Keith

Basically, we go from a beautifully clear PCM audio track (R2, and the other 5 episodes in the R1 set), to a lower grade, lower level, slightly tinny (you know, the sound you get from listening to something in a tin can) version of the same track. Apparently a few of the AOD members aren't even notcing the difference, but I found it significant enough to be annoyed. Mind you this set is far from all bad, the picture quality is still one of the best remasters I've ever seen. I can't help but wonder if AnimEigo hadn't added the "noise" back into the picture, if it would have looked this good. The translation is also "top" notch. And the extra's, including the 2 new science lessons, and new short featuring Jung & the Sizzler Black all make it worth it if you don't already have the R2 (subtitles make it worth it too). It just seems as if a monkey wrench was intentionally thrown into it for some unknown reason.

No, you see, they had to blow it up because it was filled with more of that faulty robotechnology!

I don't know the name of the track either, but I think someone tagged it in the AOD topic. But it's too military sounding, and doesn't work at all for the scene. And the SFX were no longer in the scene, but the bit of dialogue was.

Someone at AOD just posted this..the funniest damn thing ever!

Considering some of use already purchased the R2 for $140, you think $99 will drive a true fan away!

When you said R0, I thought you meant the HK disc, without a region free player, the all region version of the R2 that BV is supplying is a great set, go for that, as it'd probably be cheaper than picking up the R3 set and a region free player. I just finished the R1 set BTW, and hey guess what. Aside from the jarrying BGM replacement (man, does that not fit there), all of the audio on the first episode is botched. It's muffled & a bit tinny. When you compare it with the R2 or even the other episodes on the same set, you can really tell how botched the audio re-encode for the edit was. Suck! Oh, and if you go to the setup menu, there's an option for both dialogue & sign subtitled, solving the problem of onscreen text translations. With that subtitle track, all the incidentals are translated, including the newspaper & application.

Heads up for when you get your DVD's. Make sure you open the case flat on a table or something. All 3 disc's in my set were merely sitting on their hubs, instead of being snugly placed on them. If I hadn't been sitting down when I opened the case, I would have dropped a disc on the floor. Nothing was scratched luckily, but strange none the less.

You all deserve to be locked in a room with robotech vocal soundtracks blarring into your ears for your blaphemy!

Wow, the making of featurette is intense. Remind me "never" to go to a robotech fan convention! BTW, something interesting I noticed, though it's referenced in some of the interviews, no actual Macross stock footage is used during the featurette. In fact, they seem to go out of their way to show Mospeada footage whenever Macross is mentioned. Perhaps this reflects an outcome of the legalities with Big West & Tatsunoko, perhaps not. But it's quite interesting regardless.

They didn't deam it big enough a difference to offer an "offcial" exchange for the individual release disc's. I picked them up during a righstuf Bandai sale, and sent them a letter telling them I paid for their product twice, and would appreciate better fan consideration in the future. Strange thing about the Zeta situation though, songs were still there on the official release Korean box set. Though the flipside being that those original themes haven't popped up in any official U.S. or Japanese Zeta licensed products since (i.e. no games after AEUG Vs Titans which was released before the situation came about, and the Zeta movies completely did away with them). So who knows what's actually going on there. And hey Noriko, I didn't feel a response through e-mail would get through to the proper channels about that comment, so I'm waiting to mail back a nice letter with my Gunbuster response card that comes with the box set Anyone else who wants to express their feelings on the whole situation would probably do well to do the same.

Damnit, I told you you were going to jinx the release!

The short answer is no, it's not being overdramatic. They're unnecessary changes made by people who think they're cleverly pulling a fast one over the R1 market. Then when they get caught, which they always do, they try to play it off as someone elses mistake. As for the letter, totally forgot to post it here, but you've gotta love the "sensativity" used in it. I've since sent in a response explaining to them that not only did I purchased the R2 LE box 2 years ago, but that I'd like them to pass along our fan sentiment to those "producers" who made the changes, and that it's quite surprising that Gainax, a company formed by fans, would let such a thing occur.

Jung is almost completely non-existent until the end unfortunately, what they were thinking on that I have no idea.

Nope, only for completeness sake, or if you for some reason only have 3 hours to watch gunbuster & diebuster instead of 6

Take a lot at the bulk of anime being released today, Macross 7 is still qutie viable. Hell, we just got GaoGaiGar! As for Diamond Calling, it didn't pop-up in the series proper, but it is in one of the Plus shorts.

Bah, amongst all this editing crap, I completely forgot! This is going to be spoiler heavy, so anyone who hasn't seen Gunbuster & or Diebuster might as well skip this post right now. Gunbuster - Zero content wise new. Apparently all of the dialogue has been re-recorded by the original Seiyuu though, so that's cool in and of itself. But since there are no subtitles (yet) I don't know what dialogue changes there are. The first 3 episdoes content are discarded pretty heavily. Almost all early fanservice is gone to boot. The new cut starts with the fall of the Luxion to the uchuu kaiju, then cuts directly to Noriko entering the academy & flopping out on her movement drills. After being scolded, it goes to coach catching Noriko watching Amano train, and telling her that she can become a pilot with hard work & guts, etc. The intro kicks in, and then it skips right to Noriko, Amano, & Coach all launching to catch up with the ship detected in warp (actually, this scene starts with the Excellion detecting the ship). After that scenario has played out, the next big event was Noriko meeting smith while reading in the intership train, catching a soda, etc. After Noriko overhears Amano & Coach talking about her lack of pilotting skill, we go to her first official sortie while paired up with Smith. After those events, Noriko goes into training to become a better pilot, and the next big battle with the uchuu kaiju occurs with Norko being told to sit it out. Naturally she launches in Gunbuster when things don't go well, after which Noriko & Amano return to Earth for their graduation. Most of episode 5 is left intact, complete with mission to turn the Exellion into a black hole, and I believe all of episode 6 is left intact. The basic spread is the first 65 minutes are episode 1-5, last half hour is episode 6. -Diebuster - The editing choices in this one I wasn't as big on. Most of the first episode is intact, though a lot of my favorite bits, like Nono's Inazuma kick are gone (and just about anything overtly fanservicy, complete with Norko becoming "topless"). Though I suppose for those who found the first episode too silly, this would be a preferable version. It literally goes from the intro, to Nono working in the bar & mopping up while talking about becoming a pilot with the patrons, to Larc rescuing her, following Larc, getting attacked by the Uchuu Kaiju (the scene finding of which was stripped of its humor), to rescuing the bar owner, then launcihng into space. The major story difference here was that instead of Dix Neuf hesitating to attack the uchuu kaiju, Larc just buster beams it once in space, takes it out, and then notices Nono is still alive. Episodes 2-3 are reduced to a few seconds each clips as told in new animation by Nono writing a letter to the old man while taking a shuttle trip with Fraternity to Titan. This as far as I can tell is pretty much all the new animation comprised in the film. Episode 4 is streamlined down somewhat so that now Casio just directly takes Nono to I think Pluto (honestly can't remember right now) instead of just meeting up there. After those events, episode 5 has a lot of Nono back on Mars trimmed out, including the attempted rape, and focuses more on Nono visiting Larc in the hospitol, then going out on the mission to take out Variable Gravity Well Exellio. The whole scene with Casio telling Larc about Dix Neuf's secrets is also cut out (which I found kind of an important thing to cut out considering what happnes later, but oh well). And as with the firs tmovie, nearly all of episode 6 is left intact. All in all not bad for movie compilation films. At least not as bad as the Gundam SEED attempt, but not as good as the 0079 attempt. Overall servicable as a version of the story, but in both cases, the OVA's are very much preferable. It should be noted that the training scene in Gunbuster with the music replaced is entirely gone in the movie version, so it's no longer an issue for the film version. I had heard rumors that there was supposed to be a new scene in the Diebuster movie with Larc meeting Nonoriri, but it appears that either doesn't exist at all, or is perhaps part of the audio drama extra's which I can't really comment on, since I've no means of translated them.

No, it's already been clarified that he meant no signage translations, the regular title text should still be translated.

It actually has to do with "who" owns the songs more than just how much the songs are. In the case of Macross 7, it requries both the Big West license, and a seperate license from Victor for the music, the problem apparently being Victor. Considering the show is now 13 years old, it's likely now less a problem of expensive music rights, and more the risk of a 13 year old series. Also note that while there are some vocal anti-Macross 7 Macross fans, the feeling in the general anime community is hardly reflective of that, especially since most of the problems these supposed "Macross" fans have with 7, are things that pop up in most popular anime.

Lack of newspaper translations I can deal with, I just as long as they stuck with the major text titles it'll be ok. If you want a decent source to rip the audio from, I'd stay away from the R0 release, as that's good for only one thing, existing when there are no other Gunbuster DVD's If you're looking for an inexpensive alternative to the R2, try the R3 (official Korean) release. www.dvdasian.com BTW, info now posted over at AOD.

I still don't buy it. What Kei & Olsen did was fix it so that the incident no longer happened, and I took it that the images shown at the ending of the series were more fantasies of what could have been than anything. Orguss 02 shouldn't be possible in any reality...especially not this one!

Regardless, what exists in Gunbuster is a parody, which falls under the protections of parody laws, and does not infringe on copyright.

I hope this is all just some publicity stunt to draw more attention to the release. Seriously, who doesn't do text translations!

Narc!

Unnecessary alterations are complete and total bullsh!t! If they'd come out and said they were doing this months ago, that would have been one thing. But to try & slip it by us is a complete and total different thing. Anger in this situation is normal. No one said they weren't still buying it, just that they were somewhat pissed about the lying. Same thing happened when Bandai ent tried to slip the Zeta intro/ending thing past everyone a couple years ago. I'd just thought Bandai Visual was supposed to be above that sorta thing, live and learn. It does now make sense why they spontaniously offered an R1 release of the original R2 box (without subtitles) a few months back, but again, if they had told us that this was why, it would have been much more acceptable.

..........Stupid Bandai (Visual)! ....since I already have the R2, I'll live with it. Sometime in the future when mixing digital media will be easier than it is now, I'll make my own perfect version. But I'll be damned if that's not stupid as all hell. The freakin' show is a parody to begin with! I'm going to write them in a useless effort to get it fixed even though it won't happen and it's probably too late anyway. Also, no box with Diebuster is just as foolish...I want a box!!! I'm glad to hear about the gattai movie's being licensed too though, even though I just bought the R2's (consdiering the already existing OVA change) I won't mind buying them again. Speaking of which, unfortunately as far as I can tell by skimming through them, while there may be new animation (haven't watched diebuster in its entirety to check it all yet), there is no new rumored scene with Noriko. There is some radio drama on the extra features disc, so it may be there in audio form. I'm also glad to hear about Wings of Honneamise, as I'd passed on Manga's travesty of a release, and was getting the itch to track a disc down. Now I don't have to worry about it. Damn that audio thing, why can't we get an R1 break for a change!