Zinjo

I beg to differ. I'd be rather surprised if a civilian force would be allowed Reaction weaponry considering how heavily regulated they are in the Macross universe. In M7, Max needed authorization from Spacy headquarters before being allowed to use his and he was the fleet commander in UNSpacy...

Unfortunately the Lobster Vajra has greater agility over the Monster. The monster may be able to own the Lobster until it gets close, and then it's Vajra hamma time...

Check on the trademark of the Macross name in France. HG may have trademarked the name there too... Essentially, HG has no rights outside of the SDFM animation. It is supported in the Japanese court documents and thus the only way to affect "Macross" distribution is via commercial trademarks. Not as far as I am aware. I have the japanese movie version and I didn't see any subs (although I should check again to be sure...)

Amen to that bro... I'll love to get my hands on the AiA-IZ srt file for that very reason...

Could simply be market demand... It's possible they extended it to sell of their existing inventory. I suspect the fact that their titles were in the market before the trademarking, allows them to continue selling existing them off, but not produce any new versions. They had a re-release of several old titles but Macross was conspicuously absent from the re-releases. Additionally they no longer have the "Movie" version of Mac Plus available on their website. However, if BW releases Mac Plus and Mac II on bluray, they may buy the subs and/or the English audio track off them for their own release. We'll have to see if that happens.

Is that confirmed? There is an english audio track? Keep in mind, that Manga probably still has a lot of them still in stock in their warehouses. If they could re-release it again with the new transfer, they would have already. It's the trademark issue that is keeping that from happening. If they paid a dime to HG for use of the name, BW would pull the plug on their license...

I believe it is! I mighty smart business model too... I suspect the anime studios lobbied Sony for a while to include North America and Japan in the same region code to sidestep the "middlemen" distributing anime here. There will still be a market for dubbed shows, but I suspect the first releases will be with subs and then domestic distributors would get a crack at licensing titles for dubbed release afterward. Just like any company, the Japanese distributors don't want licensing fees, they want the profits directly and they have every right to get them. My only hope is that toy makers follow suit..

Actually most of the legal mess was settled in 2002 when BW & SN were awarded "Author's Rights" (essentially IP rights) to the Macross franchise and Tatsunoko was left with "Makers Rights" which gave them control over the SDFM animation outside of Japan. Thus by proxy HG only holds those rights as well. However, in a slick move that I'm sure BW is still kicking itself over, HG managed to gain the uncontested trademark over the name "Macross" in North America in early 2003 (a few months after BW won their Japanese case). Now armed with that trademark they have a say in any production coming to these shores with the "Macross" brand name. Hence why we probably won't see the remastered Mac Plus from Manga Ent. (under the Macross brand name), as they'd have to pay some sort of licensing fee to HG for use of the "Macross" name and BW won't have any of that. HG is seen as the ally of Tatsunoko who tried to steal the Macross franchise from it's proper owners and thus are not to be dealt with. That being said, if BW truly wanted to sidestep the whole HG "blockade" on "Macross" branded products, they have the Bluray Disc in their arsenal. Since BD's region coding includes North America and Japan, all Bandai Visual has to do is add an English subtitle track to their Macross releases and voila, the US market is available to them again, albeit by foreign purchasers, but available nonetheless. This method allows market penetration without the legal battle over trademark ownership (which they could win back in Canada very easily and then set up a branch office to distribute their merchandise legally in North America, but that's another story). However, this all depends on how much Bigwest wants into the North American market. I can't see why not, but I am not one of their executives, so I can not answer such a question.

They can't block imports of merchandise into the US. If the products were being made here, they could try to sick their lawyers on them, but then they'd be in a fight with Bandai - a fight they would have no hope of winning... If Bandai wanted to flex it's corporate muscles, they'd kill HG as Bandai's pockets are fairly deep compared to HG.

Firstly, don't cuss here the mods are pretty strict about it. Secondly the source audio is AAC stero at 48000kh, so it's probably your software. I use ConvertX to DVD and have no issues with audio.

Blame Disney, they started it all...

Well SDFM stretched what would be allowable for a "military" color scheme right down to the uniforms. In subsequent productions Kawamori abandoned that old school anime type of distinction for a more traditional "uniform" look in DYRL and on. The hero valks went to a more understated color scheme. However civilian equipment tended to be much more colorful and distinct under the excuse "they aint military". Frontier follows the same scheme. The SMS is non-military, thus their equipment can be more distinct and colorful. It also can be explained that colorful fighters allow any evaluation staff to easily identify the different fighters on sight.

We also have plenty of poachers as well in this day and age... Wasn't that already done in Dynamite 7?

Doubtful, that is soooo 90's...

Because reaction weaponry is a euphemism for nuclear missiles. There have always been two major weapons in the Macross universe, Nuclear missiles and buster/macross cannons. I am not entirely sure if the PD had reaction weapons, but the Zentreadi haven't had any for millenia. The Lobster Vajra have what appears to be small scale buster/macross cannons on their backs. The missiles appear to be of a conventional type. If they were nuclear they'd be far more powerful than what we've seen so far. Don't mistake their alien propellant trails as some sort of nuclear powered thrust. It is definitely alien in nature, possibly super dimension powered, but not reaction weaponry.

After re-reading the kawamori interview in NT USA Dec. I have to revise my position and agree. This series likely won't have any spiritia related concepts in it, as the man deliberately makes each series different and he has alluded that this one will likely be different than what's come before. This is his philosphy and the reason he gives for why he initially divorced himself from the franchise. As far as he was concerned it had been done and he wanted to move on to something different. So it seems he's found a way to engage himself within the franchise by making each series different from the last.

That's like saying DYRL was a direct sequel to SDFM. I'll have to dig through my sh*t to see where I saw it. It stuck out in my mind as I was hoping MF was going to "ignore" M7, but alas to my shagrin....

You have good points. However with MF being a direct sequel to M7, the correlations cannot be ignored or dismissed. Maybe AS is a single person per generation or maybe its an ability, who knows. The idea of a psychic link is intriguing but leaves the deaths of Ranka's parents as a bit of a puzzle. The idea that sonic or sound affects the Vajra, is also a viable explanation. We'll have to see.

I disagree with you both. I understand Anima Spritia is an ability as labelled in Mac 7. What exactly it is as far as I know has not really been described. Basara was identified as Anima Spiritia by the PD, we were told that Anima Spritia helped imprison the the PD (was Basara there too?). It isn't a person, but an ability that certain individuals have or can develop. How that will come into play (if at all) in Frontier is still unknown. However, based on how SK showed Sara's extraordinary ability in Zero, I don't think we'll be seeing rainbow rays and shoulder mounted speakers in VF-25s... We'll just have to see how things develop I guess... If it does go the M7 route with Sheryl and Ranka flying VF-25s, I'll be turning it off. I won't care how pretty it looks...

You are asking about "Anima Spiritia" which is the term used in Mac 7 to describe those capable of affecting the PD and thus imprisoning them. We don't know if the AS used song or sound itself, though the implication in M7 was song. The AS were PC soldiers with this ability. They used it to imprison the PD, what other uses for such abilities has not been revealed thus far. As already stated officially, MF is a sequel to M7, so it is possible that the AS abilities may well be explored further and what uses the PC had for it post PD... One can speculate that AS was a known phenomenon prior to the PD, as possibly displayed in Zero and since no one knew what that ability was called in 2008, it was not specifically stated. This doesn't discount the ability or how it was used. We do know it was used specifically against the PD and that is all we know so far. What else it could be used for is up for speculation or revelation (if there will be any) in Macross Frontier.

We don't know what the PC did with the Anima Spiritia soldiers they employed to imprison the PD. For all we know they utilized them for other tasks, possibly to combat the remaining SA. What happened to them after the imprisonment is not yet known. Hence the speculation that Ranka and Sheryl are AS. Their singing has an affect on both humans and Vajra. What affect has yet to be revealed. Since MacF has been described as a sequel to Mac 7, then the anima spiritia ability could very well be employed. However the Mac F presentation may be what Kawamori had originally envisioned for Mac7...

Well considering it was a student project by the founders of Gainax you may want to find it. The video has been referenced in FLCL and Densha Otoko (Train Man - where they re-animated the video as the openning animation for the live action show.. ) The Daicon Conventions are SF conventions in Osaka, Japan, starting way back in the 60s and they still continues today. The official convention is Nihon SF Taikai, but most fans refer to the various convention by their nicknames (hence Daicon). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daicon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daicon_IV I have the Daicon III and Daicon IV videos (low res) and they are truly nostalic and tongue in cheek funny in a way only the Japanese can do... http://www.starwars.com/eu/lit/comics/f20080227/index.html "Yes my young Padawan, you still have much to learn..."

I'm assuming the special package was not shown? The case art is the same as the regular release...

You could have something there...

Yep,he's right. It is listed as a Q-Rau Lambda. The show may refer to it as a "Q-Lambda" or "Quedalin Lambda", though I am not 100% sure...