VFTF1

I have no recollection of this. I do recall Ozma getting really mad when Ranka told him she wanted to be a singer, and I think that was when he said something about how singers are all fake or something like that. Only the little manager dude managed t convince him with his "song is bunka and bunka is ai!" speech.... which was cool. You MIGHT be right, since I do kind of vaguely remember Ozma making tons of disparaging remarks. He hated the Miss Macross contest.... generally - he was kind of like the Doug Bendo of Macross Frontier - everything not related to flying death machines was immediately classified by him as child porn... But of course - MY theory is that Ozma was just bitter that he lost Cathy to a guy like Leon. And probably the fact that she considered him "just" a pilot made him resentful of everything that WASN'T related to flying a valkyrie - a kind of defensive instinct whereby he had to fix his tarnished self-esteem by immediately labeling everything and everyone who wasn't a valk pilot as kind of worthless. This is probably also why he took a liking to Alto - which I now see...despite my first impression of Ozma being a dork to him...but even the punch was tough love...and he did barge in and basically wrestle Alto away from Cathy and the military and coax him into joining SMS - because he was clearly in awe of Alto's skills.. and dedication to flying. But later, when Ranka showed Ozma the beauty of girls who wear lingerie and sing about love, and Cathy regained her senses and decided to drop her metrosexual hawaii shirt nail polishing boytoy in favor of good ol' down to Earth Ozma - I think he lost his bitterness and became complete again. You know - I appreciate everybody's advice - but I am worse than computer tech illiterate - I am economically minded. My old laptop was about 4 years old, it had an expired 2 year warranty anyways. I know some people like to fiddle with stuff like this - I don't. However, my step-dad does - so I sold it to him for a paltry 200 bucks. He got the thing running again - but he had to whipe the hardrive clean to do it - and yes, I earlier did try Recovery but it didn't work... he said he had to break a sweat getting it to recover/boot up - but it worked eventually. So now the old computer is his, the data on the hardrive is gone, and I have a nice new laptop with a 2 year warranty with lots of great features my old one didn't have. My idea is to buy cheap with the intention of changing laptops very often - because they keep adding features, memory space and ...um...stuff. So the one I have now I hopefully will get rid of in two years. I just need to finally put stuff I don't want to dissappear onto CD-ROMs or something. Pete

Well - I went ahead and watched the trailer. This is sure to be the big event of 2010 - the other big event will be the one that takes us all by surprise ! Pete

Actually - I was pleasantly surprised by THIS thread - it looks like there are actually people with brains, who can write, and who I can learn from at Robotech.com! http://www.robotech.com/community/forum/re...0&forumid=9 There's one dude who tries to explain it away by referencing McKinney "saying" that "Protoculture" was responsible - which gave me a chuckle... But overall it's a very interesting discussion. The one thing missing is some theoretical chatter about the nature of Fold bubbles.... But overall - not a bad thread. Pete

Congratulations on asking the question that must certainly rank amongst the most important issues for Robotech fans: http://www.robotech.com/community/forum/re...7&forumid=9 Pete

I seem to have neglected this important question. I went to a transvestit club in Warsaw a while back with my gay friend. The girl who was singing wore a red dress, had red hair and was a guy - just like the 00 character in question here...er...there - back then. As for those new movie Gundams -- for some reason, while I think Exia is brilliant...I'm not much of a fan of any of the other designs - not just the movie ones but ...any of them really...maybe in time they'll grow on me. I am looking forward to an MG virtue because I expect Bandai to make it so that the inner frame is Nadleeh - that would be fun and great. But for now...I'm on episode 5 of season 1 ...still... so...umm... kind of behind Pete

Isn't that a bit anti-climactic - since Hikaru and Misa's romance really starts in ernest during the last episode... and even then - given how the series did 180s before...it could have technically done another 180 in the near future... This is the thing...Hikaru and Misa's love was not EPIC ... it was "just an old love story" to paraphrase DYRL Misa... really... just like the song in DYRL was just a pop song, so the love in Macross was not earth shattering. You see - the only people who view it as mythic and epic are...the Zendradi... at least until a year later when they'd gotten used to culture and sort of grown past that. I'm not trying to diminish Misa and Hikaru's love - but actually...just like the character of Hikaru Ichijo is enduring because he is mundane, so to the love story is enduring because it is tender - it's not over done. And in its' details - it's very very average...undecisive guy...hysterical girls... like most fits of love - there are bursts of passion and then there is the every day grind and a good bit of distance to it all... A really nice balance. This is really why I hate Robotech as a story - come to think of it. EVERY TIME I see, hear or read Rick and Lisa together - I cringe because just like they made Rick Hunter into GI Joe riding in Transformers and therefore ruined the Ichijo character, they also took this very realistic portrayal of a love story (by which I mean down to earth) and turned it into really bad pathos. I mean like finger nails on a chalk board bad... Rick and Lisa are always and everywhere deeply in love and all they do is stay in love and eternally fly around in the SDF-3 or something... their dialogue is full of faux love crap. Pussy cat! Sweety! Oh Rick, I love you! ... It's just terrible bile. I prefer the subtle and demure nature of the original love story and the fact that even at that climactic ending... Minmey asks if she can come on Misa's space ship... You KNOW that opens the door for the love triangle to last - you can say that Hikaru didn't really "chose" either of them - and the two of them stopped hating eachother and shook hands (although they were never close enough in proximity to hate eachother...) Anyways - point is - it's a lovely wrap up to a lovely story. Pete

Old Hardrive's dead. This new laptop I'm on supposedly has two partitions but I think my last one also had two partitions and that didn't help worth squat. Lost everything - including all my accounting But I suck at accounting anyways - and besides, it's all a load of BS anyways since "profit" and "loss" as defined by the government defies all common sense and I hate it - worse thing about running a business. If I EVER make enough money to hire someone - the first thing I'm gonna do is hire an accountant.... although...I did TRY to do that this year - but the lady at first gave a reasonable fee, but then when she saw how much work there was her fee jumped by 1000% (one thousand - yeah...) ... which was, I guess ...her way of saying "I don't wanna clean your mess" So... yeah...all my anime is gone...my accounting is gone...my photography is gone... the number to the winning million dollar lottery ticket which I wrote down on my old computer is gone But apparently in Japan they do Osouji ... so ... this is my personal version of Osouji! :-) I'll just have to redo all my accounting in April....which seems to be universal Tax month everywhere you go? ... no wonder TS Eliot wrote it was "The Cruelest Month" ... But you know - downloading the anime doesn't take long at all - only a few minutes. What's taking so much time is buying a new modem - I basically did something really DUMB when I renewed my mobile internet contract. See - they always offer you a new modem for a symbolic fee of like 25 cents. But I said "no thanks. My old one works fine." Stupid Pete. Soooo stupid Pete. My "old one" was bought like 3 years ago, along with my old laptop - and apparently all modems are now simple USB connections. This one was one of those card-things. My old laptop had a hole where you could insert it... NO new laptop has this hole any more... NONE. But most stores and offices and stuff are closed here for the holidays and really everything will reopen in January.... besides...I don't feel like driving all the way into town right now since I'm supposed to be resting and relaxing I'll do it next year... then I'll reacquire anime... Although - after all the times I've lost everything due to viruses... I was wondering... Won't my laptop DVD player play ANYTHING? Can't I just get the original DVDs from Japan and play them? I have almost gotten to the point of not caring about the subs even - like...I understand Japanese by osmosis. Every anime is basically the same anyways... Nani!? Xooo!! Aiske! Watashi wa something or other! No...I guess my Japanese is not good enough to actually understand anything without subs Oh well - what I really need to do is just burn what I download onto CD-Roms and have them on my shelf with my other DVDs. Pete

I'm not gonna try anything new. I'll have my modem next week and go back to downloading. Just haven't managed to go into town to buy it yet is all Pete

Yeah -we should. I'll probably end up watching it on Youtube - but screw it. We should. Pete

I'm going to go out on a ledge and offer a convoluted psychological theory to explain all of this. I'm sorry if it hurts anybody's feelings. I realize I'm writing abstractly and in general and I don't even know any Robotech fans personally, I haven't conducted research, interviews, nor have I thought this through - so...having said that...here goes: Childhood is a precious and important time in most human lives, especially in the lives of people who I will generally call "people like us" - that is, people who not so much can't let go as they don't want to let go, because childhood was full of adventure, it was a period of life where the world was interesting and magical. Because of all of this - traumatic events linked to childhood usually stay with us longer than things that happened to us as adults, they color our lives and emotions. One generally accepted aspect of moving from childhood to adulthood is the sad process of disillusionment - of letting go and accepting a grimmer or more mundane comportment towards life. MOST of the time, insofar as cartoons and comics are concerned, this is not necessary in the full sense. Oh sure, we might not longer be satisfied by cartoons and comics at the same level as when we were kids - but then again we will always demand a level of cartoonishness in our cartoons and a level of comicy-ness in our comics. We don't want them to be more than they are because they play a special role - they are a magical gateway to a time that seems happy and that we never want to loose. Unfortunately - some people picked the wrong cartoon to grow up on. And this is where the trouble begins. When you think about a Robotech fan and when people like Gubaba wonder aloud the following: ... you must remember just who you're asking. You're not asking this of an adult. Or - to be more exact - Robotech fans are nominally adults, but when it comes to Robotech - they are kids. Worse still, if they haven't seriously gotten into Japanese anime, but rather are just general sci-fi fans who like a couple of shows - say Transformers, Robotech and something or other...Star Wars... - then really...when they're thinking about Robotech -they're thinking about it in a narrow context. That context is: "My Childhood." And in "My Childhood" - there was no Hikaru Ichijo and there was no "original Macross." All there was were characters who - in the world of a little boy - are REAL. And if you come up to the little boy and say - sorry kid, didn't ya know? Your mom's a psycho! .... f$ck!! Terminator 2 flashback...sorry...sorry... back up... .... And if you come up to the little boy and say - sorry kid, didn't ya know? Rick Hunter is actually Hikaru Ichijo ad Scott Bernard is named Stick and he doesn't even know what the SDF-1 or 3 or whatever is. He doesn't care. He doesn't even live in the same universe--- then you are traumatizing that boy. And so they build a fantasy world and isolate themselves off. This is kind of cute - because it's a way to keep alive the feelings and epic amazement they had as a child. But it is actually also deranged because - as I myself have discovered - sometimes you need to let go and move forward in order to move back. What do I mean? Well - look... I'm sure most of us have nostalgically wished to return to that feeling of amazement and awesomeness that we had as kids - and for the longest time I wouldn't let go of some things I deeply cherished as a child - for instance Transformers. I would keep on collecting and collecting every single figure from every single line that was released. And even though there came a point where I knew the stories were getting worse and worse and I was loosing interest - I felt duty bound to the little Pete that would have just loved to have hundreds of TFs on his shelf and a whole universe of TFs to play with. And I would swear up and down without even looking into it that there was nothing better ever made than Transformers. Childhood is a powerful thing - and it blinds us. But when I took the blinders off - I suddenly discovered a whole slew of anime I never even knew existed or only vaguely recall having kind of run into briefly somewhere...at some point... and I also discovered that today -right now - in this day and age - there is stuff worth watching being made -- and it's not the stuff I was watching as a kid. I didn't have to totally burry my childhood - but one MUST change and accept novelty. And by this I don't mean reboots of Transformers - I mean stepping off one train and getting on a completely different one - don't become a drone-fan. Macross has this one great benefit that since it only comes out once a million years - it's not possible to be a drone fan. I am really happy about this. It would suck to have a new season of Macross out every year and new toys all the time. Heck - I even remember when in the early 90s there was no more Transformers in the USA (there were still TFs coming out in Europe) --- and you know? It was kind of sad - but on the other hand ---damn there was so much awesome fanfiction, fan comics... I don't know if you guys know that Nick Roche, who now does IDW, was just a regular fan who made some Beast Wars comics in the UK - they were TOTALLY AWESOME. Then again, I think that Guido dude and the other guy was also just a fan...making posters and stuff for Botcon... Anyways - that's a bit of my personal backstory seeping in there -- but it's kind of the point - everyone has their backstory - their evolution as a lover of this cultural phenomena known as...anime? Sci-fi? Cartoons? Comics? Whatever you wanna call it...pop culture? ...beats me...hard to pin it down... But Robotech fans...man... if you were a HARDCORE Robotech fan in the 80s - then it must be rough. It must be rough to learn that there was no plot. It's not just a matter of a couple of cosmetic changes. No. It's literally a matter of NO SUCH THING EXISTS. I mean - it's just not there. This is why they are mentally anguished and stick to Robotech and don't allow for explanations like "because this was changed so it could be syndicated" - nope. They need to find an "in fiction" or "in story" narrative that explains something. It's the natural impulse of all reall fans of anything to explain away "plot holes" with "in story" explanations. I mean - come on. Nobody likes to just explain something as "that's an animation error" or "the plot twist here was thought up on the fly by the author who was busy doing something else then." "Real" fans - of any genre - love to build elaborate explanations for why what seems like an error is actually something far more. The problem is - in the case of Robotech - ALL OF IT IS AN ERROR. See - MOST anime and cartoons do have some sort of INTENTION behind them - intention of story arc, character development etc. And over that intentional development, errors are made and plot holes occur - and that's where diehard fans go to work fixing things. But Robotech - as a story - NEVER had any such intention. It didn't. It was all made on the fly -slaped together from three anime with no thought whatsoever put into it. At all. The only exception to this were the novels - which have been retconned out of existence anyways and which the die-hard Robotech fans ironically do not latch on to as much as they should - and they really really should because instead of trying to figure out why the animation of a show that has nothing to do with Robotech shows something that is not in accordance with the plot of Robotech - they should just be fans of the novels. But they're not because when they were kids - they saw the cartoons and those cartons are what they've got in their heads and hearts. And to suggest that it's crap is to suggest that their beautiful childhood was a big fat lie and that they need to throw it all away. Well - yes - I suggest that their childhood was an HG sponsored lie and they need to throw it away. Because there's a whole wealth of super cool stuff out there that isn't a lie and that - if you just open yourself up to it - will enhance your present life and give you a second childhood of sorts - far coole than the original one because you'll be living it consciously - knowing what you're getting, where it's from and what it's about. But Robotech fans might not want to do this because they aren't ready for it yet. Wonder if they ever will be. Pete

Hm...that's stretching it. The fact is that the eyes of "Dr. Lang" were also at various times shown on numerous characters in SDFM TV ad other anime. It wasn't an animation mistake, but rather an art style I think. Pete

Emperor Palpatine voice in my head: "Only now!...at the end!....do you realize that Alice Holiday was the prototype for your pitiful Sheryl Nome all along! The blond hair, the big boobs....I can feel the hatred swelling inside you! Take up your jedi weapon! I am unarmed! Slay me and come up with some way to keep this analogy from falling apart!" Pete

Didn't even notice this. Screen grab? Pete

If you had read the HG/Robotech thread - you would know that the proper spelling is "retarted" Fair enough. I don't have any ROTF toys. I have seen the pictures though - especially of Buster Prime. And yes - he's nice. But that only underscores my point: namely there is no love in the TF line. Since Hasbro/Takara-Tomy can make Buster Prime - why do all the other ROTF toys look so bad? Why is Devastator so terrible? Why don't his individual parts even transform? For that matter - why is Buster Prime a Japanese exclussive? That is my point: they can do a lot better - but they just don't want to for such a large range of figures. Oh that just means "rules" -- it's kind of like Terms of Service or something like that... I wish.... Maybe ten years from now... would be nice ... ... for now I'm into my third year and still haven't hit paydirt Those aren't dollars We had MP04 for the equivalent of 200 bucks (600 PLN) when the re-issue was announced back in September/October. Now that he's out of production, that's the price for backorders 1500 is about 400 bucks which is what he unfortunately now costs if you live here. The other prices - at least for stuff which isn't out of production - are actually good for Polish standards - meaning for people who have to add a 22% tax to everything they buy Yes. Back in the 1990s things were great here - privatization and opening up markets. Now it's all about taxing things and redistributing EU money. Too bad really; the country went from a dynamic emerging market economy to Welfare Queen of Europe (that is my drastically oversimplified history of the last 10 years in Poland ) And to move back to SOCs --- Yes - of course you can point to particular Transformers that are excellent - no one is disputing that. My problem is that I think on the whole there are far fewer breakthroughs and when you compare even the higher end TFs to the love Bandai puts into SOCs (not to mention other lines) .... one is saddened. But whatever - oh well. We'll see None of this changes the fact that I need Ideon next year Pete PS - Are you from Croatia? If you are - then I think your country is one of the most beautiful in Europe. I was in Dubrovnik for summer vacation and daaaaaaamn! It's paradise on Earth! Really - the place is like Switzerland without snow and with lots of beaches and hunnies Very nice!

Gubaba - the answer to your questions is simple: Because Robotech isn't just a couple of small changes to an anime. Robotech is putting three unrelated shows together and saying it's one. That's why they won't let go for even an inch. If they do - then the entire "narrative" falls apart. Pete

Maybe I should rephrase my criticism and comparisson this way: Soul of Chogokin: Getting progressively better and better Transformers: Getting progressively worse and worse I agree that Takara-Tomy did some excellent, innovative things. Beast Wars ball joint poseability (although it started in G2), MP, etc etc - I'm not going to repeat the priases you typed out because I agree. The problem is that while it seems that most other companies are making Progress, Takara and Hasbro are in a rut. The movie toys are cataclyismic IMO. MP is moving at a snails pace. I mean - come on. Look how many new moulds Yamato has put out in Macross. New moulds - not repainted V-F1s. Look at that and then compare it to the snails pace at which we get new MP releases. Why? Takara-Tomy surely has more money to invest in MPs than Yamato does to invest in new Macross moulds - and yet Yamato turns out more new stuff. And to bring it back to Soul of Chogokin - look at the tempo with which Bandai brings these out and compare it to the horribly slow pace of MP. Finally, look at the advances made across the board with figures, models and toys from other companies and look at Takara-Tomy who IMO are now stuck in a rut. It's bad when Car Robots and Beast Wars Neo - which came out in 1998 and 2000 respectively - are more appealing and technologically advanced and have better paint and details than toys tied to multi million dollar movies or even the Unicron Trilogy stuff which came out later and should have benefited from better tech. But this just goes back to the essential difference IMO between SOC and Transformers stuff - even hig hend TF stuff: namely ... no love. There is a LOT of love in Soul of Chogokin. The robot is meant to embody the "soul" or "spirit" of what makes the character great and memorable and each one is really really a labor of love. Tranformers doesn't do this. Little things like the unpainted Dr. Archeville with the MP Starscream, things like the totally stupid faces on Thundercrack and Skywarp. Megatron did at least come with Kremzeek... But again - that's really four TF moulds in 5 years that are awesome. Compare that to all the moulds Bandai has put out. As for playability - I disagree. Check out my photo comics linked below. Although there's a lot of (bad) photoshopping done there - I take the pictures outside and I play with these things. Yamato, Bandai - I handle them pretty ruggedly and they are great for play. Just look at Yamato's Japanese based tv advertisements - kids are playing with these things in those adds. I understand that we as foriegn buyers with no access to Yamato customer service or Bandai customer service are way more paranoid -if we dent or scratch or bust up our SOC or Yammie - replacing the part of the piece is an additional couple hundreds bucks maybe.... But still - these are very very good for play. Pete

On that note...Jasonc makes a good point about how wierd it was to make Rick Hunter the center of everything - storywise - in Robotech. I think part of it must have been that they heroed him up. Hikaru was a generic character - your typical everyman. He was thrown into situations - he didn't wade into them. War, love, responsibility - he just happened to end up there. The only initiative that sprang from him was his love of Minmey - and even that was a childish kind of love. Later, his love of Misa was kind of the end result of their common experiences together in the military and during the war. Minmey was always an idol - and she became one in real life - distant and far away. As far as characters went, Hikaru was boring per se - what made him interesting was not Hikaru but the things that happened to and around Hikaru. In this sense, he was the perfect character for this type of story because he was something audiences could latch on to - like a guide through a wider world. Robotech took that character and destroyed him by turning him into THE HERO OF YOUR SATURDAY MORNING CARTOON. He was GI Joe who flew a Transformer. Where ever there was trouble he was there on the double, Rick Hunter was on his way! Rick Hunteer! A Robo-Teech Hero! Rick Hunter is theree!!! It's Rick Huuuunter versus the alien enemy, fighting to save the day! He never gives up, he stays when the series is done! Rick Hunter never goes away!! Rick Huunterr! A Robotech Hero! Rick Hunter is there!!! Rick Hunter is the code name for a crapy character concept thoughtlessly thrust upon a Japanese anime by a small backwater company that wanted to make a quick buck. It has stayed in the hearts and minds of illiterate people the world over - it's mission: to libel Japanese anime as child pornography where ever it may be found. Riiick Hunteer! A real Robootech Hero!! RIIIIICCCCK HUUUUNNNTTTEEEEEEEEEER!!! Pete

You know - the problem is that there is no better ending to Hikaru Ichijo's story than the last episode of SDFM TV. And for all the faults of the "Macross Saga" translations - the story would really have been better served if it ended as it was meant to. Part of the reason Robotech is such a deep pain in the ass is because the way that Macross was constructed - no matter how much you twist the dialogue, the pictures themselves tell a story of their own - was to have it end the way it did end. Pete

double post

Well - I get the feeling from what I've read at RT.com and from our encounters with RT fans in this thread that Robotech fans love Robotech for one of 3 reasons: 1) Because they can't read, and due to illiteracy they love Robotech by default since it's dubbed rather than subbed Macross 2) Because 20 years ago they saw it on TV along with Transformers and GI Joe, the latter two of which they saw again in the movie theatre recently and maybe they even picked up a Masterpiece Rick Hunter Veritech to go with their token ROTF Prime - these two figures comprise their whole toy collection. 3) Because given how long the SDF-1 officially is according to Kawamori, then clearly nothing that idiot could have written into the original story could make any sense because just looking at the ship, you see it can't be that long, and therefore the Robotech story is better than Macross QED or whatever. I wonder what amazing, interesting reasons for loving Robotech I will learn about in 2010? Pete

What?? This is the internet! Post first, verify later! Gossipites wanna know! Pete

Oh. Anyways - I read up about this anime on wiki. Sounds kind of boring - maybe it watches better. I'm not really clear on the concept...sounds a bit like the whole "power corrupts" or a dark twist on the concept of power creating responsibility.... Maybe I'll check it out on Youtube...but...I'm so behind...woefully horribly behind on everything.... Pete

what's an "nm" ? Pete

Video games huh? I was into those back when Nintendo Entertainment System was out. I got one and had lots of games. I loved the Super Mario Bros. games, and I remember being really psyched about playing the WWII air combat game Sky Shark (it was such an andrenalin rush!) Strangely enough - nowadays the only games I can get excited about are those old NES games on Emulators... seirously.... Mike Tyson's Punch out - I'm so there! I can't beat that frickin' Russian guy! 20 years and I still can't frickin' beat him!!! I do manage to sometimes beat that bull dude. What else?... Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - the original first game. Not the arcade game remade into a NES game. The original one - which was much harder and much more of a complex combat game... Of the Mario games - my favorite is Mario II, even though I know (read) that it originally wasn't meant to be a Mario game which is why it's so different. But I really love it. The flying carpets, the later snow episodes. Mario 3 was also cool with the flying ships and stuff. Mario 1 is classic. Kind of dull and boring and easy - but classic. The only "modern" games I played were 10 years ago ...was 10 years ago - in college, somebody had a playstation and we all played Soul Caliber and battled eachother instead of studying. It was cool. Those were the days. I would love to play a Haruhi Suzumiya game. I'm sure there is one. Where can I get it? Pete

Um...yeah...well...what can I say? I like typing Pete