Seto Kaiba

I second the fuzzy dice and inflatable afro. Phalanx, not every little thing needs it's own thread. Stop and consider if your thread will benefit the community before you post it, not after. It'll save you a lot of people griping at you.

Personally, I think Kevin might have been presenting the worst case scenario estimate for the damages as the actual amount in his previous claims. I doubt that Mr. Sheiring's damage to the company was quite THAT severe, if all he was doing was giving away free product every so often, or undercharging for services, not counting the stuff he supposedly stole from the company, to which a positive estimate of price cannot be assessed. The actual damages due to loss of inventory would've had to number some 71,000 or more books to even come close to reaching the outlandish amount of losses that Kevin's claiming Palladium suffered. Stealing original art, and the like might be a blow to the company, but it's hardly enough to cause that much damage to the company. The transparencies too... it's unlikely that that much damage was caused, even over the timeframe we're talking about, because they were obviously printing at least some of those titles while those transparencies were missing. That nobody noticed anything is perhaps the most unbelievable part of Kevin's story. All that inventory goes missing, and is never once accounted for, reported as lost, or even inspected over that long of a time? Unless their accounting people are dumber than the average by a goodly margin, then it just stretches his credability beyond what I and many others are willing to accept. Given common sense, and a healthy bit of reason, it's pretty obvious that either Sheiring did a LOT more than we're being told, or that Kevin is sorely overestimating the damages. I doubt that Palladium will fold because of this, I think that it's pretty likely they'll get the Robotech licence back and they'll be more or less back on their feet in about four or five years.

Let's see, even if he was secretly groomed for the operation by the military, disobeying orders, insubordination, recklessly and needlessly endangering both fellow soldiers and civilians, and running amok with an expensive and dangerious piece of experimental military hardware wouldn't just get him suspended from duty and stripped of his VF-19, it would more likely land him in the stockade, pending a court martial, and depending on the way the UN runs, possibly even a dishonorable discharge or a date with the firing squad. Plus I'm pretty sure that Basara's music violates the Geneva convention's provisions on torture. Since Basara is plainly a civilian, and therefore falls somewhat outside the bounds of military justice, it's patently ludicrous for him to be allowed to fly a variable fighter at all. Considering that he's flying a custom-built valkyrie so new that the military's elite forces don't have them yet, with a specialized control system and experimental weaponry, instead of an old clunker or a civilian model, it becomes even more odd and harder to believe. That he's doing so to fight a bunch of giant space monsters who are vulnerable to singing just stretches suspension of disbelief so far that it puts in it's two weeks notice. Though to me easily the most ludicrous thing in all Macross 7 was the manual control for the Battle 7's main gun. A little pistol with a gunsight that comes up out of the console in front of Max, like some kind of arcade. That's almost as bad as the little joystick that they used on the flop movie Star Trek Nemesis, as a manual control for the Enterprise E. Even though Macross II's storyline was admittedly taking something from DYRL and expanding on it, it still remains much more believable and relevant to the Macross timeline than Macross 7. The only civilians allowed in the combat zone are combat reporters, aka Hibiki and his cameraman Dennis. Since the military has control over what footage SNN airs, they obviously knew that Hibiki was flying up there. Combat reporters are nothing new, we have them today. The only difference is he was flying an unarmed plane instead of walking around as an unarmed reporter. His valkyrie was a civilian one, that had no battroid mode, no weapons, and was outfitted for the purpose of taking footage for the news. Hibiki never directly interfered with the combat operations, and did a few reckless things, but not nearly as many as Basara did. The only people who flew the newly constructed Metal Siren were the UN Spacy's elite, Nexx and Sylvie, who were both experienced pilots. The only time that Hibiki actually endangered military personnel was when he tried to take Ishtar back to Feff's ship, and even then, he didn't directly endanger anyone from the military or civilian populace. Never once was a civilian allowed in a military valkyrie with the intent that they fight, and only twice were civilians even allowed in at all, at the Moon Festival Airshow, which was pre-approved, and during a rescue operation, which was a necessity. For insubordination, and recklessly endangering herself, and for concealing the presence of an alien intruder, Sylvie got locked up in the stockade, pending a court martial hearing. For illegal use of emergency broadcast channels, breaking and entering into UN Headquarters, and for broadcasting combat footage not approved by the military, Hibiki got locked up in the stockade pending a hearing. That's much more in keeping with the way a military functions than what Macross 7 has. The only time they rely on singing as a weapon is when they're using Operation Minmay, and that's a sanctioned, proven military strategem that had been used against the Zentradi multiple times before with equal success. The reason it worked on the Marduk at the end was because it was one of their own emulators, and the troops were programmed to be manipulated by the songs sung by the emulators. There's nothing spiritual about it, no anima spirita, no nothing, this is a simple example of culture shock as a psychological weapon, and turning an enemy's mental conditioning against him. All told, there's a lot less in Macross II that I find hard to swallow than there is in Macross 7. Kawamori must've let his brain check out for a while.

Sounds like you keep almost as busy as I do. Today's my last official day of grading papers, then I'm free for the next four months, to pursue my goal of simply taking my mind off the hook for a while. I figure if the world wants to get in touch with me badly enough, it'll call back. At least that means not only a four-day weekend, but also the final testing of the new version of my site, and the implementation of the new interface for it. Bugtesting and validation is a cast-iron bitch at the moment, I'm not taking Dreamweaver 8's word for it and I'm double checking each page using IE6, IE7, NS7, NS8, FF1.5, and OP7. That's a consistant enough mix that if the page loads in all of them, pretty much anything running Windows, MacOS, Linux or Unix should be able to interpret it just fine. So you'll be keeping your text link to my site for a while until I can finish checking it in every browser.

For starters, USE PARAGRAPHS! It makes your writing much less of a pain to read. For each complete thought, use a complete sentence, and when you're done following one line of thought, make a new paragraph. It's not just for your sake, but for ours, so we don't go mad trying to read the super-paragraph from hell. Starting on the use of music in Macross 7 to convey emotion, that wasn't the point. In Macross 7, music generates some pseudomystical force called anima spirita that the Protodevlin feed on, and that the Varuta don't have, so the spirita breaks them from their mind controlled-zombie state. It's all pseudospiritual BS, just Kawamori's take on "The Force" from Star Wars. I know the only thing I feel listening to Basara molest that guitar and microphone is irritation at Kawamori. Emotion to do with turning the Mardook against Ingues? Maybe. I suppose introducing a relatively brutal society to the concept of love might've been what started to turn them, it's certainly what turned Feff. But then again, the introduction of emotions evoked by music has always been a part of the culture shock weapon. The defection of the Mardook fleet was more likely prompted by Ingues's destruction of entire divisions of the fleet when their emulators refused to sing the song of war. When faced with a choice between an annihilation of their own making, and one of their master's making, all they needed was something to push them over the edge and give them the courage to do away with Ingues. Your last few sentences make no sense whatsoever the way they're worded. I'm guessing you mean that the new mecha designs were radical (ie Metal Siren, Zentradi Valkyrie, new destroids), and that the other mecha were updated versions of the original models from DYRL/SDF Macross. As to it's placement in the timeline, it was INTENDED to be a part of the timeline, and Kawamori removed it because it didn't fit with his idea for the Macross timeline, which involved Macross Plus (which he was working on when II was released) and Macross 7 (which absolutely sucks).

Yes, and the ladies too. Now now, we're here to chat about the aspects of Macross II, and while it might be fun to bash Kawamori for taking his revenge on the Macross community for having made a Macross series without him in the form of an annoying rock band, some sentai action hero look-alike Valkyries, and music that would make your teeth ache, it's not quite the point. Macross II is (thank god) a completely separate continuity from Macross 7 and Macross Plus, representing an alternate path of history and mecha development in which the UN takes a mecha developement path more in line with current fighter development (slow refinement, not drastic leaps) and has become somewhat reliant on facing the Zentradi down using music as a culture shock weapon as they'd done in the past, with no sort of magical, pseudospiritual BS attached.

Harmony Gold has neither the money, nor the ability to do any such thing. Right now, nearly all of what little money their company has left is sunk into their latest attempt to make an original Robotech sequel, something that's flopped what, three or four times now? Even if they had the money or influence to supress a re-release, they'd never manage it for long, because the demand is simply too high when compared to their own products. Harmony Gold has a wonderfully long history of talking a good game, and never being able to back their words up, and like Zinjo said, they tend to fold given the slightest pressure. Even if Manga did let their licence lapse, the most likely contenders for it in my mind would likely be Image, Geneon, and possibly ADV. Remastered Patlabor movie you say? I'm there.

Mainly, I'm running a website design and custom application development studio with some good friends of mine. It pays pretty well, but it's mostly designing websites for small businesses and doing repairs and maintenace for the few larger companies around. We also do pretty good business as makers of custom, high performance gaming computers, and doing computer repair, but those jobs are again, mostly for small businesses, and the occasional independent customer. So since the hours aren't long, I usually end up picking up a "hobby" to keep myself occupied. Recently I've done a bit of public relations work for a major American automaker in my free time. Also, once or twice a year I get called in by the local orchestra and their affiliate performing arts groups to either pull a shift as stage crew chief or as either a Bass Trombone, Baritone, or 2nd Trombone. It also happens that every so often I end up either substituting for, or helping a professor at the local university's computer science department teach a class or two. It's that last one that's generated all the papers to grade. The semester's ending in three days and I've got a massive backlog of programs to grade for a Java Obeject Oriented Programming class. What about you?

All right gents, that's quite enough, let's get back on topic.

Palladium Books has been inching closer to the abyss for ages now. It's just a matter of time before they take the final step and plunge right out of business. They keep churning out more of the same old thing, more Rifts products and periodically some additions to the fantasy line. Kevin Siembieda's unwillingness to explore the opportunities available with new titles and licences is killing Palladium just as surely as the theft and sabotage have. The Palladium RPG system needs a facelift badly, and he's too damn proud to do it. He doesn't want to abandon the system and games he's become comfortable with, so as a result Palladium has essentially become irrelevant to the entire industry. Even getting the Robotech RPG licence back won't save them at this point, since in all honesty, it's nothing new. Unless they offer something from the upcoming new Robotech series (Shadow Chronicles) in their new Robotech RPG, it won't have much appeal for anyone, even the die-hard Robotech fans. Maybe if he revamped the entire system, and included material from Shadow Chronicles, and if Shadow Chronicles REALLY takes off, then they might have a chance to stay in business. What they really need are about ten new titles, and a complete reevaluation of the entire Palladium game system. Of course, neither of those things are likely to ever happen. I think it's pretty likely that Harmony Gold will renew their licence to the Robotech RPG. Harmony Gold isn't big on doing anything new or original, and they tend to stick to what works for them, like using familiar characters, mecha and voices in even their newest works, and sticking to the same idea for a sequel no matter how many times it fails. (Shadow Chronicles is an extension of the failed concept for Robotech II: The Sentinels) So I don't think Harmony Gold will seriously even consider other comapnies unless Palladium out and out tells them that they're going under next tuesday. Mercifully both Palladium Books and Harmony Gold are so far out of touch with the demands of the fans, and the flow of the entire gaming industry that it's likely that very few people would even notice that either or both had gone out of business. If one or both died, other companies would pick up the licences that could turn make a decent profit, and let the others fall, and most of the world would be none the wiser. It's gotten so bad with Harmony Gold that people have to blast them with petitions and complaints in order to get products released, or even defective products replaced. I'm sure some of you know about the defective DVDs from the Southern Cross series, and the ongoing petition for merchendise from same. Mostly their administration turns a deaf ear to it. Palladium's a little wiser, and at least pretends to listen to the complaints.

Hmmm... pretty good. It's a little out of scale for a Mardook/Zentradi battleship, since those seem to top out around 4000m long excluding the mobile fortress belonging to Ingues. Still, that aside you've got a pretty good handle of the Mardook/Zentradi hull texture and overall look. The shape of the hull and the position of the tower on the rear remind me a little more of the pre-salvage SDF-1 than a Marduk ship, or maybe the flying bridge from the Mardook version of the Thuverl Salan class. All told, it's a good piece of work, well drawn and a good beginning from which you can flesh the design out more.

Glad you like it, I'll agree with you that there should've been more done with the big space battles, especially the one at the finale. They only show a fraction of the battle because the main character was a civilian, and they were more focused with showing his angle than the military's. Though there weren't 120 Macross Cannons at the last battle, they only mentioned the existance of six of them during the last battle. When it came up in the dialogue, Capt. Balzae asked "Why only four?" and his aide replied "two more are en route." Seeing more of the U.N. Spacy's own warships instead of the ones taken from the Zentradi would've been a nice touch to the space battles. Sure they modified the ships to launch newer Valkyries, and stenciled a UN logo on them, but the fighting is still done mostly by Zentradi-style ships. I would've liked to see more of the Gloria and Heracles class ships, and maybe even some more to do with the rescue carrier ship that picked up Silvie and Hibiki, and the gunships that make up the rank and file of the human ships. That's not entirely the case. Sure the marketing for additional models, toys, etc. practically writes itself when you add specialized models of mecha for main characters, but it's nothing unique to any mecha series. It's been practically a tradition as long as there's been giant robot anime to give the main characters their own specal model of mecha, or a special paint scheme to tell them apart from the rank and file expendable extras. Look at how Hikaru mysteriously got a VF-1J right off the bat, with a different color scheme, when the rest of the recruits flew brown VF-1A's. Or how Max and Milia got special color schemes. Or how in Full Metal Panic, Sousuke got the ARX-7. It's not so much for commercialism as it is for getting the main characters to stand out and be different from the expendable extras. Another of the interesting aspects that comes out that proves that Macross II isn't a DYRL carbon copy. You could compare the UN Spacy in Macross II to the Soviet military during the cold war, when the government exercised massive censorship of the press to save face, even when things weren't going well. And you had one borderline crazy reporter determined to get the truth out, which got him locked up, and likely nearly executed, very like Russia under Stalin. Then you had the very Hitler-esque Mardook, where disobedience is punished by death, and where the goal is to wipe out everything other than the "master race" as Ingues plans to wipe out every non-Mardook species. Thank you, I hope you'll enjoy my work as well.

Is it just me or did all the other threads in here vanish? I'm getting caught up on a grading backlog, then I'll be back into the website stuff.

I never said I was on a quest to correct everybody, I'm just working to provide the most complete set of information possible for the enjoyment of the fans of Macross II. The unavailability of good Macross II websites and information is a sticking point for a lot of fans that want to know more about the series, and providing accurate, canon information is tied into that as well. Sorry we got a little off topic. But you can only say so much about "I like Macross II because" before it gets really old, and talking more about the series in detail is definately helping keep the thread moving. So long as I'm here and Azrael's asking to get back on topic, I'll give this thread a kick more towards the spirit of the original post. I'd be interested to hear from all of you what your favorite mecha is from Macross II, and why. Personally I rather like the Gigamesh flown by Feff. Taken with the more conventional designs used by the UN and the Zentradi, the Mardook's one or two new types of mecha definately deserved more screen time than they got. Feff's personal Gigamesh just has such an utterly malevolent fell to it, from the obsidian-black faceplate with the glowing red eyes, to the fact that the thing is bristling with close combat weapons, like the extendable fingers, toes and wings, and the missile launchers hidden in the forearms. It's got a lot more of an organic feeling to it than the Nosjadeul Ger or Queadluun Rau. Can't say I care much for the generic head for it, which had that odd little beak, but the Feff variant was something that needed more screen time than it got. That aside, the revision to the Nosjadel Ger was nice for the Zentradi, gave it a more streamlined feeling, and made it look a little more organic and alien, and a little less mechanical. Same general mecha, just looks a little more like a blend between the original Queadluun Rau and Nosjadeul Ger models, with those large engines behind the shoulder joint, and the slightly less pronounced head.

Buddy, knowing Kevin and his writing style as well as I do, I can tell you right now that I have NEVER treated his RPG books as a canon source of information on the mecha, characters or anything else in Macross II. On multiple occasions I've sat down to have a chat with the good folks at Palladium Books about it, and to start to put right what they put wrong. It's not like they did it out of malice, or in some attempt to ruin Macross II, their goal was to provide a RPG that was within the constraints of the Macross II timeline and mecha, and be as close to canon as possible while still providing a game that was both enjoyable and fair. So I do think you may be judging them a little harshly. All told they did us all a minor service in those books by using selected art from the "THIS IS ANIMATION SPECIAL" on Macross II, making it much much easier to find. Here's a few examples of some of the things I've put right using the available canon materials, common sense, and a healthy dash of mathematics and some evidence from the animation: The size of the Heracles class carrier, as listed in his books, is 305m long. This blatantly contradicts obvious evidence in the anime itself, namely several shots of the Heracles class sitting in port next to a Zentradi carrier, a Quiltra Queleual class carrier, and two of the UN Spacy frigates, all of which are nearly the same size as the Quiltra Queleual. That puts their sizes respectively around 3000m long each. Calculating backwards from other visual evidence of known scale, including the size of mecha making suicide runs on them, gives me a similarly large answer. The size of the Macross Cannon, which is listed as a little under 500m contradicts all the visible evidence, including shots of it docked with a mobile fortress identical to that used by Bodolzaa during the original series, and the idea of it having four Nupetiet Vergnitz prows for guns. My calculations and estimates put it at being about 4800m long. So you see Skull Leader, I'm well aware Kevin's material isn't canon, and I know full well the huge number of problems he introduced. That's why I've made it my own little quest, so to speak, to correct what he's put wrong, and provide a more realistic estimate of the mecha, characters and weaponry based on the animation and more credible canon sources, including the "This is Animation Special" book on Macross II. The problem is that while I and most of you might know that his material isn't canon, and in many cases doesn't make sense (like saying the Macross Cannon can't fly in atmosphere and on the next page printing art of it flying through the clouds), there are a lot of people out there who haven't got all the evidence in front of them, and so end up using the Palladium Books RPG as their main resource, simply because it's easier to find and read than the "This is Animation Special" volume on Macross II. The art is still perfectly good, since it's mostly taken from the Animation Special book anyways, but it's the stats that are the sticky subject and lead to the majority of sites using the "Marduk" spelling.

Since when did an out-of-print overseas RPG carry more weight than Bandai Visual and the Macross II creators themselves? That's even further from the source than Manga Entertainment's release, which is already wrong in this particular instance. 392761[/snapback] Actually, you'll find that the english articles for Macross II and Marduk also carry the "Mardook" spelling. So using them might make things a little easier for those who aren't perfectly fluent in Japanese. I speak and read it pretty well, well enough to not make a fool of myself in public with it, but I wouldn't quite call myself totally fluent in it. The out-of-print RPG books shouldn't carry more weight than Bandai Visual's official spelling for it, or the creator's official word on the matter. However, you do have to factor in that the vast majority of the webmasters who are putting content about Macross II on their sites are working with the materials they can lay hands on, which in this case happens to be that very same out of print RPG book series, and the DVD with the misspelling in the subtitles. Factor that in and it's small wonder why "Marduk" and "Mardook" are used interchangably by most sites. My own site has an article on it in the works, so it's not like I'm ignoring the matter either. The only sites that carry Macross II stuff that I'm aware of that actually use the Mardook spelling are the Macross Compendium and MAHQ. Moving on... Now now let's not flame Macross_Fanboy, he's not been grounded, he's just goofing off in Japan on the government's nickel. Personally I don't share his views on Macross 7. The mecha and story just seemed a little contrived to me. Especially the bit about the military entrusting a bunch of civilian musicians with extremely expensive military equipment, including variable fighters, and then pulling some pseudo-spiritual BS and taking the whole idea of using music in combat from simply singing at the enemy over the radio as a diversionary measure and psychological assault to the idea of using music itself as a weapon, by firing little speakers at the enemy. That's just stretching sanity a little bit. Macross II does have a lot in common with DYRL, that's not being denied by anyone, but it does have unique elements of it's own.

After a much closer examination, I find nothing in common between the F/A-18 and the VF-1. The angle of the tail is one thing, but that is neither unique to the F/A-18, nor distinctive enough to merit calling them related designs. It's simply an efficiant aircraft design. The overall shape of the VF-1's body, as well as the vast majority of the details are lifted straight from the F-14. I'm not sure where you're getting this idea that the F/A-18 was involved, but even looking at it from the side, I don't see this similarity that you're on about. A lot of fighters look alike, that doesn't mean that the F/A-18 was partial inspiration for the VF-1. You're grasping at straws here.

I'm not seeing much in the way of similarity to the F/A-18 aside from the angle of the tail. Other than that it's pretty much all F-14. One element in common does not a design relationship make.

Okay, for starters, nice references and kudos on the Japanese lesson, but I think it might've been a little easier on everyone to provide the Wikipedia articles in english, since I'm not entirely sure how many of us actually read Japanese fluently, much less at all. There's a reason that the accepted spelling is used a lot more often than the official one. It's strictly a matter of pronunciation. People don't feel comfortable groping around at words with strange spellings, so opting for something that is already at least moderately used in the English language makes it that much easier for people to muddle their way through the pronunciation. Take that and the fact that "Marduk" and "Mardook" sound virtually identical when spoken, and you've got pretty good reason for people remembering the common spelling more than the official one. It's also used that way on the vast majority of the websites that deal with Macross II, because of the prevalence of the Macross II RPG, which used the "Marduk" spelling. Still, since they changed the spelling/pronunciation of "Marduk" and "Gilgamesh" it does lead you to wonder why the other major Babylonian reference, "Ishtar" got through relatively unscathed.

Hey man, sorry I haven't gotten back to you. It's been a little hectic getting twelve computers online all at once. I'm still getting my site online.

Hey guy! LOL! ANYWAYS, Macross II sucked, I liked the character designs and music, but the mecha were straight ugly and the UN was just plain awful unlike in the other shows. The movie put my brother to sleep and I tried my best to stay awake. I got no laughs from it...well at one point I kinda laughed after I saw the noticable decline in the animation quality. It was too long and didn't keep my interest since it's pretty much stuff I've already seen as some say it's a remake of DYRL? It took me a while to track it down and worst of all it was a waste of my 20 or 30 dollars and that was what I got? F-that! I don't quite remember the price of the thing but I know for sure that the store had a no-return policy once I opened it! Worst...Macross...EVER!!!!! 391880[/snapback] I was wondering when you'd finally show up. You guys see what I gotta put up with? Irrational hatred of Macross II because Kawamori wasn't involved. Personally, I'll always like Macross II better than the others because it was the first one I was ever really introduced to that wasn't named "Robotech" to begin with, and to me, the characters were easier to relate to, especially Feff. The mecha designs were defiantely another strong point that drew me to it. But the thing that really cinched it was Macross Plus and Macross 7. I really just can't stand the characters in Macross Plus, the relationships felt forced, and I really just didn't like the YF-21. Then there's the entirety of Macross 7, which I won't get into, for fear of starting a flame war.

Perhaps you've missed something... In every piece of animation without fail, there is always a moment or two where the animation quality lapses because you have a small army of animators, and they can't always draw it perfectly every time. Good examples in Macross include moments like when Hikaru sees Minmay and Kaifun kissing and goes on a rampage in the original Macross series, or when Basara's VF-19's face suddenly becomes distorted in a few episodes. Hell, you even see this kind of thing in Disney movies, and other professional, conventional animation. CGI is a quick fix, but periodically even then you get problems. The animation quality overall in Macross II is good, considering it came right before using computer enhancement in the animation process was truly developed. There are one or two very brief lapses in quality, I'm thinking of two scenes in the last episode where the other Fairy squad members are fighting without Silvie, and there are some errors in the head and body of the VF-2SS for about two seconds. That aside, the animation quality's pretty good. Granted, there are weak links in the voice acting too, but that again is nothing unique to Macross II. The Japanese voice acting is better than the english in most cases, especially in terms of Feff and Ingues. The Japanese voice actors did a little better job, but the quality is relatively consistant. You get little areas of bad quality in any animation project, EVA, Patlabor, Ghost in the Shell, you name it. These things are nothing new or unique, even in Macross. Many of the things that Kawamori put in the mouths of Basara, Mylene, and Gamlin would make a writer's brain twist, and makes me want to physically hurt the characters. Granted again, the idea of a civilian reporter of moderate intellect and half-baked piloting talent flying directly into an enemy warship at the behest of the camera guy is more than a bit nuts, especially when he's not carrying any weapons. Though it is understandable, since Ishtar's ship was in a really bad way, full of holes from UN bombardment, and about to explode anyways. All told, Hibiki's actions aren't much out of line from some combat reporters I know personally, who do such stupid and reckless things for a good shot that they'd make even Hibiki blanch. Speaking from experience, combat field reporters are the third most stupid animals on Earth, beaten out only by lemmings and chickens. And last but not least, before I wrap this up and get some much-needed and deserved rest, I turn my attention to the guy (I at least am presuming you are male, correct me if I'm wrong) named Retroborg. Dude, your enthusiasm is great and all, and that you love it so much warms my heart, but you can stop with the imageshack-hosted pictures any time now. Not only have we all seen these mecha before, but imageshack is a royal pain in the ass. If you've got something really relevant, use the attachments feature in your post instead. It's right under the post icons and post options section. It convienantly thumbnails and eliminates the need for a billion hyperlinks. Though if you really want to thrill to Macross II mecha that badly, when my site goes back online in a few days, we'll be showcasing some Macross II art that was made specifically for my site by a group of fanartists. One of the artists in question shows mad love for the Metal Siren and the destroids. The Kaiba has spoken! (and is now off to sleep)

My sincerest apologies... guess I'm still used to people saying that and actually meaning it. Especially this one recurring nightmare on my own site, USN Hornet Pilot aka Totsugeki Love Heart!!!!!, who says that pretty much hourly. For starters, there are actually two volumes of the soundtrack floating around. What you have there is Volume I, which was released in the United States, and has a different label for the stateside release, in a blue case with a watercolor of Wendy and Ishtar on the front. Volume II I don't believe was released stateside, has Feff and Ishtar on the cover, and has most of the orchestral tracks, as well as the full and reprise versions of the ending theme, without the annoying english lyrics. Regrettably I don't have time to translate all the track names right now, since my copy's liner is printed in Japanese. If you're looking to get your hands on them both, may I recommend Amazon.com, which is where I got some copies of both volumes for a very good price. Mr. Holy 16 years ago, it's 14 years, do the math please. Macross II was a 1992-93 affair, which puts it at 14 years ago. And you have to remember that unlike televised runs-forever swill like Friends, later eps of The Simpsons, and Seinfeld, most anime doesn't get that kind of televised exposure over here, so unlike those american shows, when someone finds it it IS new to them, because they've likely never seen it before and possibly never even heard of it before. People here still gush over anime they just saw, even when it's 20 years old or more! Retroborg, my pleasure to continue to be informative. Hopefully in a few days my website will take over being excessively informative for me, now that I've got my computer back from the shop. If you're up for a little more Macross II-y goodness, you can look into the comic series Macross II: The Micron Conspiracy, the Palladium Books Macross II: The Role-Playing Game and the MAME32-based Macross II arcade emulator.

Now there's a closed-minded statement if ever I read one. It's exactly this sort of reasoning that prevents them from enjoying one of the better Macross features out there. Try watching it with an open mind, and you might actually like it. Being a pretty big Macross II fan myself, I'd say that the voice acting was mostly good, but there were one or two weak bits in Japanese (in some scenes Feff's voice completely lacks the emotion on his face). There's also one or two scenes where the animation quality isn't quite up to snuff with the average quality of the series, but most of them are short bits and near the end too. Just FYI the general accepted spelling is "Marduk" not "Mardook," as is seen throughout the subtitles. Most of the character and mecha names from the Marduk side of the war are barely veiled references to various gods, literature and other figures from the Babylon. Marduk being the chief god and having the largest of the cult followings right around the era of Hammurabi. Ishtar's a promanent character in the epic of Gilgamesh (which happens to be the accepted name of Feff's power armor), etc. etc. The Macross II RPG books attempt to delve into why the Marduk seem to follow a Babylonian theme, but such isn't canon. About Ingues giving the orders to destroy rebellious elements of his own fleet... maybe it's just me, but the overall sound of his voice in Japanese sounds a lot like the old WW2 era recordings of Adolf Hitler's public speeches. You also get another kind of creepy deja vu moment when the Marduk battlepods ram down the twin towers of the UN Headquarters buildings. Your enthusiasm for Macross II is greatly appreciated, by me at least. Macross II doesn't get quite as much love as the other series on this site, for a variety of reasons. There'll also be a few like fansubs2000, who turn up their noses at it simply because Kawamori wasn't involved. You'd probably feel right at home on my site as well, where I'm rebuilding my somewhat modest collections of Macross II mecha art, character art, etc. so that Macross II can get a little more exposure. I'd say that placing songs like "Only your friend" (Wendy's song from the Moon Festival), Ishtar's final song "Love You," and "The Hush of 200 Million Years" might be a little generous. They're good songs, and I definately think some of the more orchestral stuff is worthy of notice too. Putting them above a classic like "Do you remember love?" might be a little drastic, but nearly every song in any Macross series is better than the swill that ended up in Robotech. Still, the Valkyrie II, the Gilgamesh power armor, and the other mecha from Macross II are some of the best I've seen. (Attached is a nice little bit I've been using for an avatar on MSN, Feff's custom Gilgamesh, from one of it's more malevolent looking scenes).

Any particular reason why?