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Pat Payne

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  1. 4. What are their roles with Macross?

    I know nothing on Big West.  I am of the suspicion that it is a holding company or they purchased Studio Nue - which is the company that Macross originated out of, and continues to create new Macross projects.  Tatsunoko Studios is (was?) an animation company that was originally contracted to produce animation for SDF Macross.

    Big West is an production/sponsorship company (IIRC) that footed the bill (or most of it, as it turned out) of the production of Macross, and because of that, gained many of the subsidiary rights to the series (barring the legal fart-up). They've been involved in other shows including Orguss, Captain Tylor and others -- their name turns up now and then. They don't animate or write stories - they cut checks, which is just as important, for as Cicero might have said: "The sinews of animation is an unlimited purse."

    Tatsunoko is on life support right now, as they were bought last year by TAKARA Toys (the fine people that brought you Transformers) and it's seemed that TAKARA is more interested in raiding Tatsunoko's back catalogue for toy licenses, although they may also fund new projects -- but you can be they'll all have highly merchandisable toy lines behind them. Tatsunoko does (or did) animate, both through the main studio (Tatsunoko Pro) as well as "farm-team" studios such as (the maligned) StarPro and AnimeFriend. Even if they let Macross go, they would have had a place in anime history -- Tat was very well known for Speed Racer, Gatchaman and Tekkaman long before Macross was ever concieved.

    5. Does one own Macross T.V. while the other own Macross D.Y.R.L? If so, which   owns what?

    Big West owns both.  Tatsunoko Studio owns the right for marketing related goods (models, T-shirts, toys, etc.) for the SDF Macross TV series only.  (Though, as the designs are similar, and as Big West wasn't very aggressive in stopping them, Tatsunoko went above and beyond the rights that they had purchased and did some crazy things like sell the rights to the international distribution of the SDF Macross series to some American company - rights which they never had in the first place.)

    Yes and no. According to the recent legal modus vivendi, it's implicitly agreed (if very grudgingly) that Tatsunoko and HG, through getting there "fustest with the mostest" that at this moment they have de facto rights to the TV series only outside of Japan. HG did protest about Macross Plus and Macross 2 -- well after the fact and were told, in effect, to pound sand. the rights in Japan all reside with Big West, as well as with Studio Nue, although for reasons that are (I'MNAL) unfathomable to me, truncated to just Big West on a number of copyright notices. This may change if the lawsuits continue to work their way through the Japanese legal system.

    The thing is witht he movie, Tatsunoko somehow elbowed their way into that as well, and so may feel that it qualifies as one of the "derivatives" in the "over a barrel" agreement they executed with Big West a few days before the TV series premiered.

    6. How come Yamato doesn't have their logo on the 1/48? All I see is "Made in China 1982 BigWest."

    Yamato is a seperate and unrelated company that purchased the (temporary?) rights to produce toys for Macross. (They may or may not have recycled the molds produced by another company that may have produced the toys earlier.)

    From all indications, the 1/60 and 1/48 Valks are completely newly-engineered designs.

    The main reason is toy collectors don't want to see the toy covered with company name crap.  Though, I suspect their name and logo was plastered on the box that the toy came in.  ;)

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    I'm not sure it's that. I don't know about other toy collectors, but to me a copyright notice unobtrusively on the bottom of a wing is not the end of the world. It may have been that Yamato felt no need to assert their own copyright on the toy direct for any number f reasons:

    1. The toys (particularly the 1/48) are so mechanically complex that it may be somewhat bootleg-resistant, and so Yamato took a calculated risk

    2. Japanese copyright law is a bit more lax than US law (which usually demands a copyright notice of some sort) and so the people at Yamato may have seen it as a bit of superfluous tooling that they could dispense with.

    3. They plum forgot, and decided that now was not the time to start adding it onto the molds.

  2. Holy crap I have to chuckle. Jeannie has a shower and/or bath scene in every episode lol.

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    Pretty much. They even worked the word "shower" into the opening theme! No foolin'! :lol:

    Spoilers: I did NOT like the ending though, IMHO. It seemed to me to be extremely forced and just a way to dispense with the series altogether. It explained very little of what was a very complex and potentially very fascinating plot point -- the triple nature of the Zor and just how the flowers on Gloire fed into their triumvirate symbiosis.

    Here endeth the spoilers.

    Other than that, it's a fairly satisfying show. and surely, a bathing Jeanne is easy on the eyes :why is there no Ryo "mokkori" smiley?: :lol:

  3. hahaha! I actually went to the store and bought silly putty for that purpose several days ago! Haven't tried it yet, but I thought it seemed like a good idea. Oh wow do I feeel cool now.

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    That's what we're here for, G&C ;)

  4. A real good solution is (and I'm being serious) Silly Putty -- the rubbery stuff that comes in eggs. It goes on nice (although it will spread if you leave it on for an extended period of time -- it also has a risk of drying, but you have to leave it on for weeks on end for that to happen), leaves hard mask edges, has zero danger of paint underseep, and 99 out of 100 times comes off clean (if you're masking canopies or other areas where there is a pronounced gap, some will seep into the gap if you leave it on too long, but it can be cleaned out easily with a toothpick). And it will not take off accessory parts if they're glued on properly.

  5. Pineapple salad is not really an entre as much as a side dish. I've seen it served, and eaten it, at quite a few barbecues. From what I have seen though pineapple salad is kind of a regional thing and is not served very often in restaurants... it's more of a family picnic thing.

    As for Roy's death, it is a common hero archetype for the wounded tough guy to either underestimate his wounds and not seek medical attention or as I believe more of a John Wayne/The Cowboys moment in which the hero knows he is going to die and rather than attempt to mend himself he simply lets it happen.

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    As for pineapple salad, I've not had the recipe that Claudia prepared, but I have had, a couple of times a nice Waldorf that uses pinapples.

    As for Roy, his ignoring the wounds isn't that big a problem -- you're right that it was meant to be a John Wayne moment. But I still defy anyone to explain how everyone on the fraggin' ship (especially Claudia) failed to notice those three large and bloody holes in his back!

  6. 1) The Achisio District is an add-on district. New Macross-class colony ships (The City unit that is) does have docking points for additional districts that can be mounted outside the shell. The Event Dome is also another add-on. These add-on units allow for additional features to the City environment should they not be provided by other venues or additional venues provided closer to the City units.

    Which begs the question -- what posessed them to decide they needed a slum added on?

  7. Must... resist ... Clash... of... the... Bionoids.... English... dubbed... of.. DYRL... sucked... worse... than... English... dubbed... SuperS... arc... of... Sailor... Moon....

    I sound like William Shatner, don't I folks. :p

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    Let me just say that I'm going to steer clear of asking your opinion on <old "Critic" joke> James Caan </old "Critic" joke> ;)

  8. Right now, here's a sampling of what's on my iTunes:

    The Destroyer "Soyokaze" -- Kenji Kawai

    Twilight -- ELO

    Glori in Excelsis Deo -- Gregorian Chant

    Soul Man -- The Blues Brothers

    Minnie the Moocher (the original 1931 recording) -- Cab Calloway

    Ja Nus Hons Pris -- King Richard I Couer d'Lion

    No God -- The Germs

    Ai Oboeteimasuka? -- Like you don't know who sung THIS one... :p

    Grosse Messe im C-Dur (Great Mass in C-Minor) -- Mozart

    Xanadu -- Olivia Newton-John and ELO

    The War song from "Duck Soup" -- The Marx Brothers

    Survive -- The Bags

    Powerhouse -- Raymond Scott

    Message in a Bottle -- The Police

    I Can't Hide -- Mari Iijima

    Yesterday -- The Beatles

    Accidents will Happen -- Elvis Costello

  9. Whats your favorite sound effect and/or bgm music from macross?

    I have always been partial to that subtle bridge noise when its quiet.

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    Kinda esoteric topic, but what the hey? I've always liked that rising and falling series of musical notes that plays faintly int he background in a lot of the Zentradi ship scenes, especially in DYRL. It's a cool noise.

  10. arn't there rules that if a book has been out of print for a certain amount of time you can post its contents freely?

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    No. The closest thing that there is is public domain. In theory, after a set amount of time (for the US usually 70 years after the author dies, or int he case of works for hire either 95 years from publication or 120 from creation -- whichever is shorter From this page) copyright expires, and the work becomes public domain -- society as a whole owns it and can do what they will with it. But merely being unpublished for a period of time does not by itself make a work public domain unless the author or copyright holder him or herself explicitly relases the work into the PD. Further PD status has nothing to do with when the book was published last -- Shakespeare's plays are PD and they've been in circulation since the 1600s. Sherlock Holmes has never gone out of print and all of the Holmes tales are PD.

  11. I never had a problem with a requests for a picture/scan before but talking about an entire archive.   I'd imagine people would like to to be super high quality pictures from every book printed. 

    The refusal to "buy a book" agrument fails to hold water when the books a relatively easy to get and aren't overly expensive.   The books tend to have a great amount of line art.   As said it is not like the only book with line art is the Gold Book, that is not of print for 20 years, goes for over $150+ and is hard to find.   More Recent leased art books go for 1/5 that price.   If people here can afford countless 1/48 Yamatos but are too cheap and lazy to spend 30-40 on one art book?

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    Amen to that, Roy. Especially since, particualrly in California and the West Coast (and to a lesser degree in New York, Chicago and other metropolitan centers across the US), there are Japanese bookstores like Kinokuniya and used manga/book stores like Book Off that have a decent chance of having it -- or if they don't, they can special order it. These books are not the holy grail (except the Gold Book, but I'll pass on it...that 800-year-old knight creeps me out ;) )

    And as for fair use, to be fair, if it's purely for a fan-based purpose (such as the hypothetical archive) it probably wouldn't hold water if a company decided to make a stink (fortunately, in most cases, they see it as free publicity, so long as the sites don't go overboard with it). fair use was meant to make sure that researchers could draw on earlier works or reviewers could criticize novels, plays, movies and the like without running into copyright problems. It was never a carte blanche for anyone to post anything so long as they scrupulously keep to the amount prescribed by law (which is pretty small, when you think about it). Remember all the Simpsons fansites that had their fair use claims laughed out of court when 20th Century Vole told them to knock it off.

  12. I went and picked up two of the Toynami Valks myself while at AX. I've gotta admit, they've redeemed themselves after the MPC business. the booth itself was all Macross. on the Toynami side, it was as if Robotech never existed (and even the HG booth had finally discovered Macross also :D ) The box is nice and sturdy, and is very reminiscent of a Japanese release - they even went and put "Hikaru Ichijyo's VF-1S Valkyrie" in Japanese under the English. The toy itself is pretty well done, and has an easy transformation sequence between the three modes. I'd say it's reminiscent of (insert your fave Valk toy here), but there's very few ways to engineer the transformation for such an iconic mecha. For $25, i'd say it's a keeper asa nice inexpensive collector's mech. It's not going to replace the 1/48 Yammies as my favorite, but they're pretty good.

    Good: Excellent detail (for the scale) in Battroid and GERWALK mode, good choice of accessories (missiles and micro-missile pods, plus gunpod, replacement hands and display stand), released under Macross name with zero (IIRC) mention of Robotech outside of HG's web address, sturdy and locked together in all three modes, logical transformation sequence, clear instructions

    Bad: Leg swingbars look to be a bit flimsy although not fragile, the head is a bit stiff, gunpod keeps falling apart (it's a two-part assembly with a switchable trigger and mounting jig), fighter mode leaves a bit to be desired, sticker decals are not as good as Yamato's.

  13. When I heard this last night, I was overjoyed... I've only seen Gunbuster in pieces, and boy have I watched those pieces to death.

    However, now it looks like (from the AoDVD thread) that there's some doubt if they actually do intend to release Gunbuster... something about about the trailers not being "official". I asked for clarification... hopefully someone can clarify.

    <_<

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    Don't get your panties in an uproar over nothing. It was leaked a while back that someone held the license for a region 1 release after Manga fumbled the ball. It was just a matter of time finding out who held it. I always felt it would be Bandai, and it is great news, considering how ADV Films like to use southern accents in their dubs for their representation of people from Osaka. Noriko is from Osaka.

    As for the trailers, the guy who made the post said they were airing trailers of past work that the company had done. Since Bandai provided much of the financial work for Aim For The Top!, it would only be natural for them to feature clips of the series in their portfolio, so to speak.

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    The thing that I was surprised on though when I saw the trailer at AX, (BTW, I can confirm that it was unmistakably a license anouncement) was that they could realease it AT ALL. It had been my understanding that the Japanese sound masters had degraded to near-unusable. The Bandai Vis rep said that apparently somehow the sound masters did survive.

  14. I'm sorry, Guts, but as it's been mentioned in the Big Thread of HG v. BW Doom © (: due to the fact that at a very minimum three companies (and almost certainly more) are scrambling for the biggest slice of the pie that they can re: DYRL, and that the licensing situation makes the TV series' wrangling look straighforward and comprehensible by comparison, it's almost gauranteed that DYRL will never get a decent R1 DVD release. Even Robert Woodhead (who released the AnimEigo disks lo those five years ago) has said to not hold one's breath. ):

    As for Clash, the license that Celebrity for Kids had expired years ago, and HG will see that it's never reissued (for once making HG on the side of the angels ;) )

  15. Hey, do y'all know if they've started mailing the badges out? I have to admit it's getting a little harder to keep saying "There's still three weeks left, my precioussssss...." :p

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    Don't think they're mailing them out till pre-reg closes on the 15th.

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    Cool, thanks YLM. :)

  16. From the little I've seen, they are almost identical, but there are some very minor differences. For example, the line in the Animeigo set reads, "We will now present an aerobatics demonstration performed by our newest, most powerful Valkyrie fighters." The ADV line reads, "We will now present an aerobatics demonstration performed by the newest, most powerful of fighters: the Valkyrie!" See, nothing major. Just a little bit of difference in the way some of the lines are phrased. I'd check more, but frankly I bought the ADV discs for the sole purpose of not having to read the subtitles.

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    Actually, it seems that there are some other minor changes, some of them which seem to be better (at least from my perspective). The only one that actively changes a line from the AE version is a line spoken by Hikaru while he and Minmay are trapped in his fanracer. In the AE version, after Hikaru discovers the air leak, and Minmay asks him what the hising noise is, he says "Well, it's not an alarm clock, that's for sure." The ADV line is "Well, it's probably nothing to worry about," or a line to that effect, IIRC.

    Also, it seems that the video is slightly different, in that it removes a couple of "blips" in the AE version, including one where in the AE version of "First Contact," during the pan across the destroyed radar room, there was an inexplicable split-second ghost version of Hikaru and Minmay's tent from episode four.

  17. That would require money, something HG doesn't have much of!

    Not to mention, thy have no leg to stand on in blocking Macross Plus anymore. They let it through, and if they try to now, ten years on, say "oh no no no, we are asserting our rights," they'd be laughed out of court. Now that being said, they could scare off small-fry companies by the threat of making any courtroom victory in the matter a Pyhrric one.

  18. They're going to have to be very, VERY careful though...Kirk and Spock are iconic characters and Shatner's and Nimoy's performances burned into the public mind. They'd better cast their net far and wide to find the actors to play them, and not resort to *shudder* Jude Law or *shudder* Orlando Bloom or *barf* Ben Afleck.

  19. Maybe it's just the photo, but Lick's fleshtone doesn't match between his face and hands.  Otherwise, it looks excellent.

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    At least Hikaru's not flourescent pink like the old Adm. Lick ;)

  20. I will say this: Even though it is HG product, it has three things going for it:

    1. It is under the Macross name.

    2. They look pretty decent (even though I'm not sure I like the molded-on skull on the heatshield of the valks or the opaque canopy)

    3. Say what you will, that 12-inch Hikaru is light-years beyond that Robotech abomination from 1985 (with the un anime features and hockey hair :rolleyes: )

    If they come to the local Toys R Us, I fear my wallet may open for them.

  21. Then what exactly was "Clash of the bionoids"? How did that horrible version released here in the U.S.?

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    IIRC, Toho was responsible for that train wreck. They had been awarded (before the legal FUBAR) distro rights outside of Japan. Those rights are either gone or on legal hold pending a resolution of the BW/HG-Tat legal circus.

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