VF-15 Banshee

Hmmm, I knew I was right about the VFs. I was just confused because a Macross Mecha Manual entry for the YF-19 said something about the engines being 40-60% less powerful in space because of lack of air.

The question now is, how fast can they go in space? (let's just ignore orbital mechanics for now)

Are VFs faster or slower in space? Kinda confused about this point.

I still don't understand why HG seems to just want to sit on Robotech and not do anything with it. Is Robotech usually identified as anime? Do they sit on it because of the state of the industry? Can they really not find a creative team to work on it? (a fact I find very hard to believe)

I think we're all missing the point and that is, does Basara like the ladies? He's got Sivil and Rex and Flower Girl and others all hitting on him but it doesn't seem to faze him at all. Well except for Sivil. Oh and Mylene's crush. What's the deal?

Oops musta missed this thread, my bad. Anyway, A New Gundam AGE is Dawning

Oh and these videos made me giggle.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfUjyAvzGaA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOAnRpbxGcQ&feature=related

Well, it affected him enough to question why he sings since no one seems to care and he can't move anyone or thing like he believed he could, and thus do some soul-searching for a whole story arc, after which he witnesses the depths of the galaxy, comes back, and finds his reason to keep on singing, his faith re-established. Has anybody actually watched this show??!

Except Lynn Kaifun was a hypocrite because he wanted peace, love and unity, but then turns around and beats up everyone who disagrees with him. He wanted to run cities his way but had no clue about how to go about doing it. "I will be the one to handle things now, you warmongers! Hey, you, town mayor, listen to me, I know what I'm talking about" and then, boom. Basara in the same position, would have just walked away, he's not gonna chat to them about politics, he's just there to rock out and ignore logic. He's not a self-aggrandising alcoholic. Like I said, he is true to himself, which is something few people, myself included, can claim to be.

Again, since he is a cartoon character, it might be easier for him, though.

Have you ever heard Tenacious D's "City Hall"?? That's basically Kaifun right there.

Well did Basara change, really? He had the opportunity to when he went on his little quest, but unless I'm missing something here, he's pretty much the exact same character afterwards. That's not a deal breaker for me but I wish it had happened so we would have got some insight into Basara.

And I'm NOT saying that Basara is LIKE Kaifun, I'm just saying that sometimes things he said reminded me of things Kaifun said and that will never be a plus with me.

And Basara is certainly NOT Justin Bieber with a giant robot. John Lennon, Basara and Yoshiki Fukuyama can all play their own instruments!

And BTW, who here thinks that the actual love triangle in mac7 should have been Basara/Sivil/Gigile?

Also on the subject of Basara, it seems his pimp hand includes Sheryl Nome as well.

The HD remastered version of Ghostbusters is being re-released into about 500 theaters on October 13, 20 and 27.

Your all missing the point. Plus was real and happened. 7 is complete fictional nonsense.

I know not of waht you speak.

In any case, exactly when did this become a Basara discussion? I'm doing a review for Mac7, wait till then dammit! Though I will say this: I would have liked to have seen the aftermath of Fleet of the Strongest Women. I could see Chlore and Tranquil and the other Meltrandi on the command ship at least, wanting to do that Protoculture kissing thing that Millia's so good at!

Well, I definitely think you have to go into Mac7 with the right mindset. On the specific subject of Basara, the one thing I think they could have changed about him was have the events of Mac7 actually affect him. He's basically the same character from episode 1 to episode 49.

But yeah, some of the things he says resurrects for me the ghost of Lynn Kaifun and that is NEVER A GOOD THING.

Next chapter of Macross Odyssey available here. In this chapter, we delve into some of Minmay's thoughts as she stands in the empty stadium after her last concert.

I think it also says something about the guy when he has typos and grammar errors in just the episode titles of his podcast.

It probably doesn't help that every review on his iTunes page is one star and negative in tone.

Who do you suppose is worse: Rabid G1 fans or dougbendo?

Shades of Star Trek III, definitely.

I'm thinking about those planet-sucking, resource-hungry invaders from Independence Day.

I was thinking about something like that but the more I thought about it, the more I realized we had already had a race of mysterious, seemingly-mindless implacable aliens in the Vajra, so I nixed that. No, I've decided that the main villains of Macross Delta are going to be....... wait for it...... humans.

No new Macross for the 30th.

I dunno, we didn't start seeing those leaks about Gundam AGE until... June? July? So that's only about 3-4 month lead time before it airs this October. And it aint even 2012 yet...

Okay, have the prologue for Macross Delta up now.

Also, found a couple of good Macross 7 stories:

Precious Memories: Milia's reactions to her VF-1J being destroyed.

Jingle Bells Are Gone: Poor Cpt. Max spends Christmas alone.

Song of the Stars: In which Basara gets a girlfriend who isn't exactly human...

Interesting concept. A couple of questions: Are you going to have these "pirates" operating out of some kind of base, or perhaps have a mothership that they've "specially modified"? Also, are you planning on including the SDFNs in your story? In 2065, I'd think that they'd been either destroyed or decommissioned by then.

The Renegades will be operating out of a kind of freighter that has been specially modified to support their Valkyries. And yes, the SDFN's will be in the story, that's why I made the list. And some of them will have been destroyed or decommissioned, but not all. The Enterprise will be in the story (affectionately referred to as the Big E) and I might mention that the Hayase has been turned into a museum ship. We'll see.

I also need some info on the status of the Various Emigration fleets. Here's what I have so far:

Megaroad-01 [MIA-2016]

Megaroad-02

Megaroad-03

Megaroad-04

Megaroad-05

Megaroad-06

Megaroad-07

Megaroad-08

Megaroad-09

Megaroad-10

Megaroad-11

Megaroad-12

Megaroad-13 [Fleet lost, crew became Protodeviln slaves]

Megaroad-14

Megaroad-15

Megaroad-16

Megaroad-17

Megaroad-18

Megaroad-19

Megaroad-20

Megaroad-21

Megaroad-22

Megaroad-23

Megaroad-24 [Destroyed on Earth]

Megaroad-25 [Destroyed on Earth]

Macross 1

Macross 2

Macross 3

Macross 4

Macross 5 [ships destroyed on Planet Lux, 2045. Crew recovered by Macross 7]

Macross 6

Macross 7 [Engaged the Varauta and Protodeviln in 2045]

Macross 8

Macross 9

Macross 10

Macross 11 [still on-mission in 2059, had a brief encounter with the Vajra]

Macross 12

Macross 13 [Fleet status unknown, Battle 13 carrier destroyed in 2051]

Macross 14

Macross 15

Macross 16

Macross 17

Macross 18

Macross 19

Macross 20

Macross 21/Macross Galaxy [Fleet status unknown, Battle Galaxy carrier destroyed during Vajra Conspiracy]

Macross 22

Macross 23

Macross 24

Macross 25/Macross Frontier [Encountered the Vajra in 2059. Landed on Vajra home planet]

Q: Where there 25 or 30 Megaroad fleets?

Doing some preliminary work for my new Macross fic that I'll be working on alongside Macross Odyssey. So far I'm going with the working title of Macross Delta. I decided on the delta because it's a symbol that means change. It'll take place in the year 2065, fifty-five years after First Macross and about five years after Frontier.

A couple of things I've got done so far are the Valkyrie list for Renegade Squadron. The Renegades are just what their name implies, pilots who aren't part of the UN Spacy forces. I haven't worked out the character details yet, but they're cast somewhat in the vein of the crew of the Serenity from Firefly.

Renegade Squadron

VF-22S Sturmvogel II

VF-19 Excalibur

VF-11C Thunderbolt

VF-17D Nightmare

VF-4 Lightning III

VF-14M Vampire

These Valkyries were "acquired" from various sources, so UN Spacy would probably be more likely to call the Renegades pirates!

Since I plan for quite a few fleet battles to take place in this story, the good ole' Macross will be making a comeback after a fashion. We know from MFrontier that the flagship of the 117th Research Fleet was the SDFN-4 Global. The Global was apparently a mass-produced version of the original SDF-1 Macross and according to the Macross Mecha Manual, twelve of these ships were produced. The only other ship name they had there was the SDFN-1 Hayase. Given these facts, I worked up a little list of my own.

SDFN-1 Hayase

SDFN-2 Ichijo

SDFN-3 Minmay

SDFN-4 Global [DESTROYED-2048]

SDFN-5 Fokker

SDFN-6 Jenius

SDFN-7 Enterprise

SDFN-8 LaSalle

SDFN-9 Fallyna

SDFN-10 Prometheus

SDFN-11 Daedalus

SDFN-12 Ranger

Taking a cue from the names Hayase and Global, I figured that these mass-produced Macross-class were all named after heroes of Space War I and famous ships involved in the war. That's where the names Enterprise and Ranger come from and I'm sure that any self-respecting Macross fan will recognize Daedalus and Prometheus.

Curses! My devious plot has been foiled! If it wasn't for you and your meddling Gubaba I would've got away with it too!

Full version is here.

Originally in my SDF Macross review I said the macros was Top Gun meets Battlestar: Galactica meets Transformers with a dash of Star Wars thrown in. Well no where does the Top Gun analogy become more apparent than with the 4-episode mini-series(or OVA) Macross Plus, released in 1994. The story features two rival jet fighter test pilots in a setting that is highly reminiscent of the classic Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer flick. There’s planes, space, dogfights, pretty girls, but unlike Top Gun, Macross Plus features a psychotic AI pop star, a kinda-sorta love triangle and a futuristic setting.

Now first of all, I have to say that after the disappointment that was Macross II, Plus was about 10x, no, 100x better. I seriously wanted to have Kenny Loggins’ Danger Zone or Cheap Trick’s Mighty Wings come blaring out of the speakers as the YF-19 and -21 danced across the sky. I mean, I enjoyed this so much I think there was only two things I really want to have them improve. They could have explained Sharon’s self-awareness a bit more and also why she seemed so intent on hypnotizing people and why she wanted to kill Isamu.

I also didn’t care much for Myung as well. I don’t dislike her but I think to myself “Gooooossshhh! Get off the pity wagon and stop being so damn depressing, especially when you’ve got guys like Isamu and Guld around." I don’t really blame Isamu for being more interested in Lucy when he got back to Eden than Myung.

Other than that this was solid, first-rate, no holds-barred, thrill-riding fun. I would not be embarrassed to say that I enjoyed Macross Plus more than Transformers 3, and that’s saying something. The characters, planes, visuals (none of that damn moe crap), music and sounds all come together beautifully. The fact that this was a good dub as well is an extra plus. With the talents of VA’s like Bryan Cranston (TV’s Breaking Bad), Richard Epcar and Beau Billingslea, it’s actually a joy to listen to as the actors actually emote. What a concept! All in all, on the MAHQ scale of stars, this gets five gold stars! Now if only it had Danger Zone…

For another fic I'm planning to write about a new interstellar war in Macross, what would make a good Macross-type villain race?

I've also watched Macross: Flashback 2012 and done a review on that one too. I'm putting it here too, but the blog version has pictures.

When a movie or TV show has a sequel that’s separated from it by a number of years, you still like to think that not much is going to change. Take Ghostbusters for example. The first movie came out in 1984 but Ghostbusters II didn’t come out until 1989.

Where Macross is concerned however, there really is no true sequel to the original series. The 1984 movie Do You Remember Love? was a cinematic retelling of the series and Macross II was set eighty years later. When Mac2 was retconned, the next production in chronological order was Macross Plus, which is still set 30 years later. Now, that all doesn’t mean there isn’t actually a sequel of sorts to First Macross, it’s just not quite what you think it would be. Released in 1987, Macross: Flashback 2012 is a 30 minute music video that is largely made up of clips taken from First Macross and DYRL, hence the title Flashback. There is a story there but it is very short. This is primarily due to the fact that most of the new footage that was used in Flashback was intended to be the final scenes of DYRL but weren’t ready in time for the movie’s release date.

Disregarding all the flashback footage, the story is thus: It is September 2012, nine months after the end of Super Dimensional Fortress Macross and Quamzin’s failed attack on New Macross City. The city has expanded and the SDF-1 has nearly been repaired, looking much like it does in DYRL. Lynn Minmay has arrived in Macross City to perform the final show of her Sayonara World Tour. The OVA then goes into all the flashback materiel before switching back to the ‘present.’ Minmay walks around the deserted concert hall where she gave her last show. We see Hikaru Ichijyo, one of the heroes of the last series, test flying the new VF-4 Lightning III variable fighter. He’s now married to Misa, who is about to take command of humanity’s first super long range colonization ship, the SDF-2 Megaroad-01. Minmay recalls the days of her youth, about how she wanted to be a singer and left her home in Yokohama to go live with her aunt and uncle in Macross City because her parents were not in favor of it. She remembers arriving in the city and seeing a poster about the SDF-1 Macross, which shifts to a scene of her in New Macross City looking at a poster for the Megaroad.

The Megaroad-01 is launched and thousands cheer her on as she soars up into the sky. Minmay waves to the people below from one of the observation decks as Misa directs her crew from the ship’s bridge, stealing glances outside at Hikaru in his Lightning III. The ship reaches orbit and joins with an escort fleet of Zentradi warships and sails off into a bright new future with our hero and heroines.

At least that’s what you would like to think. The one thing I don’t like about Flashback is that it doesn’t reveal the characters’ ultimate fates, which in this case is pretty important. The video also focuses pretty exclusively on Hikaru, Misa and Minmay (except for the flashback clips), but we do know some of what happened. A year later Hikaru and Misa have their first child, a little girl named Miku Ichijyo. We know that Max and Milia have eight children (seven natural, one adopted), all girls, and are seen again in the 49 episode series Macross 7 with their youngest daughter Mylene, but that’s about it. We don’t really know what happens to Claudia or Admiral Global or the bridge bunnies, although I suppose it’s not terribly important. Ah, I almost forgot Breetai and Exedol. The Zentradi tactician Exedol goes with Max and Milia to the Macross 7 fleet and I believe Breetai becomes UN Spacy Commander-in-Chief at some point. What I’m saying is, that it would have been nice to have had the whole cast get a send off.

There is one other thing that bugs me a little bit about this particular snippet of Macross lore. You see in Flashback we get Hikaru, Misa and Minmay riding off into the space sunset, but what you find out if you look it up is that the Megaroad-01 disappears without a trace near the galactic core in 2016. I’m a bit annoyed about that if only for the implication that Hikaru, Misa, their daughter Miku and Minmay all die a cold, lonely death in the forsaken depths of deep space. Me, I like my characters to have a happy ending, like the end of Return of the Jedi.

All in all, Even though Flashback really is just a long music video set to a bunch of Minmay songs (although I’m not sure why they didn’t include My Boyfriend is a Pilot), it’s worth watching for that new footage and as a chance to see these particular Macross characters one last time. Besides, maybe it’s not all bad as that. Maybe the Megaroad-01 is next to the second star to the right and straight on ‘till morning.

Sorry to double post but I just finished my review of Macross II on my blog. You can check it out here.

A little preview: Thing is, it would have more impact if you understood more of why Feff is in love with Ishtar, beyond, you know, the fact that she has a penchant for wearing a partly transparent swimsuit-like getup.

Nope, I believe it's Bin Shimada or Steve Blum all the way through for Nexx Gilbert.

Hibiki ended up with Sylvie because, as they correspond to the original love triangle... Hibiki = Hikaru, Sylvie = Misa, Ishtar = Minmay.

1. It's gotta be the first guy. There is NO WAY that was Steve Blum. I've heard him enough that i'd recognize his voice.

2. That's the problem! Let's have a little variety here.

In any case, it was good to see the Macross flying again. I kind of didn't like it getting blown to smeg but it's very much like the death of the Enterprise 1701 in Star Trek III. At least she went out in a blaze of glory and then flew again in Plus.