Pat Payne

This is an amazing job. Very well done. And it's a durn sight more intersting than that Lego air conditioner someone built once... The man deserves an award for creativity and perseverance.

One thing I thought was interesting in that interview is that in the background, they're clearly playing the AnimEigo sub version...

Sometimes, yes. And of course, there were times where the artists/writers had to play down the heroes a bit (for instance during WW2, why was Superman going after Nazi spies when he could have gone straight to Berlin, grabbed Schickelgruber by the scruff of the neck and hauled him off to Fort Knox?). But in the main, the superheroes are there to fight the menaces that can't be taken care of by normal humans. The X-Men are there to foil Magneto, or the FF to keep Galactus from puttin' on the enormous lobster bib and chowing down on Mama Earth. In the real world, they have also always appealed to the powerless, the underdogs as a sort of wish fulfillment by proxy. Why do you think so many GIs read comics during the war? Because as they were locked in a battle with the Nazis and the Japanese, and even though they couldn't knock out a Tiger tank with one finger or give Hirohito a wedgie, they knew that at least for five minutes they could watch Superman or Captain America do it.

Oh dear. Is it the comic world's version of "sweeps" already? You see, this is what's turned me off of comics recently. Everything has to be some "event." Secret Wars, Inferno, Acts of Vengeance, Secret Wars II, all of those were good. But recently they've been going back to that same well almost constantly. They're still doing "House of M" if I'm not mistaken. and concurrently with that they had the breakupa nd re-formation of the Avengers. Thanks, but I'm sticking with my well-worn Chris Claremont X-Men from the '80s. Let me know when Stan Lee and the ghost of Jack Kirby come back to kick some major a$$.

It's going nowhere. According to ANN, they pulled all references from both HG's and the production company's site. MHO, they ran it up the flagpole, and when nobody saluted they turned tail.

None of that would surprise me greatly, Spacy. IMHO, it seems that outside of the original RT series, most of the animated efforts (leaving out all of the subsidiary merchandising/tie-in comics and what not) every RT effort seemed to capitaliuze more on the Mospeada property (which was Tatsunoko's) and Southern Cross (which none of the warring parties seems to give a hoot about). Now, you'd have to get out the rubber hose and put Room 101 on standby to get anyone from HG to explicitly admit that it may have to do something with the BW/Tat legal mess. I'd say "maybe," as, OTHO, most of their attempts from Sentinels on have also been intended to be re-imported into Japan as well, where Tat would then re-dub them to make them direct or indirect sequels to Mospeada, necessitating an almost total excision of any Macross imagery. perhaps, if they did make the statement, it was to say, in effect: We're not going to go back and do a "prequel" about the "SDF-1," since we'd also like to sell this shite in Nippon. As for FASA vs. HG, maybe there was a legal conspiracy. But Occam's razor could still hold: Nobody in a legal battle wants their dirty laundry aired (even if it isn't particularly damaging) and HG had some legal power behid them (they had PlayMates and, tacitly, Tat on their side) and so to prevent trade secrets that may have been part of discovery from leaking, they asked for the records to be sealed. It's not, IIRC, an uncommon part of a settlement deal in corporate litigation.

[Nukes the bunker] .

Is it just me, or does the fighter-looking design look like the "Breast Fighter" from the early versions of Megaroad?

Or so we all thought, until Yamato released the 1/48 Miria Fallyna Jenius VF-1J... Then the debate raged all over again... 361839[/snapback] I prefer Mil F. Jenius. 361844[/snapback] Oh, you cad.

Now I know whom I have to destroy. Anyway, I might as well put my own $0.02 in. I got it a couple of days ago from Amazon, and have watched most of the episodes with the dub on. For the most part, I like the voices: Hikaru: So far, he's not as annoying as he could have been. Vic Mignola does a good job of conveying the "fish out of water" quality of Hikaru in those early episodes. If he knows hios stuff, as the character progresses, he'll do like Luke Skywalker and mature the characterization over time. In fact, he held his own remarkably, IMHO in the episode "Lynn Minmay." Misa: Monica Rial, I'm blowing hot and cold on. In some parts, she's actually quite good, but she overdoes the scenes where Misa's under pressure -- she sounds at times not like she's no-nonsense but on the verge of panic. Although to be fair, she did nail the scene where she's flatfooted by finding out that Hikaru's a civilian piloting a military fighter.As an aside, in the commentary with her and Mari Iijima, she sounded a little like a perpetual cheerleader (perky to the point of obnoxiousness). Minmay: Mari Iijima. Need I say more? She did an amazing job, given that English is not her native tongue, and that Japanese and English are as different as night and day. Other than some problems with sentence pacing and a few times where her accent intruded upon word pronounciations, she showed that she is a very good English voice actress. Roy: Bleah. In some scenes, he's not bad, but he does sound often like a pro-wrestler who shall remain unnamed. In one scene ("Oh, I forgot, this is one of those fighters you haaaaate...") he sounded almost gay -- he was laying on the sarcasm with a snow shovel, where Akira Kamiya was more subdued but still busting Hikaru's chops. They could have done better IMHO -- hell, I would even have been happy if they had recruited Dan Woren (the only tolerable member of the Roboblech cast.) I will say this, though: Apparently, pudknocker IS fighterjock slang, meaning a person who is all mouth and no talent. Claudia: Not bad, she actually captures a lot of the character quite well. Global: Meh...he sounds a bit more "stage-actor"-like than I care for. The "British Major General"-esque accent is nicely done, though. The Bridge Bunnies: Vanessa's actor isn't bad. I haven't heard enough of Kim or Shammie yet to make a judgement (although Shammie's voice seems just a little too overdone at times for me). One complaint on Kim's actor though: In "Lynn Minmay," when Kim makes coffee, the English voice sounds a little like, of all people, Ratso Rizzo from "Midnight Cowboy" when she says "Hey, I made some coffee here" in a (to me) somewhat snotty voice (soundeed like Dustin Hoffman's "I'm walkin' here! I'm walkin' here!"). The Zentradi: Not bad, but neither Britai or Exedol made a real impression on me. I do miss the Zent Echo, though. The rest: Varied in quality from good (Minmay's Aunt, who also affected a slight accent, a nice touch IMHO to tie in with Mari Iijima) to annoying (most of the generic soldiers and workers, who all sound like they came from the $%#@ing Ozarks.) The Script and everything else: I watched the dub along with the subtitles, and amazingly, apart from a few places of added exposition, the writers and translators resisted the urge to "improve" upon the original Japanese script. The two tracked very nicely and mostly differed in word choices for the convinience of the ADR recordings. I'm not used yet to "Muh-cross" yet (not sure I ever will) though. I was a little jarred by the added (not replacement) sound effects and the poorer sound quality (although apparently, that last was not something ADV had a great amount of control over), but in the end, neither was so jarring as to lose sleep over. All in all, I think I'll keep up with the new dub. It wasn't as abysmal as it could have been. Some of the actors could use a bit of coaching and perhaps a little more studying of the original performances, though.

People have been saying "Maybe next year" for DYRL since at least 1985. IMHO, it's not going to happen until somebody decides to finally take Shakespeare literally.

Yeah, what about it? There isn't much to say about it. (Here's the article BTW, for the rest of you: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/article.php?id=6985). Studio Nue still owns the lineart and creators' rights. Takara now owns the animation and merchandising rights. The original ruling still holds on who owns what, just that it looks like Takara now owns what Tatsunoko owned. 359456[/snapback] Although, as I asked earlier in the thread, it'll be interesting to see how Takara's going to handle the license. Will they either deem it worth fighting over, or let the matter drop and settle with Big West, feeling that (In Japan, at least, where IINM, Takara is focusing all of their energies in raiding the old Tatsunoko licences for toy merchandising) Macross just isn't that big of a draw compared with Gatchaman or Time Bokan or other fully-owned and not-litigious Tat properties?

However, that being said, I still maintain that the point is that for 20 years, on both sides of the Pond, and notwithstanding Asian naming conventions, Lynn Minmay's name has been...well..."Lynn Minmay." To say "Minmay Lynn," while obviously more correct, would sound wrong, even to we few, we happy few, we band of nitpickers here on MW. Sometimes the error in a name sticks better than reality. Take a look at General and President of the US, Ulysses S. Grant. His real name was not Ulysses Samson Grant, but Hyram Ulysses Grant. But a clerical error during his time at West Point created the name that everyone knows him by. The same thing here. Someone in the dim mists of history forgot to take Asian naming conventions into account when they romanized Minmay's name. Everyoen and their uncle calls her "Lynn Minmay."

No. In EVERY romanization, the correct form is "Super Dimension Fortress." Nope, she even signs her own name in the series as "Lynn Minmay." That's her stage name. Never, in any romanization, or anywhere else, has she been known as "Minmay Lynn."

I guess we'll be able to find out, as the original '85 mail-order dub is included as an extra.

Most likely. I just heard the LAPD has a tactical alert out just in case.

And the Platinum Edition, where the there's all new animated footage, the Diamond Edition, where Han shoots first (again), the Mega-Ultra edition, where Bobby Ewing's death isn't a dream, and the Bootleg edition, with official Chinese subtitles and the alternate ending where Henry Blake doesn't get shot down over the Sea of Japan.

"From what I see, you ain't leading nothin' but Jack and poo, and Jack left town!"

ANYTHING with Elvis Presley. The man was obscenely overrated, IMHO.

I will admit to liking as a guilty pleasure Xanadu (most of the movie was crap, but I like some of the songs, I love those cool early '80s special effects, and it was one of Gene Kelly's last starring roles.)

What kind of hubs do they use, Keith? Are they the ones that grip the discs with a deathlock, increasing the risk of breakage, or do they have gentler hubs? EDIT IN: I'm lookign at the new Official ADV site...and they spelled Hikaru's name wrong a couple of times (as "Hikaro"). I hope they have better proofreaders on the subs... Also, it looks like the online character profiles were lifted from Egan Loo's liner notes for the Animeigo release.

Already? Where did you order from?

The only size I think is off, and maybe it's just me, is the Romulan Deridex (sp?)...I always thought it was roughly as big as (maybe a bit bigger than) the Enterprise-D, rather than being in the same size class as the Macross.

For me, the best dub (barring the celebrity-laden Ghibli/Disney/Tokuma ones) I've heard was Cowboy Bebop. The absolute worst was pretty much any dub job from AnimEigo (they are a great studio, but their icehouse and dub studios suck.) And although I've only heard a few clips of the Macross dub, I'm still sticking by my belief that it is not an irredeemably bad dub. With a few reservations, I'm actually getting used to it.

The only real complaint is this... Ms. Rial, (pause for breath) IT'S PRONOUNCED MAH-CROSS, DAMMIT, NOT MUH-CROSS!!! Thank you.