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Seto Kaiba

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  1. Seto Kaiba
    Big West was adding official English subs to select Macross releases well before that point. IIRC, they started with one of the Macross Frontier re-release box sets before making that standard practice from the Macross Delta TV series Blu-rays onward. It is nice that they didn't walk that strategy back after the distribution agreement though, so we can still import legitimate copies of the titles that weren't licensed with English subs.
  2. Seto Kaiba
    Probably not. After all, the reason NERV built Tokyo-3 and its defenses the way that they did was because of the inherent limitations of the EVA units. Their not-actually-a-giant robot didn't have a usable internal power source and was dependent on a network of extension cords connected to high-voltage generators in the geofront under the city proper. Without the power supplied by external generators over the umbilical cable, an EVA unit's maximum operating time on its internal backup batteries was less than five minutes. Like a gaming laptop, the EVAs had just enough juice to get them to the next wall socket and no more. Even something as simple as leaving city limits under its own power was out of the question, so NERV designed their defenses around fighting inside city limits. They designed much of Tokyo-3 to drop into the geofront in the event of an attack and build a ton of buildings in town that were actually weapons silos and spools of charging cable connected to the geofront and its rail system. It wasn't until EVA-01 went absolutely apesh*t and ate the 14th Angel that it acquired a working S2 organ and thus a working internal power source able to sustain it indefinitely and free it from the neverending search for a free plug socket. None of the mecha in Macross have such a limitation... even if their range left something to be desired, the earliest Variable Fighters and Destroids that used gas turbine engines for power instead of compact thermonuclear reactors carried enough fuel to operate for at least several hours. Once compact thermonuclear reactors were in play, that became days or weeks between refuelings (planetside). They could roam freely, so there's no reason to potentially endanger a city or town by waiting until enemy forces reach it to fight them. They can attack enemy forces hundreds or thousands of kilometers from any conurbation and destroy them with massed firepower (because they don't have to deal with bullsh*t like AT fields) well before civilians are in actual danger. That kind of eliminates the need for weapons caches within city limits, unless the military base those Valkyries and/or Destroids are coming from is in town and then it's less a cache and more just the base's armory. WRT the Spartan, its hands aren't really made for using firearms. It has that electrified truncheon it can use in Zentradi riot control duty, but in practice it's not meant to carry any weapons in its hands. It's meant to throw hands. The manipulators are a reinforced type meant for punching and tearing as much as gripping and are said to be its main weapon. Not that I'm aware, no. The closest you get is a military base in, or directly adjacent to, a city like the Zentradi Marine Corps base on Al Shahal or the Aerial Knights being barracked in a hangar attached to Darwent Castle in Macross Delta. Macross Frontier did imply that there are some Destroids parked inside of Island-1 as last-ditch air defense, but that's for when things have gone TRULY pear-shaped like having to roll out the tanks to fight inside the domes.
  3. Seto Kaiba
    HG's a privately owned company, so the Agramas would have to be willing to sell... ... and it's unlikely they'd be willing to, for fear that Disney's attorneys and accountants would find things the Agramas would rather remain unfound while examining the company's books.
  4. Seto Kaiba
    True... 31 December at 23:59:59 is still technically "this year". I will laugh long and hard if that's the case, because I rules lawyer deadlines that way at work all the time.
  5. Seto Kaiba
    Wistoria: Wand and Sword has finally managed to have an entertaining episode... what a pity it's basically unrelated to the actual plot. Apparently what this painfully half-arsed "Harry Potter if Harry were a muggle with super-strength" fantasy series needed to inject some entertainment value into the proceedings was... [checks notes]... It really is a shame that they pivot away from that amusing little fight to more of the incredibly lackluster protagonist Will and his dealings with the school's top students (despite being basically the lowest ranked student). (That "Harry Potter if Harry were a muggle with super-strength" seems to be an emergent genre of low-effort fantasy anime is distressing in and of itself. It was funny when Mashle did it but that kind of thing is only really funny once.)
  6. Seto Kaiba
    Impressive work... easily the most faithful rendition of the Logan I've ever seen. It looks more like a proper toy/model prototype than some professional efforts I've seen from the official licensees. Maybe you should be sending Toynami or the others your CV? You've probably shown more love for the Logan than the people who actually designed it at this point.
  7. Seto Kaiba
    Just ordered mine. It is going to be sooooooo nice having a legit English subbed release of this movie instead of having to mess around with a media server to add a separate subtitle file to it.
  8. Seto Kaiba
    They're really dragging this release process out. 🤣 I'm glad that the Japanese releases are getting official English subs still, because at this rate it'll be 2025 before the biggest anime market in the west gets anything.
  9. Seto Kaiba
    Against a Zentradi on foot... well, pretty much any Valkyrie's gunpod is going to be heinous levels of overkill. Valkyrie gunpods are high-powered cannons meant for use against armored fighting vehicles like Zentradi battle pods and battle suits or enemy Valkyries. Using one on a Zentradi soldier on foot is essentially using a high-powered anti-materiel rifle against infantry. It's way WAY more stopping power than you actually need to do the job and it's going to make quite a mess. The bullets they fire are generally high-caliber armor piercing explosive rounds with extremely high muzzle velocities. As we saw with the first Zentradi soldier which Hikaru encountered in the original Macross series, the VF-1's GU-11A 55mm gunpod was so powerful the Zentradi's armored pilot suit offered no protection at all. Many of the later models are at least as deadly as the GU-11, and quite a few are explicitly much more so. Pretty much any VF-mounted weapon is overkill against Zentradi infantry because they're all designed for destroying armored fighting vehicles rather than engaging soft targets. The Valkyrie's coaxial laser cannons would probably be the best weapon for the job. They're less powerful than the gunpod, they can't jam or run out of ammunition, they don't require reloading, the available fire arc is much larger than the gunpod's, and they can easily target multiple fast-moving objects because the Valkyrie's head can turn quickly and the shot moves at lightspeed.
  10. Seto Kaiba
    Oh I'm sure they've known about VPN usage for ages, and while they are focusing on their various efforts to crack down on the password sharing in order to put off acknowledging that infinite growth is not possible for a little while longer, they're definitely also starting to quietly crack down on the now widely advertised use of VPN clients to circumvent the service's region specific blocks on content. That's what we're seeing here with people who are trying to access Macross content on Disney+ using VPN from countries where it's not supposed to be available yet.
  11. Seto Kaiba
    Nice to know they're being consistent with the last couple Terminator features... that's basically the explanation the franchise has been rolling with since Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines.
  12. Seto Kaiba
    Watched episodes seven and eight of Code Geass: Roze of the Recapture... and I'm wondering how someone got this show green-light for production in this state. It's a mess. It's not a little mess either. I was unsurprised to see the series director, Ohashi Yoshimitsu, is normally a storyboard artist and illustrator rather than being involved in any kind of production lead role. The writer, Kimura Noboru, is responsible for some of Bandai Namco's worst mecha titles including Gundam AGE... and it shows. This is a story filled with exploitative fanservice, lazy plot twists, and unlikeable axe crazy characters whose actions don't seem to be connected to any actual outcomes in the plot. It's not the worst recent mecha title I've seen - that dubious honor still belongs to Tatsunoko Production's 2019 series The Price of Smiles - but it's definitely the worst thing that's come out under the Code Geass name and rivals some of the worst installments of Gundam.
  13. Seto Kaiba
    Wistoria: Wand and Sword is hitting levels of padded that rival Dragon Ball Z at its worst. Yet it manages to be more infuriating because there aren't a bunch of bystanders filling airtime reacting to every little thing, it's just the protagonist who seems to need to stop for five to ten minutes EVERY TIME he's attacked to gasp, panic, and wonder aloud about the magic he's being attacked with. If you cut out the padding, the fights in this series could be over in ten to fifteen seconds. Honestly, considering the protagonist's gimmick is being superhumanly strong, this is basically just "Mashle but worse in every way".
  14. Seto Kaiba
    Remembered that Code Geass: Roze of the Recapture exists, and decided to watch another few episodes. I am, if anything, still impressed at Bandai Namco's commitment to having zero original ideas. Might as well just call this Mobile Code Zeta Geass and have done with it... except it's nowhere near as good as Zeta Gundam. The plot is, to the last, just a retread of the original show's with some proper nouns changed.
  15. Seto Kaiba
    It was inevitable that the streaming services would get wise to the trick, since half of the VPN apps out there these days advertise themselves as being useful for circumventing region-based blocks on content.
  16. Seto Kaiba
    Honestly, that's just how modern horror writing is. It's become a bit lazy, with the attitude that the audience is only really going to care about the obvious final guy/girl and so they don't have to bother properly developing any of the monster bait. As to why the cast is so small, that's at least justified in the story itself. That's definitely a question that bears answering by the director... why didn't they just make a film adaptation of Isolation, which would've been MUCH better. It's probably for the best that we never get that... Prometheus and Alien: Covenant had most of the same problems as Romulus (vis a vis the Too Dumb To Live cast), but in much less justifiable ways and the whole attempt to retcon David into being the creator of the xenomorphs was a terrible idea that never worked because of the timeline involved. It just left me bored, but compared to some of the awful writing in past installments I'd still put it above Prometheus, Covenant, Resurrection and the AVPs at the very least... and possibly above Alien 3.
  17. Seto Kaiba
    Eh... I'd disagree with calling it total crap. It's visually a very impressive film barring one or two effects failures, but as you pointed out it's basically flying on fanservice and generic horror tropes. Not an entirely surprising outcome, given that Fede Alvarez is a huge Alien fan and particularly a fan of Isolation. He seems to have gotten carried away trying to create some kind of Grand Unifying Theory of Alien and forgotten he's meant to be telling a story. Under the vintage Alien veneer, Alien: Romulus is a pretty blatantly by-the-numbers monster horror movie that doesn't really have anything in terms of surprises. It's enjoyable enough if you just want a summer popcorn flick, but any horror aficionado or Alien fan is going to find it incredibly predictable to the extent that it can barely startle never mind scare because even the jumpscares are telegraphed with a wink-wink-nudge-nudge-rememeber-this-from-a-previous-movie sort of setup. The characters just behave like standard-issue Horror Movie Dumb Teenagers™️, which makes it pretty hard to like them when they seem to be doing their utmost to ensure they become monster chow. I keep hoping, but I can definitely understand the disappointment. This could've been a lot better if Alvarez could've reined in his fanboy tendencies.
  18. Seto Kaiba
    That's actually really impressive. I was considering 3D printing one, but if results like that can be got just by modifying the NERF one...
  19. Seto Kaiba
    A fair amount of the audience was eating the eye candy too, so at least Darth Plagueis the Wise is in good company there. Or does this make him Darth Plagueis the Thirsty?
  20. Seto Kaiba
    Dungeon Meshi really is just a great show. My watch group has decided to go backwards a bit for two older shows. Tonight we're starting Super Dimension Century Orguss and Phantasy Star Online 2: Episode Oracle, the latter being a loose adaptation of the first three episodes of the single player story from the Japanese MMORPG Phantasy Star Online 2. A lot of shounen stuff is ending soon or has just ended... My Hero Academia finally reached its conclusion, and its fans seem to be pretty pissed. I guess the ending was not a very satisfying one, considering how many bitter remarks are saying Deku's quirk should've been called "All For Nothing". The Jujutsu Kaisen fans seem to be pretty up in arms too, not happy with the mangaka killing off so many characters in such quick succession.
  21. Seto Kaiba
    That's being antagonistic, which is not the same as being an antagonist. One is a synonym for being a jerk, one refers to a specific role in a story. She left so little of an impression I keep forgetting she exists. OK, so everyone's a sh*thead except for that one child soldier who was there to show that Sol is an even bigger hypocrite than the other Jedi.
  22. Seto Kaiba
    Osha and Sol are the protagonists of The Acolyte... they're the ones who the story follows and they're the ones whose actions drive the plot both in the backstory and the present day events. Just because Sol is a bad person doesn't make him an antagonist. That, and his regret about it, technically make him more of a Byronic Hero given his disdain for the Jedi's rigid code, his tragic past, and his passionate belief in his own righteousness that sets off the show's conflict in the past. Mae and Qimir spend most of the series offscreen, they only really appear when they're interacting with the protagonists, and are defined pretty much entirely by their opposition to Osha and Sol. They are the antagonists. The line does blur a bit right at the end, but only because Osha changes sides right before the end. Had there been a season two and had Osha remained the show's focus character in it, Qimir would have been considered a protagonist then as her companion.
  23. Seto Kaiba
    "Protagonist" and "Antagonist" doesn't actually imply a moral alignment... they're not "Good guy" and "Bad guy", even if they are frequently used that way. By definition, a "protagonist" is just one of the principal characters whose actions drive the events of the story in a work of fiction. An "antagonist", by definition, is just a character (or concept) that plays an adversarial role to the protagonist in the story. Osha and Sol are the protagonists in the story, because they are the focus characters of the story and their actions are what drives the progress of the narrative. Qimir and Mae are the story's antagonists, because they are not the story's main focus and are acting in opposition to the protagonists. Moral alignment-wise... well... in terms of good guys, we have no good guys. Everyone left standing at the end of The Acolyte is either an unrepentant murderer or a corrupt Jedi looking to prevent the Jedi Order from being held accountable for the criminal actions of its members. The dead aren't much better. All four dead Jedi are co-conspirators in the coverup of a mass casualty event directly instigated by the Jedi, with Sol and Torbin both having directly instigated the violence and Indara having ordered the coverup. The witches aren't much better off, being an outlawed Cult of Evil living in exile who've used some kind of Dangerous Forbidden Technique to create a child and then split it into two children (or considering their behavior when grown, two halves of a whole idiot) and couldn't resist trying to antagonize the Jedi for no real reason. Everyone in the story is a sh*thead, so it's hard to care about anybody.
  24. Seto Kaiba
    I know they'd already announced there were going to be one-shot comics about the backstories of some of the characters... but IIRC the only one they've actually published is the first one, for Kelnacca. I'd assume anything that hasn't already gone to the printers WRT The Acolyte is probably gonna be cancelled in light of the show's abysmal performance and cancellation. They're supposedly only part of a larger project anyway, so they can probably drop them without any real problem.
  25. Seto Kaiba
    Each major studio and network that decided to launch their own proprietary streaming service has been frantically searching for a "killer app"-type show that can be the main draw for their streaming service. That quiet desperation for a hit series to carry their platform has let a lot of studios and networks to greenlight series concepts that were not ready for primetime... and then cancel them just as quickly when they underperform for cost reasons. Streaming originals competing with each other on visual quality first and foremost has driven production costs through the roof. When a single season of a streaming original can have a budget rivaling that of a major motion picture, new shows going direct-to-streaming have to hit their stride immediately or risk cancellation. There's no more forgiveness for bad first seasons... unless you're Paramount, then you just set hundreds of millions of dollars on fire for no reason other than refusing to admit you were wrong. The Acolyte cost $180 million. That's 50% more than what was spent on The Mandalorian and very close to what was spent to produce Dune: Part Two ($190M). With its garbage viewereship numbers and overwhelmingly poor audience reviews, Disney would've had to be stark raving mad to renew it for another season. As it stands, it's one one of the most expensive direct-to-streaming flops of all time alongside fellow Disney+ one-season wonder She-Hulk.
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