Seto Kaiba

How the hell does THAT work? Lately, I've come to suspect that Harmony Gold is modeling their corporate operations on 3D Realms, and spend the time they ought to be using to develop new products thinking up excuses for why they don't have any new products to show the fans. Of late, their favorite response is "Oh yes, we're working on stuff, you can tell we are because we don't have anything to show for it!" DON'T GIVE THEM IDEAS!

That's pretty much what I was aiming for... the majority of the Robotech fans on the Robotech.com message boards are reasonably civil and polite, even if their grasp on reality is a little bit shaky since they don't want to admit that they bet on the wrong horse. There's this genuinely cult-like cluster of fans on there who come charging into threads to defend the retcons Tommy made over the last couple years, telling critics that they're not real Robotech fans, and happily say "thank you sir, may I have another" every time Tommy and company shat out another mediocre comic or third-rate movie... the sort of mad Robotech fan whose love of the series borders on the fetishistic, who vehemently disavow its links to Macross, Southern Cross, and Mospeada, and who defended the obscene price for the Masterpiece Beta as reasonable... in short, people like Treiz and Jeebers. (To give you an idea of HOW crazy these nutters are, I've been told by some of them that Macross, Southern Cross, and Mospeada are ripoffs of Robotech, and not the other way around) Doesn't surprise me... the average age of fans on Robotech.com is over 18... yet they insist on keeping the site kid friendly enough for preschoolers.

Doesn't surprise me in the least. Back in 2003, when I first registered on Robotech.com, I noticed that Harmony Gold seemed to have a crippling fear of being criticized, particularly where their new projects are concerned. People who predict that new products will turn out badly tend to find themselves the objects of an unnatural amount of attention from the moderators. What's more, when disputes break out between the glassy-eyed Robotech fan-zombies for whom Tommy is something of a messiah and the people with working brains, the moderators always seem to decide that the critics are trying to stir up trouble. Right now, I'm pretty sure I'm under the close scrutiny two, possibly three, moderators for my criticisms of the coming live-action movie and my arguments with a dyed-in-the-wool fanatic by the screenname of Jeebers. I've always wondered why they're using the plural form "Codices" instead of the singular form "Codex" for the title of the work in progress. Any light to shed on that? If all the Robotech Codex project is is a condensation of half-assed Robotech books like the Robotech Art series and the Palladium RPG, what's the effing point? You can put a pretty bow on a turd, but that's not going to disguise the fact that it's a turd, nor will it distract anyone from the stench. Not only will they have to jump through hoops to get Harmony Gold's OK to print, they'll have to jump through more hoops to get Palladium's OK to use art or content from their books too, and heaven help them if they want to use stuff from the McKinney novels. All in all, an awful lot of trouble for not a lot of useful content. What good is a publication like that if the mechanical design stats they print go out the window in the next Infopedia update? No kidding... I remember seeing a couple signatures on Robotech.com that went to the effect of "Former Robotech fan, lost to Macross due to no movement from HG". Pretty fair description of where I was, circa 2003. Though Robotech continues to lose ground in my book, because Tommy is wiping his dick all over the franchise and turning it from a polarizing, if anachronistic, classic, into bland, samey dribble. I know... I've made that observation several times... message board activity on their site has dropped off sharply, so that there are barely thirty people posting in 90% of the site. Most of the old times have been banned or left when the site suddenly turned from something like this place into a kid-friendly poster child for political correctness. Harmony Gold employees (particularly Kevin McKeever) protest that their franchise is growing, bigger and better than ever before, and that the fanbase has only grown, offering no actual evidence to support his claims in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Ask the joe average anime fan what he thinks of Robotech and you'll get one of two answers most of the time... either "What's that?" or "That's poo!".

Okay... that's enough to completely reverse my opinion of him... anyone capable of being pals with Doug Bendo is someone I'd prefer to regard only while on the opposite side of an unbreakable two-way mirror.

Hmmm... that's actually a really cool concept. Nicely done.

Amusing... I was aware of the existence of at least one printed preview copy that'd been sent to Harmony Gold for approvals. It doesn't surprise me that the guy who did the cover art was also given a preview copy. I will admit, the cover art looks quite nice. Better than much of the crap Harmony Gold puts out professionally. If I can find that guy's robotech.com SN or if he's got a MacrossWorld account, I've half a mind to offer him new blog real-estate on my server... EDIT: Never mind... I found him. It looks like he was permanently banned from Robotech.com for doing what I so often do... telling the people in charge just how shitty the quality of their work really is.

Yeah, according to the Robotech Anthology website, they were planning to publish it on a semi-annual basis. I'd guess that Harmony Gold gave them the go-ahead for the publication to avoid offending the long-time fans who coordinated it, several of whom are Robotech.com moderators, but refused to fund it because they don't think it really stands a chance, a passive-aggressive way to kill the project permanently. An honest assessment if ever I saw one, since most anime enthusiasts have either never heard of Robotech before, or regard the series as unworthy of attention because it's a bastardized rewrite. I have to admit, the lengths to which some of the more devoted Robotech fans go to delude themselves into believing their favorite show is still popular are somewhat frightening. One fellow tried to convince me that Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles was selling like mad because it was briefly the top-selling anime DVD at WalMart. Now I don't know how many of you have ever ventured into the video section of a WalMart before... but calling their selection of anime "sparse" would be too generous to be accurate. Last time I ventured back there, Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles was one of only five titles they had... three of the remaining four were various flavors of Dragonball, and the fourth was Pokemon. Being the best-selling anime DVD at WalMart... a title every bit as prestigious as being the best-selling anime DVD at your local McDonalds. That same fellow attempted to convince me that Robotech: Battlecry was wildly popular because it had sold somewhere around 50,000 copies... fell flat on its face when I pointed out that a genuinely popular game like Mario Kart or Bioshock could expect to sell half a million or more copies, and that a truly popular cross-platform game could expect to sell millions. Admittedly, I can understand why Harmony Gold would brag about Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles being a financial success... after all, they only spent $1 million making it, and at $20 a copy they only have to sell 50,000 copies to break even... not exactly difficult considering it's available worldwide, and made even less difficult when you factor in the money they got from its brief theatrical run and TV run.

Personally, since my favorite part of the Macross universe has remained unchanged by even the slightest retcon or rewrite over the last fifteen years, it'd take an awful lot to chase me away from the franchise for good... Something atrocious like trying to shoehorn Macross II back into the main timeline, or remaking it with Kawamori mecha. Or, god forbid, another exercise in pants-on-head retarded storytelling like Macross 7... I still haven't been able to ascertain which is worse... Gundam ZZ or Macross 7... but neither one completely succeeded in chasing me away from its respective franchise... it just made me all the more eager to get past them to something that might actually be good again. I can't comprehend what motivates the Bizarro people who actually found those two shows entertaining.

That approach is nothing new, Einherjar. After all, it's exactly how they made the Robotech.com Infopedia... right down to the poaching of information from Macross sources. A lot of the guys who wrote the Unofficial Robotech Reference Guide "consulted on" (wrote) the Infopedia based on their work on their own site. Not I... the only Palladium Books game I've ever played was their Macross II RPG... with all its horrible inaccuracies and blatantly made-up information. It's what motivated me to start collecting every Macross II source I could lay hands on and put together a site providing the most accurate information on the OVA possible. I've seen the Robotech RPG books, both 1st and 2nd Edition, and they are pretty bad. Lots of art shamelessly thieved from Macross books (but with Robotech, that seems to be the status quo) and lots of REALLY REALLY AWFUL art drawn by their in-house artists.

And yet no Ishtar or Wendy Rider... FOR SHAME!

Macross Frontier OST 1 (Nyan Fro) and OST 2 (Nyan Tra) are both slightly less than half background music, though it's really nothing remarkable or even remotely interesting. OST 3 (Nyan Tama) has no BGM at all.

Robotech's version of the female alter ego of Yellow Belmont from Mospeada. Actually a much better vocalist than Reba West/Rebecca Forstadt (Robotech's Minmei), but still pretty awful due to bad writing and recycled Minmei songs.

Hmmmm... Ishtar or Sheryl Nome. Fancy lightshows I can do without, I want some decent songs.

I know... it's really kind of worrying that their business plan seems to be an arbitrary desire to make everyone hate them and screw over their customer base. It's like the company's being run by a Batman villain.

Well... wow... that's... kinda shitty. Most fans don't have that kind of scratch kicking around, and the few that do have better things to spend it on. I know Harmony Gold makes a practice of screwing Robotech fans over... but that's above and beyond the call of duty.

Sorry... I'm a perfectionist... and that was a grammatical nightmare. Yes, Robotech.com fan-fiction and fan-art submissions require the submitting party to agree to a legal agreement that gives Harmony Gold the royalty-free right to exploit submitted fan-art and fan-fiction however they see fit. The exact text of the agreement is: (I trimmed out the first bit about having to submit only original works)

I'm fairly sure that so long as the artists/writers waive their usual rights to control the use/misuse of their work like they have to do on Robotech.com there shouldn't be a problem. I could, of course, be wrong. I had a look at that Robotech Anthology website, and it looks like Harmony Gold hasn't given them the go-ahead yet anyway... it says they submitted a demo version of the first issue/volume and haven't heard back yet. I'd imagine if they decide to go ahead and add mecha and character stats to all that, it'll have to go through approvals again. EDIT: Torturous wording was torturous.

I'll agree that it is a better plan to see if Harmony Gold or the fans can contribute their own art, rather than attempting to persuade Palladium to let you use their art, or trying to copy art from the Japanese books. I wouldn't say it goes very far to counter the accusation that Harmony Gold is riding Macross's coattails though... as the plot on the ongoing story still revolves around Macross characters and new Robotech relatives thereof.

It wouldn't be a stretch to classify Robotech itself as a really awful Macross, Southern Cross, and Mospeada fanfic.

I doubt they'll go that far, especially since most of what's in the translation thread has no bearing on Robotech at all. Isn't that pretty much the definition of "a Robotech book"? A collection of Macross materials with the art traced and the names changed? I can't imagine they'd be able to glean much from Robotech Art 1-3, since all that amounts to is one big Carl Macek fan-wank. There's no such thing as a Robotech source publication that doesn't pilfer from Macross. The Palladium RPG only made it to press in the first place by stealing copiously from the Japanese artbooks... Kevin Siembieda admitted as much in an interview on Space Station Liberty. Likewise, the URRG is based extensively on Macross source materials. As is the Infopedia. Many other Robotech fansites pilfer from Macross sources without rhyme or reason. Ah, you've misunderstood... You aren't one of the many, MANY people who's been pestering me for information for various Robotech-related fan projects. You posted a public request for information on two message boards, that's about as polite and unobtrusive a request as it's possible to make. It's the ones who frequently e-mail me (as often as once a week) appealing for information for whatever Robotech fanart/fanfic/fansite they're working on that really hack me off.

I've been watching Mobile Suit Victory Gundam lately, and I can't shake the thought that the mega launcher used by Uso's LM312V04+SD-VB03A Victory-Dash Gundam looks and operates like a converging beam cannon... it even uses the same sound effect... the only difference is the beam is pink and not blue. The cannons on the overhang packs also do the same sound effect, and the hits are always animated like that one shot in the original series where the Macross's main gun cored that Zentradi cruiser like an apple.

Granted... while I appreciate the role it played in the formation of the American anime industry, I really can't muster a lot of respect for it anymore, because the creators of Robotech have illustrated time and again that they're terrified of the prospect of developing their own stories, characters, etc. Admittedly, they have good reason to be, as every attempt they made at tell a story of their own making met with spectacular failure. That's why they've fallen back on Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles, a pseudo-continuation of Robotech II: the Sentinels that would be more appropriately entitled Mospeada II: the Search for More Money. I'm waiting for the supposedly forthcoming Robotech live-action movie not because I think it will be good, but because I'm betting it'll be the Robotech equivalent of G-Saviour... or maybe we ought to call it Plan 9 from Harmony Gold. Ah... the "Einherjar" there was a Southern Cross fangroup. Admittedly, not a very big one (as even the average Robotech fan treats that particular show like an exceptionally odious piece of roadkill). You oughta read the Sentinels comics sometime... everything that's wrong with them can be neatly encapsulated in a eight-word phrase that seems to have been the Waltrip Brothers motto... "Let's be like a bad Star Trek fanfic". Then again, Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles can be neatly summed up with a very similar production motto... "Let's be like a bad Battlestar Galactica fanfic". Like I said to VFTF1, Harmony Gold seems to have a crippling fear of original ideas. Every new character seems to have to have an arbitrary relation to some previous character from the original series, no matter how minor. The ones that don't are clearly marked for death... evidenced by Marcus Rush and Alex Romero, the former being the never-mentioned brother of Scott's girlfriend Marlene, and the latter being his generic wisecracking best friend who dies as predictably as the sun rising. The only new Earth forces mecha designs are a comics-exclusive transforming jeep that I could swear I saw in an episode of one of the more recent Transformers shows, a "Super Shadow Fighter" that is visibly indistinguishable from the normal "Shadow Fighter", a Haydonite fighter that looks right out of Battlestar Galactica (apparently their resemblance to the Cylons is more than superficial), and an assortment of generic-looking boxes we're supposed to think are ships. The music has remained similarly unoriginal, relying almost entirely on remixes of music from the original series, and people are STILL warbling those horrible Minmei songs like "Stage Fright" and "We Will Win", though admittedly they sound even worse when performed by not-terribly-talented-anything Chase Masterson. Y'remember that persecution complex I mentioned a post or so back... For me, the hilarious part of this is that I am routinely pestered by the fans on Robotech.com to provide information and lineart for various unofficial attempts to provide a more comprehensive resource about Robotech's characters and mecha. In fact, not two days ago I was asked by one of the moderators to contribute information and art to what amounts to a Robotech imitation of Macross Chronicle. Out of sheer bloody-minded frustration with their incessant whining, and since I don't think I could get away with that many murders, I've even offered to update their Infopedia myself, just because I've gotten sick of the biweekly "update the infopedia!" threads and e-mailed appeals for more information. *looks over at Totoro242* I was wondering how long it'd take the Robotech apologists to get here and start picking nits in my post with all the speed and frenzy of an amphetamine-fueled chimpanzee... it took longer than I thought.

I wish I knew. I've been a regular on Robotech.com for something like six years now and I still haven't figured that one out. The fanbase there is mainly people who saw the show during the original run in the 80's, or on Cartoon Network in the 90's, mixed with some people from countries where it recently aired, and some people who've been introduced to it by friends. As to why they're so devoted to a franchise that has essentially been dead since 1987, I can't say. Many fans on Robotech.com are genuinely in denial about that fact, a problem exacerbated by Kevin McKeever's repeated insistence that the franchise is healthy and quite profitable. Of course, that is errant nonsense. Anybody with an ounce of common sense can figure out that it doesn't take a healthy franchise four tries and twenty years to produce its first viable sequel. A good portion of the fans there seem to be sticking with it out of nostalgia, while others are either obsessed with finding out what happened to the remaining Macross characters aboard the SDF-3, and a few others are clinging to it out of some bizarre persecution complex, since Robotech is generally not a welcome subject with anime or American animation enthusiasts, and a good number of them are hanging on because they're largely ignorant about anime, and haven't been introduced to something better yet. Some of the more "enthusiastic" Robotech fans have this odd tendency to take the matter of expanding the universe into their own hands, by "adopting" mecha from other shows and giving them new Robotech backstories. I've seen various Robotech fan-fiction groups and unofficial reference guides adopt mecha from both Macross timelines, Gundam, Patlabor, Outlaw Star, Full Metal Panic!, and even Neon Genesis Evangelion. A lot of it is done for the sake of the Robotech RPG, but some of it (like the URRG) seems to be collateral damage from using Macross artbooks to fill in the gaps in Robotech's mecha info. By the way, you wouldn't also happen to be a regular on RT.com? There used to be a group there called the Einherjar. Any connection?

Even bad cooking will be well received by a starving man. Likewise, the Robotech fanbase has a long history of eagerly snapping up any new release, no matter how awful, simply because it's something new. That particular tendency has only gotten worse in recent years, with the release of that bland-a-thon epic Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles. Perhaps my wording was a bit unclear... while the art quality of the Sentinels comics remained consistently mediocre, the average art quality in Robotech comics dropped with each change in publishers... a trend that only ended when Wildstorm got the license.

Sort of yes, sort of no... After work on Robotech II: the Sentinels was aborted in 1987, Harmony Gold more or less gave up trying to make new material on their own, so they attacked the only area where they showed a consistent profit... comic books. Of course, if you know anything about Harmony Gold's history... you'll know that they even managed to cock that up pretty badly. In 1988, Harmony Gold handed the Robotech license to Malibu imprint Eternity Comics. Malibu proceeded to pick up the Sentinels story right where it left off in the animation, and turned out a series of extremely poor comic books that didn't sell very well. They made a brief attempt to milk the Macross side of the story for cash with Robotech: Return to Macross. When Marvel bought Malibu Comics in 1994, they shut down the Eternity imprint, and the Robotech license was picked up by Academy Comics. Academy Comics, an independent publisher, unwisely attempted to pick up the Robotech II: the Sentinels comics right where Eternity/Malibu had left off, and managed to do an even worse job with the art and writing than Eternity did. Many of their comics, including Robotech: Destroid, Robotech: the Misfits, and Robotech: Mechangel frequently contained art blatantly traced from Macross animation, products, and publications. To give you an idea of how bad it was... Robotech: the Misfits blatantly traced the VF-4 from Flashback 2012, but rebadged it "U.S. Spacy", and also borrowed several characters from Macross Plus, including Captain Higgins. In 1996, after several writers jumped ship when their projects were canceled, Harmony Gold revoked Academy's license, causing the company to fold in short order. The next idiots to be given the license were perhaps the worst offenders prior to Tommy Yune... Antarctic Press, who had the Robotech license from 1997 to 1998. Antarctic had the unpleasant tendency to treat contemporary movies and TV shows like a free idea bucket. Much of their mecha art was blatantly traced from DYRL product boxes and artbooks, and many of their characters were traced from popular movies. One of their worst titles was a two-issue series called Robotech: Wings of Gibraltar which stole most of its mecha designs from DYRL, and most of its character designs from Independence Day (going so far as to TRACE Brent Spiner's character). These comics were received so poorly by the fans that there was actually jubilation when several titles were canceled early into their runs. Many of their titles were blatant attempts to milk the original Macross series for more money... and had the lamentable tendency to promise the moon with action-packed cover art, but incredibly boring and poorly drawn contents. Harmony Gold revoked their license in 1998 and never bothered telling them why. In 2002, when Harmony Gold decided to have another stab at comics, they contracted with Wildstorm and put Tommy Yune in charge. Naturally, with Harmony Gold having tighter creative control they stuck to what they knew would sell, endless retreads of Macross events, and side stories based on the Macross original series. In this case, the powers that be apparently were watching Macross Zero, because their first title was a prequel comic that was set during the development of the VF-1. For two miniseries, they milked Macross, then decided to have a stab at an artbook, then went to suckle the teats of Mospeada in preparation for the eminently craptacular Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles. Starting in Robotech: Prelude to the Shadow Chronicles, the last of Wildstorm's Robotech comics, an odd trend started with regard to Macross intellectual property... it started to disappear. Many of the Robotech equivalents of Macross characters either died, went missing, or were totally remodeled to the point where they bore no resemblance at all to their Macross origins. In the span of the five-issue miniseries, Breetai (Vrlitwhai), Exedore (Exsedol), and possibly Dr. Lang (SDF-1's chief engineer) were all killed, Lisa (Misa) was critically injured and spent most of her time uninvolved in the story, Rick (Hikaru) was completely remodeled to the point where he looks like Hideo Kuze from Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex 2nd gig, and Max and Miriya (Milia) mysteriously failed to appear. Minmay made a brief appearance, but was obscured from view in all but two panels, both of which were in the last issue. This odd trend of avoiding Macross intellectual property at all costs has led more than a few people to suspect that the powers that be at Harmony Gold might have been gently encouraged to stay the hell away from the character designs and other intellectual property from the original Macross series in their ongoing works. Either that or the powers that be at Harmony Gold have decided on their own power to avoid a potential lawsuit and accusations that all they know how to do is milk Macross to death by getting away from Macross. So yes, in terms of intellectual property usage... it's only very recently that Harmony Gold has loosened their death grip on Macross. Most of their toys are still either blatantly relabeled copies of Macross merch, or stuff they themselves have imported. (PS: If you actually read all that without needing to stop and take a breather... bravo...)