Seto Kaiba

Indeed... Robotech's "expanded universe" titles ended up doing a lot of those distasteful things anyway, turning Minmei into a complete and utter whore was just the tip of the iceberg. Yes, but Warner DOESN'T have any stake in Hulu, which was my whole bloody point... that MEMO is ascribing things to Warner's influence that couldn't possibly be the result of Warner's influence. Specifically, it was mentioned (repeatedly) that he had ordered the use of the neutron-s missiles against the Invid, which would devastate Earth's surface. The implication was that it would be essentially just as bad as the orbital bombardment conducted by the Zentradi, and would kill a substantial portion of Earth's population. After the fact, Tommy came along and retconned the whole affair to not only explain how the meaning of "Admiral Hunter" somehow changed from "Lisa Hunter (nee Hayes)" to "Rick Hunter", and to exonerate Rick from the guilt of having ordered Earth's destruction in the New Generation by turning him into the unwitting stooge of the Haydonites, who secretly supplied the technology and then misled the REF about its potential. Basically... Tommy Yune correctly realized that the vast majority of the fanbase doesn't give a toss about the Masters Saga and New Generation, and took great exception to Rick Hunter being made into a tough-as-nails commander who'd sacrifice Earth to defeat the enemy. So to pander to them and shift the blame elsewhere, he made the whole thing the secret work of the Haydonites.

You're a tough one to classify, since nominally your point of interest in Robotech is something directly from Macross. No kidding, I'd say MEMO had taken leave of his senses, but that would imply that he'd ever had sense to begin with, and all evidence points to that not being the case. Just like Maverick, MEMO is absolutely convinced that Warner is ultimately behind every move Harmony Gold has been making of late... he tried to convince everyone on RobotechX that Warner was behind Robotech being put up on Hulu, claiming that Warner owned part of the site and was leveraging that to get RT up where it could get better exposure.

No kidding... there's a lot more Mikimoto art of Ishtar than most people realize, on account of all the promo materials and the art that was made for the novels. DEFINITELY not one of the prouder moments in the history of dubbing... lulzy in the extreme, but god-awful in its own way. 'kay, I've fulfilled my duty as the leader of the Macross II nitpick patrol... now onto the content. I've always thought that the Valkyries from Macross II and its prequels were some of the best-looking mecha in Macross. I think the slightly more Gundam-like aesthetic really works well for post-DYRL Macross, and the clear design evolution linking all the fighters together, coupled with more logical transformations doesn't hurt my feelings any either. I'll never understand why people badmouth the Valkyrie II... especially since so many of them seem to do so based on the appearance of the 1/100 transforming toy (which didn't exactly follow the proportions of the line art) rather than the actual appearance of the fighter in the OVA itself. Not a huge fan of the 2nd Gen destroids, but the Defender-EX and Phalanx Kai were nice, and the Gerwalkroid was an interesting concept too.

Couldn't we have foregone the gross metaphor altogether so that those of us who are very visual thinkers didn't have to have that horrifying image scarred into our brains? After several years of trying to find a Robotech fan capable of forming a cogent argument for why anyone should watch Robtoech and meeting with a 100% failure rate, we've got more than enough information to conclude that this grand experiment is a fool's errand. It's not without reason that we've been unable to find a compelling reason to watch Robotech... we've been looking for something that doesn't exist. For something like two decades now, the only things keeping Robotech afloat as a franchise have been the nostalgia and gullibility of a few people who just don't want to let go of a few fond childhood memories. When you examine the answers we've received to our inquiries so far, it's all variations on the same couple of themes: nostalgia; ignorance; an irrational hatred of subtitles that more often than not seems to stem from borderline illiteracy; and a seething, unfocused hatred of Macross motivated by the fear that if they watch Macross and end up liking it that they'll somehow be tainting their rosy childhood memories of Robotech.

Just looking at that last scan I'm REALLY hoping Alto doesn't end up with Ranka... While it wouldn't hurt my feelings any to see them whack some of the worthless background characters who really went anywhere or had any significant development during the course of the TV series (like Nanase, Luca, and Ranka too if you stop to consider that she doesn't mature at all) in exchange for sparing Michel and allowing Klan to have something like a happy ending, I can't see it happening. It really is a shame, since Michel was at least likable and had a good, though a bit underused, dynamic going with Klan. Luca could just as easily be replaced with a generic background character or simply deleted without adversely affecting the story, and Nanase was redundant in both of her roles, as fetish fuel for Ranka x girl end shippers and fanservice for the guys who like ridiculously big tits, because both roles were filled by more likable characters (Sheryl and Klan respectively). About the best I think I can hope for is Alto to pick Sheryl and leave Ranka to wait tables or something. Maybe they'll take the EoE Shinji Ikari route with Luca and coma-Nanase this time... it'd be a damn sight better than having to watch him act like Mashymre Cello without the funny. Hell yes... all through the series I kept hoping she'd mature a little so I could stop hating her guts, but even by episode 25 I was still fervently hoping she'd get stepped on by a Valkyrie or something. Hopefully the movie'll improve her as a character or get her out of our hair forever... either is good. Hating Ranka isn't a some-of-the-time thing, it's an all-the-time thing!

Aha... thanks for the information.

Yeah, that's Tommy Yune all right... the Captain rank is reserved for Harmony Gold staffers who have admin privileges on the RT.com boards. If what he's saying is accurate, that means that the losses incurred when Robotech 3000 got the axe were somewhere around $500k. Not exactly a colossal loss, since inflation-adjusted that's only about $648k in today's money according to the inflation calculator at the Bureau of Labor Statistics website. Considering they weren't sure that the movie was going to sell in any significant volume, they made a sensible (if a bit overcautious) decision to keep its budget aggressively small so if it tanked as Robotech productions so often did, they'd minimize their losses. I have a query for anyone who used to do the convention thing back in '00 and '01... I was talking to a few people over on LU and a claim was raised that at either Sugoicon 2000 or 2001, there was a Macross panel with Dana Weaver and Neil Nadelman wherein one of the hosts claimed that the real reason the dialogue in Robotech's Macross Saga is such a f***ing mess is because Harmony Gold was forced to use an exceptionally poor translation of Macross supplied by Tatsunoko, and that Tatsunoko forbade them from making any changes to it other than those absolutely necessary to adapt it into Robotech. I know it sounds like an excuse tailor-made to exonerate Carl Macek and Harmony Gold of the crime of mutilating the original Macross series, since it concerns something allegedly said at a convention panel back before panels got anything like decent coverage, and it clashes with Carl Macek's claims of having made changes to Macross under his own authority to "improve" the series, but it comes from a fairly well-respected former convention organizer in the Robotech fandom, so I thought I'd stop and ask if anyone out there attended the Macross panel at either Sugoicon 2000 or 2001, when these statements were allegedly made, and could either confirm or deny that this was in fact said. I'd love to contact AnimEigo to check on this claim about their reasons for retranslating the show themselves, but their site appears to be down for the moment.

Just wanted to share something mean-spirited I wrote for the "dictionary" over on HP's site...

and as such... it's far and away the most active part of RobotechX. Can't be... if he was, we'd be able to understand what he writes and he wouldn't need the caps-lock!

Ah, I remember hearing about that, but I couldn't remember if anything actually came of it or not. Kind of reassuring, actually... since I didn't particularly care for Klan Klan and I didn't think Nanase really developed past being fanservice in the form of a pair of massive tits with a girl crush on Ranka.

Wasn't there a rumor going around that they were going to give a couple B-list characters some bigger roles this time around? I think the big one they mentioned was Klan Klan?

Yeah, I noticed he was having trouble reading the IMs users were submitting during his podcast. Initially, I thought he was just illiterate since the guest access looks like a pretty standard chatroom. After trying the TalkShoe Live client for myself and bearing witness to that strange left-scrolling mutant offspring of AppleTalk that is its chat function, I had to revise my opinion somewhat. Now I think he's just mildly dyslexic, which would account for how he gets sentences a bit mixed up when he's reading quickly. Can you really blame her for shooting that down? Hell, I'd do anything in my power to avoid having to read the septic swill called the McKinney novels aloud in front of ANYONE. Reading it aloud on a podcast would be right out.

You can bet that Maverick bought into that... though I'll wager he also got the idea that Harmony Gold has creative control over the movie from McKeever's statement that Harmony Gold would have "a say" in the production of the movie. Of course he does... that's his job. Kevin McKeever's the marketing director for that ghastly mess we know as the Robotech franchise. Like any marketeer, his job is to use fraud, deception, and misdirection to preserve the image and reputation of his employers and make their products appealing to the gullible. Ultimately, he has no duty to the truth, his goal is a simple one... to ensure that what's left of the fanbase doesn't lose interest. In order to achieve that goal, he needs to make the fans think that great things are happening, and that the live-action movie is going to be just as good as the current competition (Transformers). Whether or not the movie actually lives up to those promises, and when the promises themselves are made, is entirely immaterial. To him, all that really matters is he builds interest in the movie with all of the bullshit and the hype.

Hmmm... unless I miss my mark, #1 is the school uniform from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, #2 is the colors of Lupin's clothes from Lupin III, #4 is clearly EVA-01 from Neon Genesis Evangelion. I'm tempted to say that #6 is a Zaku... not sure about the rest. Also, deep down I know I should be horrified that I was able to decipher that many of them... but I just can't get worked up over it after pissing away fairly half the workday goofing off and using a client's company property to watch King of Bandit Jing in high-def on the clock.

Yeah, I found that odd too... particularly since his pattern was (and still is) one of trying to exploit what little authority he has as a moderator on Robotech.com to be dismissive of the opinions of others, to make himself out to be far better-informed than he actually is, and to present his personal opinions as though they were fact. It was an odd disconnect, seeing him try to be dismissive of the whole thing. My guess would be that he thought if he couldn't clout his way to the status of a respected authority in the community, he could always belittle those who wouldn't respect him from afar. Also remember the regard his wife has for his anime hobby... I expect if he made a podcast that fan-geekery, he'd be sleeping on the sofa until his kids were in college.

In my experience, Maverick_LSC has a bad habit of making questionable claims and exploiting his mod status to post his opinions as though they were fact, regardless of whether or not they actually resemble reality. Like MEMO, Maverick's a long-time Harmony Gold suckup, though instead of being motivated by the misguided belief that it'll eventually land him a job, Maverick's motivation appears to be a simple desire to increase his standing in what remains of the fanbase. He's the type who desperately wants to have connections and an inside track on the franchise, or at least make people think he does, because he thinks that'll make him better than the average fan and earn him the respect and admiration of his former peers. For Maverick_LSC, the problem is that he has no way to legitimately come by the respect of his peers. He doesn't have any connections at Harmony Gold or an inside track on the Robotech franchise. He doesn't even know much about Robotech itself. All he really has is a position of fake authority as a moderator on a corporate fansite that he got by kissing ass and working for free at conventions, which didn't really do anything for his standing in the community. As a result, the only way he can actually make himself appear well-informed is to use his mod powers to silence anyone who knows more than he does. That way, he can make ridiculous claims and talk with authority about subjects he doesn't understand without fear of being contradicted and exposed as the fraud he is.

Really? I could've sworn it was something to do with throwing holy water and shouting "THE POWER OF CHRIST COMPELS YOU! THE POWER OF CHRIST COMPELS YOU!" or something along those lines. Now that you've mentioned it... that "destroids" sheet is probably the Macross II destroids. They've already given pretty thorough coverage to the main flavors of destroid from SDF:M and DYRL, and they'd probably call the Cheyenne and/or Cheyenne II by name. The only group they haven't touched on is the AU destroids.

It's also 100% possible that some deluded fool out there is certain that it's due to Robotech! Like MEMO, Maverick desperately wants people to think that he's got connections, when he really doesn't. Something like 3, maybe 4 years now?

Well, Maverick fancies himself a bit of an expert on the film industry because he CLAIMS to work in something related to production. I forget exactly what he does, but it seems like pretentious bullshit comes as a free side dish when you order the Harmony Gold propagnada. As far as Robotech's popularity goes, he's one of those who lives in a fantasy world where Robotech actually has more than just a handful of fans. Last I checked, Transformers had ALWAYS been infinitely more popular than Robotech... and that the far more competently produced and advertised Transformers movie was a prime factor in the failure of Robotech's first movie... to say nothing of the fact that the G1 Transformers series outperformed Robotech so badly during their initial runs that calling Robotech its competition is borderline absurd. After all, which one does everyone remember after all these years? (If you answered "Robotech", I'm going to have to ask you to leave some organs behind to ensure the safety of the gene pool)

"Might be"? Unless I'm forgetting something they've only covered TWO... the ships of the fleet, and the Gigamesh. What about the Mardook's Zentradi-use battle pods, powered suits, and that unnamed variable mecha from the last two eps? We ought to have AT LEAST four more U.N. Spacy mechanic sheets and possibly one civilian mechanic sheet coming. They have yet to cover the Gloria, the standard battleship, the rescue ship, the remodeled SDF-1 Macross, the VF-2SS w/ Super Armed Packs (B-sheet), the VF-2JA, the Metal Siren w/ replica, the VF-XX Zentradi Valkyrie, the five new destroid models, and all the background and civilian vehicles like Hibiki's motorcycle, Nex and Sylvie's cars, that VTOL ambulance plane, the shuttle Hibiki and Ishtar take to the moon, those roving cameras used during the Moon Festival, etc. The way I see it, that'll probably be maybe two more Mardook mecha sheets, two more U.N. Spacy ship sheets, three more VF mechanic sheets, maybe one four-page spread for the destroids and VF-XX, and a second four-page spread for all the remaining civilian stuff. If they do, you can bet it'll be in the LAST issue or two. I talked to him on WLM a couple days ago, but I forget why he couldn't get online... I think it was computer trouble.

Truly. I'm waiting eagerly for the Sheryl Nome costume that's just three self-adhesive stickers. What? And here I was betting they'd just charge in within arm's reach of his valkyrie and sit there listening while making a face like they're trying hard not to sneeze. (also known as the "Sivil Maneuver")

Eh, I'm not so sure... what're the odds we'll just get another 15 issues of VF-1 filler? I'm not singling the timeline sheet out... I'm talking 'bout the whole damn thing. There's more to Macross (mecha-wise) than just the VF-1, VF-0, and VF-25... and there's a hell of a lot more in the way of characters than just Minmay, Mylene, and clumps of background characters. Can someone check and see if Sketchley died recently? Gubaba seems to be channeling his ghost.

It's kind of sad that the only article on this list I'm even remotely curious about is "Macross loading machines". Sheryl Nome's always well and good, couldn't care less 'bout another background mook sheet, or the Macross 7 stuff... but I'm somewhat curious to see what the Chlore sheet has. That sound you hear is my interest in buying the rest of Macross Chronicle plummeting. Where the hell is the variety... it's all SDF:M, 7, and Zero lately. There's a ton of Macross II stuff left uncovered (where's my Metal Siren, my Icarus, and my Valkyrie II B-sheet?), and even a decent amount of stuff from Macross Plus and Macross Frontier that could be covered instead. 'kay, mildly curious as to what's in this one... What? Does chaff really deserve such coverage? Hmmm...

Excellent work.

It'd be more interesting if it didn't have a few errors that're driving me up a frickin' tree... I can't FIX them there because I'm now persona non grata on that site. Considering posting an updated version here in the near future. Does he means that pink frilly getup Ranka's wearing in the upper left of this image? http://file.asagawo.blog.shinobi.jp/091109-GKMAC-8.jpg It does look a wee bit like a VF-19... You say that like it's a bad thing... At the rate her clothes are shrinking, by movie #2 she's gonna be wearing nothing but a couple strategically-placed stickers or a holographic mosaic over the naughty bits.