Mr March

I'd agree. Expecting a Battlestar Galactica-style atmosphere from the cast in Macross Frontier is completely missing the point Macross is trying to make. Even Macross Plus, arguably the most dour and downbeat installment of the franchise, always made it a point to extol the virtues of optimism and culture rather than labor under conflict-induced depression. If any Macross series should be criticized for glossing over the horrors of battle and ignoring the stresses of war it would be Macross 7. In Macross 7, hundreds of pilots are killed and dozens of ships are destroyed, yet no one bats an eye. When the SMS arrives to rescue the Galaxy fleet in Macross Frontier, the loss of a single escort ship to an attacking Vajra Carrier is felt like an emotional bomb among the entire crew. For a children's show, I think Macross Frontier hit the notes well.

I remember that as well and Birla seems to make the most sense. I used Birla on my website.

I've set my scanner to the most favorable settings possible for magazine scans, but it only reduces moire, it doesn't eliminate it. It's not just the moire problem (though that is the most significant problem), it's everything from shadows and mid tones to color and contrast. The problem is my scanner is too good for the source material; it picks up all the flaws of the printed page so that when an image is scanned into a computer, it is not optimized for display on a monitor like a digital image would be. The colors take the biggest hit (like the orange-ish, cheddar looking yellows on the VF-25S scan compared to the bright, crisp yellows post-photo manipulation). If I scan at high resolutions, all the flaws show up. If I scan at low resolutions to remove moire, it sabotages any digital correction efforts. I've become much better at it than I was, as the images I posted show (thanks Beltane70), but it's a labor intensive process. I'd much rather spend my time building my website than scanning crap.

It's good to hear confirmation at last that some colony fleets develop their own fighters. That means the VF-19 Excalibur could still be in service as a main line variable fighter in other fleets, just not the Macross Frontier fleet. THanks for the work Gubaba

Does it have any black and white drawn line art of any of the mecha? What specifically does the book cover?

Oh gawd, not this argument again. The "mystery-ship-from-the-galaxy-is-a-VF-2SS" debate had us going crazy over at the MAHQ some months ago. So many fans without a clue. What a disaster Yes, the two ships are somewhat similar, but they are not the same. Is it homage? Tongue-in-cheek? Coincidence? BIG coincidence? Moving onward... Nope, that's the only picture of it. Sorry.

There's a tiny screen shot of the tank and a brief blurb (written in Japanese of course) in Issue #11 of the Macross Chronicle. That's the first time I've seen any official mention of it in a Macross book. Even the old Macross Perfect Memory book doesn't have any line art of that UN tank.

Don't be too concerned; I'm not exactly a digital image/photoshop expert, so you may figure stuff out that I haven't. I've seen plenty of digital photo editors slap together stuff in Photoshop that I have no clue how to do, so they must be working much faster and smarter than me But to add a visual companion to my point detailed above, here are some before-and-after pictures of my recent VF-25S scans that I did:

That makes sense, since the VFX-4V1 sounds very VF-1-ish according to the description and the picture looks like nearly all VF-1 parts. If you like, you can use this improved scan of the "possible VFX-4V1" I scanned from Macross Perfect Memory for your site.

Nice catch anime52. I've made the correction and uploaded a new html for the VF-3000 profile to indicate two seats.

No. It's box artwork from the 1/72 scale PLAMO set.

I tried scanning some Macross Chronicle stuff for the members here, but it's just so much damn work. I don't like scanning magazines and colored artwork because it's takes so much damn digital manipulation, during and after the scan, to make the images look any good on a computer screen. Descreen, blur, sharpen, color balance, color replace, shadow and midtones; it's an absolute nightmare. The stupid way books and magazines are printed (with thousands of tiny dots of ink) creates this terrible effect when displayed on a computer monitor. It's actually easier to just get black and white line art and color it yourself (okay, maybe not the highly detailed Macross Frontier stuff, but you know what I mean). And if I just do quick and easy scans without any clean up, the result is the same as the magazine scans we've all been looking at for months, so what's the point? I tried making a wallpaper from one of the two-page fold-out pictures in the Macross Chronicle and it was a disaster. Both pages came out scanned at slightly different color tones and brightness levels. Not only that, but after I tried to get both halves looking like each other, I had to painstakingly clone stamp the two halves of the picture together to make it one image and remove the fold creases. The result looked awful. I guess I'm just not good enough with Photoshop to make it worth my while. It takes too damned long. My plan with the Chronicle is to scan some Frontier mecha images to replace the low resolution magazine pictures or official website jpgs I'm currently using on the M3. But for the most part, that will be it. There's no way I'm scanning the rest of the series. Scanning and cleaning up just one set of colored mecha images from the Chronicle is a lot of work (I just finished the VF-25S and it took forever to get it all correct). Doing the whole Chronicle for proper presentation on a computer screen would be a two year job in and of itself and I've already got a ball and chain called the M3

Whoops, almost missed this fella. You're pretty much dead on, but one could even go a step further into it. In my understanding of the Neon Genesis Evangelion series, it's very much focused upon the main character Shinji and his thoughts and feelings. His experiences as he stumbles into adulthood and the emotional problems he has are represented through the choice of visual style for the show. The excessive lack of animation in Neon Genesis Evangelion, the static nature of the visuals, the unmoving sequences (combined with long contemplative moments) all act as a visual companion to Shinji’s character and his emotional state. Shinji as an individual often fails to act and is emotionally immobile; the visual motif of the series reflects his own inaction and inability to take charge of his own life. Visual styles like that can be seen in other anime as well, but taken in different directions. For example, the main character of Spike is reflected in the animation style of Cowboy Bebop; that fluid, dance-like wave of unpredictable visuals and loud, beat-synchronized animation. Another example is Ghost in the Shell, using those slow, hypnotic sequences of almost imperceptible motion when depicting Motoko. In contrast to Bebop, these visuals in the film accompany the introspective and contemplative parts of Kusanagi and since her character is so key to the plot of the film, the visuals really emphasize these themes through the whole story. Back to NGE, there is one thing about the show that I did not get and it’s funny because it seems relatively inconsequential: the pet penguin. What is the point of Pen Pen? When I attempted to watch the show upon release many years ago, I simply dismissed the character as a cliched comedy relief role. But last year when I watched the complete series, Pen Pen’s role became even more obtuse since he wasn’t funny at all and wasn’t actually portrayed in many overtly funny sequences. Some of them just seemed to be bizarre for the sake of being bizarre. "So eh, yo bird, what up?"

Well, I was excited to see it, but now that I have I'm left quite underwhelmed by the result. The constant switching from 3D character animation to 2D character animation is not working for me. I keep getting pulled out of the moment. Also, some of the scenes are suffering from CG "miniature syndrome", where all the objects feel like watching toy models. Also, the color palette of the film is thrown off with all the golds and light blooms. I'm not sure what the point of all that is. Where they did score points with the new CG work is all in the little embellishments; 3D fish tanks in the background, light sources and flares, volumetric shading on things like clips and firearms. That all looked awesome. But overall, gotta say I'm disappointed by this. I'm not feeling it

Really? I'm shocked

Don't be hatin', 00 is great

"The Larch!" I'm already through season one of The Wire and it's even better the second time around (plus I missed a few episodes on my initial run). Love this show!

In Macross Frontier, we saw Sheryl going through mechanical hand training using eggs, which suggests Alto and the other pilot training students had long ago been trained how to safely operate the manipulators. The scene strongly suggests a pressure sensitive control of some kind, since the pilot must master it in order to avoid undue pressure on the grasped object.

Finished watching Gundam 00, Season 1 (see more detailed review in the dedicate thread) and it was great. Definitely one of the better anime shows this year.

If this drink ever gets on the pop culture radar, the women's rights groups are going to barbecue Dreyer's nuts

Merci

The missiles in Macross are self-guided and don't respond to external input. The only official specifics we know for sure about missiles in Macross is that they are "hybrid guided" (see AMM-1 missiles in the VF-1 profile on the Macross Compendium). Traditionally "hybrid guided" means a missile can track a target via several different methods, whether by heat or by radar. When Macross introduced cross-dimensional radar/fold wave radar and gravity wave detection systems, "hybrid guided" most likely implies these methods of target tracking as well. Regardless of how warfare is conducted in the future world of Macross, some kind of electronic warfare component will exist. It's unavoidable. Detection and counter detection via electronic means, even employing advanced sci-fi electronics and exotic forms of electromagnetic radiation like in Macross, detection is still going to be a major part of the battlefield. Thus the VE-1 Elint Seeker and RVF-25 Messiah are still going to be relevant, necessary components of warfare.

Can't wait for the final version. This one is looking great so far. Your efforts are much appreciated Talos.

Well, he's to be congratulated. It's fantastic work and it looks professional to me. Compliments to Shaloop!