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Seto Kaiba

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  1. Seto Kaiba
    The Sv-262's Lilldraken drones? I can't say I agree... they're physically connected to the airframe of the Draken "mothership", and used like a Ghost Booster until ejected. That'd put them more in the same category as the VF-0's Raid configuration from the final episode of Macross Zero or (most closely) the VF-27γSP Super Lucifer from the Macross Frontier movies. The VF-27γSP had the ability to detach its QF-5100D Goblin II booster for independent operation in the same manner. The VF-2SS Super Valkyrie II's bits are never connected to the airframe... they're launched separately, and aren't capable of being operated autonomously. By in large, they're bits in the Gundam sense except they're computer-controlled instead of controlled by psycommu (so sort of like the GN Fangs in Gundam 00). The VF-4ST Super Siren's funnels in the Macross II prequel video game (for PC Engine) Macross: Eternal Love Song did start out docked to the fighter, but they weren't autonomous either.
  2. Seto Kaiba
    Well, I feel a little better about not being able to make out all of it... Yes, I have... several times, in fact. Other than the apparent hint at an enemy songstress, I didn't really see anything that could be characterized as a distinct nod to Macross II... at least, not in the way Macross 7 Trash, Macross the First, and a handful of other official and fanmade titles have. Did you have something particular in mind?
  3. Seto Kaiba
    To be fair, the Macross Chronicle coverage was separate for all of the Macross movies except Macross Plus's... no doubt because the differences between versions of the story were much less significant than usual. As far as Macross's ongoing continuity catching up to the time period of Macross II and its technology, we've already seen a couple examples of technological convergence... but I'm convinced those convergences are simply coincidental. It's mostly minor stuff like the portable full-body holographics, the pilot seat of VFs incorporating a powered armature intended to help combat g-force strains on the pilot, railguns as gun pods, or VFs that are modeled on Zentradi battle suits. (On that last note, the two timelines went with different suits... Macross II's are modeled on the Nousjadeul-Ger, and the ongoing continuity's on the Queadluun-Rau.) I doubt we will see anything overtly Macross II though... True... but after a while the problems can start to compound, like what seems to happen every few years in the American comic book industry when they reboot titles after sales-boosting crossovers result in continuity lockout and sales start to slip.
  4. Seto Kaiba
    I'm having a hard time making out some of the words, but I see "pod" (ポド) and "takeoff" (発進) in both, so I'm guessing that they're both identifying points where battle pods can be launched from the ship (the hangar in the rear and that black spot up top?). EDIT: As I was just reminded, the official trivia gives this craft three launch bays for battle pods... two centerline and one rear. 's not exactly a new position on his part... he's been using similar statements to justify Macross's broad strokes continuity for something like twenty years now. I think the only thing that's really different now is he's started explicitly including Macross II: Lovers Again in that... though its creators actually gave it its own self-contained continuity. It's not a bad approach, mind, since it gives him a free hand to do whatever he wants with any new Macross title without having to worry about the little details of previous works (he can either change their context of ignore them outright) and thus can handily sidestep potential continuity lockout problems and handwave all the various examples of zeerust that will inevitably occur as time passes.
  5. Seto Kaiba
    Duly noted. Thanks for sourcing that. I don't have that album, I've only ever heard the bit that's in Macross Dynamite 7... Seems like they've decided to roll with their error, though... Macross Chronicle's Worldguide 13A "Various Planets" also notes that it seems possible for humans to mate with Zolans.
  6. Seto Kaiba
    Very true... but not the inconsistency I was pointing out. The inconsistency is that, starting in Frontier, Zentradi and part-Zentradi females have sporadically been depicted with smaller anime elf ears rather than the Spock ears or rounded ears that had been used in every previous title. It's not a uniform change either... it's ONLY on the female Zentradi characters, and only on a few of them (Klan, Pixie Platoon, and Mirage). The others have all kept the Spock ears or rounded ears, even in titles that came out after Frontier (e.g. Chelsea Scarlett, Angers 672, and apparently Reina Prowler).
  7. Seto Kaiba
    The bit about Zolans not being able to procreate with Humans is, IIRC, an assumption made by fans based on an overheard line from a Zolan localization of Romeo and Juliet that is briefly audible in Macross Dynamite 7. It doesn't actually say that "Zomeo" can't get "Zoliet" pregnant, just that she thinks they can't raise a child together because he's human and therefore doesn't have a pouch. (Zolans apparently share some traits with marsupials.)Macross Frontier's Michael Blanc is supposedly part-Zentradi and part-Zolan, so that would tend to cap the argument in favor of "Yes, they can"... though it's worth noting that the design aesthetic WRT the ears as a species trait is inconsistent from Frontier's designs onwards. Prior to Frontier, the aesthetic had been that Zentradi had the pointy "Spock ears", and the Zolans had the full-blown Record of Lodoss War "elf ears". That got muddied somewhat in Frontier and its related titles. Michael Blanc has a mixture of the elf ears and Spock ears, presumably because he's part-Zentradi and part-Zolan. Anri Mahlberg's pure Zolan and has the Lodoss War elf ears. Male Zentradi seem to have kept the Spock ears, but several female Zentradi (Klan) and part-Zentradi (Mirage) seem to have been given more subdued versions of the elf ears, and other part-Zentradi women like Ranka Lee and Chelsea Scarlett have rounded human-like ears.
  8. Seto Kaiba
    I'm looking for multiple copies of those first two... I've already secured copies of that third one (Unified Forces 2) for myself and Mr March.
  9. Seto Kaiba
    Can't seem to find a copy of the first one for love or money... got the second one. What's in the third?
  10. Seto Kaiba
    I have a brief question I wasn't able to find an answer to via searching... Has a release date been announced for a physical media version of the Ikenai Borderline single?
  11. Seto Kaiba
    My best guess is that it's a place name that has a non-standard romanization... many of the escort detail ships in Macross 7 are named for various locations from Earth, like the carriers Maizuru (a city in Kyoto prefecture, Japan), Mamoi (an alternate spelling of Mawei, a district in Fuzhou, China), Brampton (your guess is as good as mine which one), Aberdeen (in Scotland), or the Bolognese frigate group (named for Bologna, Italy). When they're not named for places and terrain features like mountains, bays, etc. they're usually named for modern or historical warships, which are much easier to identify... and these names apparently fit neither that I can find. EDIT: I have two probables for "Makurisu". There are not one but TWO Greek islands that have borne the name Macris/Makris... one is now known as Corfu and is associated with a mythical figure by the same name , the other is now called Icaria. No clues yet for the other one.
  12. Seto Kaiba
    I got nothin'... the closest I get when I search the kana version of Markreis redirects me to "Marx" and "Marcus".
  13. Seto Kaiba
    As far as I am aware, the only way that Zentradi have ever been officially sub-divided based on physical traits is the particular job they were engineered for. Macross Chronicle Worldguide Sheet 10A classifies them in three groups: General Soldier type - the typical Zentradi soldiers Staff Officer type - the administrators, like Exsedol, who manage fleet records and advise commanders Commander type - the leaders, like Vrlitwhai, who are bigger and tougher than the average Zentradi I'd guess that the female Zentradi who are engineered to be superior pilots might be a fourth type or a sub-type of the General Soldier.
  14. Seto Kaiba
    That sounds plausible... Kawamori does like his Aesops to be topical and delivers them with all the grace and subtlety of a half-brick to the skull. I'd originally assumed his Aesop this time was going to be "terrorism/religious extremism is bad", on account of starting the story on a conveniently Middle East-themed planet... maybe the Aerial Knights are going full Mardook on this, and declaring war against the neighboring New UN Government systems because they feel that the extrasolar cultures they're being exposed to are [disrespectful to/incompatible with] their faith in the "Great Wind" (if that's truly a religion and not just a cultural platitude or idiom). ... so far, no signs of anything Egyptian, but I'll admit I'm also a bit odded out by the sudden inclusion of blatant Greek in what, thus far, has been shaping up as "Wagner's Ring Cycle (Space Edition)". It seems like a rather unlucky name to give to a warship too... considering that Elysion/Elysium was part of the Greek underworld/afterlife where slain heroes and the righteous congregated after death. If they were after that theme, I would've expected it to be named Valhalla or Folkvangr for consistency with the other bits of Norse references being tossed around, which are the Norse equivalent of Elysion. (Odin and Freyja split the tally of those who die honorably in battle 50-50, half go to Valhalla and half to Folkvangr, though Freyja seems to be rather equal-opportunity about it... while Odin's hall is more of a men-only club.) (I'm still betting that the Aerial Knights HQ or mothership will be named Tarnhelm though...)
  15. Seto Kaiba
    Unless I've missed something, I don't think that Ragna and Windermere were settled by emigrant fleets while they were already alien civilizations living there... it was, IIRC, actually illegal to do that under galactic law. (Probably nothing preventing people from moving there once they join the New Unification Government's sphere of influence, but they probably don't want people just plopping down emigrant ships on inhabited planets and going "Our world now!") It turns out (courtesy of Ernest Johnson's bio update) that the "Macross Elysium" some folks thought had colonized Ragna is, in fact, a Macross-type battleship named Elysion (マクロス級戦艦エリシオン) attached to the Ragna branch of Chaos, the organization that backs Walkure. The bios were updated on the official website... Chuck's now lists his place of birth as "planet Ragna".
  16. Seto Kaiba
    AFAIK it's legitimate... it's part of a set of concept art done for the series that did the rounds a couple of years back.One of the other pieces of concept art from that same set labels the VF-2SS knockoff there as a placeholder so they could illustrate various aspects of the "Proteus group" starship, which was to be the main ship in Robotech 3000's godawful excuse for a plot. Presumably they never got as far as a finalized design for an original fighter before overwhelmingly negative reactions to the public screenings of the first teaser trailer got the project canceled.
  17. Seto Kaiba
    If his public remarks are anything to go by, Mr. Kawamori's more of a "broad strokes continuity" kind of guy... but it would appear, via Macross Chronicle, that he and Big West at least agree on a rough continuity. Yep... god of time and all that, though it was originally built as a testbed for traversing fold faults and to explore the ruins on Uroboros.
  18. Seto Kaiba
    Honestly I'm fine with either interpretation. It's been a while since I played Macross 30, and the ending is a bit abrupt... but I don't believe they actually say one way or the other (in the game) that the time-displaced protagonists of previous Macross shows remember their trip to 2060. I would assume they do not, since that would otherwise cause a LOT of problems.
  19. Seto Kaiba
    On a lot of fronts, I'd agree with you on that. It's always a problem when an established science fiction setting throws in a plot where it's revealed that you can time travel, often with precision, using technology that's almost ubiquitous. It always raises awkward questions like "What's stopping any nameless schmuck in that universe from time-travelling for fun, profit, or malicious intent?", "Why don't we just go back in time and make crisis Y un-happen like we did with crisis X?", and "We need time police now, don't we?". Star Trek was a repeat offender there, with a dozen different ways to use transporters and warp drives to travel in time prior to the invention of ships and transporters for that exact purpose. I have less of a problem when the time travel is something that's either a fundamental part of the story (e.g. Doctor Who or Terminator), something which can happen by accident but in an unpredictable fashion and with horrific consequences (e.g. Warhammer 40,000, Five Star Stories), or something which can only work via lost technologies that can't be replicated and are usually lost again for good in the course of the story. Macross 30 is in that last category, since SMS Uroboros destroys the Protoculture bio-weapon responsible for the timey-wimey ball and, in so doing, unravel it... sending the displaced people home. It doesn't seem to have had any real implications outside of the extremely isolated world of Uroboros.
  20. Seto Kaiba
    All I can tell you is that, with Macross Chronicle covering it and Macross Delta having a main character mecha that's explicitly a derivative of the one from the game, it does appear that Macross 30: Voices Across the Galaxy is part of the official continuity. Considering the game's time "travel" aspect was the fault of technology the ancient Protoculture left laying around, I don't personally find it that off-putting. Fold space has always been a place where time and space play by different rules than the material universe, and it would honestly be surprising to me if the ancient Protoculture HADN'T messed around with time at some point along the way to becoming "sufficiently advanced" aliens. Particularly in light of the fact that what ended their civilization's golden age was their own technological screw-ups. Compared to some of the other stuff they've done in other Macross features which was less readily identifiable as technological in nature, I have relatively little problem with Macross 30's plot... especially since Macross and realism have always had a slightly strained relationship. Based on all the overt references to Wagner's Ring Cycle apparently worked into Macross Delta, I would expect that more "sufficiently advanced" Protoculture technology is in the offing... as they apparently occupy the role of the gods in the Norse mythical references in Macross 30 and probably Macross Delta as well.
  21. Seto Kaiba
    Ah, the mecha you're thinking of is not a VF-4... nor is it even from Macross. What you're recalling is the Mars Colony AFC-01 Legioss transformable Armo-Fighter from Genesis Climber MOSPEADA, which was adapted to become the so-called "New Generation" of Robotech. The specific model was the AFC-01H Legioss (AKA Eta Legioss) that was used by the show's main character, Mars 21st Battle Company 1st Lt. Stick Bernard.
  22. Seto Kaiba
    I dunno what the hell happened with mine... tracking says it went through customs in frigging Alaska, and yet somehow materialized on my doorstep only about eight hours later... and I'm in MI, about 4/5ths of the way across the continent.
  23. Seto Kaiba
    So... I guess I'm kind of in the minority in that I'm not upset with the Evolution Toys VF-2SS. I'm no toy collector, and I wasn't expecting Arcadia-level perfection from Evolution Toys. I adore the VF-2SS. It's hands-down my favorite Valkyrie in all of Macross, and knowing its design as intimately as I do after years spent chasing every last little bit of concept and production art that's ever seen print I'm actually reasonably satisfied with how the toy turned out. It's a slick design, one I've always compared to a streamlined race car, but the way it transforms in the animation just isn't an easy thing to adapt to a toy... especially the way the pelvic bar folds into a U-shape to bring the legs further inboard for Battroid mode. I won't say Evolution Toys knocked it out of the park, because they didn't, but it's a marked improvement over what we had before from the Bandai snap-fit kit and the final product looks sharp enough in fighter mode that I have no regrets about adding it to my collection. Like my DX's and my Arcadia VF-0S, I will likely never transform it out of fighter mode, so IMO it's all gravy. I fully intend to keep my preorder for the Fairy Platoon version and preorder the Nex Gilbert version when that comes out.
  24. Seto Kaiba
    She calls them "multidrones".
  25. Seto Kaiba
    All signs point to "official continuity" in both cases. (Macross 30 in particular seems to have a very high visibility influence on Macross Delta, as the VF-31 Siegfried used by Delta Platoon is apparently a production version of the YF-30 Chronos developed by SMS Uroboros' Major Aisha Blanchett and named for the callsign of the pilot who used the YF-30 to foil the Havamal plot to use the ancient Protoculture bioweapon to alter history.) Yes, it was. In fact, both had featured articles on the cover of various Macross Chronicle volumes. (VF-9 and VF-14 for Macross M3, YF-30 for Macross 30.) All told, humanity isn't very good at decoding the technology of the Protoculture. The Protodeviln were accidentally released by an ill-conceived experiment to figure out WTF the energy field on the Varauta system's ice planet was doing. Havamal was exploiting the ancient Protoculture ruins on Uroboros, but they'd spent years, potentially decades, sorting it out and dealing with the multitude of defenses the Protoculture left behind to keep meddlers out of their dangerous (rejected) weapon. Humanity had better luck with Zentradi overtechnology, which was deliberately kept simple and robust. I always felt Mylene Beat was stupid for precisely the reason you cite... they try to clone a Protodeviln and it ends exactly as badly as you'd expect, with a giant, uncontrollable monster rampaging around the fleet. The same problem occurred in Macross M3 with the botched bioweapon experiments on New Asia, where the base was quickly overrun by bugs the size of a Monster destroid.
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