B-, with the story only meriting a C, argues strongly for that being overall a rather tepid review. "It wasn't very good, but I had fun regardless".
  12. Seto Kaiba
    ANN posted a review... it's decidedly lukewarm: https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/review/gekijo-ban-macross-delta/gekijo-no-walkure/.127637
  13. Seto Kaiba
    Is it linked on that Twitter? I searched the usual suspects and came up dry. (on a filtered VPN at the mo') ... in all fairness, this feels a bit like the pot calling the kettle black. Macross Delta had the entirety of its antagonist faction, save one character, given over to effeminate, fancifully-dressed prettyboy dandies following yaoi and reverse harem tropes so hard they might as well be the Darwent Castle Host Club, two of whom formed two sides of an strongly implied gay love triangle and one of whom has to outright invoke "have I mentioned I'm straight today?". There's no friggin way that wasn't bait for the fujoshi.
  14. Seto Kaiba
    Second movie? I was given to understand by those who'd seen it that this was clearly a One-and-Done affair...
  15. Seto Kaiba
    Probably because doing a compilation movie is significantly cheaper than an all-new film, allowing them to do the movie faster with less money and studio manpower. Japanese audiences are already well-accustomed to compilation movies with a good deal less new footage than Macross Delta: Passionate Walkure has, so they're not likely to care overmuch about not getting an all-original anime film. The fact that the Macross Delta series itself wasn't really all that remarkable, and served mainly as a vehicle to launch Walkure, would've made it unlikely that they'd do an all-original movie to riff on a barely-there story for the sake of a two-hour AMV. With a new Macross series already under development, a compilation movie was probably a smart way to go with the remaining manpower.
  16. Seto Kaiba
    In this context, a compilation movie is a movie made by cutting together existing footage from a TV series or OVA to retell the story of the series in a feature film's 2 hour runtime. There will usually be new footage made for the film, but the ratio of new to reused footage is usually low. The Mobile Suit Gundam and Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam movie trilogies are good examples of this, as are the Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex movies. Macross movies do sometimes reuse footage from the series (e.g. Macross Frontier's duology), but the ratio of new to reused footage has always been astonishingly high. Macross Delta's movie is reportedly much closer to a traditional compilation movie, in that half or more is reused footage from the series.
  17. Seto Kaiba
    Hey, if they wanna mix it up I ain't gonna stand in their way. Several different classic Zentradi mecha have brief cameos in the Macross the Ride light novel... it's apparently fairly common for Regults to compete in the Ostrich class races that are popular with the Vanquish League's Zentradi fans. (Think a GERWALK mode footrace and you won't be far wrong.) Angers 672 absconds with a Queadluun-Rau briefly at a race venue, prompting a brief but furious dogfight. SMS's Queadluun-Rhea/56 battle suits also show up briefly. The Queadluun-Alma's more the hideous, mutant lovechild of the Feios Valkyrie (itself the hideous mutant lovechild of a VF-11A and Queadluun-Rau) and a Queadluun-Rhea (the New UN Forces own improved Queadluun-Rau). The result is as terrifyingly deadly as it is ugly.
  18. Seto Kaiba
    If you thought the Macross Delta TV series was good, yes. If not, no. Word from Japan is that Macross Delta: Passionate Walkure is much closer to being a traditional compilation movie than previous Macross films.
  19. Seto Kaiba
    It's also possible Kawamori's getting his chance to do the project he was thinking about when they made Delta... one that doesn't have a singer, and focuses instead on competing flight demonstration teams.
  20. Seto Kaiba
    As I've had to point out to a few friends who were disappointed by Macross Delta: Passionate Walkure, while it's technically true that compression makes diamonds... it's much more common for compression to simply make garbage more compact. Thus far, nobody has mentioned anything to me regarding a trailer at the end of the movie like the one at the end of Macross Frontier: the False Songstress.
  21. Seto Kaiba
    Don't thank me, I'm just the messenger. All told, the impression my friends gave me was that Macross Delta: Passionate Walkure is indeed better than the Macross Delta TV series... principally because it's shorter and thus they're forced to make more efficient use of time. Eh, I think there's something to be said for Mirage's Sv-262Ba.
  22. Seto Kaiba
    Based on feedback from friends of mine in Japan, since I couldn't wrangle a trip over there to see it this year... whether the film is "Good" or "Bad" would be entirely contingent on whether or not you thought the TV series was good or bad because apparently in a break from Macross tradition the film is basically just a more compact version of the series that doesn't change much.
  23. Seto Kaiba
    Nonsense, everyone loves gravy in their fruit salad. I will most definitely be taking a pass on this one when Bandai puts it out. I collect beautiful Valkyries... not ugly ones. It should say something that, despite my antipathy for the story, two VF-31s have already landed on my shelves and a third is en route.
  24. Seto Kaiba
    Reports from those who've seen it already suggest the film is over 50% recycled footage from the TV series, and I'd expect at least half the non-recycled footage to be new Walkure concerts, so on balance we're looking at maybe 20min of new animation that isn't specifically Walkure singing. I'd guess the Armored Pack is probably dusted off for the final battle only, like when Alto's VF-25F got its Armored Pack for the final push in Macross Frontier's 25th episode and only had it on for like 3 minutes. I do have to admit that, considering the VF-31 itself is made mostly from "off the shelf" parts that were developed for other VFs, having an Armored Pack that is similarly built is hardly indefensible, and arguably just an example of consistent design... even if it is ugly.
  25. Seto Kaiba
    I'd say it's greatest weapon would be that it looks like exactly what it is... a bunch of old animation assets haphazardly jammed together into piece of junkyard vomit. They're clearly hoping that their enemies will mistake it for space junk or become ill looking at something so ungraceful. Weapons-wise, this looks pretty straightforward... entirely because this is like 80% reused models from Macross Frontier. The packs seem to cover the internal ordnance bays and Bifors CIMM-3B micro-missile launchers in the engine nacelles/legs, but the 4 Mauler ROV-127E 12.7mm anti-aircraft beam machine guns and Ramington LM-25s 25mm rapid-fire railguns are still exposed. The new weapons appear to be a kludge of bits taken from the APS-25A/MF25 Armored Pack and TW1 Tornado Pack, the VF-171EX Nightmare Plus, and Destroid Cheyenne II. Specifically, the leg and torso packs appear to be slightly modified versions of the APS-25A's leg packs with the Ramington CIWS micro-missile launchers, same with the upper torso armor. The ordnance container has been replaced with a twin beam cannon that looks like someone put a cooling shroud on the TW1's TW1-HPC/MF25 heavy quantum beam cannon turret. It probably will turn out to be exactly that. The guns on the arms are clearly reuses of the 30mm 6-barrel GE rotary cannons from the Cheyenne II destroid, something borrowed from that unused-in-the-final-film Konig Monster variant which was used in the Macross Frontier: Sayonara no Tsubasa trailer at the end of Macross Frontier: Istuwari no Utahime. The bits on the sides of the booster rocks look like someone took the Sentinel AVM-11R long-range missile container from the Nightmare Plus and just added another chamber to it and painted it white. It looks like there's a pair of micromissile ports inboard of each of those. All in all, it's an ugly, clunky mess that looks like the output of a bored designer being told that he's got to have a new mecha for the movie to make Bandai happy and threw it together in a single night's coffee-fueled binge of jamming existing art assets together regardless of whether they look like they belong.
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