Seto Kaiba

Either that or it finally dawned on him that nobody here is going to take him seriously. I sure hope that was intentional... otherwise... Ah... that's more like it.

's okay, I've actually got a bunch of Fire Bomber albums on my Zune... it's a shame some of that good stuff didn't get used in the show itself, or I might've viewed it more favorably. I know... it's a weird little paradox that they expected the Shadow Chronicles movie to attract new viewers who've never seen Robotech before and probably haven't heard of it either, yet the incredibly stilted and awkward writing is clearly aimed specifically at preexisting fans, which would make it very difficult for the movie's intended audience to even untangle what's going on and why they should give a damn... a problem exacerbated by the fact that the totally nonsensical motivations of the new big bad (the Haydonites) are only explained in a limited-printing comic book series which has been unavailable for ages. Well... I certainly didn't burn down any houses or kill any dogs, but I make no guarantees on the "women" front. I'm more inclined to suspect that it's because my frequent use of logical, well-reasoned arguments based firmly on the facts is ultimately detrimental to their desire to continue viewing Robotech through rose-tinted glasses. I expect this is why they're so determined to come after me and try, however pathetically, to discredit me. I guess they think if they can silence me, it'll make all the bad thoughts about how Robotech might not be quite as good as they remember go away. Now there's a safe bet... he's already done it like four times... I once came up with a Robotech drinking game where you were supposed to take a drink every time you found a plot hole, but we realized pretty quickly that we'd all be in detox by the end of the first five episodes if we did. Totally. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that the exact reason we've always been given whenever we ask why Robotech fans still prefer Robotech? Between that and the promise of more VF-1 mechanic sheets in Chronicle, poor Azrael's probably having nightmares. Ah holy crap! You actually posted! I wish we could say that it was blind ignorance and that there's a chance they could get better, but for far too many it's willful ignorance. It's not that they don't know there are better things out there, it's that they don't want to know, or perhaps don't want to acknowledge that they know, because they're afraid of admitting they've wasted 20+ years of their lives clinging to a show that's going nowhere. An excellently executed AMV to be sure, but I find its lack of Macross II disturbing. *force chokes the author*

I don't think that was the intent behind the wholesale dodging of Macross ("Macross Saga") references, but it's a given that it's part of their overall marketing plan. It's no secret that the movie's stated intent was to bring new, young fans into the franchise, which would mean further sales of the original series. In order to untangle the motivations of the Haydonites, the Prelude comic is required reading, and it was given an aggressively small print run to make absolutely sure it'd sell out. I don't think there's anything that really necessitates reading the books though... I don't think they'd bother even trying to sneak in anything to compel people to buy the novels, since most RT fans consider the novels rubbish.

I've actually had some problems of mistaken identity here and elsewhere when people abbreviate my screenname to "SK" when quoting me, and people think the guy doing the quoting is referencing Shoji Kawamori instead. But yeah, I've never claimed to be an expert on any part of Macross except the Macross II continuity, it's just more of the standard fare from Bendo. Best to just ignore him. Well, yes... anyone who was already familiar with Robotech's characters would be able to make the connection, but only on the basis of prior knowledge about her family. The brief recap segment at the beginning makes absolutely no mention of the Zentradi or the "Robotech Masters", so there's no way a new viewer would be able to connect Maia Sterling to the Zentradi or have any knowledge of the existence and nature of the Zentradi without going to some print or film source outside of the movie... which is, of course, the entire point.

Assuming they hire him to voice, I'd imagine so. Isn't he a member of the Screen Actor's Guild these days, like most of the VAs who worked on Robotech? I remember Tommy remarking about how that made it a lot more difficult and pricey to bring back existing characters in large numbers. If they hire him just to do the music, I'd imagine he'd still cost rather a lot, though not nearly as much as big-name talent.

White noise... they don't exactly have any thematically-appropriate music in their current repertoire, and I can't see them springing for new music when they've put everything else on hold for the live-action movie. If I remember, Minmei's voice actress (Rebecca Forstadt) has expressed that she doesn't want to sing again, so she's probably out. I guess they could get Michael Bradley on it, though he's doing his own thing these days, or so I hear. Indeed... I was kind of perplexed myself when I saw the first one vanish. I know that feeling, I left my overpowered gaming rig running all day while I was at work just so it wouldn't be twenty degrees colder in the den than the rest of my house. It turns into a veritable meat locker during the winter...

Dunno exactly how much offhand, but if we're lumping model kits in with "toys" then I'd say maybe $350-400. If we aren't, then it's about $30 for one of the old 1/100 VF-2SS's.

Ah, mine did... I ran into a Robotech fan on my way to an offsite meeting. Noticed him because of the blue MPC Alpha in his cubicle and ended up stopping to chat on my way out of the building. Also spent a bit of time researching content management systems for that aforementioned RT website project I'm helping with. I think azrael's deleting them, actually.

It's not like I'm any stranger to hunting for rare materials after all the time and effort I put into tracking down those rare Macross II artbooks and magazines. Still, I'd love to add some more FSS models to my display shelf. The only ones up there right now are an old Knight of Gold and a half-completed LED Mirage.

It's not like I invited them to come here or did it to draw them here, I was just posting observations on what's causing the Robotech franchise to slowly self-destruct... but yeah, okay. If you want me to change topics, I'm game. Oh, it's no secret that intelligent Robotech fans exist... it's just lamentable how rare they are, and that until recently they were largely under the thumb of the inmates who now run the asylum. No need to launch a SETI-style project to find 'em, they're obliging folks who'll come out if you call. I'm actually working to facilitate their plans for a Robotech fan site which will actually adhere to the motto of "By the fans, For the fans" and provide a less Orwellian place for RT fans to hang out and share fan projects. I've actually got a couple people lined up who are practically champing at the bit to be given access to my collection of Robotech publications and carte blanche to use them to write a new "Infopedia" which will cover everything (show, novels, comics, games, etc.) and be hosted on that new site. The official Infopedia on Harmony Gold's official site is lamentably incomplete, and contains some stuff that's just plain wrong, and it's been driving those guys nuts for ages but they haven't been able to get Tommy to let them fix it. I'd happily tell you that he doesn't actually believe what he's saying in those videos, but I'd be lying if I did.

Oh no, I assure you he's perfectly capable of understanding it. In fact, he even went so far as to say that both he and his "girlfriend" look younger than they actually are. He says he's 28, and professes to be frequently mistaken for someone of between 16 and 19 years of age. Of course, he claimed that it was problematic because he was being hit on by underage high school girls, so we can't discount the possibility that it's fantasizing or idle bullshit on his part. If he actually stopped ranting long enough to notice the hypocrisy of saying that he looks younger than he is and following it with the argument that Ranka looks twelve to him and therefore must be twelve irrespective of all evidence to the contrary, he might have been able to avoid making a fool of himself and getting banned from multiple websites. He got onto this particular tack after seeing me criticize Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles for blatantly and pointlessly making every female character look like a porn star, and seeing Viper post a comparison between the animation quality of Macross Frontier and that of Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles. This whole business with "Ranka naked in space" started as nothing more than a straw man for Bendo to rail against in hopes of making Macross Frontier look bad, and he escalated the verbal offensive when he couldn't get anybody to agree with him or even take him seriously.

I don't think an answer will be long in coming. And here we have it... "trolling".

Yes, I agree that people should be allowed to express their own opinions, but there comes a time after someone has used their "say" to deliberately and maliciously deceive people for personal gain that they should honestly not be given the chance to continue to use their say to deceive people. If he could break the pattern it'd be one thing, but it's been one attempt after another on his part to prop himself up as an authority on a subject he doesn't understand and portray the lot of us as idiots and frauds. I'd say the same for Doug. How many times can we expect to excuse him calling us all pedophiles and child pornographers before we stop treating it as "his say" and start treating it as reprehensible behavior? At this point, I'm reminded of a scene from Futurama where Dr. Zoidberg is trying to convince Amy to remove the rubber bands from his claws, and she fires back with "Fool me once, shame on you... fool me six or more times...". It's a damn shame HE can't see that... he might actually change his behavior if he did. MEMO may have the ability to do that on a site he has influence on, but that doesn't make it any less sleazy or wrong. In fact, I would argue that it's an even more ethically unsound to do it there, where he professes that his site is "by the fans, for the fans" and advertises it as an alternative to the ThinkPol-esque attempts to quash dissent and free expression that have become Robotech.com's characteristic traits. You don't see something wrong or ethically questionable about him exploiting his authority (self-granted or otherwise) to deliberately mislead people? We tear into Harmony Gold employees on a semi-regular basis for doing exactly that. Why should MEMO be an exception?

I can think of only one thing to say to this... "DO WANT". Hmmm... damn, now I'm gonna be tearing all over the internet looking for decade-plus old FSS models.

I actually told him as much during one of my few guest appearances when he was trying to make something at least mildly respectable out of his podcast. His legacy is, and likely always will be, one of hatred and immature trolling. Now you understand why I don't want anything to do with MEMO1DOMINION... this is, pretty much word for word, his standard MO. He doesn't actually want to debate the issue like a reasonable man, and he doesn't want to actually do the research necessary to understand the subject. He just wants to assert that his opinion is irrefutable fact. He's a habitual liar and he abuses his mod authority on other sites to get away with deliberately misleading people. What he's done with those Harmony Gold et. al. v. FASA et. al. on RobotechX is standard practice for him... assert that "it is this way" and then bury any possible dissent by any means necessary. I'm not "talking past" MEMO... but I can't say I'm talking TO him either because there's no sign that he actually ever acknowledges or understands what I say, no matter how simple I make it. I, like everyone else, am just sort talking AT him in the same way that someone might talk AT a department store mannequin. I hate to break it to you, but you've described at least 45-55% of the online Robotech fandom with this. I wish you luck on this Sisyphean endeavor you have chosen to pursue. No, it just LOOKS like we're following each other around... I've been coming here on a semi-regular basis for ages, but MEMO and Bendo are only starting to show their faces because RobotechX has turned into a ghost town, leaving MEMO lonely after days of talking to himself and Bendo with no outlet for his trollish tendencies or to shamelessly promote that waste of space he calls a podcast. I certainly wouldn't follow either of those twits around, the only encounters I've had with them have been someone inviting me to MEMO's site to offer my thoughts on a few debates, and Bendo himself wasting weeks trying to get me onto his show by alternating between polite requests and attempts to goad me into it. I seem to attract the crazy ones, if only because as a well-informed, fair-spoken figure in the Robotech fandom I have a tendency to draw the ire of the crazy ones by casually demolishing their fantasy worlds with a few well-chosen sentences that aren't even directed at them specifically. Now, let's all remember what I JUST SAID about why I don't like MEMO... because he uses his authority on Robotech.com and RobotechX to censor opinions, silence dissent, and deliberately mislead people. You now have a clear-cut example of him doing EXACTLY THAT. Now instead of saying what he does to hack me off at him, I can just point to that thread and say "THIS!". He has posted something that he knows is a lie as though it were the truth, locked the thread to prevent any kind of response refuting him, and directed all discussion of it to a hidden portion of his site so nobody will be able to see it. He is the worst kind of sleaze and people like him are the cancer that is killing Robotech. I hope Pete is feeling appropriately embarrassed by this after having gone out on a limb to defend MEMO. It doesn't... they dodge the word "Zentradi" or "Zentraedi" or however you want to spell it. The Zentradi (and in fact, the Robotech Masters too) are not even mentioned in the movie. Maia refers to herself simply as "half-alien".

What did you expect? After all, the assertion that Macross Frontier is child pornography came from Doug Bendo of all people... that it's ignorant and utterly pointless should go without saying. It's a waste of time debating the matter with him anyway. It doesn't matter how elegantly you construct your well-reasoned response, it'll almost certainly be ignored because it's inconvenient to what he wants to believe. Bendo has decided Macross Frontier is child pornography, so it's no use trying to change his mind while he still considers himself above such trivialities as facts and logic. Now Pete, let's not insult Robotech fans everywhere by making wildly inaccurate statements like "Doug Bendo is the number one Robotech fan". That's like calling a bucket of medical waste haute cuisine. Well Pete, I guess it's down to you to translate their various forms of unintelligible gibberish for us.

Oh yes, I've confronted him on that before... he tried to handwave aside the multiple nude scenes and later blatant sexual objectification of Ariel/Marlene on the grounds that she's an alien and according to him she "represents evolution" or some tripe along those lines, despite the fact that by the end of the New Generation Saga and the start of the Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles movie she's a mere 16 months old. Clearly our friend Mr. Bendo is totally okay with it so long as he can call the girl an "alien", regardless of what she actually looks like. Don't think we didn't call him out on that one either. He tried quite hard to excuse Annie's extremely young appearance, partial nudity, and husband-hunting. His excuse for the bath scene, that it doesn't matter that she's naked and underage because they cover up the naughty bits and she's with "adults", was the very picture of hypocrisy. He damn near blew a gasket when we showed him what that same scene contained in the Robotech Remastered edition.

I was thinking more of the original Berlin from the Colus-Hagooda War, rather than the SR2 model designed by Diamond Neutral that only saw major use during the Majestic Stand. It's a nice-looking MH, but it got so little love, and spent most of its time getting smacked around by the Rainbow Boowrays and Hagooda's Maglows. Yeah, I have. It makes its only significant appearance in flight mode in one of the later volumes when they show the destruction of Float Temple in JC 4100. If memory serves, F.U. Rogner uses the Cloudsschätze as his escape vehicle, carrying with him his fatima Eatta and a few others who mostly end up crammed into the cockpit with him. The other, larger non-transformable model, the Wunderschätze, makes an appearance in the previous volume piloted by Arart Ex to spook the rebel forces based in Kastenpo.

*yawn* Same old ignorant song and dance, different venue. Get some new material already, would you?

However many covers have been done for VFs, I think... I'm pretty sure he was doing all or at least most of the cover art... so there's been a good ~30 issues worth or thereabouts. I was kind of disappointed by what he did with the VF-2SS, but some of his other stuff's quite good. That is a particularly dynamic looking VF-171EX.

Yeah, that's actually pretty good... I like that. I keep wishing they'd do model kits for some of the lesser designs in the series, like the Empress Flame, the A-TOLL Scritti, and maybe the Trio de Colus's Berlins.

It's classic MEMO1DOMINION debate tactics... he's never managed to produce real evidence to support his claim that Harmony Gold has full control of Macross and can use the intellectual property of the series at will, so whenever he's cornered he will take whatever irrelevant materials can be twisted to make them say what he wants them to say, then spends several pages harping on them as though they were the smoking gun proving Harmony Gold can use Macross in any way they see fit. Last time, it was a video of an informal talk Tommy Yune gave at a convention back in like 2004 where he constructed a grammatically torturous reinterpretation of statements by Tommy Yune that, when taken literally, explicitly confirmed what I had been saying all along. Like I said, he's found something irrelevant that he thinks proves the US courts awarded the design copyrights on the Macross IP to Harmony Gold, so he's convinced that trumps that Japanese court cases. A lot of his long-running argument on this topic has been essentially a denial that there is such a thing as international copyright law. So long as he can go on believing that the court cases MIGHT be challenged by something, he can keep willfully spreading his lies about how Harmony Gold can do whatever they please with Macross. For the record, none of the original Japanese court rulings have been overturned or altered. The courts were apparently quite satisfied with the original judgments and both parties exhausted their appeals trying to challenge the ruling which favored the other party. 'kay, where'd I leave my Frothy-mouthed Fanatic-to-English dictionary? Nah, not worth my time. VFTF1's already covered it pretty damn thoroughly, and nobody here takes this clown seriously anyway. Well, that's actually good to know... I'm glad MEMO isn't fool enough to endorse your immature, hateful, ignorant, and frequently slanderous behavior. I guess he does have a little bit of common sense after all. Not to completely demolish your little ego trip here, but we decided that rather than continue coming on your show when you had pretty much sworn to continue harassing people, throwing out foul language left and right, and generally being an ignorant prat, we decided we didn't want any part of it and would much rather continue to support JT and his podcast, which is a mature, well-informed, and very well-respected show that continues to gain listeners and the attention of many important figures in the Robotech fanbase. You're just butthurt because he's beating you at you own game. It's a shame, really... for a little while there I had genuine hope that you would finally turn your show around and make something halfway respectable out of it, but those hopes were dashed when you threw what little integrity you had away in an attempt to defend Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles, a show you professed to hate. Let there be no misdirection here, you're on MacrossWorld either to troll or to plug your lameass podcast, because you got booted permanently from RobotechX by SIGHUP. Nope... I have no role whatsoever in the creative process of JT's show. I've been invited to a roundtable discussion to be held on his show, but that's the entirety of my involvement. Actually, Doug claimed victory after the other people involved threw up their hands and said "enough of this poo, this boy ain't interested in having a rational debate!". It essentially ended with Doug making unsubstantiated claims based solely on the animation with no context or dialogue, and denying that the stats provided in official Robotech publications weren't valid because they were based on material from the OSM. The reason we couldn't come to a consensus on the abilities of the respective fleets is because Doug found the official sources unfavorable for his argument, and therefore tried to deny that they were, in fact, valid sources. Oh don't worry, I shant start any fights. I'm actually still rather disappointed because for a while there, I genuinely believed Doug Bendo could actually make something respectable out of his podcast, and it actually started to show promise (like the discussion of Gundam's various AU stories and Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross) before backsliding into hate and bile and ignorance. I'm not normally the sort of person who believes that people can change their habits easily, but for a while there when Doug was trying to compete with JT on JT's level, there was cause for optimism, however brief... and that those hopes were dashed was a genuine disappointment for me. Because, unfortunately, someone gave this guy mod powers on several different websites, including an official fansite, and he's been using those sites as a pulpit to maliciously spread misinformation. If you actually stop and listen to Doug's podcast on the subject, which is a lot like me asking you to buff your eardrums with 20 grit sandpaper, you'll find several interesting and pertinent facts. Namely, Doug Bendo has never actually seen Macross Frontier in any form other than raw, unsubtitled video, and he doesn't understand Japanese. Yet Doug is openly professing that despite having no way to understand the dialogue of the show, that he was able to discern each and every detail of the story simply by watching the animation. Now, anybody with a functioning brain can tell that's a load of bull, and it explains an awful lot about why Doug talks the way he does about Macross Frontier. I'd also gathered from some things he's said about his dad home-censoring movies like Akira for him, that he leads or at least led, a very sheltered lifestyle. Ultimately, if you review the whole origin of the topic, you find that it came about because I was criticizing the blatant and pointless sexual objectification of all the female protagonists in Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles, and Viper was using AMVs to illustrate the disparity in animation quality between that and the Macross Frontier to demonstrate just what an Amateur Hour production Shadow Chronicles really is. He got onto this "Macross Frontier is CP" tack for one reason and one reason only... to defend a movie he professes to hate because someone said a Macross show is better. That's all there is to this. 1. Rick Hunter vs. Hikaru Ichijo - who would win? (fighting without their VFs) No side, they're both too meek to finish the job. 2. Lyn Minmey vs. Lin Minmei song contest - who sings better? Whichever one's voiced by Mari Iijima, that's obvious. 3. Roy Focker vs. Roy Focker (who's the bigger Fokker?) The Macross one is 21cm taller according to official bio stats.

Yes, in order for Big West to license the rest of Macross for distribution in the US and abroad, they'd have to deal with those pesky trademarks or work out some kind of deal with Harmony Gold. Naturally, Harmony Gold is probably hoping for the latter. It was quite a dick move, since it was done during or shortly after the whole legal brouhaha, and smart money says it was done for the express purpose of keeping Macross out of the US.

So long as we have MEMO as a captive audience, I have a question for him. Hey MEMO, since you came out and endorsed Doug Bendo's podcast a while back, does this mean you support his position of "DEATH TO MACROSS PURISTS"? I'm also curious to know where you stand on his accusations that all Macross Frontier fans are pedophiles and child pornographers. You were actively endorsing him on RobotechX, so that means you're supporting his views, right? You MUST support it, since you've allowed belligerent users on Robotech.com to keep "DEATH TO MACROSS PURISTS" in their signatures. So tell us MEMO, do you support this? Inquiring minds want to know.

Yeah, but MEMO sure as hell won't acknowledge that... just like the last three or four times, he's latched onto something completely irrelevant and is loudly proclaiming it to be the smoking gun. He doesn't know a goddamn thing about the law or legal process, but he's determined to bullshit his way through. Starting to understand why we have issues with MEMO yet? Yes, going against a court order can get you in a world of hurt, but that court document you're trying to claim proves something doesn't prove dick. The ONLY thing that document establishes is the rationale behind the judge denying FASA's motion for summary judgment. That's all. Nothing else. It is NOT a ruling on the case itself. There's no need to go to court to change it, because the case was settled out of court, there is no ruling. Trying to change the content of that document would have as much effect as going to court to change the content of the cafeteria lunch menu from the week that document was docketed. It has no bearing on the actual case or the rights it concerned whatsoever. It is IRRELEVANT. See the above... there is no need to "change the order" because the document establishes NOTHING. It is NOT a ruling on anything. It's just the court's announcement that they're denying FASA's motion for summary judgment. It proves nothing, and that you continue to belabor the point as though it was somehow relevant just proves that you still haven't even bothered to read the effing document. No, the decision from Japan is perfectly valid because it's a judgment on copyright ownership, and is thus enforceable under a number of international treaties including the Berne Convention. Pay attention for once. This was a completely and totally incorrect statement made out of ignorance the first time you tried to claim it... and repeating it has not made it any less wrong. Under international treaties including the Berne Convention, the rulings on the ownership of the Macross copyrights made in Japan are applicable in 164 countries worldwide, including the United States. That fact WILL NOT CHANGE. They don't NEED to have a second case in the US over it, because copyrights are protected worldwide under international treaties... it's called international copyright law MEMO. Before I wrap this up, a piece of friendly advice for you MEMO. If you don't understand the subject matter (and it's painfully obvious you don't), it's unwise to attempt to bluff your way through when you're talking to someone who does.