Seto Kaiba

I know... it's wicked scary how well this works. Oh please, Queen's Blade is barely a half-step above the late night softcore porn on Cinemax. Oh noes... a handful of cack-handed twits have taken the place of a halfway-competent spin doctor in promoting Harmony Gold's increasingly knee-jerk attempts to maintain interest in the festering pile of poo that is the Robotech franchise... whatever shall we do to stop this dynamic duo (trio?) from heralding the explosive return to the Robotech glory days of 1999, when even Robotech fans found what Harmony Gold was doing with the franchise disgusting. Oh, I don't deny that the man has some degree of artistic talent... it's just that the man's experience is in a genre largely incompatible with the one in which he now works, and the man seems to have no work ethic. His art for the MPC line has some seriously Liefeldesque posture issues (particularly Miriya). Really, my beef with his art is that the man has no experience or talent as a mechanical designer, and that he lets his inexperience get in tune with his massive ego and produces cop-outs like his "sudden mechanical failure" in the YF-4 (RT ver. of Macross's VF-X-4) so he wouldn't have to design a transformation for it, or the transforming Combat he'd tried to pass off as the "Gamma Fighter". Well, we all know Tommy can't stand to be criticized, so it's only natural he'd do whatever he could to deflect the discontent over his turning every man into Gaston with better hair and every woman into Shay Laren onto the heads of someone who probably can't understand the complaints in the first place. I know, it was a very tongue-in-cheek joke... you'd think having someone like me talk of a "Robotech Code" might send up big red flags that say "this is humor". Grief might be the wrong word for it, unless you've had recent dealings with the mooks in charge of it all... but the point remains that Macek's inability to see the consequences of his actions (or that the industry changed and that his methods were considered bad practice) was the genesis of a lot of the misconceptions and idiot behavior fans of Macross (and indeed, BattleTech too) have to put up with from Robotech fans. I won't vilify Mr. Macek for the way he used Macross when he put together Robotech in 1984-1985, but I WILL give him the scorn he so richly deserves after 15+ years of habitual lying, exaggerating, and taking credit for the work of others in hopes of making Robotech fans believe he was a visionary. To be blunt, where Robotech was concerned the man was little more than a sanctioned con artist. You could call what little work he actually did on Robotech the artistic equivalent of buying a bunch of random sci-fi novels, using a bottle of white-out to change all the character- and place-names, taping a new logo over the title of each one, and selling them as installments in a new, original series while loudly asking "WHO?" every time someone asks about the original author. You could potentially have gotten away with it back in the day... but it was questionable back then, and trying to defend it as legitimate now is something approaching insanity.

Yeah, I know what you mean... between their bizarre pronunciations of half the character names and their odd insistence on pronouncing "Macross" as "Muck-ross" and their generally lackluster voice acting, I couldn't hit the "change audio" button on my DVD player's remote fast enough. I didn't even make it through one episode, though I caught bits and pieces here and there, just long enough to note that the guy voicing Hikaru was probably the only one they'd made a good call on during casting.

No, with a mustache I'd probably look more like Weird Al Yankovic than Tom Selleck. Y'know, they keep trying to excuse that by saying Tommy was having fun at his own expense... certainly possible given that he is Korean himself and was responsible for the original concepts (which did still have the stonking huge tits) and some of their evolutions. It's certainly indisputable that he's the man to blame for the whole of the OVA's cast looking like a collection of Mr. Universe contestants and porn stars. Then again, he did used to work for DC as an inker, and he did do a Danger Girl miniseries too, so there's a very real possibility that he just never learned how to draw people any other way than as buff, square-jawed manly men and women who are proportioned like a pencil that's been stuck through two grapes. (Of course, there's the even more horrifying prospect that since Tommy Yune claims to be a long-time fan of the Robotech franchise, that he decided to subject the world to his personal masturbation material) Not just Harmony Gold... Tommy Yune signed off on them personally, and many of the early concepts are marked with "Studio Yune". Let's remember, Tommy is completely unable to cope with criticism of any kind. If he was going to catch flak for turning Robotech into the something nearly as shameless as Queen's Blade, of course he'd try to shift the blame elsewhere. From a business standpoint, I'm sure the stripperific female designs got the go-ahead from Harmony Gold's powers-that-be on the grounds that, if nothing else, the teenage male audience they were aiming for with Shadow Chronicles would be drawn to the film by the promise of gorgeous women with sprayed-on catsuits and cleavage that could hold up a Christmas tree who all find nerdy, introverted boys irresistible. It's little more than fantasy wish-fulfillment for the immature, antisocial die-hards who've kept Robotech alive all these years. Now, if you want something truly screwed up, try this on for size: In a frankly unsettling way, you could argue that Marcus Rush is a metaphor for the average Robotech fan rather than an author self-insertion fantasy persona. The parallels between the two are truly disturbing. Marcus is a naive, socially awkward, staggeringly ignorant young man who has anger management problems and no luck with attractive single women. He's avidly pro-military, violently xenophobic, and hates a group of people he's never even attempted to interact with peacefully because his superiors told him he should. As the result of all of the morally and ethically bankrupt behavior of supposed visionary who assembled the very foundations of their world by wronging that other group of people, he suffered a relatively minor injustice at the hands of that wronged party when they came back to claim what was rightfully theirs, which prompted him to blame them (and only them) for it and blow it wildly out of proportion into a crime worthy of genocide. He then encounters one of the enemy who isn't the evil monster hell-bent on ruining his life that he's convinced himself all of them are, and only comes to tolerate (not accept) that person after she looks the other way on all of his hate speech, his hostile behavior, and his openly-stated desire to murder her entire family. Even then, he only grudgingly accepts her after she goes well out of her way to save his stupid ass from his own idiocy, comes over to support his side too, AND pretends that the brain-dead jackass he and all his friends think is a visionary genius wasn't the real reason for the problem. Holy hell, I think I cracked the Robotech code... the show is a metaphor for its own creative process and history! Zor is Carl Macek... a man totally oblivious to the consequences of his actions, who caused everyone a lot of grief by "borrowing" something important from a bunch of people who were minding their own business and perverting it into a badly-explained atrocity that ruins every world it comes into contact with. He provoked a zealot mindset in his followers (Harmony Gold), created a small army of mindless militant drones to defend his mess (Robotech fans). For his crimes, he was hailed as a visionary by his followers, whom he stuck with the unenviable task of trying to salvage the rapidly deteriorating mess he created. His abomination struck the Macross world and caused a lot of hostility, and after being ousted from there moved on to two different worlds (Southern Cross and Mospeada) that nobody on either side really gave a toss about. The few followers he had left attempted to replace him with an imitator (Tommy Yune) to salvage what they no doubt felt was a situation that'd gone way beyond their ability to deal with. He created an even bigger mess (Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles), which caused even more fighting and hostility (this time among his own followers), and then gave up. While the remnants of his followers attacked the people his predecessor wronged and made fools of themselves time and time again, he tried to strike out on his own with something original (Sentinels/RTSC) and nobody on either side remembered anything about it except the supposed (and decidedly peripheral) involvement of someone who actually mattered (Mark Hamill). The fighting between the factions of his followers and the enemy who'd come to claim what was theirs continued until the original owners of the contested property gave up on trying to reason with the fanatics, took their stuff, and left the fanatics to be destroyed by their own uncontrolled hostility. It makes so much sense... mind=blown.

Why am I suddenly reminded of that scene in Star Trek: Nemesis where Data pops up out of the lake and calmly announces "In the event of a water landing, I have been designed to act as a flotation device"? Moreover, why can I easily imagine Tommy Yune doing the exact same scene and line with Janice? Nah, I look horrible with a mustache... but by sheer coincidence I'm almost the exact same height as Bruno Global. 'kay, we know Ghost Train doesn't pull any punches...

Yeah, and the dialogue doesn't have enough meaningless technobabble or pro-military xenophobic hate speech either. Personally, I'd rather see that talentless waste of space cast in a role much more appropriate for an actress of her caliber... perhaps as a department store mannequin or a particularly obnoxious hatstand. Like so many "up-and-coming" new actresses, the only thing she's good for is giving the hormonal middle-school boys in the audience wanker's cramp. Easy! The same reason everything else happens in Robotech... "Protoculture".

Y'know, I was about to sit down to a well-deserved bowl of ice cream after a hard day's work, and now I'm just nauseous. Sure thing... the only size comparison image available is on the 10 meters per pixel scale, so it's TINY, but here's the ship in question:

Not that I'm aware of... I think Mylene was the one who started it, then Enika, then Ranka. Bah... you imported Macross Ace, I imported Macross Chronicle... the only thing I had to go by was the stuff you showed me on MSN.

C'mon... what were you expecting? It's a manga targeted towards teenage boys, so of course they're going to try to get their attention a little with a bit of cheesecake before delving into the story at large. It doesn't really do much to impact the story either way. I'm not sure why more recent Macross titles think the title's resident "Minmay" always needs a furry little companion... it just feels unnecessary to me. Enika didn't really need one in Macross 7 Trash, though much of my antipathy toward Ai-kun is probably a result of loathing Ranka. I'm inclined to agree, Minmay's original chinese dress was cut pretty high up way back in '82, so I don't think it's really fanservice to have a similar amount of leg showing in her slightly-redesigned dress unless they're being blatant about it (like that bit with her dress and a breeze, or her sitting on her cart in volume 1 in a pose designed to show off her figure).

And would you believe that, according to The Art of Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles, that ship is meant to hold up to 750,000 colonists? It's absolutely nuts... As I've said before, details on Robotech 3000's production history are pretty sparse, and I'm no expert on that particular failed Robotech concept. (Nobody is, really... there's just not any information out there on it) Anyhoo... given that the concept art in question is dated June 1999, it seems unlikely that it was produced for Tatsunoko's attempt to salvage the series with traditional animation. From what I've read (which isn't much) the attempt to salvage the series by handing it over to Tatsunoko didn't go down until after the CGI teaser trailer bombed at FAnimeCon 2000. Given the art style and date, I'd be inclined to say this stuff was done by/for Netter Digital when they were still in charge of the project. To say that Harmony Gold thought they had the rights to everything Macross would be somewhat misleading at best... it might be more accurate to say that Harmony Gold thought they had the right to control distribution of all things Macross. At Robocon 10, Macek freely admitted that they knew full well they couldn't use any of the designs from Macross in Robotech sequels as early as 1986. With that in mind, I find it highly unlikely that they went into Robotech 3000 thinking they could use Macross designs in it without a lawsuit. Considering the multiple views, I'm assuming the point of the Macross-esque stand-in was to show how the bays were oriented in the ship and how they were to function (which is admittedly still rather like the launch arms on the ARMDs and Zentradi battleships in Macross). The shape of the bays and their placement seem more inspired by Mospeada though.

Do we have a firm release date for this one yet, or are they still playing silly frakkers and moving the date back every month or so? It looks damn nice, even if it's probably going to be as thoroughly non-canon as the VF-1's own Master File book. It's worth it just for the art, IMO, but the technical writing is nice too, even if it's not an authoritative canon source.

Okay, it may just have been for convenience's sake... Image 14 (Eric Art 7) labels the fighter seen in Image 16 as "Design for Veritec to come later. Just for scene". Could just be that the designer threw together something from Macross he'd liked for the purpose of demonstrating the bay design, and it wouldn't been replaced later by something less obviously ripped-off.

That it does... and that's kind of unsettling in its own way. Now, I'm well aware that Robotech has all the artistic integrity and originality of a Korean knockoff, but I'd still like its "creators" to at least TRY to do something original. Having each and every attempt to continue the Robotech story devolve into "how can we keep ripping off Macross without getting sued" doesn't really do Robotech's total lack of credibility any favors, and it just irks Macross fans. Just more proof (as though it were needed) that Harmony Gold's "creative team" are a pack of talentless hacks. It's not the ship, it's the fighters... the airframe shape is markedly similar to the VF-2SS Valkyrie II from Macross II: Lovers Again, just with the intakes moved inboard to where the arms would be, and the wings taken from a VF-22. The super parts they're equipped with have "wings" that look like enlarged versions of the Valkyrie II's Super Armed Pack, and the dorsal pods in place of the Valkyrie II's railgun and center missile launcher look like they're smaller versions of the dorsal boosters from the VF-1's super parts. Are you sure that's from Tatsunoko's attempt to salvage the series? It's dated 28 June 1999, the year before the disastrous test-screening of the Robotech 3000 teaser at FAnimeCon. I'm no expert on the production timeline of that one, but just from what I've read on it Tatsunoko didn't pick that turd up until after the CG trailer was shot down.

We'll see... though unless there's some mysterious gold mine of art and information that I've somehow missed, I'm gonna go ahead and say the space would probably be better spent on the Monster Mk.I. You could fit every piece of hard data we have on the VF-2JA onto a notecard, and there's just not enough art to actually warrant a four-page spread unless they decide to do the transformation on the back of the fourth side.

Isn't posting scans from Chronicle verboten on these boards until the magazine goes out of print?

Azrael said the projected release date was October 2010, but not set in stone by any means.

Well, duh... it's Carl Macek. Once he got it into his head that he could convince people that it wasn't his fault his entire contribution as Robotech's creative director was a sequence of embarrassing failures by hyping himself as a creative visionary whose great plans were constantly undermined by cowardly executives and bad luck, he'd tell just about any lie to make himself look good. If he didn't lie about the extent of his involvement and contributions to Robotech and the anime industry, the only people who would know who he was or give a toss what he'd done would be Robotech fans and the people whose fandoms suffer the occasional inconvenience at Harmony Gold's hands. It's kind of pathetic that the only way to get a halfway honest answer out of Carl Macek was to look up what he'd said about that particular subject over twenty years ago, before he became a habitual liar.

Eh... the stuff you quoted is almost certainly bullshit. Even Macek himself was (initially) quite open about the fact that they couldn't have missed the mark harder if they tried. He himself said that the test screening had a decent percentage of the audience walk out partway through because the parents present thought the movie's mature themes inappropriate for the age group the movie was targeted to, and their children in particular. He cited that, executive meddling on the part of Cannon Films, and the success of the G1 Transformers movie as being the major factors that killed Robotech: the Movie and caused it to be canned and never see a theatrical release here in the states.

lol wut? Nope... as a point of fact, he's not even allowed on most of the Robotech fansites out there. He received a permanent ban on Robotech.com way back in like '04, and he got a permanent ban on RobotechX.com last year. He's attempted to come back to both under a few alternate screen names, but he gets found out pretty quickly and banned again. About the only person who supports his bullshit is MEMO1DOMINION, a man notorious for using people like the idiot in question as stooges to harass the people he doesn't like into saying something he can ban them for. So no, he's not the leader or spokesman of the Robotech fanbase... he's just some idiot with delusions of grandeur trying desperately to make someone care about what he has to say.

Eh... the only time Tommy ever takes notice of what Robotech fans are doing is when he's either plotting to make them surrender their work to him so he can take credit for it, or plotting to kill the fan project for stepping on his toes. The idiot in question does nothing Tommy would want to take credit for or call attention to, and he's not doing anything of any real value that might make Tommy look bad by comparison, so Tommy doesn't care. Yep, it was only ever performing well against the Fz-109s when it was fighting inside the dome, where the VF-14-based Fz-109 is at a distinct disadvantage. Once the battle was in space, it was spanked so quickly it wasn't funny... and with a UN ace at the controls too.

Well, the stated purpose is to discuss and inform people about the Macross licensing thing and why Harmony Gold are a bunch of tossers... but if we're going to discuss stupidity in the Robotech fanbase, let's at least focus on the people who actually matter, and not just some internet gutter snipe who calls people names on some free podcast because he's desperately trying to compensate for the fact that his life is going nowhere. If you're looking for stupidity from people who matter, you still don't have to look very hard where Robotech is concerned... Tommy Yune is a veritable treasure trove of moon logic and idiocy... so was Carl Macek. Hell, you can even have a go at the abundant stupidity from Luceno and Daley, or Spangler, or any of the other idiots who've contributed their dubious talents to Robotech over the years. Considering the semi-recent developments explaining that all gunpods from the GU-11 on were using rounds designed for penetrating energy converting armor, one would assume that to be a major area of advancement over the years, considering energy converting armor visibly improved.

Do we ever even see either of those in battroid mode in the animation? I don't recall seeing it, but it's been a while since I last watched DYRL. If we don't, then that's probably why only the fighter and GERWALK modes are colored.

Okay, I prepared for comedy gold... so where is it? There's certainly none to be had in that pathetic Doug Bendo video, unless you find the fact that the functionally illiterate mental midget can't even spell simple words like "reborn" correctly the very height of comedy. Why waste time and posts bringing examples of his stupidity to our attention? Seeing him acting like a goddamn idiot and dribbling bullshit out of both sides of his mouth is nothing new... it's been a 24/7/365 thing for him since at least 2003. Lemme spell it out in plain English: Doug Bendo is not worth a minute of anybody's time. He's never contributed anything of value to the Robotech fan community, and nobody of consequence cares what he has to say. He's just an idiot with a degrading dead-end job and an internet connection who desperately wants someone to take him seriously. He's a joke, and not even a funny one.

Wait... what? Wasn't "laser machine pistol" also what they identified the TV version's gun as? I guess the short-range electron beam gun is something of a myth then...

There's a word for that... and that word is "fan-fiction". (Of course, it wouldn't be much of a stretch to label all of Robotech as somebody's hackneyed attempt to commercialize a badly written Macross-Mospeada crossover fan-fic)

Somehow, I doubt Macek would've been able to avoid much of the spite and bile directed at him even if he'd never deluded himself into believing he was the anime industry's answer to Gene Roddenberry and started pretending the Robotech TV series was the result of his grand creative vision. Now, I won't deny that Macek's history of telling ridiculous lies to exaggerate his own input and take credit for the work of the show's original creators will probably be a major part of how he's remembered, but that's far from the only reason anime fans considered him a blight on the industry. After all, there's also his profoundly offensive attempts to claim that he'd made the shows he worked on better by deleting the original cultural context and setting and "Americanizing" them, or trying to convince everyone that anime had no value on its own and his rewrites were profound improvements over the originals. Eh? Let's be honest here... Robotech II: the Sentinels was Macek's attempt to rip off Star Trek in hopes of giving his lurching, nightmarish atrocity broader appeal. Calling it original is a bad idea... the only thing that changed was who they were stealing ideas and set pieces from.