sketchley

Short answer: it's not as mainstream as you'd think. Without going too far into the details, there are some serious differences between the Japanese culture, and yours (whomever the reader is.) The biggest is manga*. Due to manga, and by this I mean its sure presence in every aspect of the culture, anime and anime related properties are a lot more present. In some ways you could claim that there is more of it, but it is less visible because of it.** I would go so far as to say that anime, in general, as a storytelling medium for all ages, is more accepted than in English speaking countries. But on the same token, most people do not go out of their way to watch anime, and a surprising number do have a "anime, yech" reaction if the topic is brought up. IMHO, anime is neither more popular nor less popular than in other countries. The prime difference is the viewers of anime are a lot more vocal about what they want and don't want, coupled with an industry that is responsive and flexible to meet the wants of the viewers. The fact that there are a lot of viewers clustered in small areas also helps with things like marketing and keeping costs down. Japan is also a land without network channels - so some anime could even be described as regional or only regionally available. This further increases the depth, breadth, quantity, and you could even say quality - the results of more competition for national exposure on one of the two or three channels broadcast nationally, or for broadcasting on the local channels. In addition, anime is a far cheaper medium to use than live action in the creation of fantasy or science fiction shows. So, it is IMHO, that a lot of people who, in countries with a larger live-action movie industry, would migrate into that industry, instead migrate into the animation industry and contribute vastly to the quality of it. The basic proof of the presence and acceptance of anime would be the shelfspace in the local video rental shop. I would estimate that it occopies roughly 25 - 30% in the average shop (with around 40% for English or non-Asian cinema and TV, and the remainder for Japanese and Asian cinema and TV. I encourage other readers to attempt to answer the question (as my view may only reflect my experiences, where I live in Japan, and the people whom I happen to associate with.) * I am tempted to add kanji and the overall Japanese sense of artistic style. However, I can't really say much beyond a gut feeling that by having one of the three alphabets used in Japan being historically based on pictographs - passing information via pictures - storytelling via anime/manga/pictures/what have you, has a higher level of concious and subconcious awareness and acceptance than cultures and languages that do not use an alphabet that is historically based in pictographs. ** To clarify: in the US there is South Park and The Simpsons. Everyone knows those two shows, and they are highly visible. It is their uniquiness of content, coupled with their medium (animated) that makes them so highly visible. However, in Japan, the opposite could be said to be true - in that there is a lot of high quality animated programmes, so the only ones that are memoriable are ones like "Sazae san", "Chibi maruku-chan," "Boy Detective Conan", "Blackjack" and so on. Though, I should add the disclaimer that these are shows known to adults. For kids, other shows would be memoriable, like "One Piece." To reinforce the point, I recently saw a Japanese liveaction police drama on TV, and I remarked to my wife about the oddness of the presence of a criminal with a gun. Yes, bad guys armed with guns is not the norm (anime is the realm of the firearm, live action drama is not.)

OK... going back to the first post: we are presented with ç ²è‰¦. ç ²è‰¦ literally translates as Gunboat. However, 艦 by itself translates as warship. (ç ² translates as gun.) So, we can go for a literal translation of "Gun-warship." I think another angle to look at it is the English abilities of the game design staff. Let's be honest, their specialty is game design. Excusing my the rudeness of my assumption... but perhaps they merely applied the name because it looked cool, or it fit the role the ship takes, but isn't a literal translation of the Japanese term used. Another thing to consider is that just as Japanese words don't translate or fit easily into English words, the same is true of the reverse process. It's highly possible that the people involved with the game didn't like the nuances associated with such English terms as gunship, gunboat, and monitor. Instead, they felt that the nuances attached to the Japanese translation of the word destroyer best matched their vision of the ship.

That would explain why I saw a full-sized model of the stock VOTOMS armoured suit being built by someone here in Japan - seen in the latest issue of Great Mechanics.

True, but in space, aside from the big gas planets, there really isn't that much of it. Even in the pseudo-scientific technical manuals for Star Trek, they don't claim for such a system to be that effective in producing the quantities needed to sustain a long duration, let alone fast, trip. Here's a scientific article on the idea: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bussard_ramjet And some scientific stuff: "The collected propellant can be used as reaction mass in a plasma rocket engine, ion rocket engine, or even in an antimatter-matter annihilation powered rocket engine. Interstellar Space contains an average of 10 (to the -21st power) kg of mass per cubic meter of space. This means that the ramjet scoop must sweep 10(to the 18th power) cubic meters of space to collect one gram of ions per second." In other words, 10,000,000,000,000,000 cubic Km to get one gram. For fun, in imperial: 62,137,119,200,000,000 cubic miles for all of 0.00220462262 pounds of it.

The cars and other vehicles are easiest to explain: electricity from the ship. It's readily available and it cuts down on atmosphere purification and reprocessing (getting all of that car exhaust out of the filters? Yeech!) The VFs use something called reactant to power their thermonuclear engines. It is unclear about the rate of consumption of it while in operation - beyond that it is significantly increased when the VF is not in an atmosphere. It is highly probable that the SDF-1 and the carriers that were attached to it were well stocked with it. Of course it is equally probable that the SDF-1 had a way to produce it onboard (supposition: from safe or non-reactive elements. Who'd want to make their ship into a giant fuel bomb?) The engines of the SDF-1 are the big question mark. They are seen spewing out thrust, AKA particles or mass of some kind, and in the second episode they even mention that the engines are 'conventional' or contemporary technology from Earth. Of course, if we go into the realm of pseudo-science and anime physics, the engines would be comparible to those on Star Trek ships - specifically the impulse drives. In other words, a small amount of fuel (matter + anti-matter) is used to create a large amount of energy. In this arrangement, it is only the reactant fuel for the VFs that need to be worried about. Though, they could be stealing it from recovered or salvaged Zentraedi refueling pods, or have a magical device that turns regular matter into reactant fuel...

And this is why I always liked the VF-0, VF-1 and VF-11. Their transformations are easy to understand and see. 426335[/snapback] The VF-11 is actually fairly complicated - especially in the nose transformation/fold. IMHO, the VF-22 is much clearer. Nevertheless, if we go the opposite route - the SV-51 is just too much. I think my biggest beef in it is that it has far too many seem lines, and not enough body lines - as in clear lines to give an impression of the spaces and volumes of the VF; let alone hints to how it all fits together. Anyhow... I don't think that we should demand for more realism in VFs. The anime magic is what makes them that much more cool. Let's face it, despite the added realism and lack of anime magic distortions in the Macross 0 VFs, there was something about them that makes them appear less real than classically animated VFs...

It may have been micro-gravity. There were doors on the floor for people to walk through. Nevertheless, the planets were spreading in all directions. Ref.: "Kazutaka Miyatake Design Works Macross and Orguss" pg. 20 How do plants grow in zero g? Simple: feed them water and nutrients via a base for the stalk to grow/mount on. Point a sunlight emulating light at it, and watch it grow towards the light. See Nasa and other real science websites for further information.

Uh, we are talking about Michael Bay here. The same Michael Bay who does flying cars in a ballet performance whenever an explosion goes off, right? Right. Don't expect much beyond cool looking transformations, and lots of over-the-top action. (I'm expecting something like "Bady Boys 2" - viceral action, but the nagging feeling of 'what does this have to do with anything, let alone the plot?')

But they did have onboard farms. There is some lineart from DYRL showing some zero-G plant growing in operation.

Sticking strictly to the VFs... One way to look at it is that after SWI, other VFs were developed (Hikaru is seen with a VF-4x (?) on his desk or in his hands in the movie,) but due to extensive combat data and the 'it ain't broke, why fix it,' logic, the VF-1 with FAST packs remained the prime space interceptor fighter. It was modified (or upgraded, or whatever) into something similar, but different (the VF-1A/J/SR) by 2036, which served as the space interceptor fighter until the VF-2SS came into service. The VF-2JA implies that concurrently, atmospheric, or non-space interceptor VFs were also designed, with the VF-2JA being the one most commonly used (easily accessible) by the Macross II era. Of course, this is all speculation, as the Macross II alternate setting, let alone it's VF development history, wasn't developed in the first place, and stopped being developed once SK returned to Macross and cut it all out.

Isn't that "change" (the angles) also in the VF-19S and such? I think that's less a redesign and more a different artist's style in the animation. 425910[/snapback] Basically, the change has everything to do with budget. It takes a longer time to draw something with more lines. On the same token, are the thruster cuffs. Again, it is easier to place and draw them, then the dohickeys on the more liney YF-19. It's one of the things that I truly admire about the VF designs in Macross 7 - they are both incredibly complex, yet visually simple (as in the number of lines.)

Sad to say that the villian, Mr. Robert Patrick, didn't even get billing for the movie! And he (based on the trailer) gets all the good lines too!

If you reduce the responsiveness of the stick, then you have a fighter, travelling up to Mach speeds, with a sluggish control stick to allow for a pilot's over compensations. Both sticks rely on the same principles of control, there isn't any advantage of having a longer control stick. In WWI & II the fighter pilots flew with floor mounted joysticks, similar in length to the guitarstick. Such control devices were acceptable because the fighters flew well under mach speeds and because of this lack of speed the aircraft was much more forgiving to over compesation. The controls were also attached to wires that would require physical exertion to operate the controls, thus leverage was a good thing. There is also the fact that these prop planes never experienced being hit by a missile or a very high calibre round, which would have a greater kinetic impact on the flight of the plane. It's basic physics, not a matter of thinking outside of the box. If you hold on to a broomstick attached to a wall and someone pushes you, the distance the end of the broomstick travels will be greater than that of an 8" stick attached to the same wall. 425598[/snapback] Ok, I'm going to stop giving examples, because that is encouraging thoughts inside of the box. Some food for thought: - maybe it is something on the guitar control stick that controls the VF, and not the movements of the guitar control stick itself. - we're dealing with an anime that has giant transforming airplanes, capable of traveling at speeds in an atmosphere that though has only once shown the effects of air friction at those high speeds, has never shown any of the effects of heat expansion in the materials. In other words, physics (advanced or otherwise,) has no effectiveness in anime, and claiming that anime must conform to the laws of physics, let alone have gadgets that must conform to a reality of physics, is kind of anathema to anime. - OTEC. - my point: I don't entirely agree with the control interface in question, my stance is that it is a (story) metaphor for some alternative control interface to what we have seen in Macross anime to date. All I am asking is to keep an open mind about it being an alternative control interface (whether it is a good one or not, is entirely up to you,) that allows for the title characters to complete the tasks placed on them by the storywriters.

Think outside the box, It's fairly easy to reduce the responsiveness of the controls - as in five times as much control movement is needed to get the same reaction on a smaller stick.

Uhm... the whole Zentraedi gene dominance theory is another fallicy created by RPGers who don't know genetics. In general, it is completely random. Of course, there is some weight to the arguement of Max's "ability". As it is known that Y chromosome sperm are generally faster, but weaker, and X carrying chromosome sperm are generally slower, but have more stamina. And the more excited the woman is, the more acidic the, erm, race course is - the more likely the faster, weaker sperm will be killed off and the slower, stronger ones will make it to the ovum. Max is truly a genius, eh.

Eh? Ok, but remember what I said: internally mounted gun pods. Though, "conformally mounted" may be a better descriptor.

Erm... by size, the FAST packs on the YF-21 are larger than those on the YF-19. Just have a look at the underside - where do the internally mounted gun pods go when there's no ventral FAST packs? Also, the YF-21 gets an additional 4 (2 per pack) dogfight missile launcher (and I suspect a pair of long range missile launchers) from the ventral packs. Not to mention the fold booster... A FAST pack upgraded YF-19 doesn't mean a thicker shield. I believe that that is only a falicy perpetuated by a mistake by someone who made RPG stats way back when.

The TV series version of the VF-1, had two seperate sets of controls (one for fighter, one for battroid.) The DYRL version has the two sets combined into one.

Also, just for the fun of it, I did a search on Macross 2036 and how it relates to Macross II, and I got the following: http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%B6%85%E6%...83%BC%E3%83%A0) Specifically: 超時空è¦å¡žãƒžã‚¯ãƒ­ã‚¹2036 （PCエンジン） 1992å¹´4月発売。メサイア（日本コンピュータシステム）。CD-ROMã€7400円。 横スクロールシューティング。åŒå¹´åˆ¶ä½œã•ã‚ŒãŸã‚¢ãƒ‹ãƒ¡ã€Žè¶…時空è¦å¡žãƒžã‚¯ãƒ­ã‚¹II -LOVERS AGAIN-ã€ã®é–¢é€£ä¼ç”»ã§ã€å…±é€šã®ãƒ‘ラレルワールド的設定をもã¤ã€‚2036å¹´ã€åœ°çƒã¸ã®å¾©è®ã‚’ä¼ã‚€ã‚«ãƒ ジン一派ã¯ãƒŒã‚§ãƒ«ãƒ‰åŸºå¹¹è‰¦éšŠã‚’呼ã³å¯„ã›ã€ãƒžã‚¯ã‚·ãƒŸãƒªã‚¢ãƒ³ãƒ»ã‚¸ãƒ¼ãƒŠã‚¹ã€ãƒŸãƒªã‚¢ãƒ»ãƒ•ã‚¡ãƒªãƒ¼ãƒŠãƒ»ã‚¸ãƒ¼ãƒŠã‚¹å¤«å¦»ã®é•·å¥³ã‚³ãƒŸãƒªã‚¢ãƒ»ãƒžãƒªã‚¢ãŒå‡ºæ’ƒã™ã‚‹ã€‚オリジナル機体VF-1SR（VF-1Sã®æ”¹è‰¯åž‹ï¼‰ãŒç™»å ´ã™ã‚‹ã€‚

I never said it was an assumption, especially mine, and before you dismiss the magazines, I suggest that you seriously look into them (aka read it/them.) The publishers and article writers have a proven track record for accuracy with a plethora of other anime reviews and synopsises. They are also the oldest continuing to be published anime magazine in North America. That to me says something about their quality - as in they wouldn't have survived if they were not accurate. JBO, keep in mind that there is Studio Nue (Shouji Kawamori) Macross canon, and Big West Macross canon. What's the dif? The presence of Macross II. I am not, and have never claimed that Macross 2036 is part of the Studio Nue canon. I fully agree that in that sense, it is not canon. However, in the Macross II canon, it is. There are a number of things in Macross II that were developed directly from, or based on ideas in the game. In fact, beyond the similarity in VF motif, you could even claim that the enemy's mecha are similar or outgrowths of those present in the Neld invasion fleet. Also, if you want to be picky, you could even say that VF-X (1) is non-canon as well. There is a DYRL style attack on Earth, which isn't mentioned in later games (specifically VF-X2.) Shouji Kawamori's involvement in VF-X may have been very, very limited - as in providing the battroid and gerwalk of the VF-4, and the Pheyos Valkyrie only. (If you play the game, you'll notice some big mistakes - such as the gun pod of the VF-17 being mounted externally on the top in fighter mode. Also, the abscence, or should I say lack of Kazutaka Miyatake's stealth carrier from the game from his "Design Works: Macross and Orguss" does say volumes.)

Found it (gah... luv the internet. Serious memory lane road trip there.) http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/catalog/prod...roducts_id=1735 Mecha Press #7. Published Jan/Feb 1993. Given that magazines have a lead time of up to 3 months, and that Macross Plus was released on Aug. 25, 1994*, it's safe to say that at the time (and possibly even from when Macross II was cut out of the main Macross universe,) that the 2036 storyline is part of Macross II's history. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macross_Plus http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%9E%E3%....BD.9C.E5.93.81

I remember reading that info in a Protoculture Addicts (or was it the affiliated Mecha Press?) way back in the day, BEFORE Macross Plus/7 were even on the horizon (let alone released.) The sources used by the writers of the two magazines were always very good.

As far as Robotech comics go... Eternity was the best publisher, followed by Academy - largely because they continued with some of the series created by Eternity.* Of course, of all the Robotech comics, the most funky series is the Robotech Defenders by DC Comics. * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robotech_(comics)

It's probably due to the Macross II VFs being based off of them. If I'm not mistaken, the Macross 2036 game is part of the Macross II's past.

When you've talked to a pilot, we'll discuss this one further... 425043[/snapback] He's got a good point, you know. Just think of our illustrious past - the Earth was flat, the sun orbits the Earth... you know, conventions that existed for a long, long time. People were even killed in their valiant attempts to change the convention. Yes, I think that a guitar control interface is a weird concept. That said, I am not a guitarist, and I do have a suspicion that a guitarist (singing or probably not) would feel more comfortable holding and using an interface/control stick in the shape of something that they have most likely spent half of their life holding. At the very least, it's the security blanket aspect of it. Now I'm off on a crusade to have the standard qwerty keyboard layout changed - because that's one convention that's got to go!