Tochiro

She may only be miming but she definately got the dance/movements down. Have seen far, far better Basaras tho ;-)

Mari Iijima has been featured in a special 'People of 2011' issue of LA Weekly. The pic of her is great, although Mari has been twittering a lot this morning about how she doesnt like the title of the piece. http://www.laweekly.com/2011-05-19/la-life/mari-iijima-anime-idol/ I wonder if theres a print version of this somewhere? Can anyone hook me up?

Anyone interested in bidding on some items Tenjin is auctioning off for quake charity? http://page3.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/c273910088?u=;standupjapan_charity#enlargeimg Also, Tenjin made it into a promo piece about the new Sharp Aquos: http://trendy.nikkeibp.co.jp/as/sharp_aquos/p2.html

Damn I LOVE the rawer sound - just ran out and bought the album along with my morning coffee :-)

You arent wrong Renato - my local Animate and two local bookstores had zip. But I'm sure the book will pop up again sometime over the next couple of weeks. Amazon being sold out tho - thats so weird....

The Blu WILL happen, its just a matter of time. In fact, I'd be surprised if it didnt come out for the franchizes 30th anniversary next year. But 3D? No. HELL no. 3D on traditional cell animation looks TERRIBLE. I saw Ghost in the SHell Stand Alone Complex Solid State Society 3D (what a mouthful) at the cinema only last month. Any scene with CG-3D objects (ie, ghost diving scenes) were fine, but when applied to standard 2D animation, the effect generated is something like having 2 cells layered on top of each other but with the top one slightly off center. Its almost like a double image. VERY disconcerting and quite distracting imo. I'll settle for a hi-def remaster, preferrably of a 35mm print.

Well, I'm sitting here at my computer trying to get some work done on old event reports (the BIG ONE is commin' soon!) and it just hit me - summer concert season is almost upon us! Every year I get questions from people asking when or where they can see Macross performers while in Japan, so I thought I'd put together a list of what is coming up. Please keep in mind that these dates are only for Tokyo events (often part of tours that include Osaka, Sapporo, etc) and theres no guarantee that tickets are available. If anyone is planning a trip to Japan though, you might want to try to fit one of these into your schedule :-) May 21 - Chie Kajiura (FINISHED) May 21 - Yoshiki Fukuyama 2 day 20th anniversary concert. (FINISHED) May 22 - Yoshiki Fukuyama 2 day 20th anniversary concert. (FINISHED) June 4 - Megumi Nakajima July 24 - Yoshiki Fukuyama Acoustic Live Part 1 (SOLD OUT) July 30 - Mari Iijima (noon and evening performances) Sept 25 - Yoshiki Fukuyama Acoustic Live Part 2 In related news, the May 21-22 Fukuyama concert will be released as a DVD. Details are tba but the DVD recording has been officially announced. On April 6th, Fukuyama's newest album 'Synapse' was released. On April 27th, Fukuyama's best of album '20th Flight Rock' was released - it contains 3 CDs and a DVD (and aint cheap ^^; ) Check out Fukuyama tv ep 4 on Youtube - I recommend watching from about the 5.30 mark, altho theres some footage of a girl doing some Macross karaoke in Argentinia earlier in too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhc8Vw-Hko0&feature=player_embedded Will update as more is announced. Tochiro out.

This week's Pachinko magazines have a fair bit of coverage on the new game. Might have to give it a go :-)

Final update added to report covering meeting Chie on March 1 and Kawamori on April 24. Also updated some older pics.

The Eng subs are kinda old news by now, lol. And Im sure it will get a US release at a much more affordable pricepoint too, eventually. As for King of Thorn.....shudder. I tried to mentally block the fact that I saw that movie in the cinema. So nonsensical - and not in a good, alcohol fuelled way either!

So Renato - if this gets made do you think you will see it? ;-) http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=77026

Actually the list is a little longer, come to think of it: Mikimoto - art exhibition/signing (where Renato had his childhood dreams crushed ;-) Megumi - Meet & Greet after one of her concerts in Harajuku just over a year ago. Tenjin - at book launch events (friendliest guy around, I swear) Kawamori - see above Chie Kajiura - have been mentioned in a live stream event and also met her (am working on my post about that particular event at the moment) Aya Endo - while I didnt meet her I was a few meters away from her in a bar of sorts. Damn... its been a busy year lol.

Damn! Have I ever told you you suck? @s001 - So I probably shouldnt tell you about the time I had dinner with Jackie? ;-) Even better - he paid :-)

Nicely put Marzan. Its Monday and Im at work, so if anything could be said to kill excitement... lol. Anyways, Save and I headed over to Ikebukuro yesterday to check out the charity shop that Satellite was holding. It was the last day of the Sunshine 60 Macross F Jack! event, and from 1pm-5pm they were selling all 3 issues of the Nyankuretto creators magazine and a special set of charity postcards drawn by various Macross staff. I didnt think that this would be enough to cause much of a crowd - until I got a message saying that some people were lining up from 10am. I found out later that some fans had, in fact, turned up from 7AM! For postcards?!?!?! Anyways, Save and I turned up just before 2PM, to be greeted by a 90min+ line and staff warning that some items were likely to be sold out. About 45mins into the line there was a bit of a commotion down the line - Kawamori had appeared with Tenjin close behind him. From what I was told afterwards, Kawamori had been hanging out at the charity shop for a while but hadnt really been doing much - he said hello to a few people but wasnt really approachable. Then, when leaving, he randomly decided to go up the line of people waiting outside and shake everyones hand! Very much in character for the man - the random autographs on posters in the street below from the day Wings of Farewell was released area testament to him doing these things on a whim. Save and I were just at the end of the row where Kawamori stopped shaking hands with everyone - so we just made it. Most people just said a quick thank you - the line was pretty huge after all. I managed to say 'Thank you for a wonderfull movie' (The event was all about Wings of Farewell after all). Save was hyperventilating in a nerdgasm attack so Im not sure if he actually managed to voice any words ;-) Once we got into the shop itself, Vol. 2 of the Creators magazine had sold out (strange considering Vol. 3 was the new one) but I managed to get Vol 3 and some postcards. (Vol. 3 will probably pop up at animate before too long if Vol. 1 and 2 are anything to go by). Tenjin, meanwhile, had actually returned and had a whiteboard set up at the back of the room where he was showing how to draw a YF-29 to a crowd of maybe 50 or so onlookers. And here all I was expecting was a quick visit to buy some postcards! It quite randomly turned into a unforgettable experience - I've now shaken hands with Kawamori, Mikimoto and Megumi. If I was a super-Skrull I couldve combined all their powers into one by now.

Well I am in a pub in Shinjuku after waiting in line and hour and a half to buy this book and I have to say it was totally worth it for the bonus it came with.... Shaking Kawamoris hand!!!! Omg I am never washing my hand again!

The Macross Frontier Appreciation Festival (マクロスフロンティアキラっと感謝祭！) was originally scheduled to be held on March 19. After the Great Sendai Earthquake on March 11 the event, along with pretty much everything else in peoples lives, was put on infinite hiatus until a new date was announced – April 16. I was actually quite surprised that the organizers managed to get the event rescheduled so soon - most anime related events were cancelled and even the aftermath tremors have caused some damage and delays (ie, Maaya Sakamoto’s Tokyo concert was suddenly rescheduled over a month after the quake due to the constant aftershocks playing havock with the electrical wiring and equipment at the Tokyo International Forum Hall). The Appreciation Festival was to be held at the Nippon Seinen Kaikan Hall, not too far from Sendagaya Station – I had never been to this particular venue before and was surprised at how small it was – the main hall could hold only 1370 people at maximum capacity. This was obviously an event for the most hardcore fans – tickets were only available to fan club members and membership cards/ID were checked before being allowed to enter the venue. The event was to be held twice – once at midday and once in the evening and, in theory at least, even Fan club members had to pick one of the sessions to attend – having said this, I know quite a few Japanese fans with more than one Fanclub membership. Now I know why. This was to be the 2nd official Mac F fanclub exclusive event. I missed the first, which happened back when Macross Frontier was actually on air. And to be honest, I had no idea what to expect. Upon arriving, the atmosphere was much more subdued than I was expecting – there was none of the cosplaying and, karaoke or figure displays that the Gira Summer Festival had. In fact, I spotted only 2 cosplayers among the fans who were lined up. To one side of the hall, two Sheryl fans who had not been fortunate enough to get tics for the event had parked their Sheryl-adorned ‘ita-sha’ cars anyway. The designs apparently took about 6 months to complete. Among other things, high resolution scans from the Wings of Farewell movie booklet were also used. I have to admit, I’d love to try my hand at designing one of these someday. Another thing strangely absent at the event was goods. Apart from the obligatory DVD/CD table, the only item for sale was an event-specific set of 3 stick-posters (Alto, Ranka & Sheryl). These were limited to 2 sets per person and would not be sold again once the event supply had sold out – which they managed to do approx. 30 people before I managed to reach the head of the line. It turns out that all fan club members were allowed to come and buy said posters – regardless of whether they actually had a ticket to the event or not. The result of this was that the hall had been swamped earlier that morning. Fortunately I found a set on Yahoo auctions that evening for only a few dollars more than regular asking price. But in the meantime, posterless, I entered the hall and waited for the event to start. A pre-event message telling the audience how and when to yell out ‘thank you!’ to the guests was looping while everyone waited (at the end of the event, after a specific cue from the MC, if you must know!). Then, at 5pm on the dot, the lights dimmed. Kawamori came on stage to thank everyone for their support and talk about the earthquake. He had thought of cancelling the event but decided that holding it was the better way to honour those affected, since Macross had always had a positive message about perseverance, trying ones best and living life to its fullest. A set of 6 quake relief illustrations by Ebata, Kawamori and Tenjin (most have popped up online) had been made into a set of postcards and would be sold at a Farewell Macross F Ikebukuro Sunshine 60-jack! event on April 24th – postcards were 1000yen per set and all proceeds would go to a quake relief fund. The rest of the event’s special guests were then called out on stage, following a brief off-stage voice over skit with Grace and Ozma freaking out that Sheryl was unable to pronounce ‘Appreciation Festival’ (Kanshasai) properly (she kept saying KanshasHai – a cute mispronunciation which was a running gag). The lineup included: Shoji Kawamori Yuichi Nakamura – Alto Saotome Megumi Nakajima – Ranka Lee Aya Endo – Sheryl Nome Kikuko Inoue – Grace O’Conner Katsuyuki Konishi – Ozma Lee Unable to make it due to the rescheduling of the event were: Megumi Toyoguchi – Klan Klan Jun Fukuyama – Luca Angelloni The guest lineup for the midday and afternoon sessions were slightly different. People at the midday session didn’t get Kikuko Inoue, but were supposed to get Hiroshi Kamiya (Michael Blanc), meaning that most of the female fans chose the midday session. Not me though. Oh heck no. The chance to see Kikuko Inoue – Belldandy herself – in person meant that I was ALL about the afternoon show. While she still gets plenty of bit-parts, it’s fairly rare that Inoue gets larger roles at her age (she is pushing 47 – which is a fair bit older than the age range of most anime characters, after all) – the character of Grace put her at least partly back in the spotlight again – and she didn’t disappoint. While Nakamura and Konishi both came out in jeans and SMS jackets (and, after much haranguing, talked Kawamori into wearing one as well, much to the audience’s delight), Megumi, Endo and Inoue wore clothes that their respective characters might. This is not to say that they were cosplaying, but rather dressing in the styles that their characters might also choose. Endo and Nakajima, for example, were wearing outfits by Metamorphose, who recently did clothing designs for the recent Oshare Macross exhibition. (Aya Endo’s looked a bit like this but was black with a higher collar.) (Megumi’s was basically an all-white, less-frilly version of something resembling this.) Inoue was dressed as similar to Grace as possible – business skirt and suit top, black stockings, hair pulled back and glasses – it was pretty amazing how much she actually looked like Grace. Everyone did a little swirl to show off their outfit – yes, even Nakamura, although in his case, in typical Nakamura fashion, it was more like a reluctant shuffle. Inoue is known among fans for a rather particular habit – she claims to be eternally 17. This, she says, is an aesthetic choice that best captures her personality and style. As a result, there were quite a few ‘But Im only 17!’ gags peppering the talkshow. Looking back on Macross Frontier – experiences and memories Introductions out of the way (as if any were needed), the cast started off by talking briefly about their memories of working on Macross Frontier. -Megumi probably had the most to say– she stood on the very same stage when she made her debut as Ranka 3-4 years ago. She was still in High School when she originally auditioned for the competition/role, yet now she has a career, a fanbase, and has even sung at the Budokan. This, of course, set Inoue wondering aloud about what her future career would be like since, at 17, she was obviously still younger than Megumi. Aya talked briefly, as she has on several occasions in the past, about how the character of Sheryl gave her a chance to play a strong character and how this was different to her regular roles (ie, in End of Eternity/Resonance of Fate as Reanbell, etc) Nakamura noted how the role of Alto gradually grew on him. By the end of Wings of Farewell he felt that Alto had made his mark, whereas the character was overshadowed by Ranka and Sheryl in the series. Video messages A couple of guests who couldn’t make it had sent in video messages for the audience and cast. These were fired up next. Megumi Toyoguchi had originally been included in the guest lineup – in fact her name was still on the commemorative pencilboards that were made up for the event and still had the original March 19 date on them – but had a scheduling conflict when the new date was decided. This was unfortunate because she had decided she was going to debut in full Klan Klan cosplay and had already prepared her costume. To at least get some use out of it, she prepared a video message for the fans – and yes she made a pretty good chibi-Klan! Even her hairstyle was spot-on, although she stopped short of dying her hair blue. Toyoguchi apologized to everyone for not being able to make it in person, before posing a question for Kawamori: In the end, was he a Ranka fan or a Sheryl fan? The crowd went completely silent and watched as Kawamori squirmed in his seat for a moment, saying that while he was fond of both characters, he previously might have replied Sheryl, but now…turns to Inoue… is a Grace fan! Totally understandable what with Grace now being 17 and all, right? The same question was posed to the other male cast members with mixed results. Nakamura shrugged the question off, saying that, as Alto, the answer was obvious by the end of the Wings of Farewell. Konishi looked at the MC (who was on stage moving the conversation along) somewhat incredulously when the question put to him as well. ‘I’m not qualified to answer that question. I’m Ranka’s big brother right? What do you think I’m gonna say?’ The second video message was from Jun Fukuyama who wasn’t in costume, but appeared with his arm around a life-sized Luca cutout. He talked about how much fun he had playing Luca, how happy he was that the series had been popular, and asked everyone to see the new movie multiple times while it was still at the cinema. Man he could talk. Halfway through the message the MC asked if she should cut it short, to everyones amusement. Finally though, he hit Kawamori with three questions – Firstly, what on earth did Kathy see in Leon anyway? More importantly – what was with Leon’s hair? And finally, what was his favourite Macross Frontier song? The Kathy-Leon attraction was, Kawamori admitted, rather odd so he explained it the best way possible As for Leon’s hair, well that was just Leon’s own personal fashion sense. Where music was concerned, Kawamori said that he really liked ‘Hoshi Kira’ Then, at one of the ‘Merry Christmas Without You’ Christmas concerts, Yoko Kanno had approached him saying that she had come up with a new song – she had a rough cut, non-vocal version with her for him to listen to on the spot and he was completely taken with the song from the first time he heard it. Inoue jumped in at this point saying that while she was embarrassed, as Sheryl’s manager, to be saying this, her favourite song was Niji Iro Kuma Kuma. She then started talking with Megumi about how she had an unfulfilled dream that she was hoping the audience was willing to help her with – she wanted to do the Seikan Hikou dance with everyone in the hall. Megumi agreed to give the hall a quick dance lesson while Inoue slipped off stage to ‘get ready.’ Megumi ran through the basic hand movements for the chorus with everyone a few times, before Inoue came back out ….in a Ranka costume – yellow dress, bows, white leggings, the whole deal. The only thing missing was a green wig. Seikan Hikou started and Inoue, Megumi, and all 1370 fan club members did their little dance number together. Inoue would remain in the Ranka costume for the rest of the event. (There was apparently a Kamiya video message during the midday event according to some Japanese blogs – meaning that he must have ended up having a schedule conflict as well.) Voice Over Session The cast then read lines from 4 different scenes from Wings of Farewell, accompanied by select screenshots on the big screen. Game Corner This is where the fanclub element – the idea of giving something back to the fans – really came into play. Two games were held, each pitting a randomly chosen team of 5 fan club members against the Macross F cast with Kawamori acting as referee/judge. The first of these was like an illustrated version of ‘Chinese Whispers.’ The person at the far end of each team was given a verbal description of something. They then had to draw it as best they could in 30 seconds. The person next to them then had 15 seconds to memorize this picture before having 30 seconds to duplicate it themselves, and so on. The final picture from each team would be presented to Kawamori to judge which was the most…legible. The verbal description was (and remember, this had to be drawn in 30 seconds) Ranka doing a Ramen delivery in a Valkyrie. The first guy on the Fanclub Team actually did a great little illustration – seriously impressive stuff given how little time he had – which then got stranger and stranger with each subsequent version. The Cast Team did great for the first 3 (Megumi, Endo, Nakamura) until they got to Inoue, who drew a wonderful picture of…a teddy bear. Why? Because she felt like it. And Niji Iro Kuma Kuma WAS her favourite song, after all. Sigh – you can never trust a 17 y/o with these things, I suppose. During this whole process, A camera was right up in the Cast Team’s faces as they drew and then showed their pictures to the person beside them. Nakamura’s reaction was particularly note-worthy – he had this total WTF? expression. In the end, Kawamori gave the prize to the Fanclub Team since, while their end picture was almost undecipherable, at least it wasn’t a teddy bear. The second game was a Macross soundtrack version of beat the buzzer. Each team had a buzzer in front of them. Small clips (usually less than 1second) of Macross songs were played. First to hit their buzzer got to answer. Answer wrongly and the other team gets to try. Seems completely simple, right? Actually, the Cast Team got quite a few songs WRONG – the biggest of which was confusing Kaitaku Juki (CM Ranka) with the SMS march. Having said this, the Fanclub Team was a little shy when it came to dashing for the buzzer so Kawamori decided the last song would be worth 100pts (3-4times what the previous songs had been worth). The song was Wings of Farewell. Both Endo and a rather portly chap from the Fanclub Team jumped up and…..both stopped with their hands above their respective buttons. The big guy realized he was standing next to Endo and seemed to get all nervous. Endo looks at him and starts taunting in her full Sheryl voice – ‘Come on.’ ‘You know you want to.’ ‘Try me.’ etc. The look she was giving him was as scary as all heck and twice as hilarious – I guarantee you the guy was thinking of the Alto ‘slave’ scene at just that moment. Or maybe that was just me? Ultimately, The Fanclub Team won and got some posters as prizes. Speaking of which, this lead us into the final segment of the event – the Present Draw. Basically seat numbers were drawn at random. If you were lucky enough to get drawn you got a prize. The first prize was the exception rather than the rule – the entire seating row of whomever was drawn got a full-size set of the three theatrical posters from the Wings of Farewell. The guy drawn was is row M. Unfortunately I was in row K. Prizes that followed included full-size display cutouts of Ranka and Sherryl (the type they display in cinema lobbies) and 5 ipod nanos, each signed by a cast member and with a voice clip by said cast member. Once this was over, each cast member said a few comments in closing. Kawamori thanked the fans again and noted that he would like to do something for the upcoming 30th anniversary but…well, who knows what might happen? Finally, with the audience yelling out ‘Thank You!’ on cue, the cast lined up and marched off stage to the SMS March. And with that, the rollercoaster ride that had begun for Macross fans way back in December 2007 finally came to an end. Macross Frontier was officially over. The wait now begins to see what, if anything, transpires next year for the franchise’s 30th anniversary. In the meantime, Macross will be kept alive the same way it always has: By those who this event was for. By the posters here at MW. By the fans. UPDATE: Kudos to Gubaba, who came across some pics of the cast in their outfits from the Appreciation Festival. These look like they were probably originally taken from someones blog, possibly Aya's. It seems that the midday session features Aya in full 'False Diva' cowgirl costume! You can also see Kikuko Inoue in her Grace costume. During the afternoon session (which I attended), Aya was wearing a Sheryl-inspired dress. Also note the costume change by Inoue - into a Ranka outfit! Og course, the greatest thing about these pics is that Kawamori is in the background - still wearing an SMS jacket ;-)

Nice! I think Ill have to pick that up. Yes, the newer OVAs have nothing on the original Cobra tv series I'm afraid - its a damn shame it never came out in the West. Surprisingly really, that it dodnt come out back in the early 90s when the theatrical anime was so popular. The newer OVAs just seem rather pointless and lack...for a better word...heart. Also, the newer voice actors for Cobra always come off sounding stiff because they try too hard to impersonate the original. I must say thugh, Im surprised you dont like the theatrical version - I adore that film. The animation still holds up today imo (stylistically at least). Always goes down well with a bourbon late on a Friday night after work... As for me, I currently watching the new Madhouse X-men (surprisingly good). Unfortunately thats put me on a bit of a superhero kick so I'm currently going through all 70+ episodes of the old X-men cartoon from the 90s. After that I plan to hit up Paylabor tv :-)

Xard - glad you managed to see it! And not once but THREE times?!?! Awesome effort! :-) Sounds like you enjoyed it - good to hear that I'm not the only person who has seen Japanese audiences get teary towards the end of the film on a consistant basis ;-) I agree that the film really feels best suited to the big screen - it has an almost (and don't take this the wrong way) Michael Bat quality to it - so much happening all at once! And it always seems to go by so fast too - have seen it 6 times myself. I must say that I am really hanging for the bluray though - some of those action scenes are just begging to be slowed down a bit. As for the soundtrack - YES! This is what I keep trying to explain to people who have heard the soundtrack and feel that its lacking something. This is a case where the music and specific accompanying animated scenes were created together - heck theres even spots with no vocals in one song because thats where characters are talking! Thats why I feel that, while its a weaker album than Universal Bunny, its definately a stronger soundtrack. Anyways, to answer some of your questions ...

A whole bunch of screenshots from the new pachinko machines: http://www.pachinkovista.com/info/news.php?nid=201104191708207n

For anyone who enjoyed The previous two Macross F Official Creators Magazine Nyankuretto, Issue 3 will be available at Ikebukuro this Sunday. (this publication is basically a high quality, officially sanctioned doujin) Details here in Japanese, scroll down a bit for pics. http://www.satelight.co.jp/2011/04/424f.html

Spent last night, just for the heck of it, rereading Chapter 1 while also reading the old Comico Robotech adaptation. Was kinda fun comparing the different takes on the story (atrocious Comico art notwithstanding).

Rewatched all Megazones 23 myself last year. I can sit through 3 but it really wasnt necessary. Renato - is that the tv Space Cobra? I LOVE that damn show! To keep this on topic, I'm currently watching the new Madhouse Xmen anime, Gundam Unicorn and rewatching Eden of the East.

Oh it'll happen, theres absolutely no doubt in my mind. And the timing hasnt been right yet. The bluray release of Wings of Farewell will come first and Im sure DYRL will be high on the release list after that. Japanese fans are still riding the Frontier wave right now.

Must've missed this during the quake and its aftermath - looks like Luke Plunkett over at Kotaku is a bit of a Tenjin fan :-)

Ahaha, its coming along slowly - its not that long and Im about halfway through but am waiting on some additional files. Am also doing what I can to clean up the audio a bit - the room we recorded in was a bit echo prone. More than that, we need to sit you further back from the mic next time - you managed to max the levels every time you spoke. Waveform takes a huge spike whenever you jump into a rant..er...I mean opinion, lol. Eitherway, I figure it should be up in the next week or two. And I think thats a good time for it really, now that the initial hype has died down somewhat. Am thinking of doing another one in Golden Week if you are interested/around. As for Gundam UC - its sooo pretty, isnt it? Watching each ep as it comes out - this mustve been what waiting for each new ep of 0083 mustve felt like back in the day. The anticipation certainly reminds me personally of the wait between each vhs episode of Macross Plus when I was in High School. Each episode is just so well crafted - feels like Im watching a piece of history each time a new one is released.