JELEINEN

The box had stryofoam in it? Isn't that a little unusal for a new toy?

To be quite honest, I don't really follow or care about the animation industry in the US. Can you give a little more insight into the causes of the problems you see in animation over here and how that compares to what's said in the article? I had noticed that I see fewer US produced cartoons these days, but I had attributed that to changes in viewing habits (kids spending more time at sports and other activities). I think in the case of Japan, whether for good or ill, it will be exporting to other countries that will help carry the industry through that region's economic downturn. Japan as a whole has recognized that its cultural exports have become a growing source of income. Japanese food, fashions, entertainment, etc. have become very popular world-wide and anime is part of that. As far as being mainstream, anime can best be compared to comic books in the US (not manga in Japan, which definitely are mainstream). Comic books in the US are primarly made for teens/young adults and really don't have a wide distribution (there are only about a million people in the US who regularly buy comics), but they do have an influence on the culture as a whole.

勿論 ; ) http://www.macrossmecha.info/joke/daicon_vf1.html Wow. That looks like a sketch for an actual cel. The level of detail they put into that film is just amazing. If anyone has it, I highly recomend watching it frame by frame. There's tons of little bits they threw into it that you can't catch watching it normally.

I think that saying that Japanese animation is going to be ruined is a huge exageration. In betweening has always been a menial labor job and that appears to be what the article is talking about. The US animation companies have been sending their in between work over seas for years now. In fact, back in the 80's, Japan was one of the places it got sent to. Obviously it sucks for the guys who's jobs will be lost, but I don't think it'll really hurt the industry as a whole.

Very nice, Nanashi. Do you have the picture of the VF-1 pulling the beam saber out of its head as well?

Correct. Interestingly enough, neither Finnish nor the Basque language in Europe are Indo-European.

Well, anthropologists aren't concerned so much with individuals, but with societies as a whole. For the topic of this discussion, language doesn't help much when you want to address someone in reference to their race. In a perfect world, we wouldn't need to worry about it (racial distinctions are very arbitrary anyway). I generally try to avoid distinguishing by race when possible. When not possible, I'll pick the least offensive term. So, even though I think "Asian" is an unfortunate term for distinguishing race, I'll use it if necessary.

I don't know if this was a typo or intentional, but this phrase is absolutely brilliant.

But, linguistically, most all of Europe (east and west) is part of the Indo-European family. This indicates a common place of origin. A bit of trivia: Lithuanian is considered the closest modern language to the original Indo-European root language. And to show why race isn't used and language is, Korean, Japanese, Farsi and Turkish are all part the altaic language family indicating a common place origin. But, by common standards, Koreans/Japanese and Persians/Turks are part of two different races.

For giant robots, I recommend Giant Robo: The Animation. For fantasy, go with Weathering Continent or Twelve Kingdoms.

From what I understand, when the term was coined, it was accepted by anthropologists that that was the geographical area where white people originated. It was supposed that they then migrated from there west into the Middle East and Europe and southeast into the Indian subcontinent. Of course now days, using race as a means to identify people is almost a complete taboo with anthropoligists. Language is what they mostly use now.

We can always go back to using "mongoloid." (that was a joke) Personally, I've never liked using a continent to refer to a racial group, because it tends to exclude a lot of people from the given continent who do not fall into that group. Not to mention, it's rather silly to call someone an Asian who was not born in Asia. If I absolutely must refer to someone by their ethnicity/race, I try to be more specific than just continent.

Except the added mass would affect maneuverability.

There is no TV series. The whole thing is one big OVA. That said, the side stories (which is what I'm assuming you mean by OVA) are just that, side stories, as Ali points out. As for my opinion of the show, I love it. It's easily one of my all time favorite anime series. There are space battles on an unheard of scale, yet they remain fairly realistic (far more so than the Matsumoto titles you list). In fact, many are loosely based on actual naval battles. Galactic Heroes also delves heavily into political intrigue. I highly recommend the series.

I think the Votoms designs still hold up pretty well. In spite of the show itself being ass, the Blue Gender robots were pretty good. On the other hand, I can't see what the apeal of Gasaraki robots is. They're ugly and they run on magic. Bleh.

Try here: http://www.iguardians.net/boards/showthrea...ighlight=regult

I'm just watching Jungle to see if an import copy shows up either on LD or DVD. I'll just skip ADVs release.

Glagla has been described as the voiceless master. He doesn't post on message boards or anything. I don't think anyone knows much about him other than that he's Japanese and an incredible builder.

Irony?

He does rock. I still think his Ingram is his best work. He has a VF-17 as well that's pretty decent.

Well I'm definitely not going to watch the movie again to respond precisely, but Michael Ironsides speach to his class about the responsibility of people to perform public service before getting the vote is lifted almost word for word from the book. The book is not primarlily about fighting bugs while wearing armored suits. If it was, it would not end like it does BEFORE the final battle. It's a political statement about the responsibilities of the individual to the state and vice versa. If you have not read it since your youth, read it again. It's not a juvie space opera about fighting "bugs". It a pretty right wing, some would say fascist, manifesto. Thats what made it into the movie (as satire, but its there). I know what the book is about. I've read it two or three times now. While Heinlein is saying something in the book about civic duty (it was written as a juvenile; just not published that way), it is not particularly "right wing" and certainly anything but fascist (either by the real or perjorative definitions). The film was a load of crap made by people who had obviously never read the book, but based it entirely on what a few critics with an axe to grind have said about it. Anyway, this thread is not the place for this. If you search the archives, you should find a much more in depth discussion of the matter in the Other Anime and SF area.

But, if you wanted to maintain acceleration while firing weapons, then orientation is giong to make a huge difference. That's the limitation.

And what alternate reality did your copy of the book come from? They're from Legend of the Galactic Heroes. They're just toys, but they can probably be used for gaming. The only possible problem is that the fighters are very much not in scale with the larger ships.

/me points to his post above.

Late 80's. IIRC, 1988. It was released under the title Uchu no Senshi.