Seto Kaiba

I didn't say it had to be from the last decade, now did I? ;-) The only one on that list I haven't really dug into yet is Rideback... mostly because the mechanical designs didn't really appeal. I didn't care for RahXephon either, but Full Metal Panic! The Second Raid was a little bit of terrific. So much so that it's one of the few shows I've gleefully shelled out for individual volumes instead of waiting for the box set. (I'm actually the one responsible for getting Robelwell202 into Full Metal Panic! too) If you've got some older stuff you wanna recommend, feel free. I'm certainly open to it. Had a grand time with L-Gaim, even tho it was kind of a mindf*ck having seen/read Five Star Stories first and essentially knowing how it was all going to end because Nagano reused that bit as a story arc in FSS. I've heard good things about Birdy the Mighty: Decode, so I'll probably dig into that next. Thanks. ^^ (I'm also sorely tempted to finally get off my ass and finish the last Gundam show I've never seen... ∀ Gundam)

It's certainly possible... of course, what we've seen with regard to transit times over known distances and Zola's supposed location near the galactic rim, it would've taken Gamlin quite a few fold jumps to get there with his fold booster... possibly as many as 1,250 20 light year fold jumps. If memory serves, it's been established that the 11.7ly fold jump from Eden to Earth takes something to the tune of 18-24 hours (the precise figure escapes me), which would mean that even if the distances involved were conservative he'd still be looking at about two and a half years of continuous fold travel. Even if he had the non-canon VF-19ES Mystery Ship II and the Project Phaeton fold booster (model kit customizations done for the June '02 issue of Model Graphix), which set the galaxy speed record over c by traveling from the New Edwards AFB on Eden to Edwards AF on Earth in 118 minutes, he'd still be looking at over three months in the cockpit to get from the area around the galactic core to the galactic rim. EDIT: After looking at the calendar, at the VF-19ES Mystery Ship II's speed it would actually be containable for Gamlin to fold all the way from the core to the rim where Zola is supposedly located, assuming that Mylene starts her solo act no later than mid-April. Shame Project Phaeton isn't canon, eh? EDIT #2: Assuming the 1:240 time displacement effect is consistent for that jump, Gamlin would only be in the cockpit for about 9 hours of experienced time, though he'd lose three-and-a-quarter months of objective time.

Granted, the FBF-1000A fold booster is not rated for distances greater than 20 light years. It is, however, worth noting that "rated/certified for" isn't necessarily the same thing as "limited to", and they do mention that strides had been made in improving the accuracy and overall reliability of fold boosters by the end of the 2040s. Having taken great pains to not re-watch Macross Dynamite 7, I can only operate under the (potentially flawed) assumption that RedWolf's recollection of the dialogue is accurate. If so, then this would seem to me to be nothing more than an inconsistency in the depiction of fold travel between two different generations of Macross sequel. After all, this "fold fault" malarkey was something new that was introduced in Macross Frontier, so naturally Macross Dynamite 7's writers wouldn't have factored that into their story, if they even stopped to consider all the distances involved. There is, of course, no denying that the Macross 7 fleet was in or near the galactic core, since the dialogue is quite unambiguous about Rax/Lux and Varauta 3198XE both being in/near the core. It was 10... though wasn't it that the most distant colonies (or colony fleets) would take ten years of travel to get back to Earth? If anyone wants to dig out the Otona Anime interview thread, we can double-check that. Yep, 10 years to actually travel back to Earth via fold from the colony fleets.

Some, not all... I'm pretty hit-and-miss when it comes to stuff that's only recently come out. Prior to that I was on a bit of a retro kick, catching up on old stuff I hadn't seen yet (Heavy Metal L-Gaim). My tastes are pretty broad, but I avidly dislike fanservice for fanservice's sake (like Queen's Blade, Strike Witches), and I'm not too fond of shows where the protagonist does an excessive amount of whining (e.g. Neon Genesis Evangelion, Eureka Seven). I don't really thrill to excessive moe (K-On) either. Other than that, I'll try pretty much anything. Been on kind of a comedy kick of late, what with Seitokai no Ichizon, Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou, and my buddy Talos urging me to start watching Seitokai Yakuindomo, so some more serious robot-y goodness wouldn't hurt my feelings any.

You... if your avatar is anything to go by.

Okay, now that's a question I don't have an answer for... if you are, as your profile says, in Hong Kong then I'm kind of at a loss for what to do about getting a copy. To be honest, I don't even know if the movies have a legit region-3 release. The three Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam: A New Translation movies were only released in the states back in June, so I don't know if they've been released out in your neck of the woods. You could try looking for a fansub if you're the impatient type, I know there are a few out there. Check your local video store in a pinch, I guess... With respect to the actual topic of the thread, I've been taking a break from mecha with some comedy. Finished watching Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou a while ago. Not a bad show, though not something that will stand out in the crowd as far as harem comedies go. I'm open to any suggestions for other shows to pursue if anyone feels like putting an idea forth.

It says where it came from right in the video description... the first Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam: A New Translation compilation movie.

Well, yeah... but let's remember that both you and the regulars on your site are highly atypical for Robotech fans. After all, not only do you all tend to take a rather dim view of the direction Tommy Yune is steering Robotech in, your assessment of the franchise as a whole tends to be considerably more realistic than that of the average Robotech fan. Hell, that you don't go berserk when someone criticizes Robotech and that you can come here and have a discussion of the franchise's merits and shortcomings is enough to mark you out as exceptional among what remains of the Robotech fandom. Just given what I've found from that period and the years shortly thereafter, it looks to me like many Robotech fans weren't that fond of the whole Robotech II: the Sentinels concept even back in the late 80's and early 90's. I would guess that a good part of the reason Jason and John Waltrip's Robotech II: the Sentinels comic books lasted as long as they did wasn't because fans were crazy about the story, but rather because they were the only comic series that even pretended to have a direct relation to the goings-on in the animated Robotech universe. True, with hindsight opinions of it tend to be even less salutary, given the massive camp factor attached to most of the contents. Now that Tommy's basically disowned the produced Robotech II: the Sentinels from the continuity (but not necessarily the events they depict), I don't think opinions of the series will ever improve. Not so much in the animation they actually produced for Robotech II: the Sentinels... a lot of the stuff in the comics was drawn from the old Robotech II novelizations, though hopefully not the scaling problems with regard to the Invid Regent and all...

'kay... this post horrified me on more levels than I can readily list. All I can say is that it's unfortunate that Carl never got the chance to see his vision for Robotech II: the Sentinels and Robotech: the Untold Story all the way through. If the completed Sentinels went over as well as Untold Story supposedly did with its test audience in Houston, Robotech probably wouldn't have been around to be an embuggerance to Macross licensing outside Japan in the early 00's. Huh... I wonder if the Robotech fanbase will ever notice how schizophrenic their attitude towards Carl Macek and his work is? If you ask them about his work on the Robotech TV series, they laud him as a visionary and heap all kinds of undeserved accolades on his head. But if you try to talk about his various attempts to expand the story of Robotech, then they usually respond with something to the effect of "it's a horrid turd and we usually pretend it never happened". If the man's the beloved creative director that so many of the "old guard" consider superior to Tommy in every way, why the hell do they hate every attempt the man made to do something even remotely original? Hell, there's a topic for someone's graduate thesis in abnormal psychology right there... Eh... the novels are still reasonably well remembered, despite being richly despised... and they went out of their way to make damn sure to that it was clear she WASN'T Aurora or a replacement for same. Okayyyyyyyy... that's just a wee bit disturbing to think about.

Y'know... seeing as the Macross Saga establishes that one of protoculture's many uses is in computer circuitry, it wouldn't be a stretch to say such has already come to pass in the form of racktastic android girl Janice Em.

Eh... either way, I think anything that severs ties with all the pants-on-head retarded stuff in the Robotech novels can be called a step in the right direction. Sure, Maia Sterling was nothing more than an unnecessarily curvaceous cardboard cutout love interest for Marcus (who some accuse of being an author self-insertion fantasy persona for Tommy), but at least she wasn't jabbering on about the shapings of protoculture. Trying to develop an important character out something from Dana's acid trip "protoculture-induced hallucination" was always a stupid idea. But she WAS blonde in Robotech II: the Sentinels... which is what this turd is drawing on anyway. There wasn't anything they could do about the change in hair color between their adaptations of Macross and Southern Cross, but once they were animating their own trash they could aim for a little consistency. There shouldn't have been anything hindering them from creating a character who vaguely resembled Dana's delusion the same way they created that thing that looked vaguely like Louis Ducasse.

If only... if only... In the past he's taken credit for a lot of the decisions that occurred way over his head... I'll dig out a few after I've finished de-virusing my brother's laptop. Been at it for six hours already and there's no end in sight. Admittedly, that's not the most outrageous or outlandish claim I've ever heard Macek make... that Robotech II would've revolutionized how Americans view animation. The worst that I've heard from him is that the original creators of the Macross TV series thought his version was far superior to their own and had hastened to copy what he'd done with Robotech by de-emphasizing the power of music/song in their own sequels... y'know, just some little shows like Macross 7. The man talked out of his ass so frequently its a wonder his whole digestive tract didn't pull a 180... Nah, Jack and Karen had pretty much the same arc of character development that Rick and Lisa did back in the Macross Saga, which was what was lampshaded by Max in the first few issues of the comics and in the failed pilot/"movie". Admittedly, you've got a point about the failed tie-in to Robotech: the Untold Story. Wasn't there also supposed to be one with regard to the character who eventually became T.R. Edwards? (Orig. B.D. Andrews) Actually, I think they've shot that one down explicitly... Aurora Sterling never existed, Maia isn't meant to be her replacement. One would assume that if she WAS meant to be the girl in Dana's hallucination, she'd have bright blue hair like the novels character Aurora did instead of purple. She doesn't exactly fill the same niche Aurora did either.

To be fair... nothing Tommy Yune has done with Robotech really qualifies as "original material" either. The only real difference between what Carl Macek did during his tenure as creative director and what Tommy Yune is doing in that position now is the show(s) they chose to rip off when working their respective Robotech sequels. Carl wanted to imitate Star Wars and Star Trek, while Tommy wants Robotech to imitate the rest of Macross and the new Battlestar Galactica. Passing over the laughably sucktastic failure that was Carl Macek's sole attempt to actually do something completely original, all Robotech's creative directors have ever tried to do is take existing characters, mecha, plot devices, and set pieces from the original shows and put them together in slightly different ways in the faint hope that it'll be mistaken for something new and different. Outside of Robotech 3000, the closest they've ever come to creating an original character has been their occasional practice of making shallow copies of existing characters and giving them new names and faces. Jack Baker was basically Rick Hunter in miniature (even lampshaded as such in Robotech II: the Sentinels), while Karen Penn was basically Lisa Hayes all over again. The same goes for the "original characters" created for Shadow Chronicles... Marcus Rush is a shallow clone of Scott Bernard, Maia Sterling is a shallow clone of Rook Bartley, and Alex whatshisface is basically Ben Dixon. Whenever they need to introduce a new character, they drag out a cookie cutter clone of one the fans already know. The sad part is... this actually works pretty well for Harmony Gold. They can keep peddling stories that appeal to the nostalgia of their core demographic (30+ year old fans) while simultaneously minimizing the actual creative work that needs to go into producing new material. I guess it's a great racket if you can get in on it.

Decidedly so... and his unfortunate habit of claiming credit for the hard work of others and decisions he had nothing to do with got worse as time went on. Initially, he was at least mildly open about the fact that many of the creative decisions that made Robotech what it is were not really his ideas, and were forced on him by circumstance, contracts, and the network's executives. It wasn't until after Robotech: the Untold Story and Robotech II: the Sentinels fell apart on him that he started seriously trying to convince people that everything in Robotech was his doing and the end result of his grand artistic vision. He didn't even let the failure of Robotech 3000 and his subsequent replacement by our good pal Tommy Yune stop him, though he did change his tune slightly to claim that Macross's creators felt his version was far superior and had hastened to imitate it in subsequent Macross titles by de-emphasizing the importance of music and all that jazz. In the end, he had his pattern... everything that went right was his doing and the result of his genius, while everything that went wrong had failed due to forces beyond his control and/or whatever studio/sponsor they were partnered with at the time. Ordinarily, there wouldn't be... but if the editor kept most of the audience in the dark about the origins of the work he'd edited and released, he could claim to be its creator and get kudos for the work they thought he'd done, rather than his actual paltry contribution. He gets a lot of credit he doesn't deserve because he put twenty-odd years of work into lying about whose work it was, to the point where it seems that he succeeded in blurring the line between his contribution and that of the actual creators in the eyes of the gullible.

Just wanted to bring an odd error to the staff's attention... In the private messenger system, I noticed that if you're posting a message in an open conversation that has more than, say, five or six QUOTE tags, when the message is posted the quote tag functionality breaks and will display the raw BBcode for the message instead of breaking out the quote blocks like it should. At the bottom of messages where this occurs, the system vomits up a statement saying: The following errors were found Array

It does, at least tangentially... an attempt to account for the VF-4 being relatively unsuccessful (in the main continuity) despite it having been the main variable fighter of the U.N. Spacy for something like a decade, and supposedly having also been the fighter of choice for an entire generation of colony missions. As (sketchley?) pointed out earlier in the thread, with the production numbers we've been given, there's a bit of a disparity between the statements about the VF-4 and its use on the Megaroad missions given the relatively low number produced. "The Beauty of Recycled Footage"?

Just my two cents, but doesn't the Macross Compendium use the term "new Unity Government" to describe the reestablished U.N. Gov't? In that context, I would go with "Unified Forces/Military". I'd say, given the various examples of strife between some of the colonies and the Unity Government, and the later reformation of said government into more a loose coalition of states instead of a strong central authority justifies the nuances you're talking about.

Somehow, I can't see them having any reason to object to opening the panel via skype if they're already cool with public performance to the panel audience. Still, I imagine it would probably go over poorly to discuss the Macross legalities issue there when they wouldn't be able to directly shoot it down with more vague answers. Personally, I think that Mrs. Macek would probably be intelligent enough to realize that people are bound to wonder these kinds of questions since she's affiliating herself with a sleazy outfit like Harmony Gold and they've already shown they're ready, willing, and able to hijack any commemoration of his life to push their shitty products. "If" is also an excellent way to define a conditional statement in basic, logical terms. For example: If you weren't a self-righteous troll belaboring a point you raised because of a silly mistake you made, then I wouldn't have to report your post as the trolling that it is. See? Isn't that simple? All I've said is that if Svea Macek is knowingly permitting Harmony Gold to use her husband's death to promote products that he had nothing to do with and/or accepting money to help them do it, then I would be offended on the man's behalf. Regardless, while I feel that Macek's methods are still very much open to criticism even after his passing, there are some things that even I find to be objectionable or out-of-bounds. One such thing is the way Harmony Gold has made a habit of trying to attach an advertisement for their live action movie to most every commemoration of the man's somewhat dubious achievements. I'm frankly astounded that Mrs. Macek isn't similarly offended by the way they're using his death to plug a project he had nothing to do with. I know that if someone were using the death of someone in my family to plug their products, I'd have a summons on the desk before their words were even cold.

Not as such, no... the Macross Chronicle mechanic sheet for the Queadluun-Rhea (MacF Civ 07A) does say that General Galaxy got the contract to develop an improved version of the Queadluun-Rau in 2035. The sheet doesn't explicitly say when the Queadluun-Rhea ended up being introduced, but it does seem to imply that mass-production of the initial version of the Queadluun-Rhea (presumably Rhea/40) at the newly restored Quimeliquola automated factory satellite located at Eden's Lagrange 4. The wording of the mechanic sheet used to describe the Queadluun-Rhea seen in the series identifies it as the latest version/type, which seems like a pretty cut and dry statement that it isn't the original model. Based on its designation (Rhea/56), it seems reasonable enough to assume that it was probably introduced in 2056. Indeed... the Rhea does appear to have been around a while, though the version we see in Macross Frontier appears to be said upgrade, and a recent one at that.

Okay, what we have here is a clear failure of basic reading comprehension skills on your part here, terry. At no point did I say that's how it was, all I said was that it'd be a truly disgusting thing IF she was taking advantage of her husband's death to make a buck by helping Harmony Gold exploit his death to advertise what they're doing with the Robotech franchise. Even if she's not an active participant in Harmony Gold's exploitation of Carl's untimely death, you'd think she ought to be outraged that they're cheapening his death by using it to promote a project he had nothing to do with. In the future, please make sure that you actually understand what you've read BEFORE you start needlessly accusing people... not after.

Other than the "Stealth Regult" seen in Macross Digital Mission VF-X, I don't think that there are any upgraded Regult versions in the main continuity. Macross II and its parallel world continuity do offer some such designs... though not so much "upgraded" models as simply a different unit produced by a different factory satellite... the examples being the Mardook versions of the Regult (which is legless and gets around in atmosphere with a small gravity control system), and the Nousjadeul-Ger (which has a set of engines similar to those of the Queadluun-Rau), and the Neld and Burado fleet's versions of the powered suits and Glaug with different weapons setups and the like. Is it really any surprise? The U.N. Spacy puts a great deal of emphasis on operator survivability in their mecha, a concept that's the polar opposite of the usual Zentradi expendable clone soldier tactics. Aside from the renegade power suit from Macross Plus, it does look like the only unit the U.N. chose to improve was the Queadluun series powered suits. Obviously the uncultured Zentradi military forces are still using the tech they've had for aeons. I'm not aware of anything that says that the U.N. continued to use the Gnerl fighter pod after the war. The Variable Glaug is a notable exception to the U.N.'s general preference for their own technology, since they did go out of their way to produce a version of it that sported a miclone cockpit, which features prominently in Macross M3 as the primary fighter of adopted Jenius sister Moaramia Jifon. As seen in Macross Frontier, the Zentradi males serving in the U.N. Marines use the Queadluun-Rhea, which is several decades newer than the Variable Glaug by that point (the designation would make it a very recent design, circa 2056). There's a reason for that... the exemplar initially encountered was a Zentradi-produced prototype of a transformable Roiquonmi Glaug operated by Moaramia Jifon, who was only 6 years old at the time. Presumably the mass-production model would've had a cockpit laid out for use by a normally proportioned adult. The U.N. developed their own version, and fitted it with a normal VF cockpit suitable for miclones, which was later also piloted by Moaramia Jifon once she was a teenager.

Neat graphic... I've never seen that one before. The scale on the pilots is a little bit off, but on the whole it does seem to fit rather well. Where'd you find that one, if you don't mind telling me? None that I'm aware of, I'm afraid... were such a piece to exist, it would most likely be found in a comprehensive publication like Perfect Memory, the Gold Book, or the art book that came with the remastered edition of DYRL. I've checked a few of my more obscure old books and found nothing like what you're looking for. I'll do a bit more digging after I get done with breakfast, but I don't expect to find anything. Ah, now THAT has a straightforward explanation... you're right to think that the legs on the apparently U.N.-designed Queadluun-Rhea are incapable of fitting the operator's legs in the fashion the Queadluun-Rau appears to. What little we see of the Queadluun-Rhea's interior in the animation seems to suggest that the Queadluun-Rhea's cockpit is modeled on that of the Regult, and located entirely inside the mecha's torso with the operator in a sort of hunched-forward sitting position similar to the one seen here. This is presumably one of the design changes made to improve operator survivability (along with beefing up the armor around the cockpit). The Rhea's a whole different creature from the Rau.

Unfortunately, if such a diagram does exist then I'm not aware of it. The best I could find on perusal of the Macross: Do You Remember Love? Data Bank book (the "Gold Book") and Macross: Perfect Memory is the art we already have available on the Macross Mecha Manual. I'll check Entertainment Bible 27 and Macross Chronicle in just a second though. EDIT @ 05:10: No, neither Entertainment Bible 27 nor Macross Chronicle offers a better view of the cockpit than what was already available. Sorry. From what I've been able to discern based on this and this, it looks like the way it's handled is exactly the way you've visualized it... improbable as it seems. It looks, for all the world, like the pilot is situated with their shoulders roughly level with the center of the mecha's shoulders, and control both the arms and general flight maneuvers using the control banks inside the torso. The leg articulations look to be controlled by the movements of the pilot's legs inside them. I doubt the leg of the pilot goes all the way down, but it looks the hip and knee articulations ought to be controlled by the corresponding joints on the pilot's body, though the foot obviously will not reach all the way down to the mecha's foot, and is in all likelihood either operated automatically or on a pedal of some kind manipulated by the operator's own foot. To get a good picture of how the pilot shapes up compared to his craft in size, here is a size comparison for the DYRL versions of the Nosjadeul-Ger, Queadluun-Rau, VF-1S Strike Valkyrie, Zentradi, Meltrandi, and human pilots (also courtesy of the Macross Mecha Manual): GO.

One would imagine that if the idiots in charge at Harmony Gold were decent people (a longshot, I know) they would at least pay her travel expenses while they drag her out to various conventions in their ongoing use of her husband's death to promote Tommy's shitty Sentinels fan-films and the live action movie that doesn't look like it will ever happen. Really, I think it would say worse things about her AND them if she WAS getting paid to eulogize her husband over and over again as part of Harmony Gold's ongoing use of his death to promote the franchise. I can't imagine many things sleazier than using someone's death as an advertising tool, and for her to help them use her husband's untimely death to promote that hackneyed mess is just disgustingly disrespectful.

Oh, it's simple enough... there are two basic reasons why Harmony Gold can't do squat to these guys. You see, unlike copyrights, which are respected around the world under international law, trademark laws only apply in the jurisdiction of the country where the trademark was filed and registered. In short, there's really no way to register a trademark once and have it apply all around the world like you would a copyright. You would need to register your trademark in every country you wanted it to apply in. Not to say that there aren't some means to internationally enforce trademarks, but really they have no grounds for a complaint anyway... the Robotech "brand" literally has no presence there, and is contractually prevented from having a presence there by the terms of their license agreements and copyright law. They could hop up and down and make a fuss all they liked, but they can't do a damn thing about the expo's name. Not that I'm aware, no... the salient points of the court opinions have already been summarized several times over. It's a twitchy thing, posting full translations of the court rulings, since in some states (notably California) court documents and the like are considered copyrighted property of the government body that generated them, so an online, unauthorized translation could be problematic depending on where it's hosted. I think you and I actually discussed this before. ^^;