Gubaba

Currently downloading episode, and looking forward to it. I'd like to believe that they only picked "George" because it transliterates into Japanese as "Joji" (rhymes with "Shoji"), but I may be wrong...

:blink: BETA??? Man, that's kickin' it OLD school!

I wouldn't go that far...it does take some getting used to, and it took a while before I could really appreciate it; but still some people really, really like it. I think the biggest problem is that the early episodes are the weakest, so a lot of people never get to the point where they find out whether they like it or not...they just watch the first six or seven episodes, say "Well, this sucks," and give up, which is kind of a shame.

REWATCH EVERYTHING MACROSS!!! (That's what I'm doing, at least.) And I'm thinking of becoming a hardcore Ranka-shipper just to see what it's like. キラッ☆!!

So...Carl Macek understands Macross better than Kawamori does? Wow. Although...thinking about it on the way home from work today...I wondered if you weren't right. I was thinking I got an unfiltered view of SDFM before I saw M7...but I really didn't. I watched it raw, but my Japanese wasn't good enough to understand much. So maybe I have been viewing SDFM through an M7/Plus/Zero/Frontier lens. Either way, I will say that although yes, they got rid of Bodolzaa with missiles, it was the power of love and song that got them into a position to be able to blow him up real good.

Uh-huh. I know. I was saying that your view agrees with how he says he changed RT.

Ture...and that's a woefully unexplored aspect of Macross. As for DYRL (the song, not the movie), I don't think there was anything deliberately encoded in it...as Misa said, it was "just a normal love song."

Huh? What's funny?

basically, it's like this: 1. Macross 7 TV series (49 Episodes) 2. Macross 7 Movie: The Galaxy Is Calling Me (released after the series, but set sometime during the last quarter of it) 3. Macross 7 Encore (2 episodes, plus "Fleet of the Strongest Women," which you can watch before or after the other two episodes, since "FotSW" ends with a preview for Encore episode 1, but Encore episode 2 ends with a preview for "FotSW." All of them are set sometime during the series as well.) 4. Macross Dynamite 7 (Set more than a year after the series)

Enh, that might've worked in DYRL...but in the TV series they would've all been toasted by Bodolzaa's fleet. But essentially, my point is that Minmay was more than just culture shock...I believe that she is THE reason why the Macross survived and won. In fact, I remember reading an article about (or an interview with) Carl Macek, where he said that he didn't believe American audiences would buy a "Singing Idol Saves Humanity" story, so in RT, she changed her into more of a cheerleader who would encourage the humans while confusing the Zentradi...which seems to be how Togo is viewing it.

I prefer the term "Nanasist," thank you very much.

Hmm...I disagree. I think Minmay, being the focal point for the culture shock, really was what kept the Macross alive. If it was just a battle of guns and missiles, the Macross would have been handily defeated...but having Minmay there gave the Zentradi a handle on culture, and an object of desire. Just imagine if it had been a boy band instead of Minmay...the Macross would've been a goner for sure.

Technically, there is no movie version. The "movie" was just Manga Entertainment's way of putting all six episodes on one tape (or DVD). There's no difference between the two, except that the movie is lacking the next episode previews. And I think there's a lot that can be said in defense of Macross II. It's certainly not a train wreck, it's not unwatchable, and it doesn't urinate all over everything that made the first one great. It's a decent sequel to an astonishingly wonderful original.

Do you think they would've won without Minmay?

Thank you. You guys had me worried there for a moment...

Not true. She's also a cute pair of glasses, nice hair, and a fine artist. Not that I'm, y'know, biased or anything...

You'll find as you go on that they do vary the music more in the later episodes of the series. It's one thing I don't understand about the show, though...there are full Fire Bomber ALBUMS with tons of songs, and yet they keep playing Planet Dance and Totsugeki Loveheart? As for your other complaints, they'll get addressed. Let's just say that while Isamu might be able to survive against the real enemy, but he wouldn't be able to beat them...

Summer? SUMMER??? Damn...It's gonna be a while before they finish this series, isn't it? So we've got "You are (not) alone" and "You can (not) advance." What's the last one going to be? "You will (not) make a coherent ending"...?

No, no...Myung quite clearly slept with Guld of her own free will (in the story proper, of course. What happened in the flashback is obviously open to debate ). That said, I really don't think Sheryl and Alto did it. Considering how she didn't even want him to come near her bleeding finger, I can't see that she would...um...let him share other bodily fluids with her. (Question: If they had slept together, and Alto got the V-Virus, would he also become a Vajra Queen...?)

Of course she was...that's not the kind of decision you make after you've started producing a series...I'm sure that bfore the first cel was painted they knew exactly what role everyone was to play.

There are no May'n albums...just three singles. I found 'em a while back, and the site is somewhere in my bookmark list. I'll PM you the link. Just a warning, though...on the singles, she sounds NOTHING like Sheryl, going for more of a soulful R&B vibe. Still, it's astonishing that she could sound so mature and self-assured when she was all of fourteen years old...

Brian: There's just no pleasing some people.

SK did it specifically because he knew it would annoy you. "Shipping," as in relationSHIP, is when you try to be matchmaker for your favorite fictional characters. Sometimes people take it to far, like the person who wrote the J.K. Rowling asking how she could ignore the blatant signs that Hermione and Draco were meant to be together. Or (closer to home), people who think the ending of MacF was hastily rewritten to keep the love triangle open. When you get to that point, it seems more like "wor"-shipping than "relation"-shipping. To me, at least.

First off, sorry about the TokyoTosho torrent confusion...I sometimes forget that not everyone can read katakana... *sigh* I know. Even with Macross's dozens of CDs, we're still missing official releases for Minmay's a capella "Cinderella" and the version of "Runner" she sang at Max and Millia's wedding (the lyrics are completely different from the ending theme version). From Macross 7, we're also missing official releases of lyricless version of "Seventh Moon" that plays during the re-cap portions of some episodes, the guitar track version of "Planet Dance" used for the next ep previews, Mylene's solo versions of "Holy Lonely Light," "Light the Light," and a couple of others, the acoustic version of "Totsugeki Love Heart" (which is the ending theme for the final episode! Why didn't they release it???), and that's not even including stuff like the Jammingbirds singing "Riding in Your Valkyrie" or Gigil's "Power to the Dream." If they ever come out with another "Complete Macross" set, I hope it REALLY IS complete...

Really? I don't remember that...I'll go back and check. Clearly I need to watch this scene again. I suspect that maybe you're seeing more than is actually there, but I'm really not sure. I don't know about the camera pan, but I do agree that at that point he's more intimate with Sheryl than with Ranka...just as Hikaru was more intimate with Minmay when she was living with him. (And no, I don't think Hikaru and Minmay slept together, either. Yes, she's sleeping in his bed and wearing his shirt...but he's kipped out on the couch). I've been basing my opinion more off the final episode than the ones before it...if you just look at episodes 22 to 24, then Sheryl clearly wins, since Ranka is essentially out of the picture. It's when she comes back that we get to see how the relationships have changed (or not). We also don't know what Alto was going to say to Sheryl in episode 24 (I suspect that whatever it was probably came out of his mouth at some point in episode 25, but again...that's speculation on my part). But his conversations with them in the last episode (such as they were), the final scene, Ranka's belief that the triangle was still open, and Sheryl's acceptance of that (dialogue I would've loved to have heard - Ranka: "I won't lose to you in singing, or in love." Sheryl: "Fine. You want my sloppy seconds, go right ahead, girl"), the use of "Triangler (fight on stage)" for the final song, the way the scene was framed...all of it indicates to me that Alto hasn't chosen yet, and may never. And to be frank, I'm unlikely to alter that opinion anytime soon. Wait until I sit down and watch the whole series again, then we'll see. As I've mentioned before, I'm not the slightest bit opposed to an Alto/Sheryl ending (I'd prefer it, actually), but as much as I would like it to have happened, I don't think it did.