Bri

Hmm, Sir Humphrey or Bernard?

Your welcome, personally I really like CDJapan, good number of shipping options, nice website and fast customer service. Their coupon discounts are a bit of a hassle but not bad. HMV is my backup for DVD/BR as they only offer EMS, but they work out at much more favorable rates for me then Amazon. They are my number one choice for artbooks and manga. Never had dealing with their customer service. Website takes a bit of getting used to.

I agree with David, its a very interesting article. Vested interests within an organisation clashing with new developments.

A lot of anime Blu-rays sell new around 7000 yen (around $77 current exchange rates). If it's a limited edition expect at least 2000-3000 more. Shipping not included. When announced should be available at least through: CDJapan, Amazon.co.jp, HMV Japan and Yesasia, all have english sections.

A Macross Gnerl would be my nr 1 choice. Mospeada Inbid Iiagaa and Gurab second SDC Southern Cross Sylphide fighter third

Interesting question but difficult to say. The F15 was built in numbers to deal with the soviet airforce of its day. There is no hostile airfoce of that size left, so there could be quite a bit of excess capability that is no longer needed. True, but it's hard to predict how future conflicts will be fought and which technologies will be essential. Pearl and the Pacific war showed that the number of battleships on each side didn't matter in the end.

You know, this analogy made me think about how to fit in the B-52...hmm...You can't afford the beamer, don't want to be caught dead in a sedan, so what's left? Grab your granddads 1955 Coupe de Ville and ace all 3 goals!

Even without considering politics. I can imagine that more high tech air superiority fighters are considered a lower priority for the military when they have to deal with two guerilla style conflicts that put more pressure on ground forces.

Dunno, rebadging it as Kings edge doesn't sound much better either.

I'm sure Clint Eastwood is too old to nick it now.

That show is so wrong on so many levels, it has no right to be so entertaining as it is.

I've bought the 1.01 R1 DVD, but going to replace it soon with the BRs of 1.11 and 2.22. Hope Gainax will continue with the artbooks, the Eva 1.0 Collected version was pretty insane.

I guess thats part of the problem with fifth generation aircraft. No enemy on the horizon any time soon to justify their existence. I would think the Navy made the right bet to invest in a single type of craft with relative young airframes, they can just wait and see if and when they are going to need a replacement.

Fair enough, the mecha in SDCSC is not particuarly inspiring. Though the bioroids were interesting takes on the Zaku. I guess this is where we differ in opinion. I saw SDCSC before watching the RT version. In the early 2000s I watched MS Gundam, Patlabor, Dragonar, Ideon, Dunbine and any other mecha show I could get my hands on. SDCSC was one of them and you can really see how it fits in to it's era, It seems much more inspired by the Sunrise shows then Macross and Orguss. I just can't see SDCSC as a sequel to the Macross saga, to me the shows will always be unrelated. Somehow RT fans, and Macross fans for that matter, seem obsessed to judge it by SDFM standards. For an 80s anime show SDCSC isn't bad.

I've seen this come up in discussions on game forums where people were theorizing in regard to Capcom versus Tatsunoko if any Mospeada or Southern Cross characters would show up. So I doubt it's more then a rumour. Maybe the Big West connection to the Super Dimension tag had people speculating? As for the undeserved bad rep, we are talking about Robotech fans in regard to that poll. The kind of people that would call Macek a genius and actually like Shadow Chronicles. I kind of doubt that more then a fraction had seen the original (probably around 19.8% ). Southern Cross isn't a master piece and suffered from poor mecha design. Still it is an interesting show, had great character designs and was ahead of it's time in several areas especially gender roles. But it's way better then the sliced up mess Macek turned it into.

Yep, your absolutely right. Skimmed over it too fast.

And here we go, the 10th novel ariving shortly in late april. Nothing to soon, as we need more content for future Haruhi anime. http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2010-...-in-the-sneaker

You'd probably be better of asking Gubaba for the exact translations but in anime: Tsundere is a contraction of two states of mind. tsun tsun, which is something like arrogant, aloof, distant and dere dere which is caring, shy, loving mode. Either trait can be dominant though in anime characters with a dominant tsun tsun side tend to be more common. The key feature is that a tsundere due to some kind of trigger can snap and go from one mood to the other very fast. Often these characters are coupled with flawed heros, jerks that in the end aren't bad guys at all. An example of this is Micheal and Klan from Macross Frontier. I don't think so. While sempai junior relationships are common, Roy and Hikaru seem more a big brother- little brother relationship played up straight. Michael and Alto most definetely are fujoshi bait. Though it's open to interpretation, I would have to disagree here. I think this whole anime revolves around Haruhi and Kyon slowly getting together and the rest of the cast are there to facilitate this. As once discussed in NGE, they have a hedge hog dilema, both sides are drawn to eachother but can't really lower their armor out of fear for being hurt. Haruhi even calls love a disease at the start. I think there are plenty of hints around that Kyon cares but doesn't want to admit it. Like complimenting her on her pony tail, defending her against Taniguchis remarks and the jealous reaction on Koizumis taunts and walking her home in someday in the rain. One thing I enjoy it that both are strongwilled individuals and neither is prepared to give in easily. Mikuru is often caught in the cross fire as Kyon shows his physical attraction openly which annoys Haruhi, while Haruhi using Mikuru as a plaything agrevates Kyon to Haruhis amusement. Unconditional love is a *really* annoying trait in a lot of romance anime where the girl has loved the male protaganist since forever and he is the center of her universe often without him even knowing. Without risk there is no gain. heh, nicely said, but I would get that impression from say nekki Basara who has that natural kind of detachement. I think Kyon is struggeling a bit to much with his own place in events and purpose in life to have that kind of confidence. Though we're probably way past over-analyzing these characters already.

Ah that is good news, glad to see M3 won't be lost to us fans. Very nice of you Seto to host the site.

Sort of, boys love or yaoi is aimed at (Japanese) women, it's a genre revolving around romance between males. Pretty much like a lesbian fantasy for males, usually less sexual and more romance focussed. Oh indeed, Haruhi isn't interested in Koizumi at all. He is nothing more to her then a second officer. But affection does not have to be romantic to create jealousy. I don't think it's just indignance at selecting Koizumi as second in command, I'm sure Kyon wanted to be asked, as he was the first member. Just look at how Kyon reacts when Koizumi teases him that he might tell Haruhi that he loves her when Kyon refuses to do so in E8. Koizumi is a yes man for sure, but he simply likes Haruhi as a person while Kyon does not even dare to admit that. Remember that Kyon is a tsundere, petty jealousy is their stock and trade

I agree the whole SOS-dan tries to affect Haruhi trough Kyon. Mikuru is set up as a temptation but again maybe only enough to keep Haruhi jealous and focussed on Kyon. Koizumi is a rival (of sort) for Haruhis affection but only enough to keep Kyon jealous ( I'm sure the chemistry between the two is mostly to keep the yaoi/Boys Love fans happy, Kyon x koizumi is a fan favourite coupling in doujinshi). Not sure, it seems both are there to actually make sure Haruhi and Kyon stay together, maybe the distrust by their revalations is intentional. Yuki is pretty much Kyons bodyguard, their relationship seems somewhat platonic, seems like the SOS-dan is actually trying to keep/get them together. This anime pokes fun at a lot of anime stereotypes. Haruhi and Kyon have a gender switch of the traditional pattern in romantic comedies . Haruhi is the exentric and somewhat dense lead character instead of a male. Kyon is a straight tsundere, normally a female role. Koizumi is probably more capable then Kyon in everyway but he is not the ""one". Yuki is everything but the vulnerable nerd. Mikuru is the complete deconstruction of the clumsy spineless moe girl with a knack for domestic chores. I'm not entirely sure is she is as helpless as she appears, especially since I suspect Tsuruyato be of the same faction as Mikuru. To be fair the whole anime takes anime genres and twists them into something else, it's all part of the charm.

I'm not familiar with the way Bandai releases thing but given the speed the VF27 is selling out, I'm a tad worried. Will there be more quantities released further on in the year? I'd love to get one at some point, but other priorities preventing me to pick one up now.

I guess this remains a difficult point for the Haruhi franchise. So many fans already know what is going to happen (to a large extent) and this creates certain expectations that will not always be met. I have avoided any kind of spoiler sofar and , I can only speak for myself, haven't been disappointed in the slightest. Especially when watching the whole, season one and two combined, in chronological order, everything falls into place and your left with an amazing piece of work. She did clean up her act after Sighs. Compare it to season one when Haruhi seemed to act completely out of character to help the ENOZ girls. She hever had shown empathy to that extent. Until Sigh filled in the blanks. I guess her fight with Kyon did have an effect on her personality. Being chewed out by some one you care about and respect can have a major effect. Mikuru is just such a fun twist on the "retarded moe" stock character in crying game type VN's. Normally a girl like her would be too pretty and cute to come to harm, and as a result be little more then decoration, but in this anime she gets mauled time after time, Mikurus bad fortune is an integral part of the storyline. Ironically even her future self uses Mikuru to manipulate events. For all intents and purposes Mikuru is a tool and Haruhi treats her such to evoke reactions from Kyon.

Current release date planned for 2010/05/26

Yea, it's getting interesting. Not quite sure what to make of the winged giants. You see him reflected in the building too. Demon, angel, alien? Quite a bit of references to christian symbols in the anime, maybe some significance in playing amazing grace on trumpets? 7 angels and 7 trumpets? Dead See, plagues, en of days? Dunno will see. Probably a fan of axis vehicles in there too, Wehrmacht uniforms, Kubelwagens, walking Panther tanks.