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Bri

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  1. Bri
    The dark and grim atmosphere made the orignal Gundam and the rest of the UC time line a classic (ZZ a little less but who is counting). The alternate universe stories are pretty handy as it allows new writers directors to work with the same themes and mecha but without ruining the original body of work of Tomino. Doubt many directors would even want to make a new 50 ep UC timeline series. Media, 2ch and investors would be such a happy bunch to deal with. Hmm, makes me doubt wether to see Victory and Turn A first. Was planning to go for Victory but even Tomino recommends not to watch it. That is kind of a warning. Turn A is becoming more appealing.
  2. Bri

    Yamato 1/60 VF-1 Ver. 2

    Bri replied to logos's topic in Toys

    Let's see: SDFM VF-1J Hikky VF-1A Max, Kaki, (CF hopefully) VF-1D VF-1S Roy/Hikky TV (hopefully) DYRL VF-1S Roy DYRL VF-1S Hikky DYRL So thats 8 in total. Should I have money to burn then I might buy a few CFs extra for a Skull squadron display. ( How about buy 3 CFs get one free? )
  3. Bri

    Yamato 1/60 v.2 Roy Focker

    Bri replied to EXO's topic in Toys

    Yes, I would go for it immediately. SDFM valks come first for me. 1/60 TV Roy, Vermillion team and a few VF-1A CFs and I'm happy.
  4. Bri
    I know what you mean but I haven't seen this kind of naming that much outside of Gundam or NGE. Those religious/symbolic names sound a bit out of place at times but then I realise that I'm not the intended target for these shows. Afaik these series are aimed at Japanese adolecents for whom the symbolism may have little meaning. I guess that if they were to use Japanse names it would sound to cheesy for their audience. Haven't seen a Kami Gundam or Gundam Buddha yet Gundam 00 for example has strong ties story and character wise to the Middle East. I can see the link between using Biblical references and the war to end all war concept by (devine) intervention. I can just imagine some writer skimming through an encyclopedia trying to find cool sounding names related to Christianity. So in the end it doesn't bother me much. I'm pretty sure most of the anime audience would cry havoc if names got westernised, if Robotech and other early anime translations are any indication. Will this thread survive? Not if Tomino can help it
  5. Bri
    Isamu was suposed to face courtmartial procedures on Eden after what happended on Earth. However his ship got sucked into a passing Back Hole on the way there. Those things are a pain...
  6. Bri
    You can't compare OVA animation to what is done in television series. Plus and Zero had way more time and money to burn per episode. IIRC Mac Plus had one of the highest animation budgets for an OVA in history. Frontier did really wel in the animation department but at times they (had to) cut corners. The debate between those who love the serious side macross versus those who enjoy the comedy aswell can go on forever without either side going to budge. Taking a stand and venting an opinion is going to start a lively debate, but if you can't take the heat don't post it. As for me I'll have the Mac Cheese please
  7. Bri
    I feel that real world politics should not be used in a forum about a fictional mecha franchise. Also Macross has its own time line which has diverged from ours since the mid 80s. Real world politics back then centered around the threat of a confrontation between the superpowers and SDFM build ahead on that premisis. The writers speculated what the world would be like 15 years from then and what impact a Space ship crashed in 1999 and the following 10 years wpuld have on their world. Macross Zero has kept that part intentionally vague as the real world and the Macross world are quite different at that point already. The differences by now so large that any real world resemblance now has no relevance to the Macross story. (not having a space ship crash 10 years ago is a big hint )
  8. Bri
    Sofar I have contained my urges to buy the DX line. They have grown on me though but Yamato pumping out realeases will keep these toys on my to buy list for a while. However several Japanese shipping sites like HJL no longer have supplies of the Alto and Ozma models. I'm not familiar with the release schedules of Bandai. Would there be more suplies in the near future? Or is it waiting on Bandai to produce more in a few years time?
  9. Bri
    The dreaded Gundam Seed Destiny. Finished the series today and what can I say. I've been told it was bad and reviews are unforgiving. But honestly, I enjoyed it a lot. It certainly has it's flaws, but the bad reputation is undeserved. What was wrong then? : 1) Opening and pace. The first few episodes are rushed, overflowing on mecha action and add little to the story line. I can see why fans dropped after this bad start. Howeverthe story improves, a lot. After this adrenaline fueled start it slows down, and slows down some more until it crawls. Watching this series in blocks of 5 episodes really helped to take in the storyline. And this is not a good thing. Can imagine the frustration for fans to watched it week by week with the story creeping along. Watching the series in chunks saved it for me. In hindsight, Destiny could have been as good as SEED if it had run 40 episodes by cutting the excess action and filler material. 2) Mecha design. The designers go a little overboard. The Freedom and Justice were the ultimate machines in SEED. But now there are loads of insanely powerful gundams and some look so so. The Phantom Pain mechs in particular look terrible. Not to mention a golden Gundam... 3) Dumb girls. I hated Lacus Clyne in Seed for being a shallow idol altough she was never dumb. You can imagine my joy when Meer Campell was introduced, Lacus doubleganger. Twice as bouncy and half the IQ . Stellar was another pet hate. Imagine a blond Rei Ayanami with short term memory loss and prone to short periods of fear induced hysteria and unable to produce coherent speech... 4) Sound track. The BGM was hit and mis. And quite often mis. The battle scenes often had nice bombastic scores which reminded me in some ways of Hans Zimmers work. But the Sting like slick music in the character driven bits really put me off. The majority of opening and ending songs were just plain bad. Notable exception was ending 1 (Reason). So what left on the bright side then? Well: 1) The story line is quite clever. The threat of Phanton Pain group of the Earth Alliance is used to intoduce the ZAFT vessel Menirva, it's crew and new lead character Shin Asuka. 2) Athrun Zala gets a lot more exposure then in SEED fleshing out his character. 3) Where SEED is mostly a remake of MS Gundam 0079 with a twist, Destiny is allowed to go its own way. The villains have better motivations and The plot makes a few turns and twists which keep it interesting till the end. 4) CF mecha is very nicely done. I love the modern animation of ZAFT ZAKU's and Orb CF designs. While not CF(well almost) I really like the strike rouge, enough to make it my next model kit project. In the end Destiny is not a great anime but not bad either. It has to much mecha pr0n (yes, that is possible) and bad pacing make it a must to watch multiple episodes at a time. But at the same time those likable characters and enjoyable story carry Destiny through. A lot of concepts from SEED and SEED destiny found their way in to GD 00 aswell. For example the antiwar philosophy of Celestial Being closely resembles Kiras and Lacus conclusions about using force to end war. Coordinators and the Enhanced have replaced the natural development of New types as shown with the Trinity and Innovators.
  10. Bri
    Interesting start for the last final part of the last season. BSG has become really dark and grim. Anything is possible now with the revelations about Kara and the population of earth. Still I miss something. A sense of (black) humor, even when things look there darkest humans mock their fate. I enjoy the story and want to know where it leads but I don't care who they kill off in the process of wrapping this series up. I'm sort of expecting a metaphysical ending alla NGE where Balthasar (or some one else) gets to choose the final fate of humanity and the cylons. With large scoops of WTF sauce. I doubt the writers would go for a go for "a kill em all" but we shall see.
  11. Bri

    Yamato 1/60 v.2 Roy Focker

    Bri replied to EXO's topic in Toys

    Now that the VF-1A MAx TV has appeared what are the chances we will see a Yamato TV correct Skull 001 with RoY/Hikky in TV flight suits and superpacks?
  12. Bri
    Ironically, it's the other way around. The Gundam civilians mimic the Japanse civilians during world war two. Most men are send off to the war, especially near the end of the war and most people that were left were the old the young. Japanese culture expects adults to show responsebility, but both the elderly and the young are more allowed to act like brats then in western societies. Even for all their moaning the civialins suffer a lot and do have a right to complain, especially to te military and leaders who dragged them in to a devastating war. Also the post war Japanse had little respect for the leaders of the empire who brought the country to ruin. It's not for nothing that the leadership of both the Zeon and Federation are portrayed in such a negative way. Macross was originally pichted to the network as a comedy, and quite a black one at that. The makers never expected to get a go-ahead. It pokes fun at the classic Japanese view of the second world war and modern (late 70s , early 80s) Salaryman culture in Japan. The civilians in Macross are portrayed as materialistic, self-absorbed and shallow (welcome to the 80s). The civilians on Macross keep on working and shopping even when the Earth faces total anihilation. The old values of honour are forgotten. The whole idol/celebrity adoration gets exposed with the Miss Macross contest. It's interesting that we 2 decades later respect that attitude as an optimistic aporach to life Another fine piece of black humour is the Zentradi war machine. Superficially it resembles the way the US military in WW2 was portrayed to the population of Japan. An unstoppable cultureless war machine with near infinite resources slowly building up and aiming to destroy earth (or Japan in this case). But in truth the Zentradi stand for the old way of life in Japan, the focus on honour and the myth of the samurai. The joke is that the Zentradi who are tired of a life of death and destruction think they get freedom and culture from the humans of Macross. Instead, they get a sold an empty dream and they end up with a hollow peace and enslavement in the salaryman way of life. Most of the ideas here come from an academic paper on the meaning and cultural references of Manga and Anime. It was written somewhere in the late 80s, early 90s I think. I'll try to find the articles name and pblishing details later when I can acces the Uni database.
  13. Bri
    Your absolutly right off course. It just irritated me that the thread was slowly degenerating in to the standard whine: "Veritech and Alpha Fighters are better then Hoover tanks" " The helicopters were cool" "Southern Cross sucked anyway" "Yea, well Robotech Sucks" "Does not" "Does too" I don't mind comparions made to RT Southern Cross and most of the toys which are still around are based on that. Any discussions about comparing the different Robotech generations to each other should be done on a dedicated RT forum, not in a thread about Chōjikū Kidan Sazan Kurosu. As for the art work. I haven't seen much else except the artbook. I wish I had picked up the "This is anime #10" a few years back. Saw it on the Spiel convention in Essen - Germany and never seen it since. I had just bought all the Ground Work of Evangelion artbooks and some Kayodo Figures so was out of cash (no regrets there, both the books and toys are awesome). The very very long que at the one working ATM that accepted foreign debit cards just scared me off. German vendors tend to dump original editions when translations become avaiable and original Japanse stuff then goes for bargain prices.
  14. Bri
    before RT there was in particular order: Thundersub (Blue noah) Rittai Anime Ienaki Ko Remi (Remi- alone in the world) Mori no yoki na kobitotachi Belfy to Lilibit (The Litl' Bits) Candy Candy Kojika Monogatari (Story of a fawn) Mitsubachi Maya No Bôken (Maja the Bee) Taiyô no ko Esteban (Mysterious cities of gold) Nils no Fushigi na Tabi (Nils Holgerson) Kazoku Robinson hyôryûki-fushigina shima no Flone (Swiss Family Robinson) Oz no Mahôtsukai (Wizzard of Oz) Tom Sawyer no Boken ( Tom Sawyer)
  15. Bri
    Jailbait in this context is the type of girl R.Kelly or Gary Glitter would interested in
  16. Bri
    Not quite sure what the OP means. Think the last sentence suggests some Japanese fans want to make a petition to Kawamori for bringing back the original cast of SDFM as designed by Mikimoto? Aka a follow up to FB2012(or dare I say the story of Megaroad 01).
  17. Bri
    Just started on Destiny so I'll be able to comment soon if I agree with the general sentiment. It might be that Destiny detracts from SEED, as sequals tend to do. Remember there is no Matrix Revolutions! Tomino clearly forgot about the 3rd rule of fight club: someone yells "Stop!", goes limp, taps out, the fight is over. I'm sure being blow to pieces is slightly overdoing it . But yes, I see the point. Seed is far more optimistic about human nature then the earlier Tomino directed shows. Maybe that's why I like SEED so much as I enjoy the Kawamoris optimistic take on the human condition in Macross over Tominos darkness in the UC universe. And yes the return of one character was a bit lame in SEED. But then Char has pulled the same stunt, so I guess if a character is GAR enough they can beat death I have never been heavily attached to MS Gundam so I don't mind that the story gets repeated in SEED. I'd have more trouble with a rehash of Zeta which for me still stands as the best Gundam. On the overpowered mecha in SEED: I first came in to contact with Gundam in the mid 90s when I saw some Hong Kong Subs of Wing. The mecha of any other Gundam series have seemed far less overpowered. In fact the 00 Gundams seem more powerfull then the SEED ones. It's hard to compare though with nearly all SEED pilots in Gundams being New Types ( ok ok coordinators). While the Celestial Being Gundam Pilots are normal humans and just above average at best. Giving rise to more "fair" fights with ace pilots in Canon Fodder mecha.
  18. Bri
    Well... there is a reason for this lack of hot girls. It has something to do with occupational hazzards... Speaking of which: I just finished Gundam Seed. Heard a lot of bad things about this series but I can't see why. I loved it. It's more character driven then most other Gundams and the cast is a tad on the emo side (Not anywhere near NGE levels). It largely follows the MS Gundam story line with a White base look-a-like ship trying to get to a federation home base. Kira is the first Gundam main character I actually like. Which is pretty much a miracle since I'd had given up on liking any of them after seeing the UC storyline and the AU series Wing and Zero. The crew of the archangel as a whole works for me. Andrew Waltfelt is another great addition. This character is a mix of Roy Focker, Hugh Jackman, Fieldmarshall Rommel and an expresso machine. Seed is does have some weaknesses. Exibit nr1: Lacus Clyne. She annoys me to no end. A one-dimensional trophy girl in outfits that would make a Barby cringe. The Char clone was ok, but his motivations were disapointing once revealed. I had hoped his origens had more to do with the first Coordinator. And last but not least: If I may make a comparions with the Gundam 00. Then I'd say that 00 has the more interesting mecha and story premiss (the paradox of stopping wars with brute force) but Seed has the more endearing characters.
  19. Bri
    Can we please keep the Robotech generations out of the discussion about SDC Southern Cross? It seems to be the bane of this show always having to be compared to Macross and Mospeada due to the RT link. Both visually and story wise Southern cross draws more from Gundam then anything else anyway.
  20. Bri
    Is this ship replacing one of the older (non-nuclear) carriers, or is it an expansion of the fleet?
  21. Bri
    If I compare the two pictures in this thread of Klan's Q-Rea it doesn't seem to be just a scaling error. More a misunderstanding of the nature of the Q-Rea. The first picture correctly portrays it as a mecha with a cockpit in which a Zentradi (or Meltradi what ever) can be seated. The second picture assumes the Q-rea to be an armed space suit with the limbs of the Zentradi going in to the limbs of the suit. Easy to make mistake but sloppy editing I guess.
  22. Bri
    True, then again Milia is a one of a kind pilot, wouldn't put it beyond her to simply overlad the propulsion system and use it as a weapon. Something no other pilot would think of/could do. Would explain why it's not part of the Quads weapon specs.
  23. Bri
    Hmm, those pictures seem to suggest that all the vernier thrusters can be used as a particle beam weapon somehow.
  24. Bri
    Great looking customs. Were you able to buy those flexi-displays somewhere in Europe? I'm planning to buy a few but ordering them in from the States might get a tad expensive.
  25. Bri
    I've recently started watching Gundam SEED. 20 episodes in and I'm surprised to find myself really enjoying it. The story is a kind of alternate retelling on Gundam0079 sofar. Maybe it gets worse in time, but sofar so good.
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