Bri

Levi's and Apple subsidize my collection habbits and travel expenses. 501's are 4 times as expensive in the shops here then in the US. I usually take some with me to resell when returning from the States.

If Frontier is your first introduction to Macross, then my guess is you end up with ADV's Macross releases instead of Robotech.

ANN and Animesukireport that next week the first episode of Haruhi Suzumiya season 2 *may* be broadcasted, based on info from Moonphase. The new episodes would be injected in (or released after as was originally thought) the current rerun of the first season expanding it from 14 to 28 episodes.

Beatbox Dub FX got some nice streetperformances but this songs got me mesmerized.

My adventures with EMS took a surreal turn today. I have called TNT a few times this week for updates but nothing. They pretty much blamed customs. However today I chatted to a person who works in the mailroom of my uni. Told him about my misery with my latest EMS shipment. He says he could fix it if I get him the track and trace number. Seems there works TNT staff on campus as well as the uni is a major client. He calls on of those guys has a talk and gives em my track and trace number... A few minutes later a call back, package is pulled from the que and on send to the uni with the daily shipment. Guy says "you owe me lunch"... In the afternoon the package was delivered to my office. No VAT, no handeling fee. Another lesson learned in the ways of the world.

I don't think there is a living soul that would dare to make a bet on that one...

I'm just not into these non-canon schemes. Then again, it's good not to like everything. Gives some financial breathing space till M&M, Virgin Road, Roy TV etc will come out.

Not a complete listing I guess, missing a few of the better known studios.

Nah, DHL got their own customs-agency aswell, and they ship in 2 to 4 days from the US or Asia and deal with VAT and import taxes. It's just EMS (because of TNT) being crap.

I have a similar problem with customs. When I order from firms like Overdrive or Hobby Link Japan and I purchase a small or cheap item (like for example a Hasegawa kit) it goes with Small Pack and everything is fine. If I order anything with a Track and Trace method (like a Yamato) things go wrong, very wrong. EMS can easily take between 2 and 4 weeks to arive. Took me a little research to find the cause. Usually items are shipped from Japan and then arive 1 or 2 days later at the hell hole known as Amsterdam. Then the misery starts. It seems the EMS-network has TNT as it's Dutch partner and items have to go through customs at Amsterdam Airport. To elaborate: in my country the shipping companies have their own customs service. That means that the government has delegated the responsebilities of handeling the customs clearing process to them. TNT's handeling of shipments is slow, very slow and they seem to make no distinction between express mail or anything. Worse is they charge an extra 16 euro for this crappy service. SAL small pack takes usually 4 to 7 days to arrive after it is send. Why? SAL tends to go through Frankfurt airport. (yes, German efficiency...). Seems they only take samples to check from the mail there and even when checked by customs the delay is minimal (Ok, VAT is added then but I don't mind as long as it arrives in a decent time). Unfortunatly the Japanese internet sellers want a track and trace method for more expensive items, I can't blame them with the risk of loss during transit they are running, but it gets annoying having to pay up to 3 to 4 times (easily 50 USD) or more on extra shipping costs for an express service that is way slower then the cheaper method. The EMS site tells me to take complaints to the national representative, in this case TNT, who off course has no incentive what-so-ever to clean up their mess. /rant mode off.

The OVA has a English Subs and Dub, the movie edition only has English subs.

You're absolutly right, I hadn't realised they could just put a Macross logo on one of their Robotech books, whether it has any link to the content or not. The only remaining question then is if the trademark covers novels or not. Must admit that McKinley book surprised me that it covers part of the Macross saga. Found an article about characters and merchandising rights in Japanese law written by Ishida Masayasu, a professor in Japanese intellectual property law. According to the paper no copyrights can be transfered due to licensing. Paper If I interpret the paper correctly, a licensee who has merchandising rights can only reproduce the characters, and at best create derivative works. In short if this is correct then anything that uses the Macross story or characters or likenesses including merchandise such as books, toys and videogames are derivatives of the original Macross copyright of BW and under their creative control unless agreed otherwise. This really wants to make me curious what kind of agreement Tatsunoko and BW have made on merchandising. edit-spelling

That video doesn't say anything about the F22 really. I mean it's close range, and we don't know who are flying. Suppose it's an instructor in the T38 versus a rookie then the outcome can't be a surprise. The good thing this video shows is that the USAF is still training close range air to air combat and do not solely rely on BVR.

It may be a bit different from the way I understand copyright and trademarks, btw same as TheLoneWolf, IANAL. First: HG can only disallow the use of the Macross name/sign in classes they have trademarked. So if novel don't fall under that trademark class then they can't stop that hypothetical writer. But as TLW says most likely the threat of a possible lawsuit would cause any publisher to back off regardlesss. However there is a very interesting catch22 at work here, that complicates things for HG. To create derivative work like a DYRL novel, novella or anything similar you would need permission from the copyrightholder i.e. Big West. To stop anyone from using your trademark in a class HG would need to show they actively use it (requirement for trademark protection). HG can't create any novels etc. given their relationship with BW so that particular trademark is essentially useless (assuming it even covers novels and not just novellas).

wow, that VF-11 just looks amazing.

Very interesting topic. Some questions, are there any non-standard weapons that are not heavy weapons? Macross seems to use mission types for weapon selections. Each mission type might have a preselected weapons package which may or may not be classed as heavy. Some examples from the top of my head: Hikaru's VF-1S gets decked out in Anti-ship reaction weapons for the attack on Bodolza's fleet as Exedols battle plan aims to attack the 2000 command ships of the Bodolza fleet. Misa scolds Hikaru for using an armor pack for a patrol mission. Birla authorises super and armor packs for V3 type missions in Fontier 1. So by this definitition if a VF25G flies with just the Sniper Rifle then it's armed with a heavy weapon but still carries a light mission pack? And vice versa if a VF carries superpacks with only Air to Air missle clusters it is using light weapons?

Found a Roman Album Series : Fire Bomber in prefect condition and a early 90s Cutey Honey PVC kit MISB at my local comic/fantasy store. The owner was cleaning out the storeroom. He found a few items that had never been picked up by those who had ordered them originally back in the nineties. I could have them for free if I were to take some mail to the post office for him. Off course I was more then happy to do so.

Robotech influence? Afaik the Japanese side wasn't even aware for a time that Robotech was more then a just a dub job. I would interpret that second underlined sentence as "If the audience doesn't know what it's missing they will consume my crap more easily" I fully agree and tbh it's ironic that even HG needs a creative director as they are essentially a distributor. Agreed, time has just passed by RT. Doubt many new fans can be won by the DVDs and SC, certainly not enough to even consider the franchise alive. So...who will turn off the lights at HG when the last die-hard fan leaves his mom's basement?

Macross II can be called alternate universe as it's history differs from later sequels so there are two separate Macross time lines. Which timeline one prefers and whether that can be called canon or not is to much of a fanboy argument for me to care about. Only thing that matters here is that it's events do not inpact later sequels and vice versa. Seto's remarks just show that tastes differ. Personally I find Macross Plus the least enjoyable of all Macross sequels as it's characters are distinctly un-Macross in behaviour and personality (and I'm not a fan of the character design style used either). Ironically it was Macross7 that drew me into the Kawamori/Nue continuity. The focus on characters over mecha, the music, the Mikimoto designs it just fullfills what I enjoy in Macross. To quote a clown: "Why so serious?" I guess Mr Barnum worries are unfounded, as the average intelligence of the American public can't in such a bad shape after all, if it's anywhere near mine

Starship Troopers was excellent imo. Verhoeven did not like the book and only loosly based his movie on it, blaming him for not being true to Hemlein's ideas makes no sense. As for my most hated scifi directors: Wachowsky brothers for making those two hideous sequels to an otherwise good movie. Peter Jackson: Overhyped and the one director that got revered for NOT adding anything to a film.

Must have been from one of the early Anime UK magazines so around 1991-1992. At the time I had lost interest in RT and Sentinels killed my remaining sympathy. My interest in Macross came back when I saw Macross II and DYRL. Took me a while to find out that MII was an alternate reality, but they saved Macross for me. As for the swithes between generations for RT, it's not like you can explain it easily if all you can do is cut and paste and play with narative. Besides kids accept a lot without question anyway, and they were the main audience for RT.

Sheer genius. "Look at that!, the smoke grenades fit perfectly in the cupholders"

Well nudity and fanservice are as old as anime. I remember Cutey Honey's naked transformations from the 70s or Plastic little (early 90s, not that old but the jiggle counter is so funny, had to mention it.) But this is not the point. We know it is there and why it's there. However some people have raised the valid concern that erotic content, and more exotic merchandise, only allows it to thrive in its otaku subculture and gives fans a bad name. I certainly agree that alienating main stream audiences can't be healthy for the long term prospects of anime. Personally, I don't have a problem with fanservice or nudity but I do remember the 80s and 90s where I had to explain time and time again that Macross was not the same as Urutsukidoji and not all anime involves extreme violence and tentacle crap. Media hypes pushed anime underground back then. I don't want to get back to that time. Even today I certainly don't advertise that I enjoy anime in my daily life. At work one of my Japanese collegues, when asked about anime in Japan, described Otaku's as freaks that can be seen as a weird mix of a Trekkie and a pedophile. I'm sure thats a more extreme view of anime fans but it does show that there is some PR work left to be done.

Wow, nice find. It may not be news but it confirms what we could only assume before.

Wasn't that calculated risk? I mean it's still a generation behind the F119 and F135/136.