Mospeada is friggin' awesome!

[1/1 LowViz Lurker]

I've only seen the rowboat-ECK! version and it made me depressed when toys weren't available. The first itme I saw that bike I thought "OMG! I want one!"

Also like someone mentioned its weakness was that each character could not die. But all too often, towards the end of each episode a newly introduced character would always die as some kind of selfless sacrifice, and this idea got old after a while. (in a predictable way where you just know this guy is going to die because so much of the episoide focuses on him only, instead of having an episode continue developing on multiple characters at once.)

I prefer the "multiple characters at once" rather than the "lets focus on 1 character and then kill this guy towards the end" style of storytelling, which is why I still like macross a little bit more. This way, you get to see smal bits and pieces of each character over long time, like a soap opera and your feelings and impression of that character gradually change over time and evolve as the story progresses like you are there with them. When kakizaki and roy do die, it has that much more of an impact because you have been "with them" from the start. And when Hikaru almost dies and comes close to death in some episodes you know that it is that much serious and in a sense, realistic that the enemy is a big threat. This feeling keeps you glued to your seat and is much more gripping when a major event happens in the story that is life-altering to one of the characters.

I didn't get that same feeling as much with Mospeada/NG.

Edited October 15, 2005 by 1/1 LowViz Lurker

[danth]

Oh, and did I mention the animation was absolutely awful?  Macross was drawn sooooo much better.

336770[/snapback]

Whaaaa? Can you say Anime Friend?

I'd say, on a scale of 1 to 5, Macross' animation was 4+ on a good day and 2 on a bad. Mospeada was a consistent 3.5. Heck, I think the Inbit and Mospeadas were animated really well. The Legioss on the other hand wasn't.

Have you watched the remastered Mospeada footage, Armentage? It looks way better than the old Robotech episodes.

[Beltane70]

I may be wrong, but wasn't Mospeada's popularity hurt by it having a bad, early Sunday morning timeslot? Or am I mistaking that from another series?

[CoryHolmes]

Mospeda did have great OP music, but overall it was pretty lacking.

I have to admit, the lack of the RT music is why I can't stand watching the original Mospeada. I find that RTs BGMs were just that much better.

I'll say this - the Jack McKinnely novels did a much better job telling the story they were trying to tell than the anime did.  Being out there, on the road, on the run, it's all too personal.  People's feelings and emotions, their reasons and motivations couldn't be explained very well in the anime medium, especially with their low budget and crappy animation.

336770[/snapback]

This is true for all of the books. Whatever bad things you might say about the novels (most of them are well-deserved), the way the books got into the character's heads and made the story personable is one of the best things that they ever did. It made for a much more engaging story than was on the screen.

[danth]

I may be wrong, but wasn't Mospeada's popularity hurt by it having a bad, early Sunday morning timeslot? Or am I mistaking that from another series?

336800[/snapback]

You're right -- that's one of the theories about Mospeada's ratings.

[Keith]

In absolutely no way shape or form was the genetic synth sounding crap from robotech better than anything. You may for some strange reason enjoy it more, but that doesn't make it better than any of the music from the 3 original shows (because it's not).

As for R2 Mospeada DVD's:

Mospeada Vol 6

Mospeada Box set

Both seem to be very available.

And while I did enjoy Mospeada, I wouldn't put it ahead of Macross, or Orguss for that matter, but it was still a good series, very good music.

[Renato]

In absolutely no way shape or form was the genetic synth sounding crap from robotech better than anything. You may for some strange reason enjoy it more, but that doesn't make it better than any of the music from the 3 original shows (because it's not).

As for R2 Mospeada DVD's:

Mospeada Vol 6

Mospeada Box set

Both seem to be very available.

And while I did enjoy Mospeada, I wouldn't put it ahead of Macross, or Orguss for that matter, but it was still a good series, very good music.

336818[/snapback]

Wow, I didn't know the music was done by Joe Hisaishi. He does the Miyazaki and Beat Takeshi films. It must be good.

Danth -- thanks for the offer, I'll think about it and PM you.

Cyclone -- That's interesting news, thanks. But I would rather see the original.

[DeathHammer]

Please Delete Thanks

Edited February 8, 2010 by DeathHammer

[Keith]

That's some morbid sh!t right there, I wouldn't want to see any of that. It's Mospeada, not clockwork orange.

[armentage]

That's some morbid sh!t right there, I wouldn't want to see any of that. It's Mospeada, not clockwork orange.

336836[/snapback]

Sorry Keith, but you're dead wrong. Mospeada WAS about revenge. Stig was a VERY flat character, who felt and said nothing other than "lets kill some farting Inbit" for most of the series. The only reason he ever moved past any of that was because of Aisha (again, what a stupid name. Mylene was at least human sounding) having been A CLONE of his dead girlfriend.

You can accuse me of being a cold person, but I would not go all Igami Itto (Loan Wolf) over the loss of my girlfriend. I have strong feelings for her, but they would not drive me to single mindedly focus on butchering and toppling those that did her wrong. Stig NEVER had a strong sense of justice; he only wanted to kill Inbit. It was always Houquet, Ray, or Yellow (and later Mint) that would persuade him to stop for a second and help others. If I was the sole survivor of an invasion force, I'd find the first broad bottomed woman of child bearing age available and settle down, so I could forget about all the horror I had seen.

Personally I feel that this is one of the things that seperates Japanese fiction from Western (or at least American) fiction; our heros are rarely psychopaths. If anything, they are the opposite; the only sane person in an insane world, who doesn't give a poo about what others think and strives to create the greatest good for everyone. Japanese heros, by contrast, think only of themselves and seek only to right whatever wrong was commited against them (or their family/clan/sentai-team, whatever).

3 long paragraphs later, I rest.

Edited October 15, 2005 by armentage

[Keith]

Stik was duty driven first & foremost, he would have pressed on regardless of whether Marlene died. And while you can claim Mospeada is about revenge, it is not about rape gangs, mass suicide, Cannibals, killing kids, etc. It was about survival, not morbid sh!t.

[1/1 LowViz Lurker]

You know, if they ever made a mospeada movie reimagining the series or something I wouldn't mind seeing that morbid stuff.

They have themes of chaos in a post apocalypic world in movies like mad max where the only good guy has actually gone a bit mad, and everyone else has turned savage and pretty much lawless and immoral. (note in the second movie where the girl gets raped by the bikers. I can totally imagine something like that happening in the mospeada world with those bikers. This is the kind of behaviour that happens in people when there are no laws and no fear of getting caught by anyone tough enough to stand up and do something about it)

In the towns, the people were obviously being used as spies for the invid/inbit to help them catch any resistance and report it to them, so I can totally see the main guy not caring about others of his own race when they are just as likely to screw up the mission as any alien would.

The people who helped the inbit would probably be given all sorts of rewards and corruption would be rampant. There would be people starving in the streets, backstabbing, soldiers who defected due to loss of hope in winning against them etc.. For example I can definately see cannibals as being normal behaviour for the poor, and maybe diseased people lying there left to die with no help. The aliens wouldn't care.

Edited October 15, 2005 by 1/1 LowViz Lurker

[Major Johnathan]

Wow, Mospeada rarely gets such attention, let alone controversey.

Yes the people on Earth were beat down, but not THAT severely. Canniblism? The Invid are more insect-like than humanoid, they don't care about humans unless your in their way or a perceived threat. So the Invid don't really care if people grow food or even drive around, just NOT near their hives.

By the way, as far as I know, Aisha was not a clone of Marlene. That was a Robotech stroy line.

Also, the name 'Stig' is an oddity of questionable translation, You clearly hear them say 'Stick' AND the 1/15 Imai model even spells it out in English. ("Stick-Type Ride Armor")

I agree Stick was far more motivated by duty, accomplish the misssion no matter the odds or cost. Stick killing a bunch of kids just to get at some Invid? Man, that's a whole other show and a whole other character. He's a straight laced, military protocol kinda guy. Not a homicidal lunatic out for revenge. These novels sound like some dark, twisted stuff.

[Renato]

Mylene was at least human sounding

336840[/snapback]

Mylene is an actual name. It's French.

[danth]

In absolutely no way shape or form was the genetic synth sounding crap from robotech better than anything. You may for some strange reason enjoy it more, but that doesn't make it better than any of the music from the 3 original shows (because it's not).

336818[/snapback]

Are you talking about Lancer's songs? I can understand if you don't like those. But the BGM was very good, and at least half of it had a classic orchestra sound. Only a few tracks sounded synthetic to me (though surely a lot of it was done on synthesizers). The Robotech BGM flat-out rules.

[DeathHammer]

Please Delete Thanks

Edited February 8, 2010 by DeathHammer

[danth]

Stig NEVER had a strong sense of justice; he only wanted to kill Inbit.

There's no difference between justice and revenge, except for politics.

Personally I feel that this is one of the things that seperates Japanese fiction from Western (or at least American) fiction; our heros are rarely psychopaths.  If anything, they are the opposite; the only sane person in an insane world, who doesn't give a poo about what others think and strives to create the greatest good for everyone.  Japanese heros, by contrast, think only of themselves and seek only to right whatever wrong was commited against them (or their family/clan/sentai-team, whatever).

336840[/snapback]

I couldn't disagree with you more. We love our heroes because they blow sh*t up. Sure, some of our heroes talk a lot of game about justice and liberty, but it always comes down to blowing sh*t up and killing "bad guys". That's pretty psychopathic to me. For every Erin Brokovich we produce, we put out ten Schwarzeneggers, Stalones, Seagals, and Van Dammes.

[Edited for retarded mispellings]

Edited October 16, 2005 by danth

[danth]

Hey, I was definitely not trying to piss off guys who love Mospeada for what it is and what it was, I watched the stuff too as a kid. Just was tossing out the idea that maybe a grim more chaotic version of it would have been interesting to watch. I mean thats what makes Lost and BSG so interesting, a breakdown of formal social codes and law, and where do people go from there.

And the guy above, who said a kind of Road Warrior kind of storyline, thats more of what I was getting towards.

336906[/snapback]

I think Mospeada's style is more realistic. When authorities go away, people do not form murderous bands that fight to the last man. Anthropology shows that people are more peaceful without authorities or governments. During Katrina, all the talk about raping and murdering was B.S. Even the stories about shooting at rescue 'copters turned out to be propoganda. People mostly formed peaceful groups and helped eachother out.

[JsARCLIGHT]

I liked the atmosphere of Mospeada a lot... the whole concept of the "beaten" Earth and how everyone was so depressed, sad and pathetic except for a few handfuls of resistence. Yellow's music was slow and bluesy, something you'd expect from a planet crying into it's booze waiting for someone or something to end it all. I thought the show did a very good job of showing the "dark" side of man without throwing in rape gangs, religious nuts and other far extreme sociopathic groups while at the same time showing the positives of man... but just like the real world the heroes are not always the virtuous white knights and the villains are not always the black clad wicked men. Almost all the heroes in Mospeada are tragic and all the villains you can identify with on some level. The signs of a well written story are that you can see the ups and downs of all sides.

[Kin]

I love Mospeada... I love rediscovering the real sountracks.

In the 80's I got my mind all messed up cause of "homotech"..

[jenius]

Speaking of the music, I'm not saying I liked the Robotech version of Lancer's songs but I did like the fact they spoke to quiet resistance. Belmont's songs are just kinda interesting "mmootttoooo cycle freeeakkk!!" whereas Lancer is kinda trying to spur rebellion. This worked out particularly well in the NY episode where the backdrop is Lancer singing about winning the fight while Scott and crew are out there winning the fight (IIRC).

Also, there is a scene where they name her Aisha so it's not like some unexplained anomaly. They realize it means "princess" while eatiing Aisha Mandarin Oranges and think that's the perfect name for the mysterious beauty they have discovered (again IIRC). The group also does not speak Japanese (although they do, but they don't, you follow?) so to them it's just a pretty foreign name... along the lines of Mylene.

[Desram]

Does anyone know where I could find a good, subbed, torrent for the first episode? I wanna give it a try

[DeathHammer]

Please Delete Thanks

Edited February 8, 2010 by DeathHammer

[JsARCLIGHT]

But that is the difference between a soldier on a mission and a selfish antihero out for themselves... the selfish antihero kills as it suits him whereas Stick, Yellow and Jim are soldiers. Soldiers protect and only kill a non combatant when needed. Sure Stick may have wanted to air out that guy's brains that lead them into a trap on the island... sure Yellow wanted to show that bastard selling the fake maps what his lungs looked like... but they didn't because they are soldiers on a mission and part of their mission is to protect the people of earth from the Inbits... including the bastards. They cannot just go around killing people they feel wronged them. One of the main sub points to the way Stick acts is to keep things totally miliary... to run his operation as he would run it if still under Mars base command. He wanted to show people what true soldiers where... not just the washed up rejects that prowled the earth who used to be soldiers. He expected himself and his men to maintain propper ROE at all times even though they where fighting a guerilla war.

But then that comes down to "who was really the bastard"? Col. Johnson was sacrificing troops to the Inbits (bad) but that sacrifice was keeping the town full of people from being wiped out by the Inbits (good)... the kid who lead Stick, Ray and Mint into that trap (bad) was doing so to protect his fellow city people (good)... the guy selling the fake mountain pass maps was doing so line his own pockets (bad) but when his girlfriend was in danger he sent out his prized fighters to try and save her and buy time for her to escape (good).

Like I said earlier, all the "bad" humans in Mospeada do things like any real world "bad" person would... there is always a reason behind their badness. Very few of the villains in Mospeada where simple one-dimensional angry tough brutes intent on killing and pillaging.

As for Mint or Hoquet not getting beat down, it happened a lot in the show. When Hoquet was in that bike gang she got lead into a trap with a rival gang and was beaten... perhaps she was raped we don't know because they didn't show it but you could assume it if you wanted to. As for Mint she apparently also had a tough time of it bouncing from one town to the next trying to find a home... you never really know what happened to her out there. And in the third episode some toughs try to beat down Yellow while he/she is performing... only to have Hoquet step in... but if Stick had not been there who knows what would have happened.

Edited October 15, 2005 by JsARCLIGHT

[1/1 LowViz Lurker]

As I pointed out the invid were using the humans as spies. There would be no reason to keep them alive with the threat of a future resistance later on down. Eventually the humans would multiply and compete with the invid for land if left allowed to be too free. I doubt if humans were alllowed to live as they would and someday create a military and develop weapons in secret (like in Gundam) the invid would leave them alone.

So basically the aliens were probably keeping the gangs in control and used the gangs as informants. Possibly the aliens were appealing to the humans greed and corrupting them to help destroy the resistance rather than wasting them there and then. It was beneficial to keep some alive as opposed to wiping out the ones they know about and having some go under the radar. I doubt it was out of kindness that they were allowed to live.

Either way you look at it: it doesn't matter the WHY the bad guys were doing what they did, what matters is that in real life if you are the one to die, and you are trying to complete the mission, you got to make the decision to pull that trigger because it is either you or them. There is a greater things at stake since your mission is to take back the earth and are the last hope for future generations. If it was a choice between my family and someone else family I would be biased to my own.

Of course for a show they want to keep it optimistic so they put in the sob story to make the story interesting and more complicated (this formula was repeated a bit too much though imo) but it could still be as good if we didn't have to sympathises with them and the hero was just selfish. Not all soldier are going to be perfect especially if the government left you for dead and the only reward to you is that feeling of revenge of taking down the enemy that killed your GF.

In fact one of the themes of mad max (not road warrior but the the original one where he was still a cop) was that the hero was just an ordinary guy with skills. He never started out as the anti-hero at all, but then he realised the system didn't work and even the gangs had protection that made his job of catching them a joke. (becuase they would just be let out again to come back and get revenge, killing the cop responsible and continuing to rape and kill and steal)

IT was only AFTER the gangs had destroyed his life (killing his wife, kids and brutally torching his friend in some kind of sick ritual) that he turned "Selfish" antihero. So even the selfish guy is worth sympathising with. Many people who didn't see the original mad max probably would have missed this part of his character and skipped to the bit where he is just a crazy guy in The Road Warrior. (maybe because the original mad max had a limited release?)

But it was the loss of his family and the crumbling justice system that drove him to become crazy. (in the end where he cuffs that gang member to the car and tell hims he can either cut his foot off to escape the explosion or cut off the cuff but not make it in time and die, is a sweet ending.) Before that he was the guy with the driving skill doing his job like stick was just a soldier trying to complete the mission.

Edited October 15, 2005 by 1/1 LowViz Lurker

[Duke Togo]

I've been watching the box set since getting it late last month, and well... I don't like MOSPEADA anywhere as much as I used to. The music, outside of the opening theme, is downright horrid. And the Inbit threating to "erase" our heros just doesn't sound all that threatening to me. Just how good is the translation, I wonder...

[LePoseur]

「消ã™ã€ or "Erase" kinda has the same meaning for kill as "rub-out" would.

I do agree, however, that the subtitles could have been better. There are a lot of times when anime will use the same phrases over and over ad nausium (such as 「è½ã¡ã‚ï¼ã€ almost anytime someone in Gundam is shooting at another MS). While it doesn't really sound stange in Japanese, once you go to subtitle it, you can't really use the same pattern over and over without it sounding stupid in English (yet that doesn't stop many subtitlers).

Anyhow... after the whole Stig thing...

[DeathHammer]

Please Delete Thanks

Edited February 8, 2010 by DeathHammer

[Major Johnathan]

Humans weren't that beaten down in Mospeada. Remember the village that Jim Austin returns too, there's a whole, normal social structure. You see poeple going about their business.

In the 'old west' town(old geezer's episode), there's a sheriff and everything in town.

Then there's the Rainy Boy episode where again, people form posse's to hunt Rainy Boy.

In New York, they still practice for Broadway shows...

So even though the Invid wipe out military forces, and even hunt them down, they also show an ambivilance to humans minding their own business. The Invid almost see people as cattle grazing in the fields. As long as they don't go near the hives or show military strenght, they're left alone.

Though 'federal' authorities are largely wiped out, local governments still flourish, though some areas are clearly lawless, like Huke's hometown. In a lot of ways, the Mospeada world mirror's the Old West, where federal authority often existed in theory only.

I can't help but think of 'Tombstone' as the ideal inspiration for a Mospeada town. "Hey Kansas law-dog, law don't go 'round here, savvy?"

[JsARCLIGHT]

Well if you follow the Inbit's way of thinking they where "returning the earth to it's natural state" and in effect all the animals of earth where also expected to return to their origins. Their ambivalence and seeming constant pursuit/ignoring of the military remnants speaks to their desire to see earth "balanced". They hunted down the active military because of obvious reasons, they attacked the Inbits, but for other unseen reasons... such as the military being the "stinger" of the polluted, mechanized world the Inbits where working to rebuild as their new home. The soldiers who left their weapons behind and tried to hide where ignored as they where "changing" from bad to good in the Inbit's eyes.

I always felt the aboriginal society the freedom fighters bump into the forest (Mint's wedding) was the Inbit's ultimate evolution/de-evolution of man, fitting back into the natural world from where he came. In that natural state man still had society and order just none of the pollution and mechanical trappings of the hostile world the Inbit where working to undo. Thinking about the feel of that episode that whole forrest had a strange alien Inbit canopy over it which even lends more spin to the angle that the aboriginal society of people dwelling in it where products of the Inbit's planetary rejuvination.

[armentage]

「消ã™ã€ or "Erase" kinda has the same meaning for kill as "rub-out" would.

I do agree, however, that the subtitles could have been better. There are a lot of times when anime will use the same phrases over and over ad nausium (such as 「è½ã¡ã‚ï¼ã€ almost anytime someone in Gundam is shooting at another MS). While it doesn't really sound stange in Japanese, once you go to subtitle it, you can't really use the same pattern over and over without it sounding stupid in English (yet that doesn't stop many subtitlers).

Anyhow... after the whole Stig thing...

336996[/snapback]

That's right... the Mospeada subtitles were FAR too literal. I wonder if my utter disgust for it (I liked the Robotech version MUCh better) was partially caused by the poorness of the subtitles. The Mospeada box set REAKED of "well, we have this property that alot of fanboys will buy simply because they are fanboys, lets not put all that much effort into it."

I must say, I absolutely ABHOR where commercial DVD subtitles are going. Personally, I am a fan of good dubs, because I feel that staring at the bottom of the screen reading is not the best way to enjoy the full animation frames. However, the way they use the DVD Closed-Captions feature to do the subtitles is AWFUL. Fansubs look SO MUCH better! It really pains me when I end up watching the sub because the dub on the disc is.

Edited October 16, 2005 by armentage

[armentage]

Humans weren't that beaten down in Mospeada. Remember the village that Jim Austin returns too, there's a whole, normal social structure. You see poeple going about their business.

In the 'old west' town(old geezer's episode), there's a sheriff and everything in town.

Then there's the Rainy Boy episode where again, people form posse's to hunt Rainy Boy.

In New York, they still practice for Broadway shows...

337024[/snapback]

I wouldn't take the notion of being "free" or having a "normal" social structure too far. People were only as free as the Inbit let them be. If for some reason they felt like toppling a town or replacing its leadership, imposing a curfew or converting it into a biological experiment there was nothing the local human "authorities" could do to fend them off other than deliver people/energy-whatever/gold/etc to placate them.

People, especially the children, might act like things were A-OK, but deep down they were living every day fearing that it might be their last normal one.

[VF-ZX2]

I think MOSPEADA/New Generation was the deepest on many levels out of the three animes combined to make Robotech for the US. I prefer the characters of MOSPEADA to the characaters of Macross, but I overall like the mecha of Macross more than that of MOSPEADA, but the cyclone is a pretty sweet idea. No man in his right mind would nto want a transforming motorcycle.

[Keith]

Dude, you need to get off the rape thing, not all women in bad situations get raped, and I sure as hell don't want to see it in shows where it doesn't belong in the first place.

I also don't see why you mis-understand Stik so much, hell, I don't even remember him being portrayed as a revenge minded loon. He was a soldier first & foremost, was given a mission, and stuck to that mission no matter what. The only real improvision he made was in picking up stragglers as he went along to form a non-unifrom military squad.

As for the Inbit, their primary goal was their own evolution, not subjigating humanity, or taking over the planet. I don't even really think they saw humans as viable life forms (at least not ones worth communicating with) until the end. They went through the whole gambit of life on Earth to test different evolutionary patterns & see what best suited to further their own existence. For the most part they only bothered with humans when directly attacked. I felt the general message was that they got so disgusted with the human race that they said "screw it" and decided to leave to continue their evoluton elsewhere, the people of Earth just barely being lucky enough for the Inbit to feel compassion for, and prevented humans from whiping themselves out (and cleaning up the planet to boot).

You have to admit, the very concept that the Mars fleet was taken out not simply due to an Inbit attack, but because they didn't prep their approach for the potential of ozone being restored to the atmosphere is incredibly funny.

As for dubs, there's no such thing as a good one, the truest way to watch something is in its own language with the emotions that were put into it by the original actors as dictated by the director. Anything you miss in the subtitle script can be picked up from that acting.

[DeathHammer]

Please Delete Thanks

Edited February 8, 2010 by DeathHammer