Seto Kaiba

I'll agree that Mylene was hardly a background character... but she wasn't the focus of Macross 7's story, and her links to her holdover character parents were tenuous enough that you could remove them from the equation and change her surname without affecting her characterization at all. Remember, I didn't say background character, I said "not the main character". As a secondary lead, Mylene is technically a supporting cast member, but that's splitting hairs... The point I was trying to get across is thus... the last thing we should want is new characters that rely on being a relative of a preexisting character as a significant part of their appeal. Having every significant character in a long running franchise like that be related or close friends is just bad (and unimaginative) writing. Macross has stayed away from that particular pitfall thus far. It's a bad practice we often associate with Robotech because Robotech's writers used those bad practices frequently to give new characters some appeal (like Marcus Rush, Maia Sterling, Vince Grant, and Janice Em) and give the fans incentive to tolerate the more annoying ones (Dana Sterling, Bowie Grant).

Personally, I think Kawamori will probably stick with his established pattern of leaving a finished story well enough alone and tell the story of a different cast of characters somewhere else in the Macross universe. He could go forward and tell more about Macross's future, or go back and tell stories of what other people were doing during past events (e.g. Mobile Suit Gundam: 08th MS Team). I would very much prefer to see Macross avoid imitating Robotech's bad practice of basing everything around the same handful of old characters and requiring that anyone new be their children, an unmentioned sibling, a close friend, or some combination of the three. On the rare occasions that Macross features the children of an established character, there's usually little in the way of connection to their famous antecedents (Komilia and Sheryl) or they're not the show's main character (Mylene and Emilia).

Damn... that does work better. It's cliche as hell, but that just makes it funnier. Y'know, I'd always suspected you were a masochist on account of the whole Macross 7 thing... this confirms it. Odds are if (not when) Harmony Gold's "creative" team gets off their collective asses and actually makes Robotech: Shadow Rising, I'll end up seeing it for free when this town's sole remaining Robotech fan starts brandishing his copy at me as "proof" that being a Robotech fan isn't a complete waste of time. If it pans out the way Shadow Chronicles did, he'll insist that I watch it right away and after about five minutes I'll give him a sad look and tell him he's a goddamn idiot.

Nah, the unsettling part of that is that his skull appears to be lopsided... but yeah, the quality of the art is one of the major turn-offs to most prospective readers of the Robotech comics. It's like the artists didn't have a clue how to ape the artistic stylings of Haruhiko Mikimoto (Macross), Tomonori Kogawa (Southern Cross), and Yoshitaka Amano (Mospeada) and decided that the way to go was to draw their own style (badly) and try to make it look vaguely like the original designs in the hair and details of their clothing...

Fortunately for me, the amount of money I wasted on exploring the 31 flavors of godawful that are the old Robotech comics wouldn't be enough to buy a sandwich at any decent eatery. Not a bad philosophy, IMO... the only reason I paid actual money for the Robotech stuff that I have is because it was SO cheap that it'd be far more expensive in terms of my time and effort to find and download scans of the comics instead.

Prior to this, I don't think I've ever had anything I could honestly call a technical problem with Norton. I've had a few beefs with the UI over the years, and have stuck to using Norton Antivirus after being completely put off by what a paranoid nagging nursemaid Norton Internet Security was back around '06, but other than that I've never really had cause for complaint... especially not with the newer, less resource-heavy versions of NAV. This recent spate of problems caused by Microsoft Office Automatic Scan is annoying and inconvenient, but not enough to put me off using it entirely. IMO, it's still better than McAfee and don't even get me started on TrendMicro and AVG.

It's pretty much cosmetically identical to the VF-19A.

'kay... thanks to a bit of recent sleuthing on the part of some other Firefox users, the culprit behind the slow on-download virus scans and files vanishing after closing the browser window has been identified. It's actually not Firefox, but some weird interaction between Firefox 3.x and Norton. The specific culprit appears to be the Microsoft Office Automatic Scan setting in the Norton options. It causes no problems on Windows XP machines, but if enabled on Windows Vista or Windows 7, it slows down virus scanning during file downloads in Firefox dramatically and can cause downloaded files to vanish once the Firefox window is closed. Prior to figuring this out, the only fix was going into about:config and setting the scanwhendone parameter to false manually.

'kay... it seems safe to say that my rather less favorable assessment of the quality of the art and writing is in line with general public opinion of the Robotech comics. Unlike many of the people on robotech.com who like to have a go at the older Robotech comics, I actually ended up reading most of them after some enterprising Robotech fan turned my "don't knock it 'till you've tried it" policy around on me and insisted I give the comics a fair chance. Personally, I had a difficult time taking anything in the old comics seriously because the art and writing were almost uniformly amateurish, and the frequent and obvious occurrences of tracing from Macross line art and even contemporary sci-fi movies gave it the feel of some community college art student's D- term project. One of two reasons... either the artist(s) responsible for that mess was basing his art on this or something similar from a Macross artbook, or they just didn't know what a VF-1/F-14 was supposed to look like from the front and decided to wing it. It's also possible they traced an F-14 from someone else who didn't know how to draw one... there are plenty of idiots at Marvel and DC who have no idea how simple firearms work, let alone something complex like a jet aircraft.

Like I said... about the only people for whom the old Robotech comics have any value are old Robotech fans. Newer fans have little or no interest in them, because they're non-canon and almost universally reviled in the online fanbase. Impressive ASCII art, but an image macro would've worked just as well. You have to admit I have a point... if he stopped trying to come off like an angry right-wing columnist all the time, he might stop to do his research first and partially alleviate his terminal case of foot-in-mouth.

Huh... well, that's good news! Trigun was one of the first two anime series I bought on DVD, and after all these years the discs are starting to get a bit battered. I was hoping we'd see a re-release of the show around the time the movie came out so I could replace it. I'd been hoping for a remastered version, but a straight-up re-release won't hurt my feelings any.

Okay, yeah... the first issue of Comico's Macross adaptation might be worth something, if only as something esoteric that reflects what Robotech almost was. Uh-huh... y'know, if you stopped trying to emulate angry right-wing political commentators in your posts, it might go a LONG way toward changing people's attitudes towards you. When you get to ranting or trying to post trenchant remarks about various subjects, it makes it a lot easier for you to make the kind of mistakes Gubaba and taksraven keep ridin' your ass for.

Uh... she's done a bit, but it looks like most of the voice work she's done since Macross 7 is either background or one-shot character sort of stuff. Her most recent voice role appears to be in Kami Nomi zo Shiru Sekai, which has been slated to start its 12 episode run this coming October. The other stuff she's done since Macross Dynamite 7 includes: "Noel-sensei" in Itsudatte My Santa (2005), Azusa Miura in Idolmasters: Xenoglossia (2007), a one-shot part in Hatenko Yugi, minor voice work and theme song performance in My-Otome (2005-6), a minor recurring bit part in Pocket Monsters: Diamond and Pearl as "Shirona", Chigusa Sakai in various Shakugan no Shana media (in 2005-2009), and a few other things.

Hell, that's not the only thing that was wasted... the whole bloody show was a catastrophe of bad writing and worse design. Of course, you can't really say much for any of the attempts to build on the story and setting of Bubblegum Crisis. Bubblegum Crash wasn't exactly fantastic, and both AD Police Files and AD Police: To Serve and Protect were pretty awful. I haven't seen Parasite Dolls yet, but I can't imagine it's much better. They've got a track record almost as bad as Robotech's...

Nah... it ended long before it could begin, because our would-be negotiator doesn't understand the problem and seems to have a rather tenuous grip on reality. Actually... there is, she's just missing part of the show's full title. It was a pretty weak reimagining of the original Bubblegum Crisis OVA put together as a 26-episode TV series by AIC back in 1998. I actually have a copy of that wretched abortion on DVD. The updated character designs and futuristic aesthetic of the city aren't bad, but the rest of the show is downright dreadful. The last half of the show is basically just the Knight Sabers beating up a parade of identical-looking robot zombies that devolves into what is almost a classic zombie movie plot near the end, when they're holed up in Sylia's basement.

Okay, yeah... you're making it really hard for me to keep insisting you're not a troll. Before your delusional fantasies get any further out of hand, let me spell it out for you in plain language. There is absolutely no chance of you accomplishing anything by continuing to do this. No sane lawyer is going to be a big enough idiot to get involved in your fool's errand, because you have no grounds for taking Big West or Harmony Gold USA to court, and neither company has any reason to even give you the time of day because you obviously don't even understand the real problem here. Do yourself (and us) a favor and just stop already.

Survey says... "No". Just for giggles, I consulted a friend of mine who is the proprietor of a comic/hobby shop in town and asked him what he thought the old Robotech comics would be worth. He weighed in on it, saying that in his opinion the old Robotech comics are all but worthless to anyone who isn't a Robotech fan, and that in good condition the majority aren't worth more than maybe $3 an issue. He did say that Robotech: Mordecai and its ill fated continuation Robotech: Clone could command a higher price due to rarity, and that the new limited edition comics could command a slightly higher price as well due to forced scarcity... at least until they get collected into graphic novels and tank the price again. Near as I can tell, he was actually reasonably honest about the origins of Robotech and the degree to which it'd been changed from the source material early on. It wasn't until later that he started saying troll-like things like how he'd improved the flawed originals and that Macross sequels were emulating Robotech by de-emphasizing the importance of music. (Note that he said that less than 3 years after Macross Dynamite 7) Macek trolled a lot of people in his later years...

Yup... no surprises there. These days, it's pretty much standard procedure for the robotech.com moderators to treat anything explicitly or implicitly critical of the Robotech "creative team" as a personal insult and issue bannings accordingly. Even if you make your critical remarks on another site, it's no guarantee certain robotech.com moderators won't read it and mark you for a ban anyway. It wasn't always this bad. I think it was right around the time they started showing production materials from what was known as Robotech: Shadow Force, and people started saying the CG model samples they were showing around looked cheap and amateurish. Still... in your case, it was inevitable that you would get banned. You don't self-censor, and the average tone of your posts is like an angry Fred Reed. Fear not, brother Keith... despite having never been banned, our legends will live forever in the psychological damage khyron_prime apparently suffered at our hands. I'm actually amazed you never managed to get banned... same with USN Hornet Pilot.

Nah, I didn't actually need to know... but I am sorry for your loss. Indeed it is... like I said, I remember the original remark as being credible and from a reliable source, otherwise there's no way I would've reiterated it. If it wasn't, I would've treated it with the same skepticism that almost drove Basara up a tree over some anecdotes from Wayne Smith (editor of the Rifter) about Harmony Gold and the extent of their involvement in the original Robotech RPG that he couldn't substantiate. Yeah, it was a point of interest for me too when it was mentioned to me... though on digging into it, I think it was, in all likelihood, a misremembered account of how Macek wanted to push Macross as a straight dub, and was pushed to combine it with other shows to get it up to syndication length so networks wouldn't turn their noses up at it as being too short... something referenced in the cited portion of Robotech Art 1.

Eh... unless the original creators of a property are involved, the only thing separating fan fiction from "expanded universe" materials at the end of the day is whether the author collects a paycheck upon completion.

It was never not a throwaway remark... you're the one who made a big deal out of it, and you're still bent out of shape about it even after a few people said I had a point. Just let it go. You're were already toeing the line when you started insulting me and Robelwell202, and now you're basically into full-blown flame baiting. Eh... that's not really that big of a loss, IMO. I wonder if they'll publish any future comics or collections through DC Comics. It'd be coming full circle for them in a way... since it was way back in 1984 that Revell had that miniseries Robotech Defenders published by DC to promote the model line they had at the time. About the only nice thing I can say for the new comics is they don't completely contradict the story of the animated series and/or each other. 's it your plan to pop up once every four weeks and ask this? Y'ever heard of e-mail? I know you've got my MSN too... you could've sped this up immensely by helping a bit. Going through three big artbooks and twenty years worth of comic books takes a bit of doing. In any event, I think I have an answer for you. It's not quite the answer I would've hoped for, but take it for what it's worth. Back when you first asked, I told you I was reasonably certain that I'd initially heard it from a generally reliable old-time fan. I have this nagging feeling it was something Basara549 related to me in a chat over on CRT about Carl Macek's career and role in the Robotech production process, but to be honest I don't recall who it was. I do, however, think I've found the origins of the statement back in Robotech Art 1. It was executive meddling that combined the shows, all right... but on the part of Revell, who pushed for Macross to be expanded to a length that would allow first-run syndication instead of trying to pitch a straight-up dub to networks or continuing to release it directly to video. (RT Art 1, pp242-3)

Nah... as I've said many a time, you're selling yourself short when you say things like that. I don't really wanna be put on a pedestal as some kind of towering intellect either. I'm just an academically-oriented guy who has a good memory for detail and better-than-average access to information. Well, okay... you've got us on a technicality. All the same, I wouldn't be so quick to point to the Robotech comics and novelizations as evidence of success. True, the Robotech novelizations by "Jack McKinney" did a reasonably brisk trade initially, but they weren't exactly what you'd call well-received. The same goes for the comics, which didn't exactly do so good on average... quite a few got canceled, and those that didn't weren't much to look at. No... it was a throwaway remark about how, unlike some of its contemporaries, Robotech has largely faded from the public consciousness. You're the one who blew it all out of proportion, "creatively reinterpreted" what other people said, and made a great big fuss. If you wanted attention, all you had to do was say "Hi". Yeah... that's a pretty big dick move when you think about it. Still... it probably was the only real way to go about unf*cking the Robotech continuity. The old novelizations and comic books departed from the setting and conventions of the animated Robotech universe that it would've been all but impossible to impose any kind of coherency on the continuity. The old comic books were particularly awful in this regard. It wasn't at all unusual for the comics to contradict the Robotech animated series and each other, and on a few occasions they even contradicted themselves on an issue-to-issue basis. It's honestly so bad that they defy organization into anything like a collection of universes unless you assume that each and every comic series is a separate universe. It would've been a nightmare trying to work within the bounds of that mutually contradictory mess while creating new material, so brooming the lot makes a lot of sense.

Ah... now, that's you injecting your own interpretation onto what was actually said. It was never a matter of us making Voltron out to be a wildly popular show. It's always been a comparison between a corny failure that the general audience vaguely remembers (Voltron) and a corny failure they don't remember (Robotech). Actually, wasn't Voltron back on the air a few years ago as part of the late night [adult swim] block for a while? Yeah... I guess in terms of the amount of success they've had with sequels, Voltron stands head and shoulders above Robotech in terms of duration and originality, if nothing else. Quality... well... there's a dead heat if ever I saw one.

Well, Keith's made a pretty good case for the numbers... as has the sheer volume of references in semi-recent popular culture. He's even turned up one unambiguous Robotech pop culture reference! A 100% gain over the previous position! So far, with about five minutes and Google, I've turned up 16 distinct references to Voltron in music alone, plus another 5 in comics, and 18 in television... plus about a dozen more that're harder to classify, including quotations from a New York Giants linebacker by the name of Lavar Arrington. Huh... I'm not sure if I should take that as an insult directed at me, Robelwell202, or both. Either way, it seems like you'd much rather attack people than address what they have to say. Gee... what could I possibly have said to that a few posts ago by way of clarification that you seem to have conspicuously ignored for the sake of pointing fingers? Oh yeah, this: Two or three times, actually... I know they've done at least one for Lion Force Voltron and one for Vehicle Voltron... and that's if you don't count the nine episodes of Titan Maximum as a parody of Voltron, which it pretty much is.

Oh my... first it was a counterargument based on fallacious assumptions, and now you're taking my remarks out of context to put words in my mouth. I've half a mind to ask if you're running for public office this term, but that'd probably be dangerously close to political commentary wouldn't it? (in case someone comes over with a bad case of serious, this is a joke) In all seriousness, at no point did I intend to assert that Voltron belonged to the same part of what you called the "popularity scale" GI Joe and Transformers... just that, given Joe Average off the street, the odds of such a person recognizing Voltron are far better than the odds of them recognizing Robotech. This is a common sense observation based on the recent references to Voltron in popular media as opposed to the lack of same where Robotech is concerned. It feels like you can't think of a way to refute the actual point I'm making, and so you're raising a fuss about trivial wordings. Being an observant chap, Robelwell202 seems to have gotten my point straightaway with no difficulties... yes, people remember Robotech (at least in mecha circles), but it's not all fond remembrances. In fact, a lot of it isn't fond remembrances if the average Robotech thread on 4chan and the various rousing denunciations and all the usual scorn directed towards the franchise here are anything to go by. Indeed. 'kay... yeah, I don't think I'll ever understand what some people see in the old Robotech novelizations and comic books. Granted, some of the later ones were about as close to originality as Robotech has ever gotten, but that isn't necessarily any guarantee of quality. In terms of the art and writing, most of them run the gambit between mediocre and awful. I do think trying to mix it up was a good idea, but I'm not sure what to say about what the results became. IMO, the Robotech novelizations by Jack McKinney and the comic book adaptation of Robotech II: the Sentinels were probably the best of it... but the novels were just WEIRD and the Sentinels comics tried and failed to be gritty and mature. Can't imagine why they would've yanked your posting privileges for saying they'd pitched the non-canon stuff... since McKeever spent a good long time saying basically the same thing during an appearance on Space Station Liberty. Yep... that was actually something I related in one of this thread's predecessors a while back. It was after I'd gotten into a discussion about how (ironically) Robotech is regarded these days. Partway through a discussion about the dwindling of the online fanbase and negative opinions of Robotech seen on 4chan and elsewhere, it was Maverick_LSC who put the kibosh on it, claiming that Harmony Gold wanted to put its best foot forward and show Warner Bros a united, controversy-free fanbase. Actually... to add another scoop of irony to this, I'm pretty sure the guy I was talking to at the time was Pizza the Hutt, back before he changed his screen name from Wraith_Knight. Eh... that might be a bit of a stretch. Yes, there are plenty of people in mecha circles who have fond memories of Robotech. I'm one of them. The are a fair few in there who are creative individuals that work on fan projects. The kicker is that there are plenty in that crowd whose fond memories of Robotech are eclipsed or at least colored by antipathy towards Harmony Gold for their handling of the franchise, their attempts to stop the importation of Macross shows, and other asinine behavior. There are plenty of examples of that right here in this thread. I would agree, Voltron is usually remembered for yuks. Still the point I was tilting at before we landed on this tangent was that the Voltron name and story still have some resonance with the general public... to the point where people understand references to the show made in popular culture. We just don't see any evidence of that for Robotech... due in no small part to the conspicuous absence of anything like a pop culture reference to Robotech.