jeniusornome

Er, Macross 7 is huge in Japan. There were less toys made during the show's run that collectors may be interested in today (people go nuts for 1/55 VF-1s, but no one is really out there clamoring for reissues of the 1/65 DX Fire Valkyrie), but the show was and still is massively popular. I wouldn't count # of toys released as a metric for popularity of a show. For Macross, maybe soundtrack sales would be a better indicator. ZZ Gundam is less popular than other UC Gundam media in Japan, although I've read that a good portion of that is because the show, originally planned as a direct sequel to (and with lots of recurring characters from) Zeta Gundam was changed once the Char's Counterattack movie was approved. I wouldn't chalk it up to comedy or re-used animation so much as a complete shift away from the characters everyone was expecting to see, and having the plot focus on what was essentially a side story in the main UC timeline instead. But saying these are "less followed by fans" is accurate if you're talking about Western audiences (which I assume you are?). ZZ Gundam didn't get a US release until 2016 - 14 years after the US release of Char's Counterattack. Gundam, in the US, had moved on to newer, flashier shows by then, and so the only people in the West really interested in it were those who wanted to see this "missing" part of the UC timeline, who also didn't mind that it doesn't directly play in to Char's Counterattack (although it does help to provide some additional background info for Unicorn). The UC timeline isn't even how most people were introduced to Gundam in the US - Gundam Wing really holds that spot for most US fans. And Macross 7 has never had a release in the US, so it's no surprise that it isn't as popular here. Whereas Macross II and Macross Plus were actually released in the US and I think that's one of the reasons they are so popular with Western audiences - for a while, if you wanted Macross, it was all you could get. Even the AnimEigo remaster of the original show didn't come out until 2001, and that was years after the two OVAs were available here on VHS (and a year or so after their DVD releases). Western fans know Macross Plus because HG let it have a US release. Macross 7 also wasn't made for Western audiences (neither was Macross Plus, despite what some people might think). But I think if M7 had been released here, it would have met with similar reception to Macross II.

Could someone put it next to something known white, like... I dunno printer papert or something, and then adjust white balance and take photos so we can put this pink white thing to bed?

Fantastic write up @jvmacross, thank you for sharing your impressions with all of us !

Fit and finish, mostly. It isn’t a bad figure but to me the balance was a little off and it felt a bit wobbly. it still held together just fine, and I haven’t yet had any of the joint looseness that some others have, but if anyone went in expecting Yamato quality they would have been disappointed. early reports are that this “v1.5” or whatever you want to call it is better in that regard, and I think KC said somewhere they’d go back and redo the 1S eventually as well.

Nice! I have one on order with BBTS so I’ll probably see it in another month or so. Would love to hear more impressions once you’ve had more time with it.

@sqidd Buyee has an option where you can request a picture of the item as received, too, so you don’t necessarily have to pay extra for repacking in everything. it boggles my mind how someone could ship something like that, though. I sometimes wonder if sellers do it when they realize it’s going out of country via tenso.

For all the times Planet Dance was played and drilled into my head, it was all worth it to have Gamlin sing it at the end.

In another universe, Kakizaki beat Milia in a fight and we make jokes about Max’s cameo in DYRL.

2016 BluRay release on amazon japan: https://www.amazon.co.jp/超時空要塞マクロス-愛・おぼえていますか-Blu-ray-長谷有洋/dp/B015I9N0EU/

I agree with everything you guys are saying. But if you don’t watch or read the supplemental material, or if you haven’t seen any of the other Macross media (which is certainly possible, considering it came out long enough after Frontier that it could easily be someone’s introduction to the series) it just looks a lot like “magical girl pop group plus mecha combat”. if you go back and watch all of the earlier shows, then yes, all of the elements that made their way into Delta were pre-established in-universe. That doesn’t change the appearance of “magical girl pop group” though. It just means if you’re a longtime fan or you read a lot of the supplemental material you know it’s not “magic”, it is in fact song energy, spiritia, etc etc. which is basically magic. i don’t see how it’s a bad thing though. My biggest issue with Delta was its incoherence, especially in the second half. I think it suffered from having too many main characters too. They want to make a fun mecha anime with a magic singing pop group? I’d watch that. Someone doesn’t want music in their Macross? That’s probably going to be difficult. anyways, looking at the plots of the shows: Macross / DYRL: humanity finds a spaceship and meets a race of giant spacefaring warriors. It goes poorly, but they manage to turn some to their cause and people survive. Plus: estranged friends and rival test pilots compete for the affections of a woman and also to see who is the better pilot. Seven: demons from another dimension possess ancient biological war machines created by a dead race and are defeated by the power of Rock and Roll. Zero: at the end of a worldwide war, a pilot crashes on a small island in the South Pacific that has an ancient bio weapon. Frontier: humans meet giant alien bugs and sing to them to calm them down; it works. Cyborgs want the aliens to do mind control. Delta: pop group sings to people infected with a rage virus to calm them down; it works. Generic bad guys want ancient technology to do mind control. next series: ??? they could go literally anywhere, but personally I’d like to see something unrelated to “the big picture.” A shorter series with a smaller setting than a colony fleet. a while back I joked that the next show would be about pilots in a flying circus flying old mecha. I still think that could be a fun setting.

Yeah, the PF VF-0S was released in mid 2018 and was still sporadically available at shops towards the end of 2019. I seem to recall seeing a handful pop up at HLJ earlier this year as well. I don’t think they move very fast because of the high price, but 1+ year to sell out doesn’t say “high demand” to me.

Ahaha, I may have missed the press-on part of the fingernails then.

Thought of this reading another thread talking about Delta. There was one aspect of the Walkure tech I wasn’t really clear on. Did the girls have cybernetic implants to control the drones that made their shields and holograms? Did that tech become normalized after the Galaxy fleet was blown up by SMS?

Nom, I’ll ask in the other thread. I think it’s the “girl pop band flying without mecha” part that is leading to lots of “magical girls are the future of Macross” talk though.

0.o definitely pay the bills before spending money on Macross!