VFTF1

It's a reissue. Pete

If anybody wants links to where you can watch this cool exclusive Chinese-only series that has not been licensed in the west - I got 'em. But only over PM. It will only cost you 10 USD sent by paypal to recieve an exclusive PM from me with links to where you can watch this awesome anime. PM for paypal account and details. Pete

That thing in the spoiler tags doesn't sound so bad or so wierd. It sounds similar to what Shinji contemplated in the last episode of the series, where his life was "normal." I always found that part of the episode to be one of my favorites because it deflated the pathos of the series quite self-consciously. If there's a manga that runs along the same lines - that's great. Oh - and before I forgot.... Gubaba: Hm...if Yoko's boobs don't lure you in then I'll try a new method given the above: Have you watched Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann? No? Oh, you've GOT to. It's the 21st century robot show for thinking people." Hope that works! Pete

Fak it. I can't wait for the official bootleg toys to come out. Im going to start production of my own bootlegged bootleg Astro Plan toys. I'm going to give some old Legos to my dog and ask him to chew it and spit it out. I will post pictures soon. However- if you want to pre-order these awesome toys - feel free to lemme know via PM. 1 USD per order. 150 USD shipping cost (that sounds pretty much like the Hong Kong pricing from Ebay ) paypal payment! Pete

Not forgotten. Sound Boosters were used in episode 7 and the whole Operation Call Up Monster Girl was also executed with Sound Boosters focusing and enhansing sound energy. The real question is the extent to which sound energy works on a purely biological level by stimulating brain chemistry vs. the extent to which it the will of the listener is a factor - and how sound energy changes his will/heart. All open questions. Pete

Yamato Valkyrie were never discounted or put on sale due to "broken shoulder syndrome" - at least not to my knowledge. Yamato were discounted and put on sale for the same reason that EVERYTHING was discounted and put on sale last year: the bad economy. Most production runs are planned well in advance of the year that the goods hit the market. Given that planning for 2008/2009 probably took place at latest in 2007, and 2007 still had the economy humming along just dandy, I'm guessing lots of companies produced more than the market ended up being able to bear - and thus oversupply combined with falling effective demand due to less jobs/money led to the discounts. If stores were discounting Yamato Macross goods due to faulty shoulders etc then they would have marked the merchandise as faulty - that's never been done to my knowledge, and Yamato has never actually recalled any of their products. I dunno. I take it in stride. They are trying to fill the demand for anime accurate perfect transformation valkyries that are also in scale with everything else - it's a tough challenge to meet. For the most part - they do great. What sucks is for people who think 150 or 200 bucks is a huge amount of money - and they go and buy ONE Yammie and it breaks. But if you buy 10 or 20 or 50 Yammies and only one or two out of that number end up being duds - it's kind of better. Lesson: don't buy just one. Go ahead and buy 10 right off the bat - get a collection going - and just expect a dud here or there Pete

Oh. I guess I completely missed that. Flashlights? Oh well...they packaged Transformers with sausages in Japan once, so I guess Valkyrie with Flashlights is comparatively benign Pete

Wait - I was meaning to ask this.... What "Plus strikes" ? There were no VF-1 valkyrie with strike parts in Macross Plus?? Did you mean DYRL Roy and Hikaru VF-1S with super and strike parts? Pete

Yawn. Rip off bootlegs of popular works of entertainment? Wow. I'm shocked. I for one have nothing against the Chinese, or their bootlegs. Personally, I don't buy them, don't like them - but not because they are bootlegs. Rather, simply because they suck and originals are better. Then again - lots of original works also suck. I dunno... to me this is all a non issue. The designs on those airplanes look lame, the undercarriage is strange, the characters all look generic, and in the end it's not Macross - so no matter how much it 'copies' Macross Frontier I'm still not gonna care about it. Finally - after almost 20 years of the internet I think it's safe to say that people who are incompetent enough to buy a bootleg have only themselves to thank. As for the negative view of Chinese as bootleggers - if such a view persists, it's just resentment since the Chinese also happen to have one of the freest, most prosperous economies on earth and have great food too. I dunno - negative generalizations always suck. In any event...as I mentioned in the other Astro Plan thread - this subject gets way too much attention. Unless this series is seriously funny - there's no point talking about it. Although - who knows? It could turn out good too (unlikely as that is). But whatever - does that have anything to do with Macross and our enjoyment of Macross? No. And will it take away "market share" from Macross --- ?? I honestly doubt it. If people are dumb enough to buy a product solely on the basis of blurry similarity to a brand product -then you can be sure that no amount of marketing is going to make them appreciate the brand product. Meanwhile, people who are into Macross will never toss it in favor of bootlegs - I mean - would you ? Come on... Knock offs and bootlegs are just part of life. Pete

This show gets way too much attention... Pete

That's easy. You do your homework together with your friends. Pete

Not true - I am Yamato's most vocal critic on these boards. Not a thread goes by where I don't chastise them for not giving us a 1:1 scale Minmey sex doll with motorized mouth vibrator. Although...given their QC record, I can just hear the complaints about the morotirzed mouth vibrator malfunctioning See - there - I did it again. Damn you Yamato! Get off your lazy asses and make something worthwhile Pete

Small imperfections make women all the more unique and attractive. Treat your Destroid like a girl - put some make up on her if you absolutely must, or just learn to live with it and look at the bright side of what she offers Pete

Got plenty of Yamatos that show no signs of falling apart and have been out of the box since ...well let's see...my YF-19 1/60 has been out of the box for a good...dag...what is it....4 years now? When was that bird released? 2007? 2006? No problems. Still transforms and plays great. My SV-51s are doing fine living out of their boxes. YF-21 is solid as a rock. My VF-22S had tightness issues (too tight in some places).... All my version 2.0 VF-1s are just fine and dandy out of their boxes... But yeah...I think the YF-19 is the oldest Yammie I have. It's fine. Crooked gunpod and all Pete

I don't like Planet Dance... Hope this doesn't get me kicked out of the M7 fanclub I'm just going to add some general impressions - sorry for the lack of penetrating in depth reviews, but I'm just so busy on Fridays and weekends lately. It was much easier to watch anime when my girlfriend was mad at me and not seeing me...now it's just "let's do this/let's go here/let's go there/" and on and on... Next Friday we're off to the seaside for the weekend... But I am "caught up" through episode 10, so the "problem" will really start with episode 11 ...I will have to actuall watch that! Anyways...episode 9... The one thing I can add is that Bassara looks really creepy as he "enthusiastically" plays his guitar while Mylene sings in the arb and brings Alice Holiday's Spiritia back up. It's just the animation is so ... well... wierd... Basara's got this crazy grin on his face and he's not so much nodding or head banging as his animation cel is being visibly moved...I dunno how else to put it - but that scene always was kind of ruined for me by that strange animation.... And yes - good point about how Alice Holiday was burned by the Honey-marketing-method ... but there's one twist to this (and it's just another of those subtle twists that are hard to spot in M7): Namely - look how much Mylene admires Alice Holiday? Admires her singing and says that it's what made her want to be a singer too. Now, even if Alice's stuff was marketing pulp - the thing to remember about marketing pulp is that the ONLY way that something can be made marketable is to... ...wait for it.... Appeal to people's tastes! That is to say - the marketing method of Honey as opposed to the pure artistic heart of Bassara is not a totally black and white picture - it's not that the former is evil and bad and poo poo while the latter is great and perfect. In fact, the former often has the effect of bringing people to music who otherwise wouldn't have given it a second thought - and Bassara can benefit from a singer like Mylene in the group because she was brought to music by the pop songs of Alice Holiday. The thing to remember is not establishing silly conflicts between ideas like "true art" vs. "marketing pulp" - but rather the question of what is proper and when. To someone with no musical experience, pop fluff might be a good thing because it touches something in them and brings them around to music. As they explore the art deeper - that's when Basara's way becomes important. But EVEN Basara realizes - as he himself said in the early episodes - that he needs to find a sound that will touch other people. In a sense, his reaction to Honey (storming out when told that the music needs to be fashionable) demonstrates that Basara is his own worse enemy. Sure, it's true that music should be from the heart and not fashionable - but if you want your music to touch other people's hearts, you need to kind of know how to reach them. That's what Mylene is trying to teach Basara - the two just aren't good at comunicating. In any event...yesterday my girlfriend took me to see another Polish movie - and it was kind of like Macross 7 because it was about a high school Punk Rock band that fought communism with music in 1981 - and since it was Friday and I was SUPPOSED to be watching Macross 7, I figured this movie was a good enough alternative. Plus it was set in 1981 and had a totally cute loli chick and a pretty hot beach sex scene - so Macross 7 "on the beach scene" got owned on that count too ! But anyways... the Alice Holiday episde is - for me - one of the less interesting for one reason: Alice Holiday. She's not cute, she's not interesting. She's like the sterylized Sheryl. Blonde hair and big boobs but no spirit.... Then again - I guess that's kind of the point... she reminds me of Myung insofar as I also found Myung BORING - due to her cynicism and "oh I've been in show business long enough to know it's all fake" attitude... Finally -Master Dex: As interesting as a scientifici essay on the rain in M7 would be - I would prefer it if you gave some scientific explanations for spiritia - I mean - the vampires are obviously MEASURING it. I have noted in previous threads on M7 before that this is highly dubious. How do you measure someone's level of emotions and "spirit?" What scale do you use? Later we're going to have "chiba units" for "song energy" ... But there's never really been a thorough scientific inquiry into this. I was watching Dr. House this weekend with my girl, and in one episode they had this dude who was on death row but was taken to the hospital and Dr. House discovered that he had pragleomorphuszeocrenytratiphulusplomogosis.... or something like that ... which was basically explained to be this illness whereby his brain spewed out excess hormones into his blood randomly which sent him into rages. And so then the theory was ventured that these "white flash" rages caused by this illness made him kill - since all four of his killings (three of which were commited in jail) had the same circumstances... (although House also said there are people with this illness who don't kill, but function normally). Anyways... The point is - it got me to thinking that I guess doctors have ways of measuring what goes on in our "hearts" and "heads" - and ...neuroscience (is that what the science of the brain is called?) is full of theories about which Node in our brain is responsible for creative thought and anger and other emotions... So I'm GUESSING the Protodevilin are using some kind of advanced form of neuroscience to measure spiritia? any help on this avenue would be grand since I think that if one doesn't make a serious venture to understand the science of spiritia (and later sound energy), then you're kind of allowing the story of M7 to suffer for it because the concepts - without some basic scientific backing - are...well...more far fetched than anything ELSE in Macross IMO Pete

Yamato's going to offer the 1/60 version 2.0 as a kit? I knew about the unpainted version - but it's going to be a kit that you put together yourself? Didn't know about this? Guess it makes sense if you want to paint the parts accurately in line with whatever scheme you can think of.... Pete

There's already a multi-page thread in the anime or sci fi section dedicated to that show... Pete

I disagree slightly. From the Macross stories, the undoing of the protoculture was less straightforward and more fascinating. In the Lensman arms race, at least according to that link, you have at least two opposing sides who are engaged in an arms race. However, unless I'm misunderstanding Macross, the Protoculture never had an opponent as such - rather, they imploded from within. I think a better analogy would be the fall of the Roman Republic and its' transformation into an Empire, and ultimate decline through this process. The Protoculture created a marvelous scientific civilization, which seemed to fall on account of pride. Remember in Macross Zero what the Birdman asks of Sarah? "Are humans capable of reaching the stars?" "Yes." "Do humans still war with one another?" "Yes." "Then the experiment is a failure." The failure rests in the inability of science to temper the primal quest for power through any means. Science, as the Protoculture concieved it, was after all meant to ensure prosperity, health, long life and the satisfaction of the dreams of cultured beings. That much is clear from the remnants of their amazing civilization. The problem is that no matter how technologically advanced a society becomes - it will never rid itself of evil; and the more you applify the capacity for unlimited power, the more chance that this power will be used for evil. Finally, there is a very specific problem that scientific progress poses; a problem that is unique to modern scientific societies: namely - science presumes that experimentation should be unhindered and that technological progress is co-equal with happiness and the good. Yet clearly, we see in Macross that this is not so. It's not so because even when humanity becomes, effectively, the Neo Protoculture and ventures into space, we have colonies where human love and friendship have priority over science (Macross Frontier), and colonies where science takes priority over human love and friendship. I realize that this is an over-simplification - but I believe it's an over-simplification in line with the vision that Kawamori gives us. All we know about social life on the Macross Galaxy is that scientists there mask their primal urges for domination and hatred of the advanced Vajra under the guise of scientific progress, and they sacrifice other human beings on the alter of scientific progress - exactly what Grace did to Sheryl Nome: using her as nothing more than a disposable means towards gaining the power of the Vajra and surpassing the Protoculture in power. Meanwhile, on Macross Frontier, science is subordinate to morality insofar as what we are shown there is the primacy of love and friendship. Everything we see about Frontier indicates that people are put first, and science is merely a tool for people. Even the manner in which the dead are disposed of is respectful of their humanity while at the same time scientifically efficient (unlike what happens to Sheryl on Galaxy, where her humanity is discarded in the name of scientific efficiency). The point that I am getting at is - where does this difference come from? In my view, it comes from embracing scientific methodology in its' entirety on the one hand (Galaxy) and recognizing the limits of scientific methodology on the other hand (Macross Frontier). Grace embracd scientific methodology in its' entirety insofar as she was not hindered by any moral qualms; hinderences that science considers beneath the realm of scientific inquiry and scientifically irrelevent. Science is simply about acquiring knowledge about nature in order to transform nature to serve human ends - but the ends are never questioned, and it is never asked "what ends are worthy of serving, what ends are not?" or "what ends are proper to human happiness and what ends are tragic and end in human misery?" When Global told Misa about the plan to create colony ships, he did not say "we are going to carry scientific progress into the universe." Global explicitly said the motive of the project was to preserve Culture. The idea was the humanity on Earth had reached a stage of DECLINE (contrary to the evidence that seemed to indicate on the surface that humanity was in a state of great progress because it could traverse space, fold, and had so many other fascinating gizmos). Global and Misa understood that the longer humanity was allowed to progress towards greater technological innovation, the more it would risk discarding human culture and become like the Zendradi. This is because, again - science is (at best) neutral in questions of happiness, and it is totally unable to justify its' own self. Let me put it this way: Please tell me what scientific experiment can be conducted to prove that science is worthwhile? What scientific experiments or mathematical proofs can be precisely given that prove that human happiness is tied to the advancement of science? Was love and friendship impossible in ages past when there were no fold boosters? Was love and happiness not possible in ages past when peope subsisted in more technologically primitive conditions? And does not technology, like any other primitive religion, risk masking the true state of the human heart from humans? I don't really think I need to go as far as citing the Matrix here - but to fail to recognize that science is the ultimate "religious" threat to human happiness is the tragedy of the Protoculture. Look at the Protoculture city that Misa and Hikaru find in DYRL. Look closely at what Kawamori shows us as the most important elements of that city? Do Misa and Hikaru marvel at its' technological greatness? At the flashy gizmos and computers? Do they lust and dream of power? Nope. Misa finds some table wear and begins doing the dinner, while Hikaru goes "hunting" - and Misa, happily doing the dishes, says "some things never change." They find happiness is being able to just be a man and a woman together - irrespective of whether the Earth is a nuclear wasteland and irrespective of the supposed technological stupendousness of the Protoculture city. This is NOT (just to cover my butt) a rant against science. I am not suggesting that science is "bad" or that it is totally worthless. But it does make people think in ways that people did not think before, and it does pose a very unique risk for people because it presents them with the same fake prospect that all other religions that were tyrannical promised in the past: paradise - escape from the human condition, the creation of a new type of human being and an escape from human nature towards becoming a God (like Grace wanted). Thankfully, simple things like love and friendship endure no matter what the level of advancement or regression in human affairs. Oh - and that's another fallacy that science teaches and that destroyed the Protoculture: the idea that progress is infinitie. That each year will bring better gizmos, better discoveres - better stuff. That it is impossible for humanity to regress. Well - that's obviously rubbish. The Protoculture, despite all their technology, regressed into Nothingness. Finally - even the Protoculture's attempt to save themselves by creating humanity is a perverse symptom of the sickness of modern scientific society: the Bird Human, upon hearing that Men still fight wars, announces that it will therefore terminate ALL humanity. "The experiment" it calls mankind. It doesn't care that Shin loves Sara, and that Sarah loves Shin. The Protoculture's final attempt at salvation for themselves through the creation of the human race was doomed to fail because they treated the matter as an experiment - humans were variables, and the goal was eternal progress. But it is the constant re-assertion of the cycle of human nature that constitutes the only type of happiness satisfactory for humans. With the birth of each new civilization, the struggle and eternal questions reassert themselves - and people must choose whether they will love and do what is true to their hearts, or whether they will believe in the latest fad - in this case the fairy tail that science will lead them to total bliss. This is one thing about Kawamori's work which is under appreciated - or at least it is sometimes misunderstood as being Kawamori's nascent environmentalism. I don't think Kawamori's constant extoling of Nature over Technology has anything to do with a simple minded environmentalism - rather - it has to do with the struggle of Culture against Science. Or maybe "struggle" is the wrong word. The two are constantly in tension. The Protoculture let science get the better of them. Now, as Macross continues, we'll see how humanity fairs in this regard. And Robotech sucks because it erases this ENTIRE story and turns things into a banal soap opera between Rick, Lisa and the slurm Queen as they fight goopy aliens over intergalactic oil for their transforming robots and space ships. Pete

Not at all. I invite you to read Husserel's Vienna Lecture of 1935: http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/husserl_philcris.html Or, if you want a very quick rebuttle: to paraphrase you: Without science, no holocaust, no Hiroshima, no machine guns able to mow down thouands of people in a few seconds during WWI. I'm giving you credit loss right here for not recognizing the flip side But I wrote of "science as a religion" - so yes. I agree with you. Religion, broadly defined as what people believe about themselves and the universe, leads often to conflict. See - here - you failed to quote me on this: (Perhaps you did not quote the very beginning of my post because it runs contrary to your simple fantasy in which on one side there is something called "religion" and on the other side there is something called "science" - ergo - you would not be able to make your point opposing the two without first tossing my statement about "science is the most dangerous of religions" to the memory hole...) Modern Science as a religion, particularly as a political religion, is no exception. Unfortunately, you haven't read anything I wrote in my post - you just saw the word "religion" then noticed I said something critical about science - and apparently proceeded to judge that I was a religious nutt raving against the internet and microwaves... Finally - it is on topic. Go watch all of Macross and tell me how it is possible to discuss the Protoculture's collapse without discussing the impact of science on society? I linked the views I expressed in my post explicitly to the Macross Galaxy from Macross Frontier - which was a very good example of science run amock. [and this in turn stemmed from an early post in which I wrote that one thing I prefer about Macross over Robotech is that it deals with the story of the Protoculture as a society felled by science rather than having Protoculture just be a fuel source to fight over] How does science run amock? I tried to give a brief summary of the notion - but if that doesn't work (which clearly it doesn't) - then I invite you to read the link provided above. Pete

Wasn't that the name of the jet from the American bootleg of this Chinese movie? http://www.animenation.net/blog/2010/01/08...opying-macross/ Pete

Same thing Science is the most dangerous of religions with the most dangerous political impacts. The vast majority of religions teach that there is a God who is superior to mortals, and therefore that mortals have limited knowledge, limited abilities, and are not all powerful. Politically, this translates into legal restraints on what mortals can do - particularly to eachother. Given that mortals are falliable, no mortal can ever wield absolute power, and all mortals are equal insofar as they are imperfect. Of course - sometimes some mortals claim they hav a direct line to God, a better understanding of religion than others - and under these circumstances "religion and politics" do bring down civilizations. BUT Science is the most dangerous because religion always relies on faith - always relies on there being a gulf between the known and the unknown, between the concept of omniscience and omnipotence and the reality of the limits of human nature. Science, however, discards all of this in favor of the idea of experimentation in the pursuit of human ends. Science distinguishes between facts and values and pronounces the latter unscientific and relativistic while only the former can be grasped by human knowledge. Now - note what happens in this situation? If all values are merely relativistic and no values can ever be scientifically proven, and scientific proof is the benchmark for factual truth and untruth -- then: How can you prove that science has any value? You can't. Science cannot justify itself because it pronounces all such justifications are merely subjective whims. Moving further down this path... : How then, can we "know" what science should be used for? What limits - if any - should be placed on science? Again - science is silent on this matter because there is no scientific way to judge it - at least no modern scientific way. Thins about the Macross Galaxy from Macross Frontier. That's a micro-cosmic example of what happened to the protoculture's civilization and what happens to civilization when science becomes the dominant religion. Pete

I'm old here so I don't understand what the problem is. Why don't new people read multi-page threads to get answers to basic questions? For me, when I was a new person here, I would read entire threads to understand what it was people were talking about so that I could contribute my own thoughts, and post sensible questions. Because of it, I found that I understood the basics and was able to become part of the discussion... aka....I invite you to read at least this thread from the beginning - and this thread starts from a post which links to the previous two threads - all the answers are there. As for the "story" of Robotech ... I'm confused. Can you please explain what you mean by the "story of robotech" - because to my mind that "story" has been retconned a dozen times and entire portions of it have been sumarily dismissed (such as the novels) to the point where it's hard to make out a "story." If you're just talking about the "story" of the cartoon - then personally, I prefer the story of SDF Macross to the story of Robotech. I think the two stories - Robotech the Macross Saga and the original SDF Macross - are diametrically different and the latter is superior to the former, mainly due to the treatment of what Protoculture is in Macross vs. what it is in Robotech. In Macross, Protoculture is an ancient civilization which was brought to ruins by science, and humanity is its' fail-safe, destined to restore culture to the universe. This is why a simple love story and the simple lives of civilians becomes so critical as the story progresses; because these elements are the seeds of culture which later take root in the hearts of the Zendradi. Meanwhile Robotech totally annihilates this theme, makes Protoculture into a psychedelic drug/uber fuel, and makes the battle be over a fuel source between an RDF and Zendradi that are indistinguishable from eachother on a moral level, since both are simply highly militarized societies fighting over resources. I also prefer the characters in Macross to the ones in Robotech - or rather, I think Robotech ruins a lot of the characters in Macross - mainly Misa Hayese. Lisa just isn't as subtle. Rick goes from being an everyman to a superman.... I'd be happy to get into the nitty gritty - but I'm first curious if you could perhaps assert a bit more clearly what it is in Robotech that you like? As for Macross 2 being a "better" Robotech Masters ... I don't share the assumption that any Macross story ought to have "become" Robotech Masters because Overtechnology was simply Protoculture technology (the people, not the flower) and the idea of the Robotech Masters has nothing to do with Macross. I personally prefer the way Macross has developed the original story from SDFM, particularly in Macross Zero, with the Protoculture Evolutionary Theory ... but...well... curious what you have to say and hope you read not only the HG/ Robotech threads, but check out the Macross TV and Movie threads. Finally - out of curiosity - aside from DYRL and Macross 2 - how much Macross have you managed to watch? Pete

?? The VF-22S Max and Millia were released in December. The VF-22S Gamlin was released in....October...September? In any case - not December. Pete

Here's a girl I wouldn't mind having charge me up every day! Pete

Der ploop bloop, screemo! ... or whatever it was Anikin said! Pete