Renato

I was at the event, and there were no photos allowed anywhere except for the super large-scale VF-31 and the life-size Freija Wion.

My impressions of just the toys stuff:

The YF-19 looks the same as the ADVANCE. Slightly different markings.

The ChogokinDX VF-19Kai seems like it is based on the ADVANCE engineering, but they have remolded every part they need to, and it looks very interesting. It has various tampo markings EVERYWHERE. It looked like a Hasegawa kit. The differences in details, such as the increased panel lines and stuff, and the different proportions make me want to get it just to compare it with the Yamato/Arcadia version.

The VF-4 is small, but nicely detailed. Proportions look fine. The little red light that's right at the back was just painted cream, the same colour as the nosecone, though.

The HMR Glaug is enormous. Wow, I wasn't expecting it to be so big. Even the Regults were bigger than I thought they look online.

VF-2SS looks much better than the Evolution toy one, but I haven't seen that one in real life, so dunno.

HMR VF-0 looks fine. It's a VF-0.

The SDF-1 was huge, yeah, but looked quite rough up close, it looks like a rapid 3D printout. The Yamato has more detail.

The large VF-1 with lights and stuff looked OK, but I'm not sure if it can actually transform. Plus, it's one of those things that I see and think, yeah, it's probably just going to go the way of the Vajra and the 1/48 VF-25 kit... They teased a bunch of stuff with no guarantee they'll ever make any of it, so it was nice as display but I'm not losing any sleep over it.

The best thing at the show by far was the 3D hologram concert by Sheryl and Ranka. That was pretty incredible.

I have no inside info here or anything, but I kind of doubt that... After all, Mihoshi High had a VF-1 (with UN Spacy kite) on its frickin' roof...

It didn't have the UN Spacy kite, IIRC, that's what was so conspicuous about it. I think it might have had it in the manga. I asked producer Hirai-san about it ages ago and he did say something like they tried to avoid using that stuff just in case.

As Chief Director he has final say over the shot does he not? This is what I meant with respect to Delta. Granted he wasn't always the chief director, so his storyboards would have to suffice in the early days.

I also read he was responsible for directing the valkyrie battles during SDFM, but that was the total involvement he had with directing back then.

OK, but having final say over a shot is what directing is, not what choreographing is. For example, Steven Spielberg has final say over how the actors read the lines, but he is not the one doing the acting. The people who handled valk choreography vary depending on the episode/scene, the person who gave Macross its spectacular reputation in terms of aerial battles is Ichiro Itano.

Since I don't think this has been discussed yet, I'll bring it up.

The production staff on key roles lacks experience compared to people that worked on Frontier, the one that worries me the most is the CG Director position. This is an excerpt from a Ichiro Itano interview around the time Frontier was being produced:

Back when Frontier was announced some of us wondered/hoped for Itano's involvement, but of course didn't happen, Frontier still managed to deliver and this guy is the reason why, so in my opinion it is surprising to find out that he is not involved with Delta, instead we have someone with a handful of projects under their belt with the task of delivering one Macross's staples, it's fight choreography. I seriously doubt they would mess up something as important as this, but still, I would have liked someone from the "Itano school" still involved with Macross.

Hironori Morino will be taking over Hiroshi Yagishita's position from Frontier.

If I had to guess, the other two positions seem to have been recruited due to their animation experience in "Expelled from Paradise" -no directing experience, only animation credits, from a brief look at this movie, it does have some rather nice fight choreography in the same style as Macross, very dynamic. Directing experience comes from AKB0048 meh...

The staff on the original Macross back in 1982 also lacked substantial experience, apart from Ishiguro. I think they did OK.

Kawamori choreographs the variable fighter battle sequences. He has since SDFM (with the exception of M2).

Not exactly. I think you mean he does the storyboards? Sometimes. But still, storyboarding is not the same as choreographing.

yes to number 2, poor upscale, reminds me of predator's second release with overdone NR

It wasn't an upscale.

Wha---what? Scan of that anywhere?

It's in one of the Nyan-kuretto books. They made three, I don't know which one of them it is.

http://www.anime-oz.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/small_image/227x/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/t/h/thumb-nyankuretto2.jpg

There was a scan on this forum, that's how I found out about it, but I don't know which thread. Happy hunting

It wasn't posted here because it doesn't belong here. There ARE other threads, you know.

If Veef will hit us with an animated gif of Ranka in the VF-25 costume, I promise to drop this wonderful tangent!

There's also that Kawamori illustration in one of the MacF books with a variant of the VF-25 transforming into a Ranka-looking robot idol girl.

Because having the Valkyrie girls actually being the pilots would go against the moe design of the characters. They're there to sing songs and look cute.

Having them actually doing anything badass would go against the whole 'cute girls doing cute things' stereotype.

Honestly, it would be kinda creepy for them to be singing about love and peace while pumping their enemies full of leads.

Do you remember? The time when our variable fighters first met?

Do you remember? The time when my bullets first touched your skull?

That was the very first time I set out on the journey of love destruction.

I love you so.

Exactly. That's why Macross 7 is the best thing ever.

I enjoy being around older people because their tastes are often more refined and matured.

We're still talking about cartoons with robot planes in them, right?

Ha, I woke up this morning to a text, "New Macross looks like ass."

I'll be reserving judgment until the end of December. The new mechanical designs look good so I'm still excited.

This is what bums me out so much about how terrible the Frontier movies are. They could have been like "Yay, we get to make some OVAs where we can take things seriously and do what WE want." Instead they made extravagant music videos and didn't clean up the story particularly well. I hope this new series is super popular as that's good for all Macross and if they get another chance at doing some OVAs, I hope we get a better effort.

IMO the Frontier movies were fantastic because they were extravagant music videos! OK, well, some of the first one, but most of the second one. The second movie in particular is great because it shows just how much visual creativity is possible with animation, and the artists are EXTREMELY talented, I am very jealous.

Delta isn't blowing me over, in that respect, so far. Not too crazy about it just being LoveLive/AKB0048/Aikatsu/IdolMaster/PriPara yet again. It's going to be all about how the action syncs up to the music, and whatnot, for me. I think the main girl's design and costume is nice enough, but the rest is just like.. Gaudy. Risa Ebata had a graphic designer background, right? It shows. This designer has a videogame background, and hey, that shows, too. Not my cup of tea.

I gave up on story and characters in Macross long ago, and it still manages to entertain me, I think it's all fantastic in the end. Looking forward to seeing what this brings to the table.

But even if you ignore all that, look at all the awesome stuff it's gonna wash in with the Delta tide!! Giant VF-1J Chogokin toys chock-full of gimmicks! An ACTUAL FB2012 No-BS-this-time VF-4G!! HiMetal Super Ostrich! Some MacrossII crap! There is a heck of a lot to be excited about, and it's all thanks to Delta, so you all better hope it does well!!

Whoa! you guys need to be careful about showing any sort of negative opinions or disappointment. Other die-hard Macross fan will jump down your throat for disliking what they like.

Me too.

You don't have to like it, and you can voice your opinions to that effect. I think the reactions you are getting are because you literally said you wanted to see all these characters KILLED.

That's pretty alarming to read.

Outside of Macross, how many Kawamori stories / series have you seen featuring idol groups?

I don't recall any.

REALLY??

Earlier today (Oct. 29), when stepping out of the train in Nakano, I saw a person with bags of Tamashii Nation 2015 materials with the "lump of super alloy VF-1J". So I approached him and asked where he got/bought them. And that I just came from Akihabara and was pretty sure that the VF-1Js won't be available till tomorrow, Oct. 30. After trying to understand each other (I don't speak Japanese and needed to show pictures I took earlier in Akihabara and show my passport and explain that I will be leaving Japan very early next morning), he told me that he that he's from the Press and that's why he has those materials with the VF-1J.

Hey you were in Nakano today?? Me too! I didn't know you were in Japan right now!

Would be cool if some orchestral music like what they played as they left the stage also featured in the show.

OK, we get it, you like MacrossPlus. Just watch that instead, then

will it be airing December this year?

Well, there will be a special program on in December that will feature "more-or-less" the first episode, so yeah, it seems they are gonna do what they did with Frontier after all! (SpeakerPODcast prediction FAIL!!)

The VF-31 idol girl group are the "Walkyre" and the Draken boys are called "Kaze ga Ugoku".

I should note just how accurate that parody article about Delta from AnimeMaru is looking...

New Regults, New Glaugs, New SDF-1s and of course, that Cheyenne again.

This show is looking more "Aquarion-like" than the actual new Aquarion show.

Thanks! Yeah, I want to make it more available at some point. But maybe not any time soon.. Come to think of it, it'll be ten years already next year.... Time flies.

*** New Kawamori mecha revealed!! ***

... Not a VF, though. He is designing transformable cars in a collaboration for Toyota.

http://game.watch.impress.co.jp/img/gmw/docs/727/913/html/ms29.jpg.html

http://www.digimonostation.jp/news-trend/caritem/id37452

Anyway, carry on! You still all have one more day of speculation until the actual Delta mecha designs hit!

Finally found one of these that I deemed affordable, and it is magnificent.

EDIT -- Wow, why do my photos all come out the wrong way round?

That's strange, I thought this thread had been bumped because of the latest SpeakerpodCast that just went up, in which we talk about Mari Iijima *a lot*, but I couldn't find it here. So anyway, here is the link:

http://www.macrossworld.com/speakerpodcast-ep-29-triple-encore/

I think he just likes it more. Isn't that OK?

crikey! only 27k yen! that is quite a bit cheaper than I was expecting! That's still a just over $300 toy (give or take) for us Aussies which I guess ain't tooooo bad. Definitely worth some consideration.

So from what I gather from the translation, only the first 20 ordered online from the site get the bonus gunpod? If so that's an extremely limited offer! Geez Arcadia can be quite the tight arse.. I guess none of us mere mortals (outside of japan) will get even a remote shot of that opportunity..

I think most folks would have been happy to pay an extra 1000k yen on top of the price for the inclusion of the gunpod as standard. Wouldn't you all agree? I mean seriously how much can that gun pod be actually worth to manufacture?

Then again it does have the unspacy logo tampo'd on it and we all know how Arcadia likes to keep tampo printing to the bare minimum..

That 20 refers to the maximum number you can order at once, I believe.

I'll have to go with this guy, afterall he's a proven bad ass. Who else is a crack pilot in a, war, single handedly penetrated earth defenses, and joined a pmc company after his military tour.

Isamu Alfa Dyson.

Alfalfa?

Marisa Tomei is Aunt May?? What??? Is this a joke?? The only thing Marisa Tomei and Aunt May have in common is a rhyme.

By that logic, Bob Barker should play Peter Parker!

http://a3.files.biography.com/image/upload/c_fit,cs_srgb,dpr_1.0,h_1200,q_80,w_1200/MTE4MDAzNDEwNzQ5MTk1Nzkw.jpg

For me, the blu-ray's biggest issue is not the censoring nor altered music track. I always felt the two scenes are unexpectedly violent compared to the rest of the movie, so I'm fine either way. Rather, the video quality is extremely variable. From sharp to soft to out-of-focus to grainy, repeatedly.

Yeah. I think a lot of that was just the way it was filmed, and this is the clearest picture ever available on home video, making all those "mistakes" all the more obvious. But, as they claim that the picture has been improved further still, who knows. It might still surprise.