kazuo

There were no additional announcements made of any kind. It was just a normal movie screening.

13 hours ago, jenius said:

The folks who this matters most to are less and less involved in the franchise. Money is a powerful motivator and it's only a matter of time before someone reboots! 

This. I think some people are pretty naive about how long that whole "they will never put the original trio back on the screen!" thing will last.

My personal take? It may hold for future (read: continuations of) stories, but for a reboot (e.g. The First), nope. All bets are off. Expect everyone up to and including Hikaru to be recast.

To be clear, I'm not particularly excited about the idea of a remake, nor am I excited about the idea of continuining Hikaru's/Minmay's/Misa's story post-'82. But I'm also not particularly excited about Delta, nor whatever is next if it continues to follow the trend of Idolshit-in-the-sky.

Here's some reports from JP Twitter users (with photos):

This last tweet struck me as super odd, since there was a notice outside the cinema that the movie might need to be stopped if they had issues with the projector. Or did they simply post that in part of their grand scheme to hide the fact that it's just a digital film scan? Doubtful. I saw the photo earlier on Twitter, but I can't find it at the moment.

The theater it is being screened in is quite high-end, and provides complimentary (read: free) drinks and popcorn.

It looks like the DYRL film screenings may have ended (both the digital & 35mm versions); they have yet to announce the dates for the Plus 35mm film screenings.

Do we have any idea what the original source files were rendered at? I'm going to guess 720p max, but would honestly be surprised if it was higher than 480p.

I wonder if things like AstroRes can handle mixed 2D/3D content; otherwise, doing an upscale of something like this must be a tremendous pain in the rectum.

On 2/11/2024 at 4:54 PM, Beltane70 said:

I feel it’s a bit pointless to do so since it’s incomplete and looks like it will remain that way forever. 

You say that as if the story cannot be completed for some reason.

We all know how Macross ends. I imagine it wouldn't be hard to have HAL crank out a synopsis (assuming it doesn't exist already), and then finish his work for him.

On 2/12/2024 at 12:36 AM, Seto Kaiba said:

It's also probably not a real option under the global distribution agreement they struck a couple years ago. Apparently one of the concessions they made was that future Macross titles meant for the global market would refrain from using the original series characters.

They could just make it for the Japanese market. You know, like the Macross The First manga was made solely for that market. Aside from shows made for streaming platforms (Netflix), I'm not really sure you can make a strong case for "they totally made this show with the global audience in mind" for a lot of productions. So this doesn't really hold up as a strong argument against the idea.

On 2/27/2024 at 1:00 PM, Jeff J said:

I'm biased of course, but I think you'll like it.

I was digging into internet archives, and I had forgotten that AnimEigo had also released individual discs for $22.45 a pop, meaning collecting the nine individual discs or the three three-disc sets was going to cost twenty-something percent less than buying a boxed set. The $260 we early adopters paid for the boxed set was a marked up price. But hey, we got to enjoy it a year earlier, plus we got a box and the lenticular-motion picture! 🤣

Perhaps a better way to look at it is the pre-order group were the ones that made the release happen. Literally, as I recall.

Pretty sure Robert Woodhead said that without sufficient preorders, it was dead in the water. But it's possible I am misremembering. Too lazy to look. Maybe I'm mixing it up with the Zeta Gundam DVD boxset.

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I watched '82 over again a few years back. Honestly didn't age super well. Lots of stuff in the plot didn't make sense, inconsistent animation quality (even for that era), and you can really tell when they got the news that they were getting more episodes added to the schedule. I still like it though, but I probably wouldn't recommend it to people.

DYRL also has a decent number of "huh" moments with the plot, but it's just so amazing to look at that most people I've shown it to don't really think about it until way after the fact.

Adapting "The First" Manga into an anime probably isn't the worst idea, honestly. Especially if they get WIT & Clover Works to do it.

Sorry if I missed the thread, but I didn't see one anywhere obvious...

https://macross.jp/news-detail/24847/

Of particular note is the Basara mini-live concert, and DYRL & Plus screening on 35mm film.

On 1/11/2024 at 10:14 PM, tekering said:

I've tried telephone enquiries before, to no avail.  Online preorders are the only option I'm aware of. 

In fact, I remember seeing a sign at the customer service desk at BEST Denki turning away any customers trying to order a Metal Structure Sazabi. 

Appreciate the info!

We found out the hard way that none of the shops were doing in person pre-orders... got turned away or told to try the site (which were already sold out). Unsure if any of the stores will have NIB stock on-hand on release date.

10 hours ago, no3Ljm said:

Btw, @tekering. Out of curiosity. Do you participate on these preorders online over there or wait on the release day and get it from the store directly? Thanks!

Curious about this as well. I may have an opportunity to have someone preorder for me in person, but unsure if local shops in Tokyo/JP are still accepting preorders.

A lot of the polling is obviously recency bias, let's be real. Delta is terrible. Frontier is also fairly recent and something that a large number of the polled populace likely grew up with. Color me shocked at the result.

If you put me on a desert island and I could only watch one show out of the following for the remainder of my life: Delta, Frontier, 7, Witch, I'd pick the Witch 100 times out of 100. You guys are absolutely crazy if you think I want to listen to Planet Dance one more time, or see AKB48 in the sky, or Ranka. Witch is far from high art and it has a lot of flaws, but I stand by what I said about it being better than anything post-Plus.

I actually think Frontier is the best of the post-Plus shows without question, but it has its own flaws: bad CG that doesn't really hold up, Ranka, silly folding alien MacGuffin nonsense, flimsy antagonists, a largely dislikable main character, and Ranka. But it does have Sheryl, so there's that.

Macross The First would actually be the best case scenario in terms of a new series, but then we have the issue of Hikaru's voice to contend with.

Anyone know anything about the Frontier Pop Up Stage? Tempted to check it out, but not interested in dropping 4K yen on a ticket if it's PS2 models.

https://bandainamco-am.co.jp/am/vg/cgslive/program/popupstage.php

Witch from Mercury is better than anything Macross since Plus came out. Facts.

I'm not expecting much from the new series... expecting the worst, hoping for something decent. The less Kawamori is involved, the better, quite frankly.

It was an extremely small booth in the "Character Street" section of Tokyo Station. I struggled to find it since I expected it to be a shop.

The merchandise is basically all acrylic stands of not very good art, and nothing else. They did have the new Frontier Bluray but neither of those things interested me. Very disappointed and not at all worth the effort+train fare.

Does anyone know if there's anything else on display besides the toys and the SDF-1? Any original HAL artwork, for example?

I was in Japan recently and decided not to visit the museum because it was too far out of the way for me for something that I didn't have much information on, and I was skeptical that it'd be worth it after the disappointing pop-up shop in Tokyo.

I wouldn't expect any of this to be dubbed. That is just grasping at straws, let's be real. Same with 4K. Isn't going to happen, nothing else currently exists that has been scanned/mastered at that resolution. I'd love to be wrong about 4K, maybe Anime Limited can surprise us. That'd be amazing.

Imagine thinking Plus is "uninteresting" though, yeesh. 🥴

Jungle is probably one of the more well-known shops in this hobby. They've been around for literal decades. Surprised you have never heard of them.

Even with shipping cost, the savings if you buy high value items can be massive due to the weak yen. Take advantage while you can. Japan will not be fully reopening to tourists this year most likely so this is probably going to be your only chance to get deals.

You can easily avoid import duty/tax if you're shipping to the US by simply using the USPS (via EMS) and avoiding private carriers like UPS.

Crazy news from AX this weekend. If you asked me last week if I thought they'd release Frontier in the West, let alone 7... I would've just laughed at you. Jokes on me now!

Adrian Lozano squashed the 7 music rights allegedly being a problem a while back, so the holdup was never about the music, it was always about HG, nothing more, nothing less. Now that HG has been dealt with, there is basically nothing stopping anything Macross outside of Space War I and the Movie from being officially released in the West.

The main things I am curious about:

• What about the Macross 7 Movie?
• Is Macross II going to be a new film transfer, or is it going to be an upscale? (barf)
• What's up with the randoms releasing Plus?
• Is Plus just going to be a copy-paste of the Japanese Blu-Rays? I'd gladly pay 2x for a new film transfer.
• Will Plus use or at least include the Neil Nadelman subtitles? I don't like the revised subtitles on the JP discs.

I HAVE QUESTIONS. But I'm also very excited!

There were maybe half as many people this time around (10 or so?) but to be honest, I didn't try to count or take a super good look. Seemed less full though. Sound was fine. Movie started on-time, no issues with the screening at all. The bonus videos at the end were a nice touch, glad I stayed through the credits but I wish they had told us about it at some point. Maybe they did and I was too busy eating nachos?

I had fun watching it.

Sound was fine for me. In fact it was probably too loud. LOL.

Video quality... was not great. You can tell they are streaming this using some really crappy compression, and it was most noticeable over the subtitles. I honestly cannot/do not understand why they can't just send the theaters a USB stick with the video file on it. Probably because streaming it is cheaper. 😛 Macross Plus had the same problem, so I kind of expect this from Fathom at this point. It looks better at my house on BD.

My theater had maybe 15-20 people? So not bad. It's about what I expected, and comparable to the Plus screening. This may have even been slightly more full than Plus.

The movie itself? ...Yeesh. I haven't watched it in years, probably since it was new, and it hasn't aged well. Some of it is interesting, a lot of it isn't, a lot of the fan service of literal underage girls is mad cringe, but it's better than Delta? So there's that. I thought the pacing was a little odd as well, but perhaps that's from me knowing they're just rushing through the story.

I'll be there again on Thursday though, since it is fun watching niche things like Anime that I sort of like in a theatrical setting.

1 hour ago, Keith said:

Well, not everyone is ready to start hitting theaters again, myself include. So I don't think it's a fair guage of turnout.

I think it's COVID+we're superfans living a bubble, thinking that Macross Plus is gonna sell out the house. It's not. Especially not with the minimal amount of advertising it got; I found out mostly by accident, and I follow the official Macross account and @giantrobo on Twitter, but that's beside the point. I think some of us are overestimating the reach of Plus, as good as it is.

Anyway, the script is a refined version of the BD English subtitles, and yes, it's "Marge" in the script they used. The script also needed better QC, because I picked up on at least two grammatical errors, maybe even some others I forgot about between all the teeth grinding I was going through during the screening. I wouldn't expect anyone to use the old Manga/Nadelman script anymore, likely due to licensing reasons - that ship has sailed. You can always download it from the 'net and roll your own custom BD IMG or MKV.

I also very immediately noticed all of the additional garbage "pew pew" laser effects and such, evoking very terrible memories of the old Rhino re-releases of Transformers where they had to add a shitty sound effect to every single thing. And the sound mix was terrible, absolute crap. The voice and BGM balance was way off, with the voice often completely overpowering the music; this was most apparent during Information High - you could barely hear the music! Awful. I also noticed the "noise" / "toys" echo thing during Information High, and I'm pretty sure it was an intentional change to the sound mix. Why would they do this?

I hate being so negative about this, but with the sound mix being so bad and the dodgy subtitles, I probably should've just stayed home and watched the BD. Would've saved ten bucks.

On 9/20/2021 at 7:53 AM, isamu said:

Wow thanks for the detailed impressions man. I'm glad you had a good time.

You're right, they should just release it on Blu-ray already. Not sure what the hesitation could be. On another note, won't macross be turning 40 in about three years or so? If so, perhaps they will have a 40th anniversary concert in 2024 or something. What do you think the odds are?

I honestly couldn't even speculate on why they won't release the Blu-rays for all of these concerts. Japanese companies do so many things that make little to no sense.

Regarding the 40th, they will absolutely have a concert. You should plan to make the trip if you can. I wanted to go to the Frontier concert that is finally happening soon, but I can't for obvious reasons.

I went for Day 2. Here's the setlist: https://web.archive.org/web/20190628172046/https://aniuta.co.jp/contents/247250

The setlist was not announced in advance that I know of, but nobody expected Day 1 to be much different from Day 2. Yes, Kasahara was there and did "Love you again" from Macross II. Akino Arai and Yoko Kanno did not perform (sadly). I don't recall if they stopped in to say hi. I think Yoko Kanno MAYBE did? It was a couple years ago and I was extremely tired at the time (I literally arrived two hours before the concert started and I missed Ai Ijima's entire set because there was a delay at immigration control). Some of the details are fuzzy. Even though I wanted to see Ijima, I was honestly most excited about Fire Bomber (despite really not being a fan of 7 at all) and Sheryl (May'n). I got what I wanted, it was totally worth it lol. I even enjoyed Walkure even though I couldn't care less about Delta.

The stupid part is, there has to be a recording because they simulcast it in theaters... I wish they'd just let us buy it already.

You need to be careful with peroxide and painted or glossy surfaces. It will almost always damage or ruin the finish. This is really best used on "bare" plastic, or plastic where the color is mixed into the plastic itself (i.e. not painted on). It will also most certainly damage or ruin any decals.