New Macross TV Series in 20xx (sometime this decade)

[Podtastic]

On ‎2017‎/‎07‎/‎21 at 6:28 PM, kajnrig said:

In my case, like I said before, I would be totally fine with sexuality outside of contextually-appropriate situations if it were more equitable, but that it's centered so much on the girls and made so much for and by men is... off-putting, but also just kind of boring. I remember watching almost all the high school portions and the sexual comedy with eyes glazed over. It's all recycled from stuff I saw in Ranma 1/2 twenty years ago, and that's probably the only show that's ever managed to make that specific type of humor funny.

I refuse to understand that first sentence, the concepts it contains are too alien for me.

[kajnrig]

Put another way, make the camera leer at the boys as much as it leers at the girls. If you can't understand that, then that's on you. /shrug

[ZOR prime]

Just now, kajnrig said:

Put another way, make t he camera leer at the boys as much as it leers at the girls. If you can't understand that, then that's on you. /shrug

Well their culture they worship a certain body part in Japan. Something to do with fertility,not a put down on them, they've been that way for centuries. Just normal for them. Check it out on you tube 

[Seto Kaiba]

42 minutes ago, kajnrig said:

Put another way, make the camera leer at the boys as much as it leers at the girls. If you can't understand that, then that's on you. /shrug

... thought Delta was pretty fair on that score, personally.  The Aerial Knights were a card-carrying Prettyboy Platoon, and they hit an awful lot of the standard reverse-harem tropes.  If they had a short kid, they'd almost be the cast of Ouran High School Host Club IN SPACE.  You had the Prince (Keith), the glasses-wearing cold man (Roid), the stoic (Qasim), the twins-who-do-everything-together (Theo and Xao), and the naive rookie (Bogue).  Technically I guess they DO have the shota-type in Heinz, so it is the full range if you don't count Hermann.

Sure, they're not a walking shirtless scene, but Keith and Roid's interactions were definitely leaning towards "more than just a warm friendship" when they weren't being adversarial.  That's fanservice of a kind, right?

[Master Dex]

4 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

... thought Delta was pretty fair on that score, personally.  The Aerial Knights were a card-carrying Prettyboy Platoon, and they hit an awful lot of the standard reverse-harem tropes.  If they had a short kid, they'd almost be the cast of Ouran High School Host Club IN SPACE.  You had the Prince (Keith), the glasses-wearing cold man (Roid), the stoic (Qasim), the twins-who-do-everything-together (Theo and Xao), and the naive rookie (Bogue).  Technically I guess they DO have the shota-type in Heinz, so it is the full range if you don't count Hermann.

Sure, they're not a walking shirtless scene, but Keith and Roid's interactions were definitely leaning towards "more than just a warm friendship" when they weren't being adversarial.  That's fanservice of a kind, right?

Man, their runes touched and everything.. it was like.. Alien Yaoi, lol.

That comparison to Ouran though... it's so spot on.... I can't unseen it.

[kajnrig]

2 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

... thought Delta was pretty fair on that score, personally.  The Aerial Knights were a card-carrying Prettyboy Platoon, and they hit an awful lot of the standard reverse-harem tropes.  If they had a short kid, they'd almost be the cast of Ouran High School Host Club IN SPACE.  You had the Prince (Keith), the glasses-wearing cold man (Roid), the stoic (Qasim), the twins-who-do-everything-together (Theo and Xao), and the naive rookie (Bogue).  Technically I guess they DO have the shota-type in Heinz, so it is the full range if you don't count Hermann.

Sure, they're not a walking shirtless scene, but Keith and Roid's interactions were definitely leaning towards "more than just a warm friendship" when they weren't being adversarial.  That's fanservice of a kind, right?

I agree. Delta does dole out fanservice more evenhandedly than even Frontier, which itself was already above average in terms of catering to its female audience. I said earlier that one thing (of the few things) I liked about Delta was that the members of Walkure aren't often sexualized aside from when they're performing sexy for their job. And as you and Master Dex point out, the pretty boy ratio is rather high, and... yeah, that Roid/Keith stuff. I'm sure SOMEBODY must be shipping some sort of tsundere love there.

[Podtastic]

8 hours ago, kajnrig said:

Put another way, make the camera leer at the boys as much as it leers at the girls. If you can't understand that, then that's on you. /shrug

Ok, short version.

Hell no.

 

 

.

[kajnrig]

6 minutes ago, Podtastic said:

Ok, short version.

Hell no.

Why not? The franchise is already closer to that than it originally was.

Edited July 25, 2017 by kajnrig

[Mommar]

15 hours ago, kajnrig said:

Put another way, make the camera leer at the boys as much as it leers at the girls. If you can't understand that, then that's on you. /shrug

Why are you so concerned my this?

[Seto Kaiba]

10 hours ago, Master Dex said:

Man, their runes touched and everything.. it was like.. Alien Yaoi, lol.

Oh, I'm sure the fangirls and the doujinshi artists were meant to get a very specific idea about their relationship...

 

10 hours ago, Master Dex said:

That comparison to Ouran though... it's so spot on.... I can't unseen it.

... I kind of want another Macross Delta gaiden manga now, with this as its premise.  I can see it now: Darwent Commandery Host Club.  

Still, how does Hermann fit into the picture?  Is he Kasanoda?  Renge?  ... Ranka?  (I don't think he has the legs for that).  Keith's already Well Done, Son guy so his dad Grammier's obviously Yuzuru.

 

7 hours ago, kajnrig said:

I agree. Delta does dole out fanservice more evenhandedly than even Frontier, which itself was already above average in terms of catering to its female audience. I said earlier that one thing (of the few things) I liked about Delta was that the members of Walkure aren't often sexualized aside from when they're performing sexy for their job. And as you and Master Dex point out, the pretty boy ratio is rather high, and... yeah, that Roid/Keith stuff. I'm sure SOMEBODY must be shipping some sort of tsundere love there.

Frontier went the extra mile too... admittedly more for the fujoshi than anyone else, given that the main character was not only downright traptastic to the point that the SMS Macross Quarter's main bridge crew express some dismay that he's prettier than they are, the movies found time to work a fetish outfit into his repertoire during Sheryl's jailbreak.  (At least one version of Alto and Michel's shared backstory and origin of the "princess" nickname is pure ho yay, with Michel meeting an in-costume Alto in Mihoshi Academy's performing arts department and believing him to be an actual and very attractive woman, with the predictable result.)

'course, the Frontier manga and novelization turns the for-girls (well, for fujoshi) fanservice up to 12 and breaks the freaking knob off with Alto being more than slightly too into the girl's role.  (I could have lived quite happily without an adaptation that made it clear on no uncertain terms that Alto is an Uke.)

 

6 hours ago, Podtastic said:

Ok, short version.

Hell no.

 

Hey, it's a show set in the arbitrary spacefuture... what's wrong with a little Equal Opportunity Ogling?  

[kajnrig]

1 hour ago, Mommar said:

Why are you so concerned my this?

I'm not, necessarily. My original opinion was in regards to someone or other talking about how they were put off by the fanservice in Frontier, which I agreed with, adding that aside from being too onesided, it [the sex humor] was also not very funny and downright boring. I would like to see the new series be less onesidedly fanservice-y, whether that's by way of cranking down the overall Perverted Camera level or cranking it up for the guy characters as much as it does for the girls.

If I got snippy (which I admit I did), it's because I was responding to Podtastic in particular, who hasn't been engaging in the discussion and instead only been quoting me in order to be dismissive. I was ready to move on, as the rest of the thread seemed to be, but well, they apparently wanted to keep talking about it.

51 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

'course, the Frontier manga and novelization turns the for-girls (well, for fujoshi) fanservice up to 12 and breaks the freaking knob off with Alto being more than slightly too into the girl's role.  (I could have lived quite happily without an adaptation that made it clear on no uncertain terms that Alto is an Uke.)

The one thing I remember hearing about the manga (well, one of them, at any rate) is that Ranka really REALLY loves Brera...

Edited July 25, 2017 by kajnrig

[Mazinger]

15 hours ago, kajnrig said:

I agree. Delta does dole out fanservice more evenhandedly than even Frontier, which itself was already above average in terms of catering to its female audience. 

Curious, do females watch Anime for fan service?

I suspect not, but not being one myself, and not being Japanese or grown up there, I can't be sure.

I'm not sure women get aroused by cartoons as much as men might, so I don't think that including shirtless boys will help gain a bigger female viewing audience.

That might help with another portion of the audience with is attracted to young males, however, but I digress.

In any case, as for me, I'd rather skip the fan service, and get on with fully clothed character building.

[Zx31]

Women are no different than men dispite our cultural insistance to the contrary.

[jenius]

I can think of a few differences. 

[Vifam7]

Ofcourse women watch anime for fanservice.  Just look up the word yaoi.

 

 

[Zx31]

3 hours ago, jenius said:

I can think of a few differences. 

They do have much better hair, this is true.

[anime52k8]

3 hours ago, Vifam7 said:

Ofcourse women watch anime for fanservice.  Just look up the word yaoi.

 

 

I support a Yaoi love triangle in the next series. More cute yuri couples too please.

[Podtastic]

22 hours ago, kajnrig said:

Why not? The franchise is already closer to that than it originally was.

Why are you going on about this?

I've simply stated that I don't like or want that.

[kajnrig]

55 minutes ago, Podtastic said:

Why are you going on about this?

I've simply stated that I don't like or want that.

I was done with it, but you kept bringing it back up. Like, insistently responding directly to me. And this being a discussion thread, I assumed that meant you wanted to keep discussing it. But that ship's sailed. There's not much more I could or would say on the matter, anyway. I'm done if you are. Cheers, mate.

[Lorindor]

2 hours ago, anime52k8 said:

I support a Yaoi love triangle in the next series. More cute yuri couples too please.

Yes, please. Though a more believable and respectful depiction of LGBTQ characters than in most anime would be nice.

Edited July 26, 2017 by Lorindor

[Seto Kaiba]

23 hours ago, kajnrig said:

The one thing I remember hearing about the manga (well, one of them, at any rate) is that Ranka really REALLY loves Brera...

Not sure if she's got a brother complex or if she's just really, REALLY into androgynous guys... she did go for Alto after all.

 

16 hours ago, Mazinger said:

Curious, do females watch Anime for fan service?

"Females"?  What are we, Ferengi?  (I mean, yeah I do work with FCA... but not that FCA.)

Of the women I know well who count anime and/or manga among their hobbies, most of them are perfectly fine with a little fanservice now and then.  I'd doubt most of them would actively seek out a given title specifically for fanservice as some of my guy friends are occasionally wont to do, but I do know a few who would (and do).

 

Quote

I'm not sure women get aroused by cartoons as much as men might, so I don't think that including shirtless boys will help gain a bigger female viewing audience.

... dare to dream.  Many are the titles that cater to an audience of women and teenage girls with precisely that manner of fanservice.  The aforementioned Ouran High School Host Club has quite a number of shirtless scenes for the benefit of the ladies in the audience, though admittedly the cast itself amounts to a fanservice dispensary in-series (being, well, a kid-friendly version of a host club) and hits a fair number of other for-ladies fanservice tropes being a reverse harem comedy that turns into a romance story.

 

7 hours ago, Lorindor said:

Yes, please. Though a more believable and respectful depiction of LGBTQ characters than in most anime would be nice.

It'd be nice... though since anime tends to play things either up or down for laughs most of the time, I wouldn't hold my breath.  I'm still waiting to see if the new Star Trek will back down from what will be its third attempt to have an openly gay character via Star Trek: Discovery.

(Just defining what constitutes "respectful" would be a real trick.  I mean, on the one hand there's screaming caricatures like Emporio Ivankov from One Piece who is a transvestite based on Frank N. Furter from Rocky Horror but is treated as a respected national leader and leader in a revolutionary army fighting an oppressive world government.  On the other, there's your Bobby Margots and your Gaurons, who are generally respected characters in-series and nobody gives them crap for their orientation, but their orientation itself is sometimes the source of humor or horror... e.g. Bobby's camp gay side dialog in Frontier, or Gauron's more than slightly creepy interest in young men in Full Metal Panic!.)

Edited July 26, 2017 by Seto Kaiba

[Focslain]

25 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

... dare to dream.  Many are the titles that cater to an audience of women and teenage girls with precisely that manner of fanservice.  The aforementioned Ouran High School Host Club has quite a number of shirtless scenes for the benefit of the ladies in the audience, though admittedly the cast itself amounts to a fanservice dispensary in-series (being, well, a kid-friendly version of a host club) and hits a fair number of other for-ladies fanservice tropes being a reverse harem comedy that turns into a romance story.

Figured Free!! and Yuri on Ice was nothing more then female targeted fan-service series.

On that, it would be interesting to get a Macross boy band for once. Not sure how well it would work out, but doing a gender reversed Delta would be neat.

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, Focslain said:

On that, it would be interesting to get a Macross boy band for once. Not sure how well it would work out, but doing a gender reversed Delta would be neat.

Eh, I dunno... I don't think having a group with multiple singers worked all that well in the Macross Delta series, and I don't think gender-flipping it would really help the underlying problem any.

Macross Delta's cast was HUGE for a Macross series, because each singer needed to have a pilot to protect them, and each pilot had to have an opposite number on the enemy side.  As a result, even leaving most of the Aerial Knights out in the cold left them with so many main characters that there was no choice but to leave most of them undeveloped.  In Walkure, it was so bad that the only one to get properly characterized was Freyja.  Kaname's whole character was built around her being the broken bird, Mikumo was more macguffin than person, and the other two were so irrelevant to the show that their bios on the official website give more than their appearances in the show do.

I think we need to get back to a smaller cast, or double the run length of the show like 7 did.

[kajnrig]

Weren't the Aerial Knights originally supposed to be a boy band, back when this was still a show about competing aerobatics teams?

[Focslain]

@Seto Kaiba - Ok, I'll correct myself a little here. I'd like to see a male singing lead with a mostly female fighting crew and if possible a M/M/F love triangle, minimum needs to be two males fighting for a female, bonus points having a male/female fighting for a male lead.

Also more to a colony/cluster threat than a galaxy spanning one.

[Lorindor]

3 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

(Just defining what constitutes "respectful" would be a real trick.  I mean, on the one hand there's screaming caricatures like Emporio Ivankov from One Piece who is a transvestite based on Frank N. Furter from Rocky Horror but is treated as a respected national leader and leader in a revolutionary army fighting an oppressive world government.  On the other, there's your Bobby Margots and your Gaurons, who are generally respected characters in-series and nobody gives them crap for their orientation, but their orientation itself is sometimes the source of humor or horror... e.g. Bobby's camp gay side dialog in Frontier, or Gauron's more than slightly creepy interest in young men in Full Metal Panic!.)

Without making the debate overly deep with what constitutes as respectful, let's put more emphasis on the word "believable" (and maybe add the criteria "non-stereotypical") to understand what I meant. I think One Piece is the perfect example of what I would consider a very bad depiction of LGBTQ characters. The "crossdressers" are shown to be more like predatory gay men in dresses that are said to secretly want to become women. So it's all sorts of misconceptions and stereotypes of LGBTQ people all mixed into one. Our very own Bobby falls into some (but not all) of these traps, but this is not automatically wrong. However, given how frequent this depiction is in Japanese pop culture, I would still say that his character is problematic. Of course, that predatory lesbian in Dynamite 7 is obviously worse.

The BL genre has its own fair share of problems, though not as extreme I would say. Sure, it's just meant to act as a fantasy for straight women, but it can lead to many misconceptions about how gay men actually are.

So all this that I point out is faults of anime in general. I just hope Macross won't (continue to) be just like any other anime in this regard.

[Seto Kaiba]

2 hours ago, kajnrig said:

Weren't the Aerial Knights originally supposed to be a boy band, back when this was still a show about competing aerobatics teams?

Can't say I recall the boy band part...

 

 

2 hours ago, Focslain said:

@Seto Kaiba - Ok, I'll correct myself a little here. I'd like to see a male singing lead with a mostly female fighting crew and if possible a M/M/F love triangle, minimum needs to be two males fighting for a female, bonus points having a male/female fighting for a male lead.

Also more to a colony/cluster threat than a galaxy spanning one.

We've had some permutations similar to that in the manga and light novels... not quite there, but close.  Like Macross R, where most of the cast (soldiers and civilians alike) is female.  It didn't get what you'd call a love triangle, though, and the only singer was a retired one who was also one of the pilots.  I'd rather enjoy another Macross show like II where we get some asskicking women in uniform instead of just the Token Girl Teammate.

7 did briefly tease a truly triangular love triangle with Basara-Gamlin, shame it turned out to be a gag.  He noticed Gamlin way before he noticed Mylene was a girl.

 

 

43 minutes ago, Lorindor said:

Without making the debate overly deep with what constitutes as respectful, let's put more emphasis on the word "believable" (and maybe add the criteria "non-stereotypical") to understand what I meant. [...]

A tall order, to be sure... most of the film industry is still struggling with that one.  Even the more progressive shows, like Star Trek, have outright bailed on that one multiple times for fear that the writers wouldn't do it justice or it wouldn't sell.

(I guess Ouran High School Host Club hit pretty close to the mark with Ranka/Ryouji, who was an okama and openly bi in a comedy series that somehow managed to treat his orientation completely respectfully, so it CAN be done... it's just really tricky.)

Edited July 26, 2017 by Seto Kaiba

[kajnrig]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Can't say I recall the boy band part...

 

 

I'd rather enjoy another Macross show like II where we get some asskicking women in uniform instead of just the Token Girl Teammate.

Must just have been my imagination, then. Oh well.

Mirage was ALMOST an asskicker, but then...

[Lorindor]

2 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

A tall order, to be sure... most of the film industry is still struggling with that one.  Even the more progressive shows, like Star Trek, have outright bailed on that one multiple times for fear that the writers wouldn't do it justice or it wouldn't sell.

While mentioning live-action scifi shows... I have only seen the first season of Sense8 yet, but I think that they nailed the LGBTQ angle perfectly. But I dunno, maybe the trick to write fully believable about trans women is to let it be written by a trans woman. Heck, maybe just involving one could work. Who knew?  

[Seto Kaiba]

4 hours ago, kajnrig said:

Must just have been my imagination, then. Oh well.

Mirage was ALMOST an asskicker, but then...

Yeah, close only counts in horseshoes and tactical thermonuclear devices... she's the first time a Jenius has failed to deliver on the family's promise of awesomeness.  Darn cute tho, but I'm more interested in having the gals in the cockpit kick ass.

 

3 hours ago, Lorindor said:

While mentioning live-action scifi shows... I have only seen the first season of Sense8 yet, but I think that they nailed the LGBTQ angle perfectly. But I dunno, maybe the trick to write fully believable about trans women is to let it be written by a trans woman. Heck, maybe just involving one could work. Who knew?  

Never heard of it, but then my job keeps me so damned busy it's been several months since I actually turned my living room TV on... 

 

[Lorindor]

4 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Never heard of it, but then my job keeps me so damned busy it's been several months since I actually turned my living room TV on... 

The show's made by the Wachowskis and is on Netflix. 

But now we're way off topic.. 

[Marzan]

On 26/07/2017 at 8:36 AM, Lorindor said:

Yes, please. Though a more believable and respectful depiction of LGBTQ characters than in most anime would be nice.

 I don't think you can expect that from a Macross production. The series in general can be pretty camp as it is and I would expect any LGBTQ characters to behave in predictably stereotypical over the top ways.

On 26/07/2017 at 10:56 PM, kajnrig said:

Must just have been my imagination, then. Oh well.

Mirage was ALMOST an asskicker, but then...

I think that the intention of Kawamori and the writers this time around was precisely not making her an asskicker. Every member of that family we've seen behind the stick has been a natural (even Mylene flew well), and this time around they some emphasis on how Mirage not only isn't anything special, but probably never will be. She's a 'try hard and give it all you've got' kind of character and I think that threw a curveball to most old school fans who expected a Jenus to be a genius.

[Lorindor]

1 hour ago, Marzan said:

 I don't think you can expect that from a Macross production. The series in general can be pretty camp as it is and I would expect any LGBTQ characters to behave in predictably stereotypical over the top ways.

Most likely, yeah. However, Yuri!!! on Ice, one of the biggest anime successes in recent years, is generally regarded as depicting a more realistic same-sex couple without most of the common BL tropes and stereotypes. With a bit of luck, that could be a trend setter. If actual BL content were added to Macross (which isn't completely impossible given the homoerotic undertones we got in Delta), they could go down a similar path. But yeah, those are many ifs.

[kajnrig]

2 hours ago, Marzan said:

I think that the intention of Kawamori and the writers this time around was precisely not making her an asskicker. Every member of that family we've seen behind the stick has been a natural (even Mylene flew well), and this time around they some emphasis on how Mirage not only isn't anything special, but probably never will be. She's a 'try hard and give it all you've got' kind of character and I think that threw a curveball to most old school fans who expected a Jenus to be a genius.

That part I was fine with. I suppose when I wrote "asskicker," I was thinking more generally of a character who wouldn't put up with any crap. I thought she could have grown into a nice mix between Arad and Messer, a kind of no-nonsense, mission-oriented and capable mission leader. The thing at the end of the series with everyone confessing to everyone really just... ugh. She deserved better than what she got.

[Podtastic]

On ‎2017‎/‎07‎/‎21 at 8:22 PM, anime52k8 said:

The mental image I get from reading what some people want and don't want out of this franchise is both hilarious and terrifying. 

After the most recent posts I have to agree. Actually I'm going to go with terrifying - I don't want my Macross turned into a hentai dammit.