Seto Kaiba

All that aside, I'd like to say you have a very visually appealing website. Congratulations and keep up the good work.

You'd be correct. Internet Explorer can't currently properly render PNG-format transparencies. That'll be fixed in IE 7.0. Unfortunately, IE is still used by a lot of people, so as a web designer I normally recommend shying away from transparent PNG files in favor of some hand-blended JPGs until there's full cross-browser support for PNG format.

Hmmm... odd. For some reason the java navigation applet you're using killed my web browser. It killed Java 1.50_b9 in a big way. Had to forcibly kill the Java process and browser window using the task manager. Maybe consider using a different navigation method, like a statically aligned nav bar or a frameset? Thanks for scanning #3, I'll get in there and pull that down sometime around midnight tonight, I hope.

Ah well, things go apace. If you want, I can lend a hand setting up a different navigation style that's faster loading. I'm not really great with Flash-based websites, and like most programmers I have an inherent distrust of CSS, especially since it's not supported completely in some browsers, but frames is something I know and use a lot.

Hmm... had to take a look at the transformation sketches before I could come up with a reasonable answer for this one. I'd say that pretty much any standard fighter that follows the same transformation pattern as the old VF-1, where the arms are stored center on the underside should probably be fine, since the VF-1 didn't fall out of the sky after losing an arm. That includes pretty much the VF-0, VF-1, VF-11, VF-2SS, VF-2JA and VF-1MS. The VF-4 is sketchy because both the arms and legs are close to/part of the engines, so losing a significant part of the arm might result in loss of engine components, and losing an engine does significantly reduce anything's air capabilities. The transformation of the VF/A-14 isn't well enough diagramed to tell. The VF-17 shouldn't have any problems since the wings and body are independent of the arms, so it wouldnt' affect any lifting surfaces, but it would probably still cause a fair amount of drag. The VF-19's up in the air, because the arms are on the underside, but the transformation's kind of odd. Losing both arms and legs didn't stop the VF-22, so that's a safe bet on it being able to fly. VF-3000 and VF-5000 look enough like the VF-1 to state safely that it'd fly with a missing arm. The VF-9 is a complete mystery since I'm not sure where the heck it's keeping it's arms.

Awesome, I'll be lookin around for those once we finish getting things set up at our new offices. We're just finishing an across-town move to some new premises, and feelin pretty leery about having to haul ten full-tower machines each weighing in total some 135lb with all accessories upstairs. It's been pretty crazy out here, since we're also expecting delivery on yet another machine. The banners are coming along okay, there's some that need one or two more revisions before I'll let 'em sneak out the door.

Well that depends, it's pretty well armed, by all accounts. Evidence from the artbooks and elsewhere shows that it's got 5 long-range missiles recessed into the shoulder joints, missile launchers stored on each wingtip, the arms and legs are carrying some sort of submunition-based missile system with 7 apertures on each arm and 9 on each leg, and a turret on the chin.

The Gerwalkroid really only appears in the last two episodes, Station Break and Sing Along, and yes, mostly as a starship supporter. It isn't front and center in the screen often, but I did include captures from when it is, barring when it's obscured by the trails from all the missiles it's launching. Judging by it's performance, I'd agree wtih the assessment of it being a starship support unit, at least partially. It's got the overall look of a VTOL attack unit (jets on the undercarriage facing down and front, turret-based guns, lots of missiles) and reminds me more than a bit of the AH-64 Apache. I'll say this, by all animated evidence it's not a bad machine. The one that appears front and center doesn't get offed until after the Marduk's pet Zentradi start going berzerk (see also: "song of death") and he's suicidally rammed by a Zentradi he fatally wounded. Still, it does bring down an admirable number of power armor suits before it's destroyed.

Yeah, I get the overall point of the GBP armor, insofar as turning the Valkyrie into a quick and dirty destroid stand-in, or a mobile missile platform with tons of extra armor, but it still strikes me as odd that they never thought to add any more than missiles to the system. They could've taken a leaf from the SAP or Strike armor's book and added a pair of beam cannons, or extra gunpod reloads, or any variety of other useful augmentations that would potentially make the GBP more versitile. Of course the GBP on the VF-0 and VF-1 wouldn't quite work the reload concept, since the GPU-9 and GU-11 weren't field reloadable. Y'know, taking the lower center of gravity from the engine's weight into account, the VF-4 does stand much less of a chance of doing a belly-flop inadvertantly. Still, something about it just doesn't quite feel right. So long as we're talking unorthodox Macross II mecha... For your consideration, one more Macross II mecha that seems to have been, at least on my site's old home, the object of some consternation regarding precisely HOW to classify it. Attached is the aptly named "Gerwalkroid' AGA-1JF. Like how the GBP series Valkyrie armor makes the Valkyrie into essentially a destroid, the Gerwalkroid is essentially the other side of the comprimise, a Destroid playing at being a Valkyrie. It flies, is loaded down with missile launchers on the wingtips, arms, legs, and shoulder joint, and a few other places. It's behavior in the Macross II anime lends to the theory that it's something of a VTOL support destroid, I suppose a space-capable replacement for the attack helecopter. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on this unique and rather bizarre mecha.

Thought of another good example that is slightly closer to what I mean, the lifting-body design employed on the American Space Shuttle, in which the wings don't actually do the bulk of the lifting when the shuttle is coasting down. Really an ingenious idea, but it doesn't exactly lend itself to being really maneuverable, so the applications are limited, but it's definately the same sort of revolutionary design leap. I can definately see why you have a beef with the VF-2SS's design, now that I've got a feel for the aircraft you prefer. Mine are the VF-2SS Valkyrie II, the YF-19, the VF-2JA Icarus, the Variable Glaug, the VF-1SR, and the VF-1S Valkyrie. For real planes, I'm more of a fan of the XB-70 (even if it is ugly), the F/A-22, the F-14, the F-17, the B-17 Flying Fortress and B-52 Stratofortress, especially the pre-revision model with the tandem cockpit. I still get the urge to stomp on the VF-22, as it reminds me too much of a gigantic roach. The one constantly returning design that continues to bug me about the Valkyries of the Macross 7 timeline is what a friend of mine dubbed "The Twinkie Suit" (Don't ask, loooooooooooooooooooong story involving too much tequila and many a night spent playing VF-X, VF-X2 and the not-too-bad actually Battlecry). The GBP type armor that shows up on the VF-0, VF-1, and VF-11, which to me just seems TOO DAMN BIG to make much sense. Sure, lots of missiles is nice, but not being able to go anywhere quickly can get a little risky. Well, the VF-4's lower torso looks good and all, it's just it's pre-YF-19 superboob and the two huge chunks on the shoulders that get to me, and give it the impression of being topheavy. Ah well, March, there's not much we can do for you not enjoying the story, but at least we can have a spot of fun debating the finer points of the mecha.

Allow me to clarify my statement regarding the VF-4 Lightning III. Personally I rather like it's design in fighter mode, and have done a few pieces of art on it myself. I just can't stand it's upper torso in battroid mode, because of the projections that come out of it's shoulders and the center of the torso, which would make it abnormally (for a Valkyrie) prone to falling either forward or backward, with that much weight displaced on the top and towards the front. True, the SAP packs would generate similar problems with the VF-2SS, but the SAP packs were never used outside of space combat in Macross II. For both in space it's a non-issue, I suppose, without gravity you really can't fall over. But at least the VF-2SS could jettison the SAP packs to level itself out if the need arose. To me, the VF-4 is a beautiful fighter in fighter mode, but the other two modes just don't do it any justice, and Kawamori's leaving it relatively unused is more than a little unfair to what could have been a really great design. Lots of untapped potential there if he redid it's battroid mode. I'd like to see it used more, but alas, I fear such will never happen. There's some guy on here who did a really awesome CGI of the VF-4, I'll have to look some of his stuff up later. (Also, considering things, is it just me or does the head from the Metal Siren look not too dissimilar from the head on the VF-4 sketch posted by Radd?) Yeah, that big gun the full armor VF-11 used, the XS-06 was it? That's definately gonna be a space-only weapon, unless you get someone else to prop up the other end of the barrel. Still, it looks pretty damn powerful, and I certainly wouldn't want to be on the receiving end. Nice art by the way, I particularly like the pose.

My apologies for the overbearing attitude. Guess I'm just used to the general reaction to anything Macross II from the Macross 7 fans as being "ZOMG! That show sucks cuz Kawamori sez so!" That still happens a bit here, guess I'm just conditioned to expect that sort of thing. My apologies to you all, I'll try and rein it in. The inclusion of things like air intakes and wings and the like on a Valkyrie II make perfect sense. If you're going to be flying something that normally is designed primarily for space combat, you at least want to hedge your bets a little, since you'll doubtless be fighting near or in orbit of a planet. So having it be able to fly atmospherically, even if it's not the best performing plane in the air, is at the bare minimum, a good idea. Designed as it is, I have very little in the way of doubts as to it's ability to fly in a planet's atmosphere. If you examine closer, you'll note that in all but one circumstance in which a VF-2SS is flying in all of Macross II, the wings are folded back along the fighter's centerline (I have added a picture that illustrates this). It's a radical design, true. But so were things like the SR-71 Blackbird, the XB-70 Valkyrie, the B-2 Spirit and the F/A-22 Raptor. Sometimes dynamic breaks from the norm are the only way to evolve. Being an engineer, generally if you're going to be criticizing one particular design, you should also be prepared to criticize and evaluate other, competing designs as well. Comparing the development of the control interfaces and body structure of the Macross Plus and 7 Valkyries to those from Macross and Macross II would seem to me at least to be a relevant consideration, as they are this particular field's alternatives. Perhaps I would have an easier time understanding your point of view if you provided a visual aide as to the type of fighter design you prefer?

Believe me, the point of your post got through just fine. Of course you're missing a few key points there yourself. For starters, the Valkyrie II is a "SPACE VALKYRIE." Flying in the atmosphere is more or less moot, since the entire point of the thing is to go into space and pretty much stay there. In space, flying by lift is moot, because outside of planetary orbit, you're not worrying about gravity. Yes, it's very likely that the VF-1, VF-0, SV-51, VF-11 and YF-21 would fly, likewise the VF-2JA Icarus, and in a pinch, the VF-2SS Valkyrie II. There's enough wing surface and aerodynamic structure that given sufficient thrust, it will fly on lift. It will not be the most maneuverable plane flying on lift, but it will likely fly. My point, which you again missed, is that your willing suspension of disbelief is horribly lopsided. You yourself stated that this is whether or not these fictional fighters look as though they could fly via lift in atmosphere, with minimal suspension of disbelief. There's enough evidence to make the conjecture that the Valkyrie II would fly relatively well on lift, if not being the most maneuverable planes out there. The control systems of the fighters are immensely relevant to the subject of whether or not a plane can fly, as a certain degree of precision is necessary to control the aircraft in atmosphere. Therefore my point about Basara's guitar-control interface remains valid. Please do READ my posts, don't just skim them. You might learn something.

True, most of the fighters in Macross are basically just revisions of or meldings of modern aircraft. Good examples being the VF-17, which looks virtually identical to the F-117A Nighthawk stealth fighter, the VF-22, which is almost line for line a F/A-22 Raptor, the VF-1 Valkyrie, which everyone knows is pretty much a F-14 Tomcat, and the VF-4 Lightning, which greatly resembles a miniature, streamlined XB-70 Valkyrie bomber. Still, you have to note that as time goes on, at least in the Macross Plus/7 branch, there's a marked trend towards making battroids look like Nosjadeul-Ger power armor. Look at the body structure of the VF-19 against the male power armor, looks mighty similar, no? And the VF-22 is pretty much a Queadluun Rau in disguise, both in it's fighting style and in it's looks. We really could've done without the Zentradi-ification of the mecha, and especially not the incredably outlandish Ultraman-esque VF-19 Kai Fire Valkyrie, Mylene's VF-11, and the rest of the Sound Force technology, most of which is baldly ignorant of both style, and of little principles like acoustics. I always thought the VF-22 wasn't very menacing looking, to me it looked more like a giant cockroach, or some other large beetle. If you're willing to suspend disbelief for the incredably impractical transformation sequence of the YF-19 prototype in which it's entire body breaks up at the hips. Or for the ridiculous gunpod deployment scheme of the VF-17 Nightmare in which is blasts outward from the hip. Or all that complete BS about the magical weaponry potential of anima spirita and music, which can be written off as pseudo-religious BS. Or giant space monsters that can control your brain and stop your spaceship dead in it's tracks with a thought, and all this other Magical stuff in Macross 7, then suspending disbelief for the Valkyries of Macross II should be small potatoes and easily within your grasp. Heck, the only application of "spirita" that actually makes sense is from Macross II. The Marduk's emulators use music in conjunction with various other technologies to manipulate the aggressive impulses of the Zentradi they use as soldiers. That, unlike "Anima Spirita" and Sound Force's weaponry, has a solid basis in firm, unrelenting science fact. Using sounds, smells or tastes as hypnotic cues isn't a mystery, it's not magical, and it's done largely on an everyday basis by hypnotherepists for proceedures as mundane as helping people quit smoking. It could also be taken as Pavlovian conditioning, which is another well understood psychological endeavor. Sound Force's technology is largely the product of wishful thinking on Kawamori's part, where the abysmally poor singing of a few lost causes makes aliens shrivel up and die, frees brainwashed citizens and explodes enemy sensors. It has NO BASIS WHATSOEVER in the land of science fact, putting it several standard deviations higher than my general willingness to suspend disbelief. The only thing that the power of Basara's singing, and anima spirita does is make me hit "mute" on my remote control until he's done singing. That's the power of spirita. You want to talk spirita-related design standards, insofar as making fighters go? What about the absurdly impractical guitar, bass, or drum set controls for the sound force valkyries! Macross II's control systems aren't much different from the controls of your average F/A-22 or F-14! However, if you expect me to believe that you can fly such a bewilderingly complex machine using nothing but a bass guitar or a drum kit, you've got another thing coming. The technology in the engines is all well and good, but in the face of such a patently ludicrous control system, they might as well be running on fairy dust and floss, because until you build it and prove otherwise, you can't fly a plane with a guitar. I hope that I have proven to you all which set of Valkyries is really the ones with which your suspension of disbelief should be suffering. If you can suspend disbelief for Mr. Nekki Basara and his amazing flying Ultraman Valkyrie controlled by a hideous guitar and his songs, then suspending disbelief for Macross II's Valkyries should pose you no difficulty whatsoever. EDIT: Added some "oomph" to my last paragraph. The former ending lacked it somewhat.

And in the other two modes it's some sick engineer's mad mistake. A battroid so utterly topheavy it'll fall over if you so much as look at it the wrong way. In a way it's probably a service to Macross that Kawamori never really focussed on the VF-4 past it's fighter mode. Conceded, I'd overlooked the mass/inertia relation in my last post, but the lack of drag from zero gravity does apply, because stellar bodies below the approximate mass of our moon can't maintain a stable atmosphere, and when in the absence of gravity, atmosphere is a foregone conclusion. And yes even I, a heavily biased Macross II fan, will admit that the Metal Siren is one ugly bird. Fortunately it's also a painfully effective bird, so I'm willing to overlook it's beating with the ugly stick. Like I said earlier, it was much more attractive before they added the elongated nose/right arm segment and the extra bits on the engines/legs. EDIT: Sorry about leaving this so painfully incomplete, one of my website clients had a huge complaint about a hacker attack that required my immediate attention.

I beg to differ, your HTML skills are pretty good for someone who doesn't do this sort of thing for a living. Your site's well organized and assembled, and the only real concerns about it are matters of visual style and that navigational applet's loading time. Maybe in time you could move towards a more advanced design, using an iframe-based layout, or maybe even flash.

Mr. March, I'd never really put it to compare the Yukikaze designs to the Macross II ones, but there is a similar school of thought there after all. Again, since it's science fiction, it doesn't really have to be practical looking, most people will be happy just that it looks great. Stuff sticking out of the body on a Valkyrie in space really is a non-issue, since little graviational and atmospheric foibles like drag, air friction, etc. no longer apply. That's why things like the NP-BP-01 FAST packs in DYRL or the SAP packs in Macross II are actually alarmingly practical. You're adding extra maneuvering jets, extra thrusters, and a bevy of additional weapons to enhance the functionality of the craft in space, and give it a little more weaponry, since the weight of the fighter is no longer an issue either. NO GRAVITY = NO DRAG, NO LIFT-WEIGHT RATIOS AND NO AIR FRICTION. Effectively once you got the fighter into orbit, it's no-holds-barred on arming it. It's the age-old sci-fi argument, "Why do we make aerodynamic space ships when aerodynamics is a non-entity in space?" With anime mecha, style is a big key to how it's supposed to perform. For example, let's take the RX-78B Gundam. It was big, plodding and powerful looking, and that's exactly how it moved. The original VF-1 Valkyrie was sturdy looking, utilitarian, and a little boxy, so it wasn't the fastest thing on it's feet in battroid mode. The FFR-44MR/D Mave was streamlined, aerodynamic and looked fast even sitting still, so naturally the animators made it fast as all-get-out in the animation. So it makes sense for the Valkyries to get progressively more streamlined, and generally more hot-rod-esque. This trend's clearly visible even in Macross Plus and 7, where they move from chunky designs like the Valkyrie and Lightning III, towards the more streamlined and revolutionary looking Excalibur and Sturmvogel. To clear up an earlier statement about the VF-11... I actually rather like the standard VF-11 Thunderbolt. It's got nice lines, and is a superbly functional mecha. Can't say I care for it's battroid mode so much, but it looks generally good. The VF-11 sound force variant flown by Mylene was just HIDEOUS. It was a felonious crime committed against the eyes of the entire audience. Radd, true assertion there. But sometimes the line isn't as clear as we'd like it to be. True, the XB-70 is utilitarian-ugly. But there were some who thought that revolutionary craft like the Bell X-1 supersonic prototype were just plain gaudy, without the consideration that the gaudiness of the plane was largely a side effect of functionality. Like the fact that the X-1 looked like a sci-fi rocket ship, and was really designed to look like a flying bullet for aerodynamic reasons. Ugly as sin, true. Gaudy? Possibly. Gets the job done? Hell yes. Phalanx, you're scaring me. SpaceAce, you took the words right outta my mouth.

Woah, that index.html page of yours is IMPOSSIBLE to read. Way too visually active, and the text over that picture of the SDF-1 is well, I had to highlight it just to make sense of the fact that it really was text. Try something a little plainer behind the text, or a background that isn't visibly tiled. I'd say like a starfield, or something similar. It's just too hard to read as-is.

ComicKaze, you'd be right about the Metal Siren, by all accounts. Actually looking at Nexx's fighting style in it, it does give off the impression that it was made for battroid combat in a very DBZ-esque way. By all accounts, it was meant to be very much the "Super Saiyan" of Valkyries, and blast the living daylights out of large ships and large numbers of enemies with little-to-no harm to itself. Like I said earlier, it's like the XB-70, ugly but for a good reason. Look at the XB-70, cruising in the multi-mach range so fast that to a conventional radar it looks to be in two places at once. Add to that the fact that it's carrying several different nucelar missiles with the capability of wiping whole cities off the map. Suddenly aesthetic concerns take a back seat to functionality. I'll concede that the Metal Siren would've been better off if they'd left it like they had during the Moon Festival, without the enormous elongated nose that became part of the right arm, or the extra engine vents on the legs, and that fourth transformation wasn't really that useful. They could've also stood to use a more traditional design for the head, but hey, it was supposed to be a revolutionary fighter, and I suppose it is. But other than that it's a supremely functional aircraft, by Macross standards. Almost no ornimentation whatsoever. It doesn't need to be pretty, it just needs to do the job. The VF-2JA, well, it's a slightly more aerodynamic version of the VF-2SS, sure battroid mode is a little on the boxy side, but you pay for those aerodynamics somewhere.

Ah, always nice to see another fan of the Valkyrie II running around. I'm a huge fan of it, personally. I've got somewhere in the neighborhood of 2-300 pics of it lying around my hard drive, which'll become part of my website soon, assuming I can make Photoshop cooperate with me. The Valkyrie II is just a joy to behold. Those lines just SCREAM dragster. The CEO of Indian motorcycles once said that streamlining was the art of making something look fast, even when it's standing still. That's what they did with the Valkyrie II. It harkens back to the good ol' reliable VF-1S Valkyrie, with a whole other attitude about it. Add to that it's hideously large armament with those FAST packs, even if they're not the prettiest thing in the world, and you've still got a mecha that kicks ass and looks good doing it. This, my friends, is the Porsche of Valkyries. The Metal Siren is a whole other story. It's from the same school of design as the XB-70 Valkyrie prototype that Kawamori loves so much. The XB-70 Valkyrie is UGLY. It's SINFULLY UGLY. But it's the meanest, fastest, most heavily armed son of a bitch in the air, and with firepower like that, who's really going to care if it's ugly? It moves like a bat outta hell, and carries enough payload to remove several cities from the map. It's the same with the Metal Siren. The design says it all: "This isn't a fighter for posing with at the airshow. This is a fighter for going out and making people dead. If that means sticking pointy bits and huge engines and lots of guns on it, SO BE IT. So long as it goes out there, blows lots of poo up, and brings it's pilot home safely, who's really going to care if it's the ugliest thing in the skies?" With firepower like the Metal Siren's, what enemy's really going to have time to do a detailed critique of the fighter's appearance? Nobody. They'll all be too busy dying or taking cover to care if it's ugly. When something that small can wipe out an entire Marduk battlecruiser some 4000m long, if I'm fighting alongside one, I don't really care if it's butt-ugly, it's one hell of a killing machine. You might say it's so ugly that it's beautiful. No matter what way you shake it, it's more aesthetically pleasing than that gods-awful set of Sound Force valkyries from Macross 7. Basara's VF-19 looks unnervingly too much like some mock-up of Ultraman in a Valkyrie costume, and I won't even get into the VF-11. Just DISGUSTINGLY bad. I've always contended that they were his revenge on Macross fans for Macross II. Still, their prototypes look excellent.

Nah, he didn't lose anything important, we keep all the site's component files backed up on a massive 10TB network drive. It did set back the launch of my new website by almost a week though, losing an entire computer like that. Unfortunately in the intervening time between my last post and this one, we lost ANOTHER computer when it's power supply died, mercifully this one was old, and on the verge of being replaced anyways. I should have a smallish link banner for my site out to you in the package with your site's new banners in a day or two. Since I don't think I have write permissions in the FTP access to your server, I'll just drop them in a .rar or a .zip and send them from my Webmaster e-mail address.

Minor hitch detected... Our staff artists Hibiki (no relation to one on this site) had a minor/major computer problem. His poor choice of equipment for his work (an iMac with the Intel Core Duo processor) burned out it's video card, effectively rendering itself rather on the useless side. So he's a little behind on those banners, while the store refunds his money and he buys a real computer. He's on my Alienware laptop for the time being. The banners are coming along real nice, we've got about eight concepts for you to look at, and I'll try and get those sent out as soon as they're finished. Reviews, well I've got two guys writing reviews for Full Metal Panic, Macross and Mospeada right now. They're kinda slow typists but their work's pretty good. I'd say another two-three days. I'll send them in .rtf format instead of my usual .pdf.

I put two of my better graphics guys on your banner request, they're working on them right now and should be finished by midnight tonight.

Got your e-mail, would love to contribute some of my spare personnel from my own project to write reviews, make banners, etc. I also sent you three little items for your Yukikaze section.

Something is phenominally wrong with the applet you're using on the index.html, it locked up my entire browser for the better part of three minutes each time I've loaded it so far. You might wanna abandon that, because it deep-sixed Firefox altogether and IE froze until it finished loading. I sent you that code snippet I promised, and an offer of helping with some of the areas your site mentions need help. The PM I sent you also has some contact info in case you wanna get in touch with some of my site's artists.