Jump to content

Seto Kaiba

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    13424

  • Joined

  • Last visited

4 Followers

About Seto Kaiba

Contact Methods

  • Website URL
    http://www.Macross2.net/m3/m3.html
  • ICQ
    0
  • Skype
    MacrossMike

Profile Information

  • Gender
    Male
  • Location
    Lagrange Terrace (a stable community)
  • Interests
    Anime (duh), Antique Firearms, Cryptography, Mechanical Design

Recent Profile Visitors

37447 profile views

Seto Kaiba's Achievements

Super Dimension Member

Super Dimension Member (14/15)

3.3k

Reputation

  1. Seto Kaiba
    So... I have a weird bit of esoterica that's been vexing me and I'm wondering if one of the other contributors here might help. In Macross the Ride, Ukyo Kodachi seems to have indulged himself in giving any reasonably plot-relevant ship or mecha a Meaningful Name. Most of them are reasonably straightforward. The YF-27-3/YF-27-5's name and the name of Wisla & Oder were a bit of a struggle because they're misspelled. The one that's still got me stumped is the Macross Galaxy fleet's Riviera-class resort ship... its name エヴナ is either Evna or Evuna. I cannot find a satisfactory reference, either to a place or story, that fits this one, aside from the Town of Evna from L. Frank Baum's Oz series, which doesn't seem to have thematic relevance. Can anyone think of any places or people (from fiction) named "Evna" or "Evuna"?
  2. Seto Kaiba
    So... that's a bit of a rabbit hole in its own right since there are seemingly two separate Marine Corps. When the then-newly inaugurated Earth Unification (UN) Government officially commenced business in February 2001, one of the first things they did was to establish the Earth UN Forces to reorganize and integrate the various national militaries of Earth into a cohesive fighting force for planetary defense. The Earth UN Forces originally had four branches: the Army, the Air Force, the Navy, and the Marine Corps. These four conventional forces were exactly what you'd expect given their names. We know relatively little about them, as the story doesn't focus on any of them directly and they show up infrequently in the print lore. However, we know a few details like that the Daedalus-class was developed in large part with the Marines in mind (originally the US Marines who formed the backbone of the UN Marines) and that they had an interest in VFs as a replacement for aging VTOL/STOVL jets used in close air support to have their own VF-0 variant (the VF-0C). The fifth branch, the Spacy (space force) was added two years later in 2003. After the First Space War, things get a little bit weirder and a little bit harder to explain. The New Unification Government takes over for the destroyed Earth Unification Government in 2010 and at some unknown date in 2010 or early 2011 someone in power makes the decision to have portions of the Spacy spun off as separate branches of service: the Spacy Air Force and Spacy Marine Corps. Exactly what the organizational division of responsibilities there is is unclear at best. As far as I am aware, they have never been properly explained. They first appear in the This is Animation book for the Macross Plus OVA in Variable Fighters Aero Report, with the Spacy Air Force subsequently appearing in Macross Plus and the Spacy Marine Corps in Macross Frontier and Macross Delta. The Spacy Marine Corps seems obvious enough. They've got to be ground forces and related air support attached to/transported by the Spacy's fleets. The Spacy Air Force makes less sense. Presumably they're the non-carrier aviation arm of the space forces... but that seems to leave their role overlapping with that of the Air Force, since the one base of theirs that we see directly is planetside. With respect to the "why do they still exist?" part... if Isamu's service record is any indication, there is a fair amount of inter-service mobility (more aligned to the JSDF) in the New UN Forces and there is still some semblance of a blue water navy left given that Isamu serves a brief stint about the UNN Enterprise in 2035.
  3. Seto Kaiba
    That's Ideon... one of those shows where Tomino clearly needed the dosage of his antidepressants adjusted. Nah, they were trying to explain what's been going on... they just left it too late to do any damn good.
  4. Seto Kaiba
    Emigrant governments do have some surface-based defenses, but as seen in Macross VF-X2, Macross Frontier, and Macross Delta... but they're pretty consistently shown to be rather minimal. One could even call them token. The ground-based defenses in Macross VF-X2 are inevitably overpowered by a single platoon of Valkyries or sometimes even just a single Valkyrie. The Frontier fleet's ground-based defenses don't fare any better. They have infantry, some tank destroyers, and some AA destroids. All in all, the infantry isn't much use against anybody, the tank destroyers may be able to hurt something like a battlepod but they're not mobile enough to be effective, and the AA destroids only show up as jobbers. There's never really been a good explanation for why some of those atmosphere-focused designs exist. The VF-4's Navy variant is a great example of that. Who the hell needed that? Granted, the writeup in the Macross the Ride Visual Book does claim that "second generation destroids" are seen as a valuable fighting force by fleets and emigrant planets. One would assume that "second generation destroids" mainly means the Cheyenne II, the only one we've seen that is used in more than one place. As far as we know, the "Super Defender" isn't even widely used in the Macross Galaxy fleet never mind elsewhere. It's only mentioned as being used aboard the resort ship Evna. In the actual story, the remarks about it in the Visual Book are treated like in-universe ad copy and it absolutely does not live up to the performance claims made about it... to the considerable dismay of its operators in the Macross Galaxy Corporate Army. On paper, they're meant to be capable of reliably shooting down 4th Generation VFs like the NUNS's VF-171. In practice, even in a target rich environment they struggled to hit anything. I'd even question the claim that the Super Defender - explicitly a modified ADR-04-Mk.X - is a "second generation" machine. It's a modified first generation machine, not a new design. From what we're told in Macross Chronicle and other works, places that allow Zentradi to live as giants seem to be quite rare in the galaxy. Enough so that Sheryl Nome, a touring idol on top of the charts across the galaxy, had apparently never seen one before visiting the Macross Frontier fleet. Ouroboros seems like a pretty good example of why most planets don't allow giants. The inevitable rioting. To be fair, that was also the ethos behind the idea of combining the walking war robot "Battroid" with the next-generation fighter project that became the Valkyrie. We haven't seen very many Variable Attackers in the franchise but a big part of that is likely that most Valkyries are designed to be multirole strike fighters. Maybe Aegis had two redshirts riding along who just didn't get any voice lines? That seems likely... though as we saw in Macross Frontier, even the NUNS Marines have aviators. In the TV anime, they use the Queadluun-Rhea/56 like SMS's Zentradi pilots do. In the novel, they use the Neo Glaug bis too, IIRC. I'd assume the second Battle 13 in command of Earth's defenses is probably a newer model Battle-class more similar to the Battle Astraea or Battle Frontier since it was several years newer than even the first Battle 13. Battle Astraea is supposed to have been a standard central NUNS Battle-class before Cromwell went rogue, stole the ship, and had it modified by the Epsilon Foundation. It seems relatively safe to assume that Battle 13 might be a similar or even the same design. As I mentioned, that's one of the connections the novels draw. Fold carbon and fold quartz had not been established yet at the time of Macross VF-X2, so the "hyperspace resonance lens" was just a new gimmicky macguffin Manfred Brando's company had come up with. The Macross Frontier TV anime established the existence of fold carbon and fold quartz and how they fit into existing technology. Then the later novelization of same came along and connected a bunch of Macross VF-X2's plot to Macross Frontier's including making Manfred the sponsor of the 117th research fleet, the resonance lens a piece of fold quartz acquired from the Vajra, and Dr. Nome's theories about the Vajra's hive mind the basis for the Jamming Sound.
  5. Seto Kaiba
    What he said. As far as I am aware, both from written material and from line art, the VT-1 and VE-1 are supposed to be using the same kind of conventional bell nozzles as the VF-1 in their Super parts. From what I was able to find on a quick search, this appears to be a particular eccentricity of the Hasegawa plastic model kits for the VT-1 and VE-1. The Bandai DX Chogokin and Hi-Metal toys show a conventional bell nozzle like what's in the line art.
  6. Seto Kaiba
    No, no I am not. That "reveal" was so incredibly obvious that I don't think it even counts as any kind of spoiler. I mean, come the f*** on... who didn't guess that the Mysterious Blonde Man who goes by an Obvious Alias, conceals the upper half of his face, and otherwise both looks and sounds exactly like the missing Char Aznable is Char Aznable? Especially in the mid-UC 0080's, where Char has already infamously done that once before in Zeta Gundam as under the rather atrocious alias Quattro Vageena. 'bout the best they did to try and hide it even a little was cast Yuuki Shin instead of longtime Char voice actor Shuichi Ikeda... but that's still an actor with prior credits playing Char. Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX does absolutely bloody nothing to foreshadow that Shuji Ito is...
  7. Seto Kaiba
    In fairness, I'd still call Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX substantially more watchable than any of the Rebuild of Evangelion movies. GQuuuuuuX's main problem is that it has a potentially interesting premise that it just fails to deliver on. The series never takes the time to explore and do proper worldbuilding in its Alternate UC setting, several potentially interesting plot threads are teased and never explored or touched on in only the most cursory way, and the main characters aren't engaged in the main story in a meaningful capacity. These problems are all eminently fixable with a capable writer. The Big Reveal at the end of the most recent episode should be a Big Deal if properly foreshadowed... but it wasn't, so it just feels like an Arse Pull. At times, it's hard to believe the series was in development for over five years when the result is this messy and unpolished. Rebuild's main problem, by contrast, is its own pretentiousness. It's tries so hard to pretend that the original was doing something deep and complex and artsy not just parodying the many cliches of 90's mecha anime. They spent the better part of the last episode dumping dustbins worth of exposition on us. There's not much more they can usefully exposit on at this point without distracting from resolving the main plot.
  8. Seto Kaiba
    Yeah, I've had a similar feeling about the series from a very early point. Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX doesn't bother to develop any of its main characters, it derails the development and motivations of the secondary ones who actually run the story, it drunkenly stumbles through a premise from a previous series and then frantically rushes through a bunch of familiar plot beats to tick off some obligatory appearances on its way to what seems set to be an uncharacteristic-for-the-franchise happy end. When you think about it, all Studio Khara really did here was give Mobile Suit Gundam the Rebuild of Evangelion treatment. The Beginnings movie is basically Rebuild of Gundam 1.0 and 2.0 which recap the original story and its different outcome, and GQuuuuuuX proper is Rebuild of Gundam 3.0 where a radically different outcome is depicted.
  9. Seto Kaiba
    Oof... yeah, that sounds even more brutal than what we have to deal with here in the US, shipping-wise.
  10. Seto Kaiba
    Mobile Suit Gundam-san Char absolutely would.😆
  11. Seto Kaiba
    The easiest way I've found is just eBay or Yahoo Japan Auctions via a service like Buyee. It can be a pain in the butt, but good quality secondhand copies of a lot of these books are surprisingly cheap... or at least not hideously painful. Then again, after more than 20 years of importing books and magazines and DVDs and Blu-rays and so on from Japan I suspect I have become numb to the insane cost of physical media in Japan. The short story collections are going to be one of the first subjects for my new book scanner, since unlike my absolutely ancient flatbed scanner it has built in OCR so I don't have to do all the transcribing by hand. (The Windows Input Method Editor and I are the most bitter of enemies.) Yeah, Aegis's VF-19A is probably the most iconic machine from the game. Enough so to appear in other games, get plamodels, several toys, etc. VF-X-related baddies seem to really lke the VF-22, possibly as a result. Manfred's signature VF-17 in the game notwithstanding, his cyber-ghost comes at Ozma in a VF-22S and Havamal's commander Ushio Todo also has a personal VF-22.
  12. Seto Kaiba
    This is also acceptable. Bonus points will be awarded if it comes with a campy musical number.
  13. Seto Kaiba
    In all honestly, while I am fully expecting an ending to GQuuuuuuX that lands with all the grace and subtlety of a seagull that got into someone's bottle of Everclear, I will proclaim the whole thing a smashing success if... Or, as a consolation prize...
  14. Seto Kaiba
    So, GQuuuuuuX is 12 and done... can't say I'll miss it. Char and Komori deliver some useful exposition about the true nature of zeknovas... Then we learn Char's real motivation... ... we finally learn the truth about the inscruitable Shuji Ito. Nobody really cares what's going on elsewhere, but... I have to say, I am 100% ready for the throwdown that is about to ensue...
  15. Seto Kaiba
    Kawamori really is an incredible designer. It takes an astonishing amount of talent to come up with a transformation that's not only believable but can be translated to a physical toy or model with a reasonable level of fidelity. All the more impressive is that Kawamori is not alone in that regard when it comes to working on Macross. He has had the assistance of similarly talented designers like cockpit designer Junya Ishigaki (who also designed the Macross Zero destroids) and destroid, battle pod, and spaceship designer Kazutaka Miyatake. The Battle-class is Miyatake's work. There's a lovely section on its progression from the earliest concepts to the final design and transformation in Kazutaka Miyatake Design Works: Macross & Orguss that starts on page 47. He also has some commentary on the thought process behind Battle 13 in the VF-X section starting on page 81. There are a few references, but they're relatively low key compared to what's in the other media because the TV anime is meant to be maximally accessible with the bare minimum amount of continuity baggage. It is mostly on the level of sneaky fanservice there. Like Ernest Johnson and Grammier Neirich Windermere both having participated in the Second Unification Wars, though only Grammier's service is remarked on at any length. Its most profound impacts are in how it shaped the setting itself, which is more in the realm of the creator commentary track than the series proper. It's much more blatant in the novelizations, manga, games, etc. which are marketed more towards fans. The novelizations of Macross Frontier and Macross Delta practically have too many to name, like making Manfred Brando the sponsor of Mao Nome's expedition to Vajra space and the reason Ozma gets tossed out of the NUNS, Aegis Focker being Ozma's mentor and a student of Jeffrey Wilder, Manfred's Sound Jamming System using fold quartz, and an AI copy of Manfred's mind being an antagonist in its own right. Macross the Ride's antagonist faction, Fasces, is a literal Latence splinter fleet still fighting for the same goal. Macross 30 has a couple of 'em. The game's antagonists, Havamal, are a New UN Spacy VF-X Special Forces unit like the Ravens (the 815th Independent Squadron). Leon Sakaki's homeworld Sephira is the site of one of the Ravens missions in Macross VF-X2 as well. Two VF-X2 fighters are also available in game: the initial type VF-22 and the VF-19A Ravens type.
×
×
  • Create New...