Seto Kaiba

When you stop to think that people like Maverick_LSC and MEMO1DOMINION, who believe in censoring any opinion other than "Harmony Gold is wonderful, Robotech is perfect", and dougbendo, who believes the best way to express his fan status is to publicly badmouth anyone who doesn't agree with him, are considered the spokesmen of the fanbase, it really gives you a clear impression of just how far Robotech has really fallen these last twenty years. In most any healthy fandom, these people would be laughed out of town as mentally unstable or just downright stupid, yet in Robotech, a franchise kept alive by a handful of fanatics who've stuck with the series as it went nowhere for 25 years, these people are held up as what a fan SHOULD be... and that's sad. That Harmony Gold doesn't seem to give a damn how badly people like that blacken the already-reviled Robotech name just reinforces the distinct impression that Harmony Gold has washed its hands of Robotech after handing the reins over to Warner Bros. (To me, what's REALLY revolting about this whole situation is that if I were asked which group I had more respect for, I would be able to say, with no hesitatation, that I have far more respect for dougbendo than I ever will for either Maverick_LSC or MEMO1DOMINION. At the very least, dougbendo believes in voicing your opinion, even if it pisses people off... and I can respect that.)

Yeah... it's a real circus over there these days... Robelwell202 just called out MEMO and Maverick for banning people for disagreeing with them... and was banned for doing so. EDIT: Ah... I see the pathological liar patrol (Maverick and MEMO) have been here to see what we're saying about this latest development.

Indeed it has... and in the eyes of MEMO1DOMINION and Maverick_LSC, the change was good... there's one less person questioning their blind, dare-I-say imbecilic faith in each other's factless arguments. Everyone else gets it in the arse because MEMO and Maverick are too immature to cope with the fact that they were wrong. 's lookin that way, Wanz. I stepped in to a thread where MEMO's intestines were so badly backed up the poo was oozing out of his mouth and onto a keyboard and posted the facts. Maverick then accused me of "disrupting" the thread, and removed my posting privileges. It's been a month now, and Steve still hasn't responded to my initial e-mail. No, it's not that... believe me I'd like nothing better than to continue to out MEMO as the pathological liar that he is, but Maverick won't restore my posting privileges, and Steve has stopped responding to e-mails altogether (even from Maverick, apparently) so I am effectively banned, even though my account is still nominally active.

It's one of the more bizarre circumstances of the current Robotech creative staff over at Harmony Gold... they don't seem to fully realize that their core demographic is not the 13-17 year old kids they've been trying to appeal to since 2001, but rather the 30+ year old fans who've been with the show since the very beginning... people like Maverick_LSC and MEMO1DOMINION. The few 20-somethings and teenagers who crop up every now and again in the fanbase are a fairly small minority, and tend to be newly minted anime fans who quickly find something better. Well, to be fair, Harmony Gold DOES care, but it's only those staff members who were fans before becoming staffers, and only issues that matter to them... like exonerating Rick Hunter of the guilt of ordering Earth's destruction, which led to Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles coming off feeling like a fan-film. The fans supported the Shadow Chronicles movie not because they liked it, but rather because it was the first and only new Robotech title since the original series. More than 20 years of desperately wishing for something to convince them that Robotech wasn't completely dead colored their opinions heavily... so pretty much anything, no matter how poor, was going to get rave reviews simply because it was Robotech. You could've put the name Robotech on Plan 9 from Outer Space and the die-hards would still be singing its praises simply because it's a new movie with the word "Robotech" on the box. You should probably see a doctor about that... And let there be no mistake... what motivates most Robotech fans these days is stupid, blind faith, not hope.

Well... color me pleasantly surprised.

Did anyone else read this and immediately think of Voltron? Have they actually given a definition for the ARMD acronym now? I haven't bothered to give either ARMD page a good look yet, but I remember in the old Sky Angels VF-1 Tech Manual doujin it was defined as "Armament Rigged-up Moving Deck". Have they given another definition for it, or did they reiterate that one? How very... imaginative...

I think a substantial part of the problem here is that many of the most devoted Robotech fans are still uncomfortable with the idea that their favorite show is neither original nor terribly successful. A lot of these devoted long-time fans, who stuck with the franchise through the failed sequel attempts and the subsequent release droughts, are genuinely uncomfortable with the thought that most of what they profess to love about Robotech comes from the Japanese originals, and thus is not unique at all. Is it any surprise that they find the idea that Robotech's so-called creators can't use the iconic designs of Robotech's most popular saga profoundly disturbing? After all, what it ultimately means to Robotech fans is that the sequel they so ardently desire will never be made. I find it unsurprising that some of these devoted fans would rather continue to believe Harmony Gold will one day deliver the goods, rather than admit they've wasted years (and in some cases, decades) waiting in vain for a sequel that Harmony Gold can't legally make.

For PTH, that's actually pretty damn tame. You oughta see some of the stuff he's sent to HappyPenguins in response to various threads. Well, it doesn't spur much (if any) debate here on MacrossWorld... and I wouldn't go so far as to call what goes on over on Robotech.com and RobotechX a real debate. It's a lot more like several people who know the truth trying to verbally beat some sense into three fanboys who live in a fantasy world, and then being banned because the fanboys are also moderators, and want to silence any threat to their perfect little daydream. Thus far, my wall has gone unmolested, but I have had to stop and facepalm from time to time.

You're not alone in that... several of those idiots have accused me of having as many as six or seven different accounts that I supposedly use to troll the boards and cause trouble for "true Robotech fans". They seem to be genuinely terrified of anyone knowledgeable enough not to think Robotech is perfect, and outspoken enough to say so publicly.

I would be inclined to suspect that it's either the original series ones or the one from Macross Plus... the ones from Macross II are consistently referred to as "Powered Suit"... so I'd guess they would probably use the same terminology in Chronicle.

If they at least cover the various major flavors of beam weaponry and give a general explanation of how they work, I'll consider it worthwhile. Anything beyond that is a bonus for me... I'd really love a good breakdown of converging beam cannons, and the U.N. Spacy's particle beam guns.

Eh... they probably will, but because they've consolidated the Macross II stuff into a relatively small number of sheets, there's very little opportunity for new information, and it's spread pretty thin across the 50 issue run. I've gone back and double-checked, and a lot of the "new" information isn't new at all, it's just obscure... mainly because it comes from those small, borderline-illegible notes scribbled in the margins of the design sheets. Still... I guess I should laud them for their thoroughness, if nothing else. If they do have History Sheets or Timeline Sheets for the alternate universe continuity, I expect they'll probably be put in the last few issues to avoid potential confusion with the main continuity's events and timeline. Of late, the only thing that's kept me reading has been the technology sheets... the fold drive one was kind of disappointing though... didn't offer much in the way of new information.

It's a similar scam, but not quite the same. Shaloom's scam depended on the large number of Macross Frontier publications coming out in Japan, the inability of the few available translators to keep up with it all, and his staff position at Macross Generation to effectively camouflage the stuff that he made up himself. In the case of Maverick and MEMO, it's really more like a conspiracy theory than a scam, as they're relying on a document nobody has ever seen (and probably will never see) to overturn all of the hard evidence and vindicate their belief that Harmony Gold owns all the rights to Macross. It's also rather like a conspiracy theory in that the vast majority of people don't take their claims seriously. The only people who profess to believe them are the ones who either already believe as they do, or those who think they stand to gain something by playing along. Maverick and MEMO just have a minor advantage over normal conspiracy theorists, because they have the power to silence the logic-driven arguments of the opposition in certain venues. There's no doubt that Maverick and MEMO both actually believe the nonsense they've been exploiting their mod status to preach on Robotech.com, but the more I read of his posts, the more I suspect that Pizza falls into the second category of believers... ones who only profess to believe because they think they stand to gain something from doing so. In Pizza's case, it's not hard to see what he's after... he's gotten himself unbanned and now enjoys relative immunity from moderator retribution by toadying up to Maverick and MEMO. Now he can troll the people he considers to not be "real fans" with impunity.

I'm sure the beam weapons article will be enlightening, but the rest doesn't really thrill me... I keep hoping for some more Macross II stuff, and I keep getting disappointed.

Because to them, the actual content of Harmony Gold's license agreements with Tatsunoko don't matter nearly as much as maintaining the pretense that there might be some source that completely invalidates the mountains of hard evidence against what they're preaching. It's their general-purpose excuse for ignoring anything they don't like or agree with, trying to claim that "the contract" might invalidate or contradict the other evidence. Even explicit statements from Carl Macek himself, in their opinion, are invalid because "nobody" knows what that contract says. It's all that keeps the Maverick, MEMO, and Pizza's faith-based argument going... that and the first two idiots using their mod powers to ban anyone who dares to bring evidence that proves them wrong.

It won't last... just like his pretense of civility on RobotechX. As soon as he doesn't get his way, or someone says something he doesn't like, he flies off the handle and starts in with the name-calling, the slander, the racial and ethnic slurs... all the hallmarks of typical dougbendo behavior. Just look at how he acts on RobotechX. Whenever someone criticizes his podcast, or expresses a viewpoint that Robotech is anything other than practically perfect in every way, he immediately goes on the offensive. He tried to invite me onto that obnoxious podcast of his, and when I told him I wasn't interested because I didn't think he was capable of keeping things civil, he immediately proved me right by jumping in with the insults, telling me I was full of bullshit and didn't know anything about Robotech or Macross, and trying to goad me into it by saying I was afraid to face him. Mark my words, this "quality" in Bendo's podcast will not last. It's a brief lull in the hurricane of stupidity brought about by people whose brains are in the right way 'round getting involved. As soon as they stop contributing, he'll be right back to badmouthing us all and shouting about how he's gonna beat his girlfriend and then piss on her. You and I might see what they're doing as a distinct improvement in the state of Robotech's fanbase, but many Robotech fans consider these people to be trolls, malcontents, or "enemies of the fandom" because of what they have to say about Harmony Gold, Shadow Chronicles, and Robotech as a whole. After HappyPenguins was banned by MEMO for trying to get him to do his job and stop Pizza from trolling, Steve made it no secret that he had no intention of unbanning her because her site is critical of Harmony Gold and the direction they've chosen for Robotech. It's only a matter of time before JT/Zen72 gets banned from Robotech.com and/or RobotechX on some trumped-up charge for what he's been saying on his podcast. Maverick_LSC and MEMO1DOMINION have made it abundantly clear that criticism and facts are verboten, no matter how well-intentioned. Ehhh... I wouldn't make that declaration just yet.

Mikimoto all the way...

Yes, it's true that Carl Macek and Harmony Gold shouldn't be given credit for anything more than importing Macross, Southern Cross, and Mospeada, and combining them into a whole less than the sum of its parts... but over the years they've put so much spin on the facts, told so many lies, and exaggerated the nature and extent of their contribution so often that the casual reader believes they deserve far more credit than they actually do. Building on the analogy you used, what Carl Macek and Harmony Gold are doing is the equivalent of buying a pizza, then sneaking it into the kitchen, popping it into the oven, and acting like you made it yourself from scratch.

So far, the best (most rational) reason I've ever heard to watch Robotech has come from an acquaintance of mine who was a broadcast arts major studying to become a film historian. His take on the situation was that Robotech was worth watching for anyone interested in exploring the roots of American's love affair with anime. There's also some folks who insist that Robotech is a way to gradually ease new viewers into anime by bridging the gap between conventional anime and western animation. To me, that says that a lot of Macross fans, and particularly those in America, were introduced to Macross through Robotech. That and people don't want to be making ill-informed statements that'll come back to bite them in the ass later... after all, nobody wants to be a MEMO1DOMINION or a Maverick_LSC, and be caught talking out of their ass. Some do... most don't seem to.

It's always nice to have more evidence to back up our already unassailable conclusion... but unfortunately for some, like MEMO1DOMINION, no amount of evidence will ever suffice. Even if Tommy Yune came out tomorrow and said "look guys, we can't use Macross", MEMO would still be trying to delude himself into believing it wasn't true. When he was confronted with the text of that interview over on Robotech.com, he came up with some elaborate, utterly bullshit excuse that they couldn't back then, but that Harmony Gold "expanded" its rights to Macross at the same time they got the merchandising rights to DYRL. Never mind that there's no evidence of it, he's still presenting it as the irrefutable truth, and banning anyone who dares contradict him, like the jumped up little poo that he is. Seeing him use his mod powers like that got me hacked off enough to send a positively blistering e-mail to Steve Yun... one I'll be very interested to see the response to. I didn't just throw down the gauntlet... I threw the whole damn coat of armor. Pretty much, yeah... though one could say it's just mirroring the nature of its "creator". After all, Carl Macek has, over the years, claimed that Robotech was something he envisioned ahead of time, that he improved on the originals, and even implied that the originals were created for Harmony Gold. With lies like that at the core, does it really surprise any of us that the circumstances of Shadow Rising and the live action movie turned out to be one big, fairly obvious lie? Yeah, JT/Zen72 is one of those rare Robotech fans who has his head screwed on straight. After years of dealing with people like MEMO, Maverick, and Pizza the Hutt, it took me a while to be sure that he wasn't just a hallucination brought about by my desire to believe that there had to be at least one Robotech die-hard who wasn't a complete idiot. After all, for most of us, a statement like "Oh, I had an intelligent conversation with this really well-informed and rational die-hard Robotech fan today" is usually met with the same degree of incredulity that something along the lines of "I've just flown in from the Sherbert Kingdom, do you think the valet at Hogwarts can safely parallel park my flying marshmellow next to the unicorns?" would be.

Sort of... Studio Nue started work on Super Dimension Fortress Macross under the Wiz (Uizu) Corporation, which wanted a 48 episode sci-fi parody/comedy. When Wiz went out of business, Studio Nue bought the rights from Wiz and hooked up with Big West to do Macross as a serious sci-fi story. Studio Nue's development of Macross as we know it was done under Big West's sponsorship. This is why Big West is the owner of the Macross franchise, and can even produce Macross sequels without Studio Nue (Macross II). Tatsunoko was a genuine 11th hour addition to the production process, brought in by Big West to help foot the bill for the series in exchange for certain rights to the finished product (namely, the rest-of-world licensing and merchandising rights) not long before the first episode went to air. The logic behind the court's decisions in 2002 and 2003 is that because Tatsunoko paid for the production of the actual animation, they owned that footage, but since they had neither paid for nor participated in the creation of the underlying designs and concepts that make up the series (like the 41 designs), those copyrights were separate and owned by those who had participated or paid for the creative process... Studio Nue and Big West.

That's what the 2002 and 2003 court rulings were all about. Essentially, how it shakes out is that since Studio Nue did the creative work for the original Macross series, under the sponsorship of Big West, and prior to Tatsunoko's involvement in the production of the series, Big West/Studio Nue retain the exclusive rights to that intellectual property. Tatsunoko has no legal claim on it because they neither created it nor funded its creation. That's what the 2002 ruling was. Later, the courts decided that since Tatsunoko had done/coordinated the actual animation based on Studio Nue/Big West's intellectual property, Tasunoko owned the copyright on the footage itself, but that the copyrights on the intellectual property of the series (the story, music, characters, mecha, etc.) were separate, and that Tatsunoko has the economic rights that are associated with being the maker of the series, but not the moral/personal rights associated with being its author. That's what the 2003 ruling was. If you want it in plain english, what the courts ruled really didn't change anything... Tatsunoko owns the animation they produced, but Big West/Studio Nue own the intellectual property used in its creation. For all practical purposes, Tatsunoko is considered to have used that copyrighted intellectual property with permission when they animated the original series and DYRL, but they don't own it or have any right to use it without Big West/Studio Nue's consent.

That isn't all MEMO was claiming about that video... he was also citing that as "proof" that Tatsunoko, not Studio Nue/Big West, had the rights to the intellectual property of Macross through a very torturous reinterpretation of what Tommy actually said. The whole thing is errant nonsense, since it depends entirely on a grammatically-torturous non-literal interpretation of what Tommy actually said. Only someone completely, blindly ignorant could possibly mistake what Tommy is saying for what MEMO and Maverick want him to be saying. Fortunately, there aren't many people gullible enough to believe what Maverick and MEMO are preaching. Considering how they've destroyed their own credibility and essentially committed popular suicide, is it any surprise that the only one left who'll believe them is someone equally deluded like Pizza the Hutt? Of course he doesn't... I'd call him a habitual liar, but it doesn't seem that accurate since he actually believes the crap he's spewing is true.

Really, it wasn't any one mode so much as the mechanics of the transformation itself... though I do have a soft spot for aircraft design.

I don't think it's that you're getting old... everyone has their own individual likes and dislikes, and clearly some of the later Macross offerings just don't suit your tastes. That's all I think it is. Rare is the fan who enjoys each and every installment of a long-running title... and Macross is no exception. Personally, I got started in REAL Macross (not Harmony Gold's imitation brand) with Macross II: Lovers Again, which I enjoyed so thoroughly it prompted me to seek out the original Super Dimension Fortress Macross series in its unaltered form, and later the rest of Macross (which, at the time, ended with Macross 7). I found the whole Macross Plus and Macross 7 affair to be highly disappointing, and for the longest time I was convinced that the magic was gone from Macross... an impression Macross Zero did nothing to change. When Macross Frontier started airing, I resolved to follow the series for its entire run, fully expecting to hate the show every bit as much as I hated Macross 7. What I got instead was a show that so thoroughly exceeded my expectations that I actually found myself impatient for each new episode to come out, which, as anyone who knows me can tell you, is pretty much unprecedented.