Zinjo

True enough, the main reason why there have been Gundam series' for 3 decades now... The creator of the series left after Zeta Gundam I believe (Gundamites, feel free to correct me), and yet the merchandising money was so good, Bandai and Sunrise simply never stopped making the shows. Every season there is a new excuse to build and merchanize the latest Mobile suits... If there is a series that is popular and there is money to be made merchandizing it, sponsors and studio will continue to make shlock until the market gets fed up with it.

Well Hidetaka could have been "speculating" as well. SK never drew any sketches showing the VF-0 in space. I see no evidence of a "sealed" cockpit, only the presence of a full face shield on the helmet, instead of an oxygen mask. Hardly definitive proof it was designed for space flight. For all we know there were a few VF-1 Valkyries in space already going through trials, using rocket engines, it simply isn't mentioned anywhere.

In actual fact, kawamori says he designed the battroid first and worked backward and says he was surprised the Valkyrie resembles the F-14 so much (place any skepticism here)... I believe that the VF-0 was most likely a modified airframe from an existing aircraft design. When one considers that the X-23 was a modified F-5 airframe with forward swept wings. The VF-0 is 18.69m similar to the F-14 which is 19.1m in length. Whereas the VF-1 is 14.23m in lenth a full 4m shorter. If it were somehow related to the VF-1 it would have had a YF or XF designation instead of a VF. It was a testbed for the OTEC technology in variable fighters. Thus as already stated, there were many cool features the test fighters carried that never made it into the production models. However the VF-1 was much more heavily armored compared to the VF-0 and fully trans-atmospheric, which the VF-0 was not, as far as all revealed information has told us. Apearance wise, it does look dated however, but that doesn't negate the fact it was mainly built as a transforming battroid, that flies into space, which makes sense in that Spacy probably always meant to meet the alien threat in space and avoid any planetary battles if possible...

Hey Rodavan, You wouldn't happen to have a hires pic of that cockpit console from the pilot's point of view, lying around would ya? I think that's what a few of us would like to see. I don't think it really needs to be textured, the rendered model with the same grey texture would be fine.

If it weren't for the Macross chapter of RT the show would have failed horribly. Most endured the Southern Cross portion only to be rewarded by the Mospeada series at the end. I still maintain that RT would have be more of a lasting success had it been an anthology series to bring over self contained mecha series' under under the RT brand name blanket.. The "pseudo incest" you speak of is only found in North American culture, not the rest of the world, particularly in asia. There were protests about the show mainly for the fact that "the good guys died"! The furvor over the death of Kakizaki was stupid. All the soccer moms wanted their kids to see the anticeptic war of GI Joe where only the machinery was destroyed, no one really died... All the rest you describe is 90's stupidity. The 80's were mainly about the cold war, the religous rightwing politicos, music and making money. What ever for??? Actually, I found SDF Macross much more sophisticated a show even compared to several modern shows currently out..

Filler.... I doubt the animators gave those jets much thought at the time...

Ditto! However, I would suspect SK would go for a more aerodynamic shape as in less boxy, but the fighter would retain all the original aspects, similar to the VF-EX's that we've seen. The SDFM VF-1 is boxier than the F-14 it resembles so in that respect it could use an update. However if he changed it to look as bumpy and as large as the VF-0, I too would have to kick him in the pantaloons... What makes the VF-0 so visually appealing is not so much it's design, but more the fact that we got some kick ass CG visuals of it in action, IMO. Some prefer the traditional cell animation of the variables, but I enjoy the CG much better. Give me an SW-XA1 type as the VF-1 in CGI and I'd need to change my shorts... Who knows, if Bigwest and Nue can successfully win the rights to the story of SDF Macross, we may well see an updated OVA series of the original with all the advancements in modern animation, that is solely owned by Bigwest. Who knows...

Well I heard you wash it regularly...

Actually that is one of the best analogies of anime shows compared to North American shows. However, one side note is that Bab 5 was threatened with cancellation at the end of just about every season... Though, the 4 th season had a substantial amount of season 5 in it because JMS was convinced that they were not going to get a repreave and then out of the blue WB bought the show... Anyway back on topic, I don't know if it is still the case, but back when SDF Macross was being produced the networks would give producers a "3 minute warning" type notification that their show was to be cancelled and this gave the writers the opportunity to wrap up story threads and plot issues before the end. Which is why you never see an anime program just suddenly "stop", like we do here. With respect to Minmay, I agree that the "Angel Paint" footage best wraps up the character of Minmay in that she had grown up and summed up her experience with the love triangle in the song "Angel Paint". If you listen/read the words it describes how, as much as it hurt her to loose Hikaru, she chose to accept her choices and move on. I know the main reason why RT fans hate that Minmay is because she was a no talent whiner that drove you nuts after a while. Even at the end you never got the sense that she ever grew up like the Macross Minmay.

I concur, I'm pretty sure that's what he is after.

Yes well, considering she probably earns to bulk of her money from album sales in Japan, I don't thing she is really hurting. She's just trying to pay her dues and make it in America, however I suspect she really hasn't tapped the depths of anime fandom yet. She considers herself a singer first, actor second... The trouble is that if HG hadn't totally alienated BigWest, they might have had a chance at getting permission from Victor , through recommendation, to translate the Minmay songs and include them in the English Macross release, which is where Mari's true claim to fame is. Oh well, yet another reason to want to rip the distribution rights for SDFM out of the hands of HG....

Where?

Maybe so, but there was a reason why the SDF 1 transformed. Subsequent series, Mac II included offered no viable explanation for transformations of capital ships... Even the "mighty" PD didn't have transforming ships and they converted a whole fleet to ancient PD technology.... But that's my pet peeve and why I don't believe, other than for cinematic value, that the Macross Cannons needed to transform.

Do you use this service to translate from Japanese to English? http://tool.nifty.com/globalgate/

a song of the milky way, if you want to use the wallpapers in this thread you will need to get in contact with the artists who made them and get their permission to use them. I'm sure most won't mind at all if you use them. I would suggest you contact Sketchly to help you with your English request.

Anime magic...

Sounds right to me. The picture is from another Japanese fansite I believe.

WOW!! That badboy will look amazing textured!

I found a few that may interest you from the DYRL Gold Book, but my scanner is down at the moment, I'll prolly have it up and running in a week or so.

I disagree. IMO they would have been designed as an alternative to the Grand Canons in that what they'd sacrifice in power would be made up by their mobility. In Mac II they had 6 of them in service and when you consider getting an enemy in a six way crossfire with 4 canon blasts each that's 24 canon blasts ripping through a lot of capital ships. It also directs enemy fire away from planetary targets and keeps it in space far away from civilian casualties. I agree that the con tower is very misleading and really should not be so large, but then again, one can't fault it too much if you are a fan of Battle 7's attacker mode.... The Mac II designers went with a hybrid design which I personally don't agree with. It should have been more along the Kazutaka Miyatake's capital ship designs for Macross 7 (NOT the attacker mode Battle 7!!), with cleaner lines. maybe similar to the Metlandi cruisers of DYRL. If you've seen the designs published in "This is Animation Series: Macross 7 Animation Materials", you'd know what I mean... In some instances it was truly a shame that his designs for the Macross 5 fleet got so little screen time, Battle 5 was a truly cool looking battle carrier, not to mention several of the Macross 7 support carriers and destroyers

I think if we ask for Sketch's help we'll bridge the communications gap... I think he is saying that he can't post copyrighted Macross images on his site without permission. We need to remember over there, Big West actively owns the copyrights on Macross and with the court cases against Tatsunoko, no doubt they agressively enforce their rights throughout Japan.

That looks more accurate than anything else I've seen. Particularly the RPG books...

Macross 7 anyone? That argument is a bit weak bud, considering everything SK did after DYRL had little resemblance to the original series. Which makes sense, since as technology evolves so do vehicle designs. To quote Bones,"Those damn engineers love to change things!" IMO they used too much Zentreadi equipment, considering the length of time between major conflicts described in the story in Mac II.

- Any of the new Macross Artwork by Mikimoto from his "Innocence" art book. - Any of the silouettes like the ones we saw in the 20th Anniversary logos and DVD, if they were ever published.

He's announcing the creation of a fansite for the 25th Anniversary of Macross which is next year. It isn't done yet though.