The Ohnogi Question

[Swampstorm]

Gubaba, are you still planning on following that outline that you put out in your opening? I was wondering whether you were still planning on addressing the Famitsu interview at a later point.

[Gubaba]

Gubaba, are you still planning on following that outline that you put out in your opening? I was wondering whether you were still planning on addressing the Famitsu interview at a later point.

It seems like it's not as necessary, but yes: once we get our hands on the Famitsu interview, I'm going to translate it and post it here.

That should be the final nail in the coffin of the Ohnogi Conspiracy.

[Swampstorm]

It seems like it's not as necessary, but yes: once we get our hands on the Famitsu interview, I'm going to translate it and post it here.

That should be the final nail in the coffin of the Ohnogi Conspiracy.

Well, its necessity depends more on what you want the scope of this thread to be.

If the question that you're addressing is the credibility of the Shaloom interviews, then you've more than fulfilled the task - both by noting the author's lack of evidence and the inconsistencies in the content of the writing. In fact, this is something that you accomplished back in late April when you first suggested that the interview was fabricated. So long as someone is trying to prove that Ohnogi worked on the series, the burden of proof is always on them, not you, to show that this is the case.

If, instead, you wanted to prove that Ohnogi didn't work on the series, the burden of proof is reversed. You could, in theory, disprove any number of claims that he worked on the series, but you'd still run the risk of turning these into a negative proof. Naturally, you're bound to reach a point where you'll become skeptical of any further claims, but skepticism has to do with belief (which is different issue altogether). That's part of the reason why I nudged you about sending off that email; it prevents you from being locked into a situation where there's a lack of evidence to support either position.

Another point that was of interest to me (and, as I understand, is of interest to you), is in figuring out which parts of the Shaloom and the Famitsu interviews (if any) are verifiable as valid. As a case in point, the translation of the Famitsu mentions Ohnogi as a writer, which makes it suspect. Yet at the same time, if we dismiss the entire Famitsu article on that basis, we run the risk of losing verifiable insights into the series (the statement on polygamy comes to mind here). I suspect that a lot of the misconceptions being propagated are convincing because they incorporate partial truths - so the best solution would be to separate the truth from the 'fiction', in both senses of the word.

It's not my intention to dampen your parade - you've done an excellent job and I fully support what you're doing. I'm sure that you're anxious to close this situation and move on, but you may see some merit in incorporating the above-mentioned issues, for the sake of completeness (call me pedantic).

[dreamweaver13]

If, instead, you wanted to prove that Ohnogi didn't work on the series, the burden of proof is reversed. You could, in theory, disprove any number of claims that he worked on the series, but you'd still run the risk of turning these into a negative proof. Naturally, you're bound to reach a point where you'll become skeptical of any further claims, but skepticism has to do with belief (which is different issue altogether). That's part of the reason why I nudged you about sending off that email; it prevents you from being locked into a situation where there's a lack of evidence to support either position.

Even from this perspective, I don't think the burden of proof is with gubaba, since Ohnogi isn't credited as a writer in MF in the first place.

[Mr March]

If the question that you're addressing is the credibility of the Shaloom interviews, then you've more than fulfilled the task - both by noting the author's lack of evidence and the inconsistencies in the content of the writing. In fact, this is something that you accomplished back in late April when you first suggested that the interview was fabricated. So long as someone is trying to prove that Ohnogi worked on the series, the burden of proof is always on them, not you, to show that this is the case.

I agree. As for the rest, I wouldn't put it past this Shaloom fella to inject real Macross facts into his little fanfiction article in an attempt to add legitimacy to the endeavour. But at that point, we're all better off if Gubaba spent his time translating REAL sources of official Macross trivia rather than trying to pick the few facts out of a convoluted mess of fiction that is likely deliberately designed to be confusing.

[Gubaba]

Well, its necessity depends more on what you want the scope of this thread to be.

If the question that you're addressing is the credibility of the Shaloom interviews, then you've more than fulfilled the task - both by noting the author's lack of evidence and the inconsistencies in the content of the writing. In fact, this is something that you accomplished back in late April when you first suggested that the interview was fabricated. So long as someone is trying to prove that Ohnogi worked on the series, the burden of proof is always on them, not you, to show that this is the case.

If, instead, you wanted to prove that Ohnogi didn't work on the series, the burden of proof is reversed. You could, in theory, disprove any number of claims that he worked on the series, but you'd still run the risk of turning these into a negative proof. Naturally, you're bound to reach a point where you'll become skeptical of any further claims, but skepticism has to do with belief (which is different issue altogether). That's part of the reason why I nudged you about sending off that email; it prevents you from being locked into a situation where there's a lack of evidence to support either position.

Another point that was of interest to me (and, as I understand, is of interest to you), is in figuring out which parts of the Shaloom and the Famitsu interviews (if any) are verifiable as valid. As a case in point, the translation of the Famitsu mentions Ohnogi as a writer, which makes it suspect. Yet at the same time, if we dismiss the entire Famitsu article on that basis, we run the risk of losing verifiable insights into the series (the statement on polygamy comes to mind here). I suspect that a lot of the misconceptions being propagated are convincing because they incorporate partial truths - so the best solution would be to separate the truth from the 'fiction', in both senses of the word.

It's not my intention to dampen your parade - you've done an excellent job and I fully support what you're doing. I'm sure that you're anxious to close this situation and move on, but you may see some merit in incorporating the above-mentioned issues, for the sake of completeness (call me pedantic).

It's funny...when I reread the "Liner Notes" in preparing to write this essay, I was primarily looking for inconsistencies and mistakes, but still...I was impressed at how much verifiable stuff is in there. Now, of course, "verifiable" in this case means, "Stuff that didn't slip past me when viewing the series," so there was nothing new to me among the genuine facts, but the breadth and depth of them was impressive. I thought maybe I could do some kind of Snopes.com-style thing with them...green font for true, red font for false, white for undetermined, or something like that.

I won't end up doing that (I've already spent more time with those "liner notes" than I'd like), but I think a lot of people would be interested in something like that.

And I fully realize that I haven't really proven ANYTHING, beyond the need for better documentation from Shaloom. He could easily come out of the woodwork and provide scans and mp3s that would blow our minds. I find the possibility remote, but it's still a possibility. (The lack of Ohnogi's name in the credits, or ANYWHERE in either of the Frontier books I have should be enough to discredit the idea but not to completely bury it.)

As I said before, the Famitsu Interview (or a response from Satelite) is the smoking gun here. If that doesn't have Ohnogi in it, then we know Shaloom's lying ABOUT OHNOGI. There's a lot of other stuff that I'd like to know about as well, but Shaloom would have to come clean first.

(For example, is Ranka's backpack based on a design by the Macross Attack Team? Shawn and Graham haven't even seen the "Sky Angels" doujinshi that came out in the early '80s, so there's no way to tell. Ditto the end of episode 8 being a reference to the difficult-to-get-to secret ending of the "Macross Love Stories" game. Even if I could find someone who's played it and won, maybe they didn't get to the secret ending. Or maybe it doesn't exist. Who knows, besides the game designers and Shaloom?)

For references and homages, the task is made considerably easier by the fact that the DVDs and BDs come with notes that have a section devoted to the homages in each episode (it's called "MACROSS CHECK!"), but I'm not sure those are complete.

Until I get the Famitsu Interview, all I can do is present interviews, credits, and commentary, hacking away at Shaloom's thesis by pointing out things that SHOULD be there, but aren't. But I think unless Shaloom either presents evidence or comes clean, we'll never know the truth or falsity of some of his more obscure claims.

I was kind of hoping that hub-bub over here and at AnimeSuki would more or less force Shaloom to take a stand, but it doesn't seem to have happened yet.

I was rather stunned at how quickly everyone at AnimeSuki agreed with me...but I think that has more to do with Magnuskn and Cheesie coming to my aid than anything I actually said.

And I'm pretty certain Final Vegeta will not be convinced. Maybe it will be the same with Macross Generation's regular readers.

Anyway, yes, I'm agreeing with you. There's certainly interesting information to be gleaned from any interview, but the Famistu Interview NEEDS to be fully translated, if only because of the amount of weight placed on it by Shaloom.

[Strumvogel]

There is of course the letter you sent to Satelight as well, though I think the reply may take some time in coming. It's not like they can promptly attend to every letter they get.

The only thing I fear is that it may have a non commital answer attached to it in the form of "In my opinion.." or "I think.." type of answer which only reflects one person's view and not of the production company official stance on the matter. It is a polite way of answering the question for the company no doubt but can be fustrating as well.

In anycase I can pretty much say for everyone here that we'll be very interested in the content of the reply letter anyway when you get it Gubaba.

[Mr March]

Well, look at it this way: it's not like Macross fandom hasn't faced these situations before. The truth about Robotech has been publicly known for decades, but people of all kinds have made up their own minds about that. All you can do is present the true facts and let people use their own judgment. If some choose not to accept those true facts, the loss is theirs and we can pity them for that. But once you have presented the true facts, that's where your responsibility ends and their own personal responsibility begins. You can't force people to change their minds.

It's also worth considering the power of bias, ESPECIALLY among fandom. If all the speculation about Shaloom's motives is true, he is obviously strongly biased against Frontier/Kawamori and any attempts to discredit his little endeavour. Hell, the likelihood that Shaloom invented the whole thing, went to great pains to cover his tracks and played upon the inability of the small Macross fandom to secure solid information about the totality of Macross trivia really displays the depth of his bias against Frontier and Kawamori. If he tried it with any other franchise, he would have had a thousand fans disproving his assertions. But because this is the English fandom and source material on the Macross franchise is rare and hard to obtain/translate, it creates an climate ripe for deception. As for other members like Final Vegeta, well we know where they stand; what is true and what is not is really irrelevant when approaching that level of determined animosity against Frontier/Kawamori. And quite frankly, I think Macross fandom is better off without them promoting Frontier or Kawamori. I wouldn't want other people deceived into Frontier/Kawamori fandom any more than I'd want people deceived into avoiding Frontier/Kawamori.

[Xeros]

Well, at any case I feel sorry for all the fandom that buy Shaloom's story, but the reality is until gubaba or someone interested put their hands in a trustworthy transcription of the interview nothing is achieved

Like I said, I put some of my google-fu on the issue on question and I found at least how to shop the magazine

I'll put the links if anyone is interested.

http://cgi.ebay.com.my/Weekly-Famitsu-Vol-...emZ200330642931

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...mp;category=280

[Strumvogel]

I personally don't want to think there's any sort of malice involved in all of this. Macross has a small but robust sized community and I've always found people in it to be friendly and while there may be arguments, they were almost always cordial and polite.

So the very idea of mis-information being deliberately passed around about the series seems to be unusual to the extreme to me.

I prefer to think that this may have just been the result of a rumour that's taken a life of it's own. A rumour that's borne out of someone's bias like you mentioned Mr March but passed round like a game of chinese whispers within similar minded group until it's gone out of control.

[Gubaba]

If he tried it with any other franchise, he would have had a thousand fans disproving his assertions. But because this is the English fandom and source material on the Macross franchise is rare and hard to obtain/translate, it creates an climate ripe for deception.

I dunno...there's always people like Supershadow willing to exploit gullible fans. Of course, Supershadow is easily seen through. The Ohnogi stuff seems deliberately designed to be difficult to verify.

I personally don't want to think there's any sort of malice involved in all of this. Macross has a small but robust sized community and I've always found people in it to be friendly and while there may be arguments, they were almost always cordial and polite.

So the very idea of mis-information being deliberately passed around about the series seems to be unusual to the extreme to me.

I prefer to think that this may have just been the result of a rumour that's taken a life of it's own. A rumour that's borne out of someone's bias like you mentioned Mr March but passed round like a game of chinese whispers within similar minded group until it's gone out of control.

I'd like to believe you're right. However, someone who says, "A good friend gave me all fifteen volumes in the Studio Nue Entertainment Bible series, and I read the stories in them and here are the summaries" doesn't seem to be misled at all. It seems like he is trying to dupe people (or perhaps play a prank. It's possible that all this is joke, I guess... )

[Gubaba]

UPDATE: One of the links Xeros posted was too good to pass up. Famitsu #1035 sent from NY for only $6.50 plus shipping? Sold.

It should be arriving in a week or so.

[dreamweaver13]

UPDATE: One of the links Xeros posted was too good to pass up. Famitsu #1035 sent from NY for only $6.50 plus shipping? Sold.

It should be arriving in a week or so.

Haha. they should give Xeros a commission for that quickie purchase.

[Zinjo]

If one were to assert that a "question" remains, that is one thing. A lack of facts supporting or denouncing the "question" are not a definitive resolution either way. A "question", until otherwise proven or disproven will still remain.

However to proport that an assertion is true without at least "one" verifiable source is fraud. He could have posed the question that Ohnogi might have written uncredited episodes due to the apparent change in focus and / or tone of the character narrative (which I did notice) is a plausible assertion neither proven or disproven. But this individual chose to present it as fact to a fanbase who have less access to the original material than we do and that is a dis-service to the latin american fans.

It also severely undermines his credibility in that community when the facts are revealed that, thus far, his claims cannot be substantiated by any official records.

Edited June 11, 2009 by Zinjo

[dreamweaver13]

If one were to assert that a "question" remains, that is one thing. A lack of facts supporting or denouncing the "question" are not a definitive resolution either way. A "question", until otherwise proven or disproven will still remain.

However to proport that an assertion is true without at least "one" verifiable source is fraud. He could have posed the question that Ohnogi might have written uncredited episodes due to the apparent change in focus and / or tone of the character narrative (which I did notice) is a plausible assertion neither proven or disproven. But this individual chose to present it as fact to a fanbase who have less access to the original material than we do and that is a dis-service to the latin american fans.

It also severely undermines his credibility in that community when the facts are revealed that, thus far, his claims cannot be substantiated by any official records.

just a thought... if he already went this far, what would stop him from going even further? like, creating bogus materials and try to pass them off as the elusive holy grail. yikes.

[Mercurial Morpheus]

So in about a week, we'll see the real interview, nice. Though one thought on Ohnogi, while it seems clear he didn't work on it, could he have perhaps influenced those that did? That would seem more likely, though at this point, it doesn't really matter.

Maybe you're right and Shaloom just didn't like the ending. Though his tale isn't very airtight in some ways. Ohnogi painted as the rewriter late in the series (oddly, it's the start of the series where I felt like any unplanned changes occurred), with most bowing to his ideas, yet he doesn't back down to Kawamori's ending (I guess to explain how it happened and vilify Kawamori and to mesh with what's known)? Why Ohnogi in the first place? Why not an actual credit on Frontier? When did this stuff fully materialize? When the BDs came out, or was this stewing for awhile.

We'll probably never know why, or if he ever intended it to be as it is. He could've just stated the ball rolling and then decided to just go with it (like i said, I'm not sure the timeframe of the interviews and liner notes and what not).

Thanks for all the work, Gubaba, Magnuskn, et al.

I wouldn't worry about him making bogus materials. Once that interview hits (preferably translated by multiple parties so he can't question intentions), you remove a big chunk of his base. It remains to be seen how he'll react. How did he react before any holes appeared in this anyway?

Edited June 11, 2009 by Mercurial Morpheus

[magnuskn]

I wouldn't worry about him making bogus materials. Once that interview hits (preferably translated by multiple parties so he can't question intentions), you remove a big chunk of his base. It remains to be seen how he'll react. How did he react before any holes appeared in this anyway?

Not at all, I have to say. I´ve been periodically checking Macross Generation, to see if anybody there has opened a topic about this, but so far it seems like nobody has done so. I am reluctant to do it, because I just joined to get to the liner notes and translate them. I don´t enjoy being an agent provocateur.

But, first things first. Gubaba... you get an offer to obtain the number of an english speaking member of Satelight and you turn it down?? You know that there are people who would kill for such a chance, do you?

Now, as to the whole issue... for me it is especially painful, because I a.) used up about three whole days of my life to translate a bunch of fan-fiction and b.) I really enjoyed the "liner notes" at the moment. A lot of stuff Shaloom wrote, like the Milia / Max story with the photo in the helmet, and how Ohnogi met his wife... all very well written, some painfully emotional stuff, especially for a Sheryl fanatic like me. Having this turn out to be a very well elaborated hoax really sucks. Hard.

I would have enjoyed it as fan-fiction, however, if labeled so...

As to Shalooms motivation... phew. Really hard to say, because contrary to some random guy on a message board, he actually has something to lose. He owns the Macross Generation forums, and is a respected leader of their community over there. This getting exposed will very likely hurt his image immensely.

Why did he do it, then? It may well be gigantic dissatisfaction with the ending. It may be that he thought he´d get away with it, and could then bind his community more together, with the "access" he had to privileged information.

I guess I should have seen this coming when I was looking at the subs for the episodes his fansub group did. While most other groups kept to a script which largely differed in which words were used to translate a sentence, his group sometimes had the characters say things distinctly different. I don´t mean in the way the sentence was built, but that the meaning of some sentences were different. ( I´d have to re-download all episodes of their sub and compare them to explain this in more detail... a bit much work, so please trust me on this ).

I chalked this up to just a quirk of the translators, especially since there were some kind of episode notes on their forum where they claimed to have official material from Satelight, or somesuch. But in light of what we now know, I guess it comes down to them just changing stuff around more to their liking.

Geeze, what a letdown. Lots of emotional energy spent about absolutely nothing, just because one guy thought he could re-write history. I sincerely hope he at least admits what he did, or, how infinitesimal that chance may be, presents the material he supposedly has.

But, anyway, thanks to Gubaba for spending his time to ferret out the truth and being an all-around nice person. Three cheers!

[Mercurial Morpheus]

I guess I should have seen this coming when I was looking at the subs for the episodes his fansub group did. While most other groups kept to a script which largely differed in which words were used to translate a sentence, his group sometimes had the characters say things distinctly different. I don´t mean in the way the sentence was built, but that the meaning of some sentences were different. ( I´d have to re-download all episodes of their sub and compare them to explain this in more detail... a bit much work, so please trust me on this ).

So he'd literally rewrite the dialogue? Wow. Reminds me of one guy I noticed elsewhere that would disregard all facts to have idealized characters (like a Klan that absolutely didn't care for Michel). Bending things is one thing, outright fabricating things that fly in the face of canon is another.

It's a shame that this seems to boil down to someone simply abusing his position.

[bishopcruz]

Just wanted to chime in here real quick. I've been away from the boards due to some RL stuff, but it's nice to see that the investigations that me and gubaba did have been convincing enough to the rest of the gang on both here and AS to convincingly make our point. Now that the Famitsu issue is coming in to Gubaba we should have a pretty solid base from here on out.

And as has been said, there is no verifiable evidence at all that Ohnogi actually worked on MacF, and there is reams of evidence than suggests otherwise. I remember scouring credit lists, interviews, message boards and the like and finding not a damn thing. But now that it looks like we'll finally be getting our hands on the Famitsu interview, then amen, hallelujah, figuring out which issue had the interview, confirming it, and tracking it down was a fair bit of work, (that didn't completely work out, but that's life.)

The only info that I am pretty sure is accurate from the interview is the polygamy thing, there were some Japanese blog posts that pre-dated the Shaloom release of it that referenced it.

Though, man, NCSX had that issue? I emailed them about it months ago when I was trying to track it down, and got no response. Grr...

Anyway, Gubaba, great job on the essays, can't wait to see your Famitsu article translation. Looks like an end to this is finally in sight.

[Mr March]

Even though I'm not surprised that fansub groups change dialog (even some official subs do this), I do find it incredibly ironic that fans would be doing so. Especially since fans are always the first crying for accuracy and artistic integrity in the unedited anime they demand, it's hilarious to see fansubs changing meaning of the dialog via their translations

[Mercurial Morpheus]

It is, and thankfully is a rare thing. It sounds like there was an actual agenda to alter some character perceptions (let me guess, something along the lines of making Sheryl look more awesome at Ranka's expense, or something similar).

[nexxstrait]

It is, and thankfully is a rare thing. It sounds like there was an actual agenda to alter some character perceptions (let me guess, something along the lines of making Sheryl look more awesome at Ranka's expense, or something similar).

As many of you I have seen Frontier in Japanese, the first time around, personally without knowing a damn word of Japanese. To be honest, even without biased lines Ranka is soo annoying I just wish she had been wiped out around episode 12 .

[Mercurial Morpheus]

Could we leave the character bashing out please? Especially using my post as a jump off for it. Besides, if you think Ranka's annoying, you obviously haven't seen actually annoying anime characters. Hell, Sheryl's "I'm Sheryl...Sheryl Nome" mantra was way more grating at times. ^_-

[DeX-kun]

I had to do a double-take for a second and check if I was actually on Animesuki after that comment about Ranka Annoying, well to some she might of been but I saw her as quite humble and modest but very naive, but that's also something I liked about her . Ranka did have her moment where she broke down and acted kind of annoying but we all have our moments

Anyways since this is getting off-topic, when exactly is the Famitsu interview arriving Gubaba?

Edited June 13, 2009 by DeX-kun

[Gubaba]

I had to do a double-take for a second and check if I was actually on Animesuki after that comment about Ranka Annoying, well to some she might of been but I saw her as quite humble, modest but very naive but that's also something I liked about her. Ranka did have her moment where she broke down and acted kind of annoying but we all have our moments

Anyways since this is getting off-topic, when exactly is the Famitsu interview arriving Gubaba?

It was in Flushing, New York as of last night...

[DeX-kun]

It was in Flushing, New York as of last night...

Oh wow, then I could have gone and picked it up since that's just about where I live You should have told me and I could have scanned it for you. It would have been done so much quicker

Edited June 13, 2009 by DeX-kun

[magnuskn]

Could we leave the character bashing out please? Especially using my post as a jump off for it. Besides, if you think Ranka's annoying, you obviously haven't seen actually annoying anime characters. Hell, Sheryl's "I'm Sheryl...Sheryl Nome" mantra was way more grating at times. ^_-

I think it would help if you would stop making subtle potshots at Sheryl fans... those are annoying, too, y'know.

[Swampstorm]

I think it would help if you would stop making subtle potshots at Sheryl fans... those are annoying, too, y'know.

Roundabout, yes; subtle, no.

Try to humour him, though, and let it slide. I'm bound to enjoy this sort of game much more than you will.

[Gubaba]

Can we PLEASE leave the shipping wars out of this...?

You really don't want to make me whip out the Nanase Love, do you?

Anyway, the package is still in Flushing as of last night.

CORRECTION: It's now in Santa Clarita. Should be arriving today or Monday (I'm hoping for today, of course).

Edited June 13, 2009 by Gubaba

[magnuskn]

Roundabout, yes; subtle, no.

Try to humour him, though, and let it slide. I'm bound to enjoy this sort of game much more than you will.

Yeah, I tend to get a bit emotional on that topic. You are really the better spokesperson.

I have always gotten pretty annoyed, though, at this nebulous perception here on MW that fans on AS are somehow inferior in quality than the ones here. Ah, well. Elitism even in the fandom itself, I guess.

[Gubaba]

Yeah, I tend to get a bit emotional on that topic. You are really the better spokesperson.

I have always gotten pretty annoyed, though, at this nebulous perception here on MW that fans on AS are somehow inferior in quality than the ones here. Ah, well. Elitism even in the fandom itself, I guess.

*sigh*

Off-topic, I know, but I can't let this pass.

I can't speak for other people, but for me personally, I never saw AnimeSuki people as "inferior" to MacrossWorld people. The focus is different. There are a lot of people here who care about the mecha, and little else. There are a lot of people at AS who care about the love triangle, and little else.

Since I didn't even know about AS forums until last fall, I didn't even know there WAS a Ranka/Sheryl shipping war until it spilled out over here.

So the first impression that I got about AS was when JustinStrife, herbert, and Shan all came here taking potshots at each other. Creating a lot of conflict and drama where there was none. JustinStrife especially rubbed me the wrong way, with his accusations that anyone who didn't believe Ranka completely sucked was either on drugs or had no understanding of adult relationships. It was petty, it was childish (and it's against the rules here), and once I found out he was from AS, I went over there to see if his posts were hectoring and insulting over there. To my surprise, it seemed like EVERYONE was being obnoxious about their Sheryl love. There was a tough-guy, bully mentality to the whole thing that really turned me off.

And, to be honest, that was my impression of AS until I actually joined, and found everyone to be friendly, thoughtful, and welcoming.

The continual, unceasing Ranka-bashing over there DOES get on my nerves, though (most recently manifested as turning the "Galaxy Memories" drama CD track into a comment about Ranka's fragility and Sheryl's strength), especially since it's gone as far as people attacking Megumi Nakajima, who has a nice voice, is a good actress, and seems to be a super-sweet person.

As I said, it just seems childish and playground bully-ish to me.

I'm not saying MacrossWorld is flawless (it isn't), or that the majority here don't have their own biases (they do). But that's my own take on the situation. If the Galactic Fairy's Stromtroopers would just tone it down a notch or two, I for one would find AS a nicer place to be overall. As it is, I like the people there, I just don't like some of the things they say.

Edited June 13, 2009 by Gubaba

[Swampstorm]

As desirable as it would be to avoid a discussion of shipping, it's implicit in the discussion - especially since it was cited as a possible motivation for Shaloom's actions. The problem with this is two-fold. Firstly, we really don't actually know what Shaloom was thinking unless he comes out and tells us. Secondly, there's a certain amount of "soapbox" talk and venting that builds off of this kind of speculation.

As an example:

I remember reading it in FV's thread and being nearly sickened by it's portrayal of Kawamori. Particularly the whole lack of faith in his own creation bit. It's also funny how it paints him negatively as having a Ranka bias, while there seems no issue in Ohnogi's Sheryl bias. Even Ebata is portrayed as a huge Sheryl fan, so it does seem somewhat propagandist. It's a shame places like Asuki eat this up, but not surprising I suppose. It reminds me why I don't even lurk there any more.

Now, I'm not suggesting that you throw stones at this sort of thing. But you need to keep in mind that these statements rely on the divisions that we set in our minds between "shippers" and "non-shippers", or between "Animesuki" and "Macross World" (or between "Sheryl fans" and "Ranka fans" for that matter - who says that you can't like both?). But the fact of the matter remains that there are plenty of people who post across both forums, and plenty of people who enjoy both the relationship and mecha elements of the series (after all, you need both to really "get" Macross). There's nothing wrong with "shipping" in itself - it just depends on the way in which it's expressed.

Ironically, as MM himself pointed out when the interviews were brought up in the FV thread, the arguments presented by FV - and, by extension, the interviews themselves - sound extremely plausible. So it's not that one "group" of fans was more inclined to buy into the story than another - almost everyone initially took it on faith. But this was an issue that the fanbase could only combat with real information, and that's exactly what you gave us.

As DeX (who posted just a little bit before) could no doubt tell you, AS isn't the scary place that it seems to be at first glance - and he's a fairly staunch Ranka fan. It is scary in other ways, however, as you'll undoubtably find out.

[Gubaba]

(or between "Sheryl fans" and "Ranka fans" for that matter - who says that you can't like both?)

Well, I adore both of them, so you won't hear any objections from me.

But none of that matters now, 'cause...

LOOK WHAT I GOT IN THE MAIL TODAY, BITCHES!!!

This thing's gonna be a bear for me to translate, so if anyone wants to help pitch in, I'll be grateful. (I'm also going to post it up at AnimeSuki.)

But, just in case you don't know Japanese and enjoy playing "Where's Waldo," here's "Ohnogi Hiroshi" in Japanese:

大野木寛

You won't find that name ANYWHERE in here.

Edited June 13, 2009 by Gubaba

[magnuskn]

*sigh*

Off-topic, I know, but I can't let this pass.

Perfectly fine, because I brought this up, because it had been bugging me for a while, didn´t seem worth a separate thread, though and the topic had shifted in a direction where I could say something about it.

I can't speak for other people, but for me personally, I never saw AnimeSuki people as "inferior" to MacrossWorld people. The focus is different. There are a lot of people here who care about the mecha, and little else. There are a lot of people at AS who care about the love triangle, and little else.

Since I didn't even know about AS forums until last fall, I didn't even know there WAS a Ranka/Sheryl shipping war until it spilled out over here.

So the first impression that I got about AS was when JustinStrife, herbert, and Shan all came here taking potshots at each other. Creating a lot of conflict and drama where there was none. JustinStrife especially rubbed me the wrong way, with his accusations that anyone who didn't believe Ranka completely sucked was either on drugs or had no understanding of adult relationships. It was petty, it was childish (and it's against the rules here), and once I found out he was from AS, I went over there to see if his posts were hectoring and insulting over there. To my surprise, it seemed like EVERYONE was being obnoxious about their Sheryl love. There was a tough-guy, bully mentality to the whole thing that really turned me off.

Yeah, some of our guys get a little rough sometimes. Me included. Then again, we got people there who come into a thread and begin calling Sheryl a slurm, without any sort of justification.

And, to be honest, that was my impression of AS until I actually joined, and found everyone to be friendly, thoughtful, and welcoming.

The continual, unceasing Ranka-bashing over there DOES get on my nerves, though (most recently manifested as turning the "Galaxy Memories" drama CD track into a comment about Ranka's fragility and Sheryl's strength), especially since it's gone as far as people attacking Megumi Nakajima, who has a nice voice, is a good actress, and seems to be a super-sweet person.

As I said, it just seems childish and playground bully-ish to me.

I completely agree that any attack on Megumi is out of line. But I very strongly feel that Ranka as a character is impressively flawed and takes a lot of short-sighted actions, and therefore her characterization suffers very much in comparison to Sheryl, who is portrayed as so much stronger and humane in lots of ways. That´s just a matter of fact at this point. I am still wondering why the creators did build up Ranka and Sheryl in this way, and the "liner notes" seemed to provide ample hints to that. Which made them easier to swallow.

I'm not saying MacrossWorld is flawless (it isn't), or that the majority here don't have their own biases (they do). But that's my own take on the situation. If the Galactic Fairy's Stromtroopers would just tone it down a notch or two, I for one would find AS a nicer place to be overall. As it is, I like the people there, I just don't like some of the things they say.

Well, things have simmered down to a truce over there, because very few new things are happening at the moment. I cannot make promises, I fear to say, because if the film doesn´t balance things a bit ( like DYRL did ), we´ll get another round of "Weak Ranka" vs. "Strong Sheryl". And, I guess, the same kind of arguments we had before.

[mike_s_6]

LOOK WHAT I GOT IN THE MAIL TODAY, BITCHES!!!

Nice one! Are those two scans the only ones in question?