Bri

Wow, the HLJ place is just so much more advanced then I thought. Imagined a kind of small warehouse ran by a few employees doing the online stuff, not a company of this size and scale.

The trailers looks amazing, can't wait to see the movie.

The nature of the anime market makes it that the time of broadcast tells a lot about the targeted audience. I’ll go slightly OT to elaborate: From what I have been able to find is that the anime market has changed quite a bit since the mid-nineties. A tightening of censorship back then by the networks resulted in removing pretty much anything suggestive from prime time anime. The series that remained on daytime slots abide by the regulations. They are either family oriented series like Sazae-san or aimed at children like Pokemon and One-piece. The networks are far less strict in terms of content for the late hours and late night anime got off the ground around 1997. These timeslots don’t have much advertising and the sponsors of anime have to pay for these shows to be shown. The only way these shows can be profitable is by selling DVD’s and merchandise. These DVDs are sold in small volumes, for example the sale of 5,000 units is considered to be a very successful title. Late night anime caters to the tastes of those who buy those DVDs. The prices for these DVDs are high, well out of reach for a teenage audience. I’m not saying young people don’t watch anime but they are not the ones that have to make a title profitable. Mainly people with loads of disposable income and free time like university students and young professionals that still live at home are the target audience. Off course their age does not exclude them of having juvenile preferences. Oddly anime is the one medium where cute high school girls are most likely to be associated with an adult male audience. Not claiming I know much about Japanese culture or habits but I am interested in the way the anime market works. Call it a professional deformation. . In regard to Macross: series like SDFM and M7 were certainly targeted at a younger audience. Ova’s like Macross II and Macross Plus are from the early nineties and predate both DVD and the rise of late night anime. Most likely those Ovas tried to capture an audience as wide as possible. Macross Zero and Macross Frontier are typical late night products.

More madness around Haruhi Suzumiya. The socalled rerun will be followed by the second season which is technically now an extension of the first season, as confirmed by several Japanese Tv stations. The amount of hype and trolling around this series is mental and no one dares to say if the second season is really coming this time. Only time will tell.

Don't really see the issue. I like the Macross II valks aswell as the Frontier ones. We are talking about tranformable jets, if you want bulky designs look at the destroids or gundam. Time moves on and you can't expect animators not to use what they have learned in the last 25 years.

Thanks for explaining, makes sense. Over here traffic in the right lane is not allowed to overtake the left lanes so that problem doesn't really happen.

Nice job on the missle effect. Btw is that a Baneblade in the background?

My main annoyance are people who slow down the traffic in the left lane. If you not prepared to do at least 130 (80mph) stay to the right. Just curious, I've driven a few times in the states but why is this so annoying? Roads do not allow to overtake them?

Problem is that Macross Frontier is not aimed at an adolecent audience at all. Given the OVA nature of the series and time of broadcast, it's aimed at the main otaku audience of 18 to 30. Altos conflict with his father is not so much a teenager versus parent figure, but more a conflict about a mans future. Can Alto pursue his dream of flying regardless of the cost to him and others or should he conform to society and join the (family) bussines. Very much a hot issue for the 20-somethings that make up the fanbase, which does make the situation Alto is in recognisable for the viewer. However he is not a generic blank slate nor a boy turning hero, he was never a boy to begin with. My beef with Alto is that he has a set of character traits I dislike in people in general i.e. quick to anger and rude.

With the new criteria we'd be better off calling the thread "What is your favourite mecha show".

Pretty much an impossible question. Especially as I haven't seen that much outside of mecha and scifi to make a fair comparison with the other anime genres but lets give it a shot: Few series have had a larger impact then NGE, but its far from perfect and quite controversial. Rahxephon is amazingly well done plot and artwise but it's quite pretentious and relatively unknown outside of mecha and hardcore anime fans. Sazae-san has been on air since 1969 but has no impressive animation and is very family oriented. Guess studio Ghibli has the right mix between visuals and story telling, though it suffers a tad from the needs of a mainstream title. I'd go for Grave of the fire flies or Spirited Away for movies and SDFM for series. The latter is not even an attempt at objectivity but can't be objective about Macross.

Even a reactionary character can contribute to a story as the lead. Look at Hikaru in SDFM, he was not mister initiative either. Arguably the most important characters in SDFM are Global and Breetai whose decisions shape the future of Macross. As for Alto's character: don't like him one bit. I have a dislike for temperamental, rude characters so would have prefered a different male lead, but his role is important. Shame his crappy personality hurts the love triangle as I kind of pity the girl who wins. Hmm would this be inverted shipping?

There wasn't much of a joint European effort until the mid 60s. At that time the only two counties with experience in building advanced jets were Britain and France. Afaik Dassault was part of the early design stages for the Eurofighter before they started on the Rafale. Most of their designs were deltas and I'm sure their experience weighed in. The Swedish defense efforts were separate from the rest of Europe as a neutral country. Maybe their need for interceptors made deltas the most likely choice. Thats pure specualtion though.

Aye, Planet Manga which part of Pannini publishing released both a German and Italian edition. Just wondering where does this idea of world wide rights for HG come from? As far as I can tell HG has at the most: 1) a sub-license from Tatsunoko: this gives HG rights to distribute SDFM and worldwide merchandising rights for SDFM outside of Japan. Hgs rights connot exceed Tatsunoko's unless there is a seperate deal between HG and BW that we don't know about. Note: If I have read this thread correctly it is not even sure that Tatsunoko has any authorship rights just ownership of the footage is confirmed. 2) HG has acquired trademarks on Macross in several countries, ones I know of are the USA, Canada, Germany, the UK and France. 3) HG supposedly aquired the license for DYRL (unconfirmed). Unknown if this is a worldwide license or USA only. Gubaba noticed that the copyright posted on the page from Gui predates the Trademark of HG in France. Even if HG wanted Pannini and Glenat to stop publishing M7 trash, they can't enforce it as the use of Macross predates HGs trademark. Also regulations on trademarks require that they are actively used for them to be enforcable.

I think it has a lot to do with the time these fighters were developed. The Rafale, Typhoon and Grippen all have their early design work down in the late seventies/early eighties. At the time the Delta configuration with Canards may have looked like the best option. The F-16 XL that lost to the F15 E for the ETF competition also had a delta wing. The "US teens" were conceived based on late 60s/early70s research while the YF22/YF23 had their roots in the late 80s. I wouldn't be surprised if the shape of these fighters followed the advances in computer-processing-power and windtunnel testing.

Curious if these guys will be able to help out Nasa with the possible lack of manned launch vehicles for the Space station when the Shuttle retires. Pretty impressive progress for a private firm. Space X

The kind of obsession that blogger shows can't be healthy. For me HG means very little. It's just that their action make Macross DVDs and merchandise harder and more expensive to get. If they'd stop interfering in that I'd wish them the best of luck with whatever Robotech project they want to do. The whole mess around that company just seems so destructive.

It does seem very likely that it was HG involvement that got the US vrsion cancelled but there is no confirmation. Just in the interest of confirming facts. What is very interesting though is that Glenat (and possebly Pannini/Planet Manga for the German edition) seem to ignore Harmony Golds Macross trademark on comics/magazines etc. in Germany and France. Wouldn't surprise me if they didn't even know about it or care even less.

I thought it was...but then I checked the references. It was first mentioned by Ewilen on this board as part of a modus operandi of BW to block any deals between their US based licensees and HG to prevent acknowledging any rights of HG to the Macross derivatives like what happened to Toycom. Ewilens post Later JBO referenced to it in a recap. Found a mention on ANN that HG in cooperation with Tokyopop would release Macross 7 trash but that licensing issues prevented it. So again no hard fact *sigh* I read the whole HG license thread today (waiting at home for a repair guy) and just ouch... so much uncertainties. I understand now why people get so frustrated on this issue.

You are contradicting yourself here. You state Macross stuff not being released with Macross has nothing to do with HG while a few posts further Animeigos Macross gets pulled due to HG exercising the trademark. There is more to Macross then just animation. The whole fight started on merchandise of the Macross derivatives. HG started sending threats to importers of Macross products like the YF-19 toys. While the animation may not have come over due to expensive licensing, no merchandise can be legaly distributed either. As for BW and HG not being on good terms. It has been confirmed on more then one occasion. For example Tokyopop trying to publish Macross 7 trash but BW pulls license when the publisher asks HG permission. Yune stated that they would allow Frontier in the US but they do want to get payed for their trademark, blaming it all on the uncooperative attitude of one Japanse company. These are not the actions of companies in a friendly relationship. Yes, there is no offical declaration of war, but that doesn't mean everything is peachy. The results of the lawsuit made it clear in hindsight that HG was never in a position to block any Macross derivatives. Hence the distraction part on HG side in the nineties is irrelevant. The grasp of HG currently on Macross lies with purely with the trademark. If that drops then HG has no influence on anything Macross except SDFM.

Transformers has no copyright issues and Hasbro has a strong relationship with Takara-Tomy. In comparison BW and HG are not on good terms. BW/Nue has the copyright so HG can't make any movie or animation derivatives of Macross without their consent. Robotech is a pure HG property they can do with it as they please as long as they dont infringe on the Macross copyright. Question is how close can the movie resemble the Macross story without breaking that copyright. It's the Macross trademarks expiring, not the Robotech ones. It is that trademark that keeps any Macross derivatives and related Merchandise (eg everything but SDFM) off the US market. Plus and Macross II were already released before HG secured the trademark. (HG has the merchandising rights to SDFM).

I guess tastes differ, I think all stealth aircraft cept the SR-71 are ugly as sin. Tbf I don't like the delta wings either so that leaves very little modern aircraft. Come to think of it, it's only the Flanker that looks decent of the latest stuff. hmm, I'm curious what does everyone think are the coolest planes? For me it would be the F14, the F15 and the big ugly shooty things like the A-10 and the AC130.

Quick question, trying to find out what the numbers are for the M&M Vf-1Js. Think it was 202 and 303, but who is which? I know there is a post somewhere on the boards about it, but can't seen to get it to show.

Doubt it's possible to connect a nationality to any of the non-Japanse characters in Macross, unless it's established by the writers. Take for example Claudia La Salle: It's a French name but those are found in the US, Canada or any french speaking European or African country. Maximillian is a former aristocratic name and is found all over Europe. btw wonder why Focker is pronounced as Foaker? in Japanese it's pronounced the same as in Dutch. The aerospace company is mispronounced as well. Still the sound is not alien to english as its the same o-sound as in clock. To close to the curse word?