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Seto Kaiba

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  1. Seto Kaiba
    Eh... no. Ozma Lee was, according to his Macross Chronicle character sheet, serving in the escort/protection detail for the 117th Research Fleet when things went to pot and the Vajra attacked. He rescued Ranka, but adopted her because he was dogged by feelings of guilt over having failed to save her family too. Macross Chronicle also asserts that he didn't so much leave the military as get kicked out for assaulting a VIP (IIRC, during a debriefing in the novelization) who'd sponsored/backed the fleet. (The novel asserts that Ozma's last assignment in the military was to the NUNS SVF-41 Black Aces, aboard the SDFN-4 Bruno J. Global.) Why are you assuming there were two different rescue teams?
  2. Seto Kaiba
    I don't believe so... it's jpop, so it's very niche.
  3. Seto Kaiba
    Eh... the last edition did a similar thing, to a chorus of "are we done yet?" here on MW.
  4. Seto Kaiba
    You have my axe.
  5. Seto Kaiba
    I dunno, man... people didn't seem to have much difficulty accepting the sudden step WAY backwards to the VF-0 and its regular turbine engines in Macross Zero, despite the fact that the previous Macross title had been Macross Dynamite 7. Likewise, I have yet to encounter anyone who's seriously put off by the step way backwards Gundam is doing with Gundam the Origin or Macross did with Macross the First. Or, for that matter, the 20+ year backwards step Macross M3 made to the days before the VF-11 was even completed... Actually, the one that was about air racing was Macross the Ride, a serialized novel in Dengeki Hobby magazine. Macross 30 is set on the colony world of Ouroboros, a former Protoculture world, where a SMS pilot named Leon Sakaki is stranded when he's shot down by a rogue New UN Forces Independent Special Command unit that's trying to use a Protoculture bio-mecha (an 8th Ehvil series unit) and the planet's unique characteristics to alter history. Macross 30 was a PS3 game, and every level but the opening "supposed-to-lose" fight is set planetside and features VFs from across 50 years of timeline (from the VF-0 to the YF-30.)
  6. Seto Kaiba
    Yeah, that came to light relatively recently with their latest bout of legal threats... though they can renew that license, so I'd not make any long-term plans for partying. I do. I read every translation you post.
  7. Seto Kaiba
    Read it again, friend... I said that the Protodeviln in the series are Protoculture-created bio-tech mecha inhabited by energy beings from another dimension. That's not a false statement. As we see them in the series, that's what they are. A Protoculture-designed body with an extradimensional "soul". In my experience, it's not been a good idea... it makes the reused animation and limited musical variety of the show's first half all the more obvious. It's a big part of what put me off the series the first time I tried to watch it. The subtitle quality was kind of awful too, but now that my Japanese is decent enough that there aren't many moments where I need subs, and I'm watching the remastered release on legit media, it's not bad in small doses. Marathoning Macross 7 is definitely a bad idea if it's already not the type of show you were expecting (an issue exacerbated by Macross Plus), and especially so if it's your first time watching it. Not gonna happen... unless Harmony Gold goes under, or does something to get themselves sued into oblivion. Their license doesn't expire until 2022.
  8. Seto Kaiba
    Compilation movies are clip shows intended for consumption by people who are already fans of the series, and therefore wouldn't need to do said googling.
  9. Seto Kaiba
    Considering attitudes towards women at the time, I'd question calling Uhura "strong"... most of the time she's depicted as little more than a secretary. Claudia, as the Macross's chief weapons officer and its navigator, definitely fits the bill. Other than the fact that they're both black women on the bridge, the two have nothing in common. Which is completely at odds with her depiction in the series... but that's fine, since Robotech never let a little thing like accuracy to the series stop them from posting random gibberish on their website.
  10. Seto Kaiba
    As a general rule, don't start newbies on the movie version of anything... the movie is for people who are already fans. You'd run into similar problems if you showed someone who's never seen Escaflowne the Escaflowne movie, or someone who's never seen Zeta Gundam the Zeta Gundam movies. You'll get the same kind of abject confusion if you show DYRL to someone who's never seen the original series. IMO, the movies did fix a few issues with the series in that they gave Ranka a better run at the love triangle... the series version always felt a little lopsided, with her not getting nearly as much attention or interest as Sheryl. That, I think, is one of the chief problems with western fans and Macross 7. Because of that soul-crushing, mind-numbing reuse of footage, the repetitious music, and the slow start, you absolutely CANNOT marathon the show without feeling like you're being punished for some imagined sin. It's a show you have to watch here and there in small pieces, and because so many fans have had to resort to fansubs, they succumb to the temptation to marathon it... which is the worst possible thing to do with a series like that.
  11. Seto Kaiba
    Er... would now be a bad time to point out that I said pretty much exactly that. However, because they can't actually separate themselves from those bodies, they are effectively flesh-and-blood beings.
  12. Seto Kaiba
    The build-up to the series climactic battle is very abrupt... in the opinion of many viewers, including many who are very fond of Macross Frontier (myself included). What are you talking about? There are no demons in Macross. The Protodeviln are bio-technological weapons developed by the Protoculture that were accidentally inhabited by extradimensional energy beings. She's as much a corporeal being of flesh as the idiot she obsesses over and the other idiot who obsesses over her. If Macross 30 is any fair indication, the same sort of bio-tech weapons were probably the forerunners of the Birdhuman-type mecha seen in Macross Zero.
  13. Seto Kaiba
    Uh... Claudia doesn't really resemble Uhura in any way, except that they're both black women. The Star Trek references, however, are very real. They're mostly text on displays around the Macross's bridge, which include things like a cast list for the original Star Trek series, or screens from an old text-based Star Trek computer game. There's some reciprocity there... there are a few Macross references in Star Trek, including the use of some parts from Macross model kits in various Star Trek props and studio models, including the Constellation-class starships from TNG and the piece of shrapnel that kills Captain Garrett in "Yesterday's Enterprise".
  14. Seto Kaiba
    Er... you sure you watched the show? The original Super Dimension Fortress Macross series (and its sequels) are about love stories set against the backdrop of interstellar war. Even Kawamori says so. Yes, we see humanity dodges the extinction bullet and they off a couple supporting characters to drive home that war is serious business, but those are small pieces of the whole story, which cares more for the trials and tribulations of the heart as an indecisive teenage boy tries to decide which of the two girls in his life he really loves. The war is a backdrop for the love story, not vice versa. It seems that you may have completely missed the point of Macross as a whole. At the end of the day, almost the entire main cast is alive and well. Love conquers all, even Kamjin finds it before the end. The human race took one for the team, but at the end there's the promise of a brighter future as humanity moves out into the galaxy with the help of their new Zentradi allies. The warlike Zentradi learn the value of peace and discover a new life. You don't get a downer ending in Macross... unless you're watching Sayonara no Tsubasa. The hero gets the girl, love conquers all, peace is restored, and the world moves on a little wiser for having acknowledged the mistakes that led to hostility. How is Macross 7 different? It's simply the most lighthearted and exuberant series in a metaseries that specializes in being far "lighter and softer" than Gundam. It takes the themes of music and emotion as a vehicle for communication to some comically exaggerated lengths. Macross has never been, and hopefully will never be, a dark, gritty, and realistic series. EDIT: Well, I suppose in Macross 7 the hero doesn't get the girl... because he's an asexual twit who's more into his guitar than any flesh and blood person. But hey, he still lives his dream in the end. Er... Macross 7 wasn't the "least successful" title in the Macross metaseries. It's not as well-regarded in America as it was in its native Japan, but Macross 7 did better than Macross II and Macross Plus. Until Macross Frontier, no Macross title had given rise to as much material as Macross 7. The Macross 7 series may have ended in 1995, but we were still getting new Macross 7 story material well into 2001! It's also hardly the "dead past", considering that Basara and Fire Bomber were practically as big as Minmay... a fact referenced both in Macross Frontier's series and movies. It had a lasting influence in-universe, both musically and technologically. Even Macross 30 isn't shy about pointing out Fire Bomber had a lasting musical impact akin to Minmay's, one that even huge megastars like Sheryl respect.
  15. Seto Kaiba
    Mentioned him a bit ago... he falls into that rare category where his ancestry is mentioned onscreen because part of his is alien (he's listed as Human-Zentradi). Grace is a freaking cyborg, she can look however she wants to look. IIRC, at one point doesn't she reveal the ability to turn her body into a man's in the Macross Frontier series?
  16. Seto Kaiba
    None that's really leaping to mind... apart from, as noted previously, the Japanese text used in Macross Frontier. Japan has made something of a habit of teaching English as a second language... and considering she spent a fair amount of time living on South Ataria Island, where English would probably have been the default language due to the working population being UN Forces and OTEC personnel from all over the globe, she probably had a LOT of opportunity to practice. (Also, wasn't her letter from a bland name version of Orion Records, which was based in North America?)
  17. Seto Kaiba
    Actually, the Japanese text in Frontier was kind of a first. Until then, practically all of the actual text in the series was presented in English... which makes a pretty strong argument for English being the default language of the UN Government. All the computer readouts and so on have been in English, and there were those blatant bits of English at the start of DYRL and Frontier too. All in all, there are a few noteworthy exceptions. Fire Bomber must actually be singing in Japanese, since they're known to have an unauthorized English language cover band. There's the apparently trilingual Macross Frontier fleet too, where we see most text in English but some areas (train stations, cell phones) also display written Japanese, sometimes in rotation with the English, and then there's all the Zentradi text around the mall. Come to think of it, Gamlin's a hard one to classify... a man of ambiguous complexion and impossible hair, with a Japanese surname and a hometown on freaking Mars.
  18. Seto Kaiba
    Her biographical information, which says her lineage is "Chinese-Caucasian". Isamu is listed as being Japanese-Caucasian, and Guld as Human-Zentradi.
  19. Seto Kaiba
    Yeah, there's that factor too... I don't think it's just the usual anime habit of not differentiating between races at work here, there's certainly no shortage of mixed-race or mixed-species relationships in Macross. You've got Bruno and Miho Global, Misa Hayase and Riber Fruhling, Roy Focker and Claudia LaSalle, Max and Milia Jenius, Shin Kudo and Sara Nome, technically also Minmay and either of her love interests, the three bridge bunnies and the lolicon trio... and that's from a limited cast before they'd even finished the first space war. EDIT: Also, didn't Vanessa also marry Roli after the war? Seems to me like humanity was doing an OK job of getting past defining an individual by where their ancestors were from even before the Zentradi made the point moot in the most direct fashion imaginable. Macross II: Lovers Again kind of hammered this home with the implication of Mash's comments about Ishtar, and the other bits from official publications that indicate that non-hybrid Zentradi or Meltrandi living on Earth are something of a rarity. Then you have Macross Plus, in which all three main characters are of mixed heritage... but the only one that's ever commented on was Guld being half-Zentradi.
  20. Seto Kaiba
    Eh... I think you're being too charitable here. The people who want "something more gritty and realistic" are the ones whose rose tinted memories of older shows are playing them false, because Macross has never been either of those things. Seriously. Even at its darkest, like the orbital bombardment of Earth or Guld's graphic death dogfighting the Ghost X-9, Macross has always kept its trademark lightness of tone and optimistic outlook. It really says something that the Macross Frontier movies have one of the darkest endings in Macross... since Sheryl's dying and Alto's vanished and all that. We usually end on a higher note... love triumphs, peace prevails, the hero gets the girl and (almost) everybody goes home in one piece. This is a franchise that's made teaching aliens about love and peace through the power of song into its signature move. That is neither gritty nor realistic... but it is kinda kickass. If you want dark, gritty, and realistic... you can always go to the beach and bury your head in the sand. Or you could give the Gundam franchise's Universal Century timeline a look. Either way, Macross is the wrong place to look if that's what you're after, and I like it that way.
  21. Seto Kaiba
    Not sure why... ethnic background pretty much ceases to have any relevance after the first space war, on account of the eradication of national boundaries via the eradication of nations. Most Macross titles after the original don't list the ethnic background of their characters, because those national boundaries have ceased to matter and what little remains of their cultures has started to blur together. (Like Mylene, who inexplicably wears a kimono to a marriage meeting, but whose father is Western European and whose mother is not of this Earth...) There are a few isolated cases where ancestry is specifically mentioned in someone's background info, but that's not very common after the original series and DYRL. The default language in Macross's UN Government appears to be English, with a couple examples of spoken or written Japanese here or there. The Linn family is actually part Chinese and part Chinese-Japanese. Minmay's side of the family is Chinese-Japanese, while her aunt and uncle's side is listed as Chinese. The Anti-UN Alliance pilots in Macross Zero don't have a listed background... they could be from some former Soviet Republic or they could just as easily be fifth-generation Americans with Russian surnames. All that's said for Roy Focker is that he was born in North America, the same is true for Claudia. The Macross's bridge bunnies, Vanessa, Kim, and Shammy, were French, Russian, and Finnish respectively. Global was Italian, his wife was probably Japanese (with a name like Miho...). Apart from Lam Hoa (Indian) and Alto (Japanese?), Macross Frontier's cast only seems to really mention its ancestry when the person involved is part alien. Ranka never gets more specific than "1/4 Zentradi", Michael Blanc is Human, Zentradi, and Zolan but answers to the German and French pronunciations of "Michael" just to mess with us, etc. The Compendium lists Jan Neumann as Yang Neumann for reasons unclear (mistranslation?) and lists him as being ethnically Chinese and German, though at a glance I can't find where that supposedly came from and his Macross Chronicle sheet lists his birthplace as "Under Investigation" (meaning not stated).
  22. Seto Kaiba
    There's a section on that in Variable Fighter Master File: VF-1 Valkyrie. I'll lend you a hand by Skype in a bit.
  23. Seto Kaiba
    Eh? The VF-27 doesn't have a long-range sniper weapon... its beam gun pod is a rapid-fire weapon, and the "beam grenade" mode isn't exactly precise or subtle. Functionality-wise, it's not any different from the beam gun pods carried by the YF-29 and YF-30. I know Macross 30 substituted a beam sniper sort of affair for beam grenade mode so the gun's functionality would fit the game, but I don't think that's actually a thing... Once... once, in all the footage for the VF-11, do we see a gunpod jam. 's probably not something which any of the fighters the OP is concerned about need to worry about, since they're not firing bullets.
  24. Seto Kaiba
    Well, I already commented on the VF-5000's... the regular one from Macross M3 is probably part of the GU sequence, it doesn't look like it's a GU-11 variant though. Too small. The VF-14 as seen in Macross M3 was using the same gunpod as the VF-11A/B, the other one that's 35mm was probably a MC gunpod instead of GU.
  25. Seto Kaiba
    As far as I'm aware, the -C variant's gun pod is the same model as the -B variant, just after a cost-cutting session put the kibosh on the bayonet and so on.
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