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Seto Kaiba

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  1. Seto Kaiba
    The most popular fan theory for how Macross II: Lovers Again fits into the main/ongoing Macross timeline is as a work of in-universe fiction... a speculative-fiction sequel to the 2031 pseudo-documentary drama Do You Remember Love?. One of the reasons this idea gained traction is that a lot of the Macross II soundtrack was reused for Macross 7, so music from the OVA is EVERYWHERE in 2045. It's the chart-topping music on the Galaxy Network, the indie bands on City-7 play it, and the Minmay Attack girl from the OVA's first episode even puts in an appearance or two. Even the Jamming Birds perform songs from it. (This idea gains a bit more traction from books like Master File implying that there were other docu-dramas like DYRL? that came before the 2031 movie.)
  2. Seto Kaiba
    Y'see... the thing about the mecha that the ancient Protoculture designed for the Zentradi is that they didn't consider the Zentradi operators people. They were expendable biological military hardware, so little things like survivability or operator comfort either weren't on the priority list at all or were pretty far down. Some, like the Nousjadeul-Ger, require bio-tech implants in order to operate properly while others, like the Regult, are noted to be horribly uncomfortable. (It kinda says a lot that the Mardook variants have demonstrably superior ergonomics, even though the Mardook also treat their Zentradi as eminently disposable.) The Earth UN Forces don't see their Zentradi officers and enlisted men as expendable. They're people, not equipment, and most of them were born and raised on Earth like any of their Human colleagues. With limited resources, survivability is much more of a priority. Especially against an enemy that will always have numerical superiority. So the UN Forces prioritize survivability... and most Zentradi mecha come up short in that department. Valkyries and Destroids are simply more practical and effective in that regard. Massive losses among an all-volunteer armed force are hard to replace, and most Earth-born Zentradi would probably be unwilling to put up with the ergonomic nightmare that the old Zentradi mecha represent (or submit themselves to surgery to operate some of them). Apparently this is called a "proprietary eponym"... when the name of a specific instance of a thing becomes the generic term (e.g. "Kleenex" for facial tissue). It's likely they don't need to... they're heavily implied to be Protoculture themselves, they have what amounts to a main fleet-scale force that's technologically superior to what the Zentradi are fielding, and they've got an equally-advanced mobile fortress running the show. Odds are they probably have the production capacity to sustain and expand their Zentradi forces without needing to attack Zentradi main fleets.
  3. Seto Kaiba
    So... this is another thread in which you complain that Macross's writers took its story in new and different directions instead of lamely rehashing the same story over and over again like a certain other series we don't talk about here? Disregarding all the points that are just that... ... a what now? Isn't that what The Show That Must Not Be Named calls its transformable aircraft? You want him to be a plane? Turbo Teen, but in space? (The proper term for which is "Variable Fighter", or "Valkyrie" for short.) Macross II: Lovers Again follows on from Macross: Do You Remember Love? with interquels Macross 2036 and Macross: Eternal Love Song. The Supervision Army does not exist in that version of the story. In DYRL?, the Meltrandi are the hostile power the Zentradi have been at war with for 500,000 years. Instead of being along socio-political lines, the war was on gender lines. Mind you, the Mardook are already strongly implied to be a surviving group of Protoculture like those mentioned in DYRL?. ... it already has that. Ugh... I know that a racially-segregated military was apparently something the writers of The Show That Must Not Be Named were OK with, but Macross is a bit more with the times. In Macross, the Zentradi who remained on Earth after the First Space War integrated peacefully into society after a brief period of adjustment and unrest. The UN Forces in Macross II are full of Zentradi and part-Zentradi serving alongside Humans in the same units. Most look utterly indistinguishable from Humans. Sylvie is one, for instance. She's a quarter-Meltran and mentions as much. The UN Forces did have a VF called the "Zentradi Valkyrie", but it was as much a proof of concept for the VF-2 series as it was a VF meant to assist new Zentradi defectors in adapting to the UN Forces gear and it was not a unit exclusive to Zentradi pilots (rather, it was based heavily on newly-captured Zentradi tech). The UN Forces continue to use captured Zentradi ships because why throw away a perfectly good ship whose crew had defected?
  4. Seto Kaiba
    Yeah, the Regult that Hikaru, Misa, Kakizaki, and Max steal to return to the Macross in Ep12 "Big Escape" is stolen from one of the ships in the Laplapmiz Direct Defense Fleet.
  5. Seto Kaiba
    Versatility, mainly... though cost was likely also a major factor. One thing to remember about the Queadluun-Rau is that, outside of DYRL?, it's so complex, difficult to manufacture, resource-intensive (read: "expensive"), and difficult to use that the Protoculture had to literally Build a Better Pilot and restrict its use to elite forces. It's also closer to being an aircraft than a proper battle suit. The Nousjadeul-Ger, on the other hand, can be economically mass-produced and widely deployed to regular Zentradi forces. It's designed to be highly versatile, and one way for it to expand that versatility is with handheld weapons. Its main weapon is the dorsally-mounted plasma cannon, though that's only meant for medium-range engagements and is a bit on the cumbersome side. Its secondary weapon is the fixed medium-bore rapid-fire impact cannon in its chest, but its field of fire is limited by the need to point the entire body of the mecha at the target. The laser machine pistol is the standard sidearm deployed with the Nousjadeul-Ger because it offers a high rate of fire, balanced performance at all ranges, and the ability to aim off-axis because it's handheld. It's also not dependent on the mecha's reactor, since it has its own internal power source.
  6. Seto Kaiba
    Like real world militaries, the (New) UN Forces have always been cost-conscious... there's that old wisdom connected to basically any government service "remember that all of your equipment was built by the lowest bidder". Most, if not all, of the 2nd Generation VFs were deliberately designed to be "Economy Valkyries" due to the limited resources of postwar Earth and the first wave of emigrant fleets in the 2010s. The VF-4 Lightning III's initial mass production type shared 25% of its parts with the 1st Gen VF-1 Valkyrie. The unseen VF-5, VF-6, and VF-7 were all made to be low cost next-gen VFs cheaper to build and maintain than the VF-1. Comparatively low costs is also mentioned in connection with the VF-9 and VF-5000. You could also reasonably argue it was a cost-saving move to go back to a single jack-of-all-trades main VF instead of multiple regime-optimized models in the 3rd Generation with the VF-11. In the 4th Gen, the less costly VF-171 won out over the VF-19 and VF-22 in the end. There's always an element of cost-consciousness lurking somewhere in their development. Being isolated on the far side of the galaxy, the Brisingr globular cluster's kind of almost never really properly escaped that initial period of isolation that came from being a first wave emigrant government. They developed the VF-31 locally with an emphasis on cost performance and stimulating their local economy, so it's not at all surprising that they would have prioritized the multipurposefulness of the aircraft and tried to do at least as well on modularity and adaptability as the VF-171 did.
  7. Seto Kaiba
    Somebody better pick up that phone, because I f*cking called it. Seriously though, there's no story to tell. Hikaru, Misa, and Minmay sailed off into the proverbial sunset aboard the SDF-2 Megaroad-01 and lived happily ever after. That's it. That's all. No more to be said. Their story's over and they're not relevant to galactic events anymore. Somehow, I doubt you'd find much entertainment value in the Megaroad-01 sitting in deep space for months or years while they scout nearby systems and bank energy for their next fold jump with Hikaru and Misa's exciting forays into the world of midnight feedings, diaper changes, and pediatrician visits for their newborn daughter. Given what we know about what happened to the other original TV series characters via Macross 7 Docking Festival, I also find it rather doubtful you'd be very excited with what they did after the series ended. Bruno Global retired and went into politics, and then they named a couple ships and an airport after him. Claudia just kinda dropped off the radar. Kim's an unmarried career soldier living alone with her dog who eventually becomes a Lt. General and the commander of Earth's defense fleet. Shammy quit the military, got married, and had eleven kids with her husband at a colony on the moon. Vanessa quit the military, got married, her husband's alcoholism destroyed their family business, forcing her to work as a hostess in a cabaret club and later become the manager of one. Vrlitwhai got Global's old job as head of the military. The Zentradi spy trio are all unemployed and mooching off of Roli's wife Vanessa. Kaifun bummed around Earth for a while and then left on the Macross-11 where he became manager of an unauthorized Fire Bomber cover band. Yot-chan, the annoying kid in UN Forces overalls, grew up to become the owner of the Nyan-Nyan chinese restaurant and turned it into an interstellar restaurant chain. All in all, it's pretty humdrum stuff. They get to quietly live normal lives out of the spotlight, for better or worse, instead of being dragged back for story after story and get pounded into the ground like a tentpeg until anything remotely likeable about them is long gone.
  8. Seto Kaiba
    We had that. Its name was Macross II: Lovers Again. It did only so-so in Japan but pretty well in the west. Had two tie-in video games, an official manga, a novelization, etc. I believe you were complaining about it earlier. You may need corrective lenses, then. Macross Plus got kind of a lukewarm reception in Japan but western audiences even today laud it as one of the true Must-Watch titles in the mecha genre. Macross 7 was such a huge hit in Japan that its popularity endures even today, nearly thirty years after its original broadcast. Macross Frontier... well... it wouldn't be unfair to say that show set the world on fire on its 2008 debut. In what seems to be a bit of a trend with the few new members who are obvious refugees from the Robotech fan community, your definition of a "true sequel to Macross" is the same dreary stagnation that has been Robotech's status quo since '86... and we all know how quickly that punishing lack of original thought 86'd Robotech's prospects.
  9. Seto Kaiba
    Nah, must've been one of the guys from the other platoon that came in behind Roli's... because Roli, Warera, and Conda are still alive to attend the truce announcement later in the film. The one that gets shot down by Hikaru has platoon leader colors, so presumably the leader of the other trio of battle suits.
  10. Seto Kaiba
    Pretty damned sure you're the one wearing the grease paint and red nose in this relationship, sweetcheeks. Well, you've seen one of the Strange Machine Games covers... it's what Podtastic posted. It's not surprising that both publishers are consolidating the Masters Saga and New Generation content rather than give them their own books. Neither saga is anywhere near as popular among Robotech fans as the Macross Saga is, so expected sales volumes of individual saga books would be lower. Consolidating Sentinels and Shadow Chronicles is also quite a solid move, since they're both aborted titles that essentially the beginning and ending of a specific story arc without the middle part and there's very little content for the two of them. What's really weird is that the publisher blamed the cancellation on the pandemic lockdowns... even though the book was cancelled two months before the lockdowns started. But that's kinda par for the course when Robotech anything gets past the Macross Saga.
  11. Seto Kaiba
    Yes, his name is Quamzin 03350. Nope. The three Nousjadeul-Ger battle suits that break into the Macross's city section near the beginning of the movie are piloted by the movie versions of the original show's lolicon trio - Roli Dosel, Warera Nantes, and Conda Bromco - who later attend Global's truce declaration as the micloned representatives of the Boddole Zer main fleet. They're credited in the film as Roli 28356, Warera 25258, and Conda 88333. The Nousjadeul-Ger that faceplants into the building Minmay and Kaifun were in is piloted by Conda 88333. The person talking to him over the radio when he declares "Zentran and Meltran?!" is indicated to be Roli 28356 by the caption in the Gold Book. Presumably he's piloting the platoon leader machine that came in with Conda's. The third, who says "Yak deculture" is Warera.
  12. Seto Kaiba
    Now there's a question for the philosophers! Is it more, or less, unsettling if the humanoid cats are wearing spandex overshorts instead of being naked? At least it's animated, not live action, so we won't have to worry about press commentary about Lion-O's bulge... at least, not until DeviantArt gets ahold of it. Incidentally, and because this awful thought popped into my head completely unbidden and I feel compelled to ensure that I don't suffer alone... Does Hostess still make Ho Hos? They should do a cross-promotion with this movie. The marketing almost literally writes itself. Oh, this is just good-natured joking. The crapping-on will come after we get some key visuals to look at... and someone cleans the litterbox.
  13. Seto Kaiba
    Ah, my apologies... wrong horrifying CG cat person movie. Who'd have thought that would become a genre?
  14. Seto Kaiba
    But at least it was polite enough to stop happening almost immediately.
  15. Seto Kaiba
    Since alternate cuts are all the rage nowadays, I am still waiting for the fabled Cats version where they included CGI anuses on all of the characters for veracity's sake.
  16. Seto Kaiba
    Well, certain artist communities on DeviantArt are about to make serious f*cking bank on this. The studio? I suspect not so much.
  17. Seto Kaiba
    The covers were posted on a Facebook group I'm on. Given the timing, I'd assume they were probably shown off at the Wondercon@Home Robotech panel? The same post is the one that noted that the two sagas are going to be covered in one book, titled "Home Front".
  18. Seto Kaiba
    That's rather uncharitable. It's not like Southern Cross's concept was unworkable. Tatsunoko rushed to get an original mecha IP to market and cut every corner they could to make it happen quickly. So it ended up being heavily and blatantly derivative of the most successful titles in the genre at the time, with the gaps filled in with material from series concepts Tatsunoko had rejected before deciding on a mecha anime, and design work done in-house by a team that didn't really have the skill set to do transforming robots instead of hiring experts. You probably could redo Southern Cross and actually make it passable... but it'd mean basically starting over from the series concept and developing it properly. You wouldn't be able to get away with turd-polishing the existing material. 39 episodes would be a hell of a stretch in this day in age, though. Unless you've got serious confidence in your property from your production committee, it's hard to get more than 13 episodes in this day in age.
  19. Seto Kaiba
    Ah, no. Just no. Like, I actually feel bad because of how excessively optimistic that statement was. Southern Cross only lasted as long as it did back in 1984 because the mecha genre more or less at the apex of its popularity and influence. It was comparatively easy to get funding for any old story involving "real robot" type mecha at the time, thanks to the success of Mobile Suit Gundam and Super Dimension Fortress Macross. It was easier for those shows to gain a following too because mecha was the in thing at the time. Southern Cross tanked in Japan at a time when conditions in the industry were nearly ideal to succeed with mecha anime. Nowadays? No chance. These days, a new mecha IP has to have some serious clout and creative talent behind it or it'll never get made. You can't quarter-ass development the way Tatsunoko Production did on Southern Cross and expect to get anywhere except a nice deep financial hole that other properties will have to fill in. Tatsunoko itself recently had a refresher course in that fact of life on their 55th Anniversary when they rolled out their first original mecha IP in ages, The Price of Smiles, and it promptly tanked every bit as hard as Southern Cross did on only a twelve episode run. The Arming Doublets are nice designs but heavily dated, but the actual mecha designs are so bland, generic, boxy, and ugly that they're never going to sell. It's an object lesson in why you hire mechanical designers to do your mechanical designs instead of throwing the task at three randos in your studio and saying "I need three transforming robots and six enemy mechs by lunchtime". Hell, the picture you posted is pretty solid proof of my point. The new (and embarrassingly bad) Robotech RPG isn't even giving Southern Cross - AKA the "Robotech Masters Saga" - its own sourcebook the way previous ones did. It's been combined with MOSPEADA (AKA "the New Generation Saga") into a single book. (History repeats itself, I guess, since the ADV FIlms remaster of Southern Cross also ended up being squashed together into a double-pack with Genesis Climber MOSPEADA in order to make it sell. That's how I ended up with my copy, actually. They did do a rather nice job with the box art.)
  20. Seto Kaiba
    Macross made a pretty big splash when it first debuted, and is noted as an inspiration to a number of different shows from that period... the most notable of which being Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam.
  21. Seto Kaiba
    It's a well-known fact that MOSPEADA's creators were "taking pointers" from Macross in the development of their series. Esp. at the insistence of one of their merchandising partners, Imai Kagaku, who were adamant that the series had to prominently feature transforming fighter jets like Macross's as they were already riding that particular gravy train and wanted to keep it going. There's also a fair amount of Starship Troopers in there, with aspects of the Inbit being inspired by the pseudo-arachnids from the novel. Some of the earliest Inbit concept art from the show's development is much more overtly insectoid. Not really, no... they share some basic design traits in common but aesthetically and structurally they're completely different. I'm pretty sure human forces would notice the difference immediately... because the Zentradi mecha are orders of magnitude bigger. Your standard Zentradi clone soldier is between 9m and 10m tall. The Inbit Iigaa is 2.5m tall. In scale to a statistically-average 1.8m (~5'11") tall Human male, the Iigaa is 0.5m (~19.5") tall... approximately the size of a statistically-average newborn. The very largest Inbit mecha, the Ghoss, is 8.6m tall. In scale with that Human male, equivalent to a person approximately 1.72m (~5'8") tall. Bear in mind, that's compared to an unarmored Zentradi soldier and equivalently scaled Human standing flatfooted. Most Zentradi mecha are nearly twice the height of the very largest Inbit mecha (the Ghoss, at 8.6m). The Regult is 15.12m tall, the Glaug is 16.55m tall, the Nousjadeul-Ger is 16.4m tall, and the Queadluun-Rau is 16.75m tall. Most Inbit mecha would be little bigger to a Zentradi mecha than a garden variety crab is to you or I. I'd hazard to say that'd leave most people looking at them in no doubt that they were different pretty much right away.
  22. Seto Kaiba
    I hate how much of an earworm this is, no matter how it's mixed. Great show. Just, absolutely great.
  23. Seto Kaiba
    Seriously? Necro-ing a thread that hasn't seen a reply in almost twenty years to whine? The funny part is, the vague details of the ancient Protoculture's fall are about as dark as it ever gets... it's all uphill from there even in the Macross II: Lovers Again timeline these games belong to. In fact, this timeline's take is actually more optimistic than Kawamori's. In Kawamori's version, the Protoculture simply flee to their last strongholds on the edges of the galaxy and slowly go extinct. In this timeline, some of the Protoculture actually manage to escape the collapse of their civilization, learn from their mistakes, and make fresh starts elsewhere in the galaxy, with humanity being a product of one of those fresh starts. It's even implied that the Mardook in Macross II are a surviving group of Protoculture, who Earth's love songs inspire to find a lasting peace for themselves and appreciate other cultures instead of fearing them. (Hell, even Zentradi invasions aren't much of a threat after a while in this timeline. Quamzin's roaring rampage of revenge falls apart due to the intervention of a pair of fresh-out-of-the-academy cadets in Macross 2036 and the Zentradi "invasion" in Eternal Love Song is revealed in-story to basically be the Zentradi coming to hide behind humanity after biting off more than they could chew fighting a Meltrandi main fleet. After a while, the periodic rogue Zentradi attacks are demoted to little more than a recurring PR stunt for the Spacy, with the humans effortlessly rolling over the Zentradi invaders and adding shiploads of defectors to their forces every time.)
  24. Seto Kaiba
    Six episodes into How Heavy are the Dumbbells you Lift? and I have to say that of the unconventional sports-type anime I've seen, this is far and away the most enjoyable. A protagonist with an entirely mundane relatable goal, and moderately educational material snugly wrapped in a quirky yet anarchic sense of humor, tongue-in-cheek parody of other genres, and a fairly mild amount of fanservice that's nowhere near as exploitative as I'd figured it would be. Had a few moments where I involuntarily laughed out loud. Especially when the narrator matter-of-factly announces that the remainder of a section on arm wrestling will be presented in the format of a shounen battle anime. (That and the way Machio just... deflates... whenever anyone forces him to actually put on clothes and makes a slide whistle noise every time. That his face never changes when he hulks out and inexplicably grows about two additional feet in height and puts on ~200lb in solid muscle for the sake of posing is bizarre in its own right.)
  25. Seto Kaiba
    So, on a lark, I started How Heavy are the Dumbbells You Lift?... and had to briefly stop and check I hadn't scoffed someone's edibles. It's... it's... an experience. On the surface, an only-partly-wholesome pseudo-sports anime about someone trying to get into shape... albeit freighted with the occasional fanservice-y technique demo. Below that surface is a very strange place indeed, with a fitness trainer who alternates between being proportioned like a normal human being and looking like an even more musclebound version of Kenshiro from Fist of the North Star (whom he cosplays at one point), a best friend character who is apparently living in a world class competitive boxing gym, and a girl whose enthusiasm for muscles crosses the line from personal taste and ordinary fetish into feeling genuinely depraved. It rattles back and forth between the bizarre and the educational so readily and so often that I can't look away. Half the time it's an amusing little PSA for personal fitness. The other half, it's every bit as bemusing as someone asking you out of the blue for a lightly grilled weasel on a sesame seed bun. It's weirdly compelling in the same way that Iwakakeru was weirdly disappointing and bland. They're both unconventional, but Iwakakeru took itself completely seriously while Dumbbells isn't so much taking refuge in audacity as it is living luxuriously in a palatial 15 bedroom mansion it built in audacity.
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