Super Macross Mecha Fun Time Discussion Thread!

[slide]

22 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

It had A "ghetto" part... which, in all fairness, wasn't actually a part of the City-7 or the 37th large-scale long-distance emigrant fleet.

The Akusho district was a separate 300m-long Island-type habitat ship that had attached itself to one of the City-7's docking ports without authorization and was allowed to remain for reasons that are never given.  It wasn't a registered part of the fleet.  Even though its buildings were in disrepair, it's worth noting that all the public utilities still worked (incl. purely cosmetic ones like the holographic sky) and there was no evident crime.  Basara's home might've been an abandoned apartment building that had holes in the walls and at least one floor, but it still had power, light, heat, clean running water, access to the fleet's communications network, and appliances including a stove w/ cooktop, refrigerator, and a positively gargantuan TV.

4 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Most of the time, it almost seems like the Akusho district isn't occupied by anyone other than Basara, Ray, and Veffidas... and maybe the occasional visitor like Rex's biker gang.

 

What skeletons did Ray know the location of [he was Special Forces, wasn't he?] to warrant that kind of pull: to own his own VF-19 [which is armed as pointed out by @pengbuzz and @twich] which he then heavily customized and gifted to Basara [some random insane/natural-born-pilot civilian], have it maintained by NUNS maintenance personnel, and have an unregistered ship glommed-on to a NUNS city-ship [I'm assuming that was Ray's doing, as his band seems to be the only inhabitants, and no other explanation has been offered]...

[Bolt]

It would've been cool if some adventurous person had tagged Basara's VF. While it was posted up.

[Bolt]

21 minutes ago, slide said:

 

What skeletons did Ray know the location of [he was Special Forces, wasn't he?] to warrant that kind of pull: to own his own VF-19 [which is armed as pointed out by @pengbuzz and @twich] which he then heavily customized and gifted to Basara [some random insane/natural-born-pilot civilian], have it maintained by NUNS maintenance personnel, and have an unregistered ship glommed-on to a NUNS city-ship [I'm assuming that was Ray's doing, as his band seems to be the only inhabitants, and no other explanation has been offered]...

Max, respected him, I believe. And , having seen first hand the power of song. Was willing to invest in musical black ops project. IMO.. a

[Seto Kaiba]

21 minutes ago, slide said:

What skeletons did Ray know the location of [he was Special Forces, wasn't he?] to warrant that kind of pull: to own his own VF-19 [which is armed as pointed out by @pengbuzz and @twich] which he then heavily customized and gifted to Basara [some random insane/natural-born-pilot civilian], have it maintained by NUNS maintenance personnel, and have an unregistered ship glommed-on to a NUNS city-ship [I'm assuming that was Ray's doing, as his band seems to be the only inhabitants, and no other explanation has been offered]...

None whatsoever!

Ray Lovelock served in an "elite" fighter squadron, and retired from the New UN Forces because he felt responsible for his friend Stephan's death in battle with the Zentradi c.2030.

Ray didn't orchestrate any of that, BTW.  He was cooperating with a top secret military program called Project M that aimed to develop ways to refine and enhance the Minmay Attack that was headed up by some true blue believers in Minmay's legacy incl. the prodigy (and Mao Nome student) Dr. Gadget M. Chiba.  By luck or good judgement, Ray rolled into City-7 with a damn near ideal test pilot for what Project M was developing.  So Ray was prevailed on to act as Basara's handler and pass the heavily customized VF-19 that had been built for the project to him.

[Master Dex]

The show tends to gloss over how it all happened, but you do see Ray give reports to Max at times about Basara's efforts. Basara himself is barely aware of this and really.. doesn't even care as long as he gets to fly and sing to random attackers, lol.

Fact is, if he didn't have Max's support... Basara would not be able to do any of that, even if he did have his own VF. Max could put a stop to it. The fact Max doesn't read anyone else into it including his own special forces units like Diamond Force.. is a bit hard to explain though.

[pengbuzz]

1 hour ago, Master Dex said:

The show tends to gloss over how it all happened, but you do see Ray give reports to Max at times about Basara's efforts. Basara himself is barely aware of this and really.. doesn't even care as long as he gets to fly and sing to random attackers, lol.

Fact is, if he didn't have Max's support... Basara would not be able to do any of that, even if he did have his own VF. Max could put a stop to it. The fact Max doesn't read anyone else into it including his own special forces units like Diamond Force.. is a bit hard to explain though.

I think I may understand why...

The more the military is involved in a project, the more rules and regulations come into play, along with orders, discipline and the like. Creativity, on the other hand, generally needs the freedom to imagine, dream and live in order to create. In order to use the VF-19 Kai to its' fullest potential, a creative must pilot it, and have the freedom to do so without being bound up by endless rules, regulations, etc. One scene I recall showed the upper brass trying to "tell" Basara that he had to sing from a list of songs they picked (and of course, Basara warmed up to that idea like tungsten to a candle).

I'm not sure how much Max would have known about musicians specifically (Emilla, one of his eldest daughters, loved to sing as evidenced by Macros 7: The Galaxy Is Calling Me, and of course there is Mylene); but I think he would have picked up on at least some of that. Also, with Dr. Chiba's input, they probably made the determination to keep the project on the "qt", as having too many people involved means a lot of folks trying to insert their input.

Anyways, just my 2 cents. Seto Kaiba probably has a better explanation for it.

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, Master Dex said:

The show tends to gloss over how it all happened, but you do see Ray give reports to Max at times about Basara's efforts. Basara himself is barely aware of this and really.. doesn't even care as long as he gets to fly and sing to random attackers, lol.

Fact is, if he didn't have Max's support... Basara would not be able to do any of that, even if he did have his own VF. Max could put a stop to it.

Indeed.  Ironically, the man who is most likely responsible for the development of that VF-19 and its being assigned to Basara is Col. Burton... a man with whom Basara found it quite impossible to be civil, never mind professional.

That alone probably makes it rather advantageous that Basara never seemed to question where Ray had come by the New UN Forces' latest top class variable fighter.  Either he didn't care enough to question, or knew he wouldn't like the answer and decided ignorance was bliss.  That he was shocked and upset when the New UN Forces came to collect it to handle repairs and maintenance suggests the former, IMO.  Basara was used not just to evaluate the soundness of the theories and experimental technologies advanced by Dr. Chiba, but to test the fitness of the VF-19 itself prior to the military's official testing.

Basara's VF-19 was, as obviously implausible as it sounds, treated as a civilian aircraft until the public announcement of Sound Force's formation.  Only some real military clout could make an obviously bogus assignment like that stick.

 

1 hour ago, Master Dex said:

The fact Max doesn't read anyone else into it including his own special forces units like Diamond Force.. is a bit hard to explain though.

"Need to know" can be a funny thing... and given how unusual the thinking behind the Fire Valkyrie and the various technologies that'd been developed for Project M were, keeping it as secret as possible would've been one way of protecting the unconventional program from being scrutinized in detail until it could provide some results.

[deathzealot]

1 hour ago, pengbuzz said:

I think I may understand why...

The more the military is involved in a project, the more rules and regulations come into play, along with orders, discipline and the like. Creativity, on the other hand, generally needs the freedom to imagine, dream and live in order to create. In order to use the VF-19 Kai to its' fullest potential, a creative must pilot it, and have the freedom to do so without being bound up by endless rules, regulations, etc. One scene I recall showed the upper brass trying to "tell" Basara that he had to sing from a list of songs they picked (and of course, Basara warmed up to that idea like tungsten to a candle).

I'm not sure how much Max would have known about musicians specifically (Emilla, one of his eldest daughters, loved to sing as evidenced by Macros 7: The Galaxy Is Calling Me, and of course there is Mylene); but I think he would have picked up on at least some of that. Also, with Dr. Chiba's input, they probably made the determination to keep the project on the "qt", as having too many people involved means a lot of folks trying to insert their input.

Anyways, just my 2 cents. Seto Kaiba probably has a better explanation for it.

As an add to this, just look what happened to the Jamming Bird later on in the series and how they failed.

[pengbuzz]

Just now, deathzealot said:

As an add to this, just look what happened to the Jamming Bird later on in the series and how they failed.

That was something else I was thinking... Col. Barton was drilling them hard and it didn't pan out very well.

[JB0]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

That he was shocked and upset when the New UN Forces came to collect it to handle repairs and maintenance suggests the former, IMO. 

Been a while, but I thought that was at least half "Where the heck are they going with MY plane?" like he thought it was getting space-repo'ed and had no idea that variable fighters need regular inspection and maintenance.

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, pengbuzz said:

That was something else I was thinking... Col. Barton was drilling them hard and it didn't pan out very well.

If you step back and think about it, it's really easy to feel bad for Col. Burton.  All he really expected from Basara - a man who purports to be a professional musician - was for him to behave professionally.  To treat the sorties like professional performances.  Follow a set list.  Y'know, the absolute bare minimum expected of any professional musician.  His expectations were so painfully low, and Basara still managed to disappoint.

Fortunately for Basar's career and those of his bandmates, very few people are actually exposed to him and that isolation prevented his personality from impeding his fame.

Poor Col. Burton was left high and dry and had to try and find someone who could do the same job without behaving like a prat... but didn't really account for the way civilians are a little bit afraid of getting shot at.

 

30 minutes ago, JB0 said:

Been a while, but I thought that was at least half "Where the heck are they going with MY plane?" like he thought it was getting space-repo'ed and had no idea that variable fighters need regular inspection and maintenance.

As bad as Basara is with anything resembling a social cue and with his very narrow, highly specific interests, I really think that boy was living with undiagnosed autism.

[pengbuzz]

6 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

If you step back and think about it, it's really easy to feel bad for Col. Burton.  All he really expected from Basara - a man who purports to be a professional musician - was for him to behave professionally.  To treat the sorties like professional performances.  Follow a set list.  Y'know, the absolute bare minimum expected of any professional musician.  His expectations were so painfully low, and Basara still managed to disappoint.

Fortunately for Basar's career and those of his bandmates, very few people are actually exposed to him and that isolation prevented his personality from impeding his fame.

Poor Col. Burton was left high and dry and had to try and find someone who could do the same job without behaving like a prat... but didn't really account for the way civilians are a little bit afraid of getting shot at.

  Does it count that Basara was a professional pain in the a$$?

6 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

As bad as Basara is with anything resembling a social cue and with his very narrow, highly specific interests, I really think that boy was living with undiagnosed autism.

Hmm...that would explain a bit about him.

[sketchley]

13 hours ago, slide said:

 

What skeletons did Ray know the location of [he was Special Forces, wasn't he?] to warrant that kind of pull (...)?

I'm glad Seto (eventually) mentioned this:

8 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Basara was used (...) to test the fitness of the VF-19 itself prior to the military's official testing.

If memory serves, the UNS maintenance crews also retrieved the VF-19's flight performance data during their maintenance, and that data was fed into the development, refinement, and deployment of Emerald Force's VF-19.*

So, one reason why the military so easily turned a blind eye is because they were letting a civilian take all the risks while they got valuable flight performance data, in addition to  Max's Project M experiment.

 

*As the Variable Fighter Master File books also argue that the VF-19 is equipped with a new type of control AI.  If one accepts that in their personal head canon, then it's logical that the 'training' Basara gave the AI in his '19 was put into Emerald Force's '19's, giving them a massive leg up in performance.

Edited December 8, 2020 by sketchley

[Lexomatic]

8 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

As bad as Basara is with anything resembling a social cue and with his very narrow, highly specific interests, I really think that boy was living with undiagnosed autism.

Apart from Basara's suboptimal childhood (what little we know of it), maybe child psychologists don't exist, period? Given the whole cultural bottleneck of "one million human survivors of the Rain of Death, most of them on off-planet installations," I'd expect that many specialist jobs haven't been reinvented, especially if they rely on skills learned by an unbroken chain of apprenticeship rather than from books. (In that vein, I'm still wondering how Alto Saotome's lineage of kabuki performers was lucky enough to survive, or enough of an Arab-ethnic population to establish a place like Al Shahal in Delta.)

The non-diegetic explanation is that (a) anime rarely does psychological subtlety and (b) Japan has lousy child mental health services (citation), so the writers might not even think in that direction.

[Seto Kaiba]

8 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

  Does it count that Basara was a professional pain in the a$$?

Unless he was drawing a paycheck for it, he was only an exceptionally talented amateur pain in the arse.

 

8 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

Hmm...that would explain a bit about him.

It really would... especially why he has such trouble in his interactions with others.

(Esp. why he has such trouble with his bandmates, even though they share his interest in music.

 

 

2 hours ago, sketchley said:

I'm glad Seto (eventually) mentioned this:

If memory serves, the UNS maintenance crews also retrieved the VF-19's flight performance data during their maintenance, and that data was fed into the development, refinement, and deployment of Emerald Force's VF-19.*

[...]

*As the Variable Fighter Master File books also argue that the VF-19 is equipped with a new type of control AI.  If one accepts that in their personal head canon, then it's logical that the 'training' Basara gave the AI in his '19 was put into Emerald Force's '19's, giving them a massive leg up in performance.

I don't recall that being mentioned directly in the episode, but it would make sense.

That the VF-19 had a next-gen airframe control AI is part of the official setting these days.  That kind of detail was originally confined to the tech manuals, but Macross R brought it into the official setting and Macross Delta official materials have also made repeated reference to it.

So if they really were pulling the data from the ARIEL airframe control AI in Basara's VF-19, it's a safe bet it'd be used to make refinements to the military spec VF-19s that the 37th fleet was building for Emerald Force.

(I'm rather glad they brought this stuff into the official setting, the references are so far outside the norm that it's quite fun.  Like the original generation airframe control AI ANGIRAS used on the first three generations of VFs being named for a vedic sage known as a mediator between man and the gods and who is said to have originated the fourth veda's hostile sorcery and pursuit of harm unto others.  Or the next-gen replacement ARIEL being named for Prospero's servant, the spirit of air and fire from Shakespeare's The Tempest.

 

2 hours ago, sketchley said:

[...]

So, one reason why the military so easily turned a blind eye is because they were letting a civilian take all the risks while they got valuable flight performance data, in addition to  Max's Project M experiment.

[...]

Given that Basara is a volunteer on a top secret military project, one has to wonder if they even consider him to be a civilian since they basically form a unit of irregulars around him later in the show.

 

 

18 minutes ago, Lexomatic said:

Apart from Basara's suboptimal childhood (what little we know of it), maybe child psychologists don't exist, period? Given the whole cultural bottleneck of "one million human survivors of the Rain of Death, most of them on off-planet installations," I'd expect that many specialist jobs haven't been reinvented, especially if they rely on skills learned by an unbroken chain of apprenticeship rather than from books. (In that vein, I'm still wondering how Alto Saotome's lineage of kabuki performers was lucky enough to survive, or enough of an Arab-ethnic population to establish a place like Al Shahal in Delta.)

The non-diegetic explanation is that (a) anime rarely does psychological subtlety and (b) Japan has lousy child mental health services (citation), so the writers might not even think in that direction.

They seem to have pretty excellent healthcare overall c.2040... it'd be rather shocking if there were no psychologists.  

(It'd also be the kind of thing you'd probably want to send with your first-generation space colonists as they adjust to life on the colonies on the moon or the O'Neill cylinders that were built at the lagrange points before the First Space War.  Gonna have a LOT of folks coming down with something approximating cabin fever.

It wouldn't be too surprising that a fair number of Arabic people would have survived given that there are several Arab nations in northern Africa and Africa was one of the sites of Grand Cannon construction.  It'd be only to be expected for them to have had a number of those well-established Arabic construction companies from that region involved in the Grand Cannon project, as well as UN Forces drawn from those nations crewing it.  It'd be harder to explain the Saotome family, but not by much... all that it'd have to take would be for a Saotome to be on the Macross after moving to South Ataria.

[pengbuzz]

6 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Unless he was drawing a paycheck for it, he was only an exceptionally talented amateur pain in the arse.

For all we know, he was being paid by the project.

[sketchley]

6 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

I don't recall that being mentioned directly in the episode, but it would make sense.

It wasn't in the show per se, but was either directly stated or alluded to in more than one after-the-fact publication like Macross Chronicle.

I couldn't tell you exactly where to look, but the spidey-sense is telling me it's more likely to be found in the write-ups for Emerald Force's VF-19's, than Basara's Fire Valkyrie.

 

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, sketchley said:

It wasn't in the show per se, but was either directly stated or alluded to in more than one after-the-fact publication like Macross Chronicle.

I couldn't tell you exactly where to look, but the spidey-sense is telling me it's more likely to be found in the write-ups for Emerald Force's VF-19's, than Basara's Fire Valkyrie.

The Macross 7 TV series just seemed like the first logical place to look... both Ep10, where Basara's VF-19 is brought in for servicing by the New UN Forces, and Ep20 when the actual military spec VF-19 makes its in-series debut.  No dice in either episode.

I've checked the usual suspects - This is Animation, Macross Chronicle, etc. - and come up dry, so this may be one from one of the more technical books like Master File.

(It'd make sense if it were Master File, since that asserted the VF-19改 was a lightly modified VF-19E... the variant the VF-19F/S type was derived from.  In the official setting, it's the other way around, with Basara's VF-19改 being a modified trial production VF-19F.)

[Seto Kaiba]

Because it popped on one of my Facebook groups, and because nobody's going to stop me, I just thought I'd share this neat photo of the VF-1 Riders custom model of Naresuan's VBP-1/VA-110 Neo Glaug bis from Macross R:

[Bolt]

That's awesome. Love the scale and finish. Thanks for that!

[Seto Kaiba]

So... since my fellow mecha enthusiasts may or may not be on the fence about ordering Shoji Kawamori Designer's Note, here's a review in brief.

Designer's Note is 624 pages, printed on non-glossy ISO standard size A4 paper.  The print quality is quite high.  Most unusually for a Macross publication, most of its text is printed in three languages: Japanese, English, and... Zentradi.  (The Zentradi sections are just a symbol substitution for English though, so it reads exactly the same.)

Its contents, excluding the foreword, are divided into thirteen sections:

1. Super Dimension Fortress Macross (TV)
   Pages 003-186
   Lots of rough sketches of the VF-1, various Destroids, and various background designs.  Nothing unexpected, except passing mention of a Zentradi variable battle suit that apparently never made it past rough sketches.
    
2. Super Dimension Fortress Macross: Do You Remember Love?
   Pages 187-210
   Mostly rough storyboard sketches of different iconic scenes from the movie.  Nothing unexpected.
    
3. Super Dimension Fortress Macross (PC Game) - the FamilySoft trilogy of Remember Me, Skull Leader, and Love Stories.
   Pages 211-256
   Mostly draft sketches and some finished art for the SDP-1 Stampede Valkyrie, VF-X3 Medusa/Star Crusader, and an unused Prototype VF that has a lot of design in common with the VF-5000.
    
4. Super Dimension Fortress Macross: Scramble Valkyrie (game)
   Pages 257-283
   Just the VF-1SOL-S Scramble Valkyrie.
    
5. Macross Plus
   Pages 284-420 (lol)
   Nothing unexpected, mainly just larger, high-quality reprints of art from previous books.
    
6. Macross 7
   Pages 421-496
   Nothing unexpected.
    
7. Macross Digital Mission VF-X & Macross VF-X2
   Pages 497-512
   Nothing unexpected, mostly sketches.
    
8. VF Experimental Program (from Character Model magazine)
   Pages 513-522
   Covers the SW-XAI Schneeblume and SW-XAII Schneegans.  Noteworthy for decent, high quality prints of art previously only available as grainy low-quality magazine prints.  Also noteworthy for a remark at the very end of that section taken from a fax between Kawamori and the magazine staff that 1. affirms Kawamori's stance that he regards each Macross story as a parallel world and 2. indicates that the Stealth Wing X program can be considered to be official setting material!
    
9. Macross Zero
   Pages 523-540
   Nothing unexpected, almost exclusively drafts of the VF-0 and SV-51 incl. some internal stuff by Junya Ishigaki.
    
10. Macross Frontier (TV)
    Pages 541-573
    Mostly sketches and drafts showing the development of the VF-25 and VF-27.  A few noteworthy pieces of art showing how Kawamori's LEGO models were transitioned into workable line art.
    There are two particularly noteworthy details on page 561 in this section.  One is a bit of detail guidance for the CG model builders that shows how Ozma's Lancia Delta HF Integrale converts to be driven on a Milky Road system.  The other is an error.
    Specifically, the piece labeled "QF-4000" is something that Kawamori developed for the Spring 2004 issue of Character Model.  In their feature Variable Fighter Experiment Requirements Review, he designed a new weapon for the VF-0 which was part Ghost part cruise missile. (See below)
     
11. Macross Frontier (Movies)
    Pages 574-581
    Some good detail art of the YF-29 FAST Pack, but otherwise nothing unexpected.
     
12. Macross 30: Voices Across the Galaxy
    Pages 582-592
    Has some good shots of the untextured CG model for the YF-30.  The last page is the marker sketches of the VF-31 heads for some reason.
     
13. Macross Delta
    Pages 593-622
    Somewhat surprisingly, apart from the VF-31 head sketches this section is mostly about the Sv-262 and Lilldraken.

 

All in all, a nice book to have if you're interested in seeing the evolution of Kawamori's mechanical designs from rough sketch to finished product (or LEGO, in recent years).  Not a reference book, except maybe as art reference.  High quality enough to be worth the price anyway, IMO.

 

 

Now... WRT the misidentified design on page 561.  This is the design in question:

 

These are from page 48 of the Spring 2004 issue of Character Model.  This was an original design Kawamori did for the magazine's article Variable Fighter Experiment Requirements Review, which talked about comparing the SV-51 and VF-0 against each other prior to the outbreak of the First Space War.  

This thing, from what little description is given, is a standoff weapon that's basically the lovechild of an early Ghost (c.QF-2200) and a cruise missile.  It's carried into battle as, essentially, a parasite aircraft that the VF-0 launches and then it will deploy wings and fly on its own and maneuver to engage targets with internally-carried micro-missiles.  You can see on the image on the right that it's mounted to the same pylon the VF-0's raid specification used for dorsally-mounted orange micro-missile/fuel pods.

[TMBounty_Hunter]

Does clean lineart of designs from Frontier and onward actually exist? Or did they go straight form design sketches to 3DCG models? I've been trying to find some clean drawings of the YF-29 but the cleanest things I found is 3DCG renders of Bandai's 1/100 models.

[Seto Kaiba]

6 hours ago, TMBounty_Hunter said:

Does clean lineart of designs from Frontier and onward actually exist? Or did they go straight form design sketches to 3DCG models? I've been trying to find some clean drawings of the YF-29 but the cleanest things I found is 3DCG renders of Bandai's 1/100 models.

Based on available materials, it looks like for at least the Frontier Valkyries he did do clean or almost-clean final art at a low level of surface detail as shape reference for the CG modelers and then did various focus pieces to show how he wanted key areas to be detailed and textured.  There is some good, clean line art of the VF-25 and especially its Super Packs.  Not s'much for the VF-27 and none that I've seen for the YF-29.  The published YF-29 drawings are almost entirely Kawamori penciling in different wings and rear fuselages over the front half of a VF-25.  In the case of the YF-29 and later, it looks like they got the basic design solidified in 3D and then went back and marked up printouts of the 3D models to determine how they wanted to do surface detail.

[TMBounty_Hunter]

Aww, I guess the days of clean lineart are gone, unless they choose to output 3D models are projections.

Thanks for the info and book review!

[sketchley]

5 minutes ago, TMBounty_Hunter said:

Aww, I guess the days of clean lineart are gone, unless they choose to output 3D models are projections.

Thanks for the info and book review!

I think you mean "finished" lineart.  Stuff at rougher stages exists, but it seems that Kawamori-san is skipping the finalized lineart stage, and doing the final refining and finishing directly to the CG model mesh and it's skin.

The exception appears to be the throwaway mecha that don't warrant the labour costs to make into CG.  E.g.: the Sv-154 Svard

[TMBounty_Hunter]

Yeah, that's what I mean. Basically something that only needs 1bit color depth to print instead of the greyscale needed for sketches.

[Seto Kaiba]

 

Since someone asked in the DX Chogokin VF-1 thread, I have posted an explanation of how the VF-1's variable intake ramps work there.

[Gerli]

So... did BigWest Trademark the transformation secuence/Modes from all the Macross Mecha?

This seems important

 

[Seto Kaiba]

1 minute ago, Gerli said:

So... did BigWest Trademark the transformation secuence/Modes from all the Macross Mecha?

Big West appears to have filed for a Class 41 trademark on the VF-1 Valkyrie's transformation in Japan back on 17 January 2020.

I pulled their trademark applications from the Japan Patent Office's search engine, and these two are the only ones of this type they've filed.

 

20 minutes ago, Gerli said:

This seems important

Unless I'm missing something - and it's entirely possible given how sleep deprived I currently am - I don't think so.

Unless they're doing this as a preliminary step towards going after bootleg toys or something.

[Gerli]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Big West appears to have filed for a Class 41 trademark on the VF-1 Valkyrie's transformation in Japan back on 17 January 2020.

I pulled their trademark applications from the Japan Patent Office's search engine, and these two are the only ones of this type they've filed.

 

Unless I'm missing something - and it's entirely possible given how sleep deprived I currently am - I don't think so.

Unless they're doing this as a preliminary step towards going after bootleg toys or something.

Thanks for the extra info.

Even so... trademark the transformation sequence only for take down Bootleg toys... it's seem excessive, maybe it's just one part on a more complex strategy. Anyway... it was a very interesting piece of news, back to the mecha then.   

[pengbuzz]

16 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Big West appears to have filed for a Class 41 trademark on the VF-1 Valkyrie's transformation in Japan back on 17 January 2020.

I pulled their trademark applications from the Japan Patent Office's search engine, and these two are the only ones of this type they've filed.

 

Unless I'm missing something - and it's entirely possible given how sleep deprived I currently am - I don't think so.

Unless they're doing this as a preliminary step towards going after bootleg toys or something.

Is it possible they may also be trying to keep anyone else from using the VF-1 design aside from bootleggers? I recall something about not showing the VF-1 design in the recent comics (unless I miss my mark).

[Seto Kaiba]

Just now, pengbuzz said:

Is it possible they may also be trying to keep anyone else from using the VF-1 design aside from bootleggers? I recall something about not showing the VF-1 design in the recent comics (unless I miss my mark).

The trademark filing in the tweets @Gerli found are for the Japanese domestic market, filed with the Japan Patent Office.¹

Trademarks are generally only (fully) enforceable in the jurisdiction (country) where the mark is registered, though there are some treaties that offer a modicum of enforceability for trademarks internationally.  That's why I can't really see a clear rationale behind this filing, unless this is a preliminary step towards filing for trademark registration on the transformation in other jurisdictions where Big West is now actively exercising its rights as the owner of Macross like the PRC, EU, and UK.

When you refer to "the recent comics", I'm assuming you mean Titan Comics' adaptation of Robotech?  I doubt this is related.

Harmony Gold's existing license gives it the ability to use the VF-1 Valkyrie (TV) design in merchandise incl. comic books.  Using that plagiarized fan art that Titan Comics presented as their own original take on Shoji Kawamori's VF-1 in the comic was, as far as we can tell, a deliberate (and terrible) artistic choice not motivated by any kind of legal restrictions.  Robotech fans (and every living creature with eyes) hated it, so they switched to tracing the Shoji Kawamori VF-1 Valkyrie design from photos of toys and from artbooks without any explanation or acknowledgement of the craft's sudden and dramatic change of appearance.

 

1. Which, despite the name, is actually responsible for patents, trademarks, utility models, and designs.  Copyrights are policed by a separate body, the Agency for Cultural Affairs.

[pengbuzz]

52 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

The trademark filing in the tweets @Gerli found are for the Japanese domestic market, filed with the Japan Patent Office.¹

Trademarks are generally only (fully) enforceable in the jurisdiction (country) where the mark is registered, though there are some treaties that offer a modicum of enforceability for trademarks internationally.  That's why I can't really see a clear rationale behind this filing, unless this is a preliminary step towards filing for trademark registration on the transformation in other jurisdictions where Big West is now actively exercising its rights as the owner of Macross like the PRC, EU, and UK.

When you refer to "the recent comics", I'm assuming you mean Titan Comics' adaptation of Robotech?  I doubt this is related.

Harmony Gold's existing license gives it the ability to use the VF-1 Valkyrie (TV) design in merchandise incl. comic books.  Using that plagiarized fan art that Titan Comics presented as their own original take on Shoji Kawamori's VF-1 in the comic was, as far as we can tell, a deliberate (and terrible) artistic choice not motivated by any kind of legal restrictions.  Robotech fans (and every living creature with eyes) hated it, so they switched to tracing the Shoji Kawamori VF-1 Valkyrie design from photos of toys and from artbooks without any explanation or acknowledgement of the craft's sudden and dramatic change of appearance.

 

1. Which, despite the name, is actually responsible for patents, trademarks, utility models, and designs.  Copyrights are policed by a separate body, the Agency for Cultural Affairs.

Thanks for clarifying that, Seto; yeah, it was the Titan comics version. I wasn't sure and I didn't want to just assume.

Edited December 15, 2020 by pengbuzz

[Seto Kaiba]

On 12/15/2020 at 2:48 PM, pengbuzz said:

Thanks for clarifying that, Seto; yeah, it was the Titan comics version. I wasn't sure and I didn't want to just assume.

Yeah, AFAIK the only legal issue that ever came of that was inconsistently reported.

The author of the fanart that they "appropriated" as their original take on the VF-1 made several contradictory claims regarding Titan Comics' use of his art... that they had either straight-up plagiarized his design, or that they had asked if they could use it and not told him it was for commercial purposes.  He claimed, on at least one occasion, that they had resolved the matter by cutting him a check.

[Knight26]

On 12/14/2020 at 6:45 PM, Gerli said:

So... did BigWest Trademark the transformation secuence/Modes from all the Macross Mecha?

This seems important

 

Looks like the Yamato/Bandai style toy transformation (hip bar) not the animation transformation, with the hydraulics and sliding plates.