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Seto Kaiba

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  1. Seto Kaiba
    You're gonna need something way stronger to get the Japanese market to care about Southern Cross. For the purposes of toy collecting, perhaps... but that's as far as it goes. In terms of proper classification, it's six models of Bioroid and a one-off/custom unit. It wouldn't be called a variant because "variant" implies that it's a productionized derivative that's being mass produced... i.e. that there is more than one of that specific unit. A custom unit is a one-of-a-kind unit that deviates from the production specification. Seifreit's Bioroid is a custom unit. (I realize I'm splitting hairs over terminology, but I am a big believer in precision when it comes to things like this... esp. since there's so little in the way of accurate info on the series out there.) I don't recall the creators of Southern Cross ever giving any real indication as to why Seifreit was given a one-of-a-kind Bioroid when he was no different from any other abducted and brainwashed soldier the Zor used. It's clear in production terms they wanted an enemy ace character and went with a very blatant homage to iconic rival ace Char Aznable, but I don't recall ever seeing an in-story explanation for it.
  2. Seto Kaiba
    When the New UN Government launched these various emergency measures to preserve the habitability of Earth and begin the recovery of its ecosystem, the First Space War had only just ended. They needed to take immediate steps to ensure that Earth would remain a planet capable of supporting life because the newly established New UN Government lacked the resources to carry out even a partial evacuation of the planet and they didn't have anywhere to evacuate the planet's population to either. It wasn't until almost four years later that an inhabitable planet was discovered in another solar system (Eden) and trial emigration started. Sentiment is certainly a part of it, but I'm inclined to argue that there were elements of a sunk cost fallacy involved. The New UN Government had invested massive resources into the preservation of Earth's ability to support life and the beginnings of ecological restoration, mobilized the military to obtain unheard-of levels of manufacturing muscle to facilitate their plans to restore Earth, and started mass cloning to repopulate the planet. Relocating became increasingly logistically complicated as time went on, so by the time Eden was identified and the first wave of emigrants confirmed the planet was generally safe for human life they'd already invested so heavily in restoring Earth that relocating would've slowed or stopped the all-important space emigration program and made all their efforts to keep Earth livable seem like a waste. I think by the time they realized that it was a workable option and they actually had the resources to make it happen, the rebuilding had gotten far enough on Earth that nobody wanted to go through having to strike camp and rebuild society AGAIN. (With the emigrant ship designs available, it would've taken over 300 round trips to get the original survivor population off of Earth, by which point they would've been playing a losing game against explosive population growth.)
  3. Seto Kaiba
    Yeah, it's the document mentioned on the cover as "Scenario File". I've got a lead on scans for you though, so I may be able to save you a hunt.
  4. Seto Kaiba
    ... y'know, if it looks like a cartoony postage stamp and makes you see sounds, that's acid not sugar. Yup. Like I said, most people legitimately do not remember that there were other types of Bioroid than the Early Period Type I and II. To be honest, I'm not sure I'd call that "considerable" customization. Seifreit's has nipple piercings or whatever, that thing on its chest that looks like a butt moved up a bit, and the clamps on the polarized sensor cover are a different shape, but that's pretty cosmetic stuff. It's nothing that really changed the shape, profile, or capabilities of the mecha. It's surface detail. Yeah, that's the right issue... if you go hunting for it make sure you get the scenario file with it.
  5. Seto Kaiba
    As noted previously, Seifreit Weiss's red Bioroid is explicitly and on no uncertain terms noted to be the same model as the green Bioroid (Early Period Bioroid Type II)... it's just a custom unit, while the greens are in their stock configuration. (It's written up as 前期II型改 in This is Animation 10.)
  6. Seto Kaiba
    To address @pengbuzz's unanswered questions from another thread that recently got locked for unrelated reasons: Pretty much, yes. The Zentradi were bombarding the planet with heavy quantum reaction beam weapons and high-yield conventional anti-warship missiles. Between the average yield and sheer weight of fire from 4,795,122 warships, there wasn't much difference between what they did and a planet-wide thermonuclear saturation bombardment. Each of those heavy quantum reaction beam cannon strikes was like a nuclear bomb going off, with the heat and shockwave from the strike causing far more destruction than the direct hit itself did. If any people on the surface escaped immediate death or lingering lethal injury as a direct result of the bombardment would have quickly succumbed to indirect consequences of such a vast orbital bombardment if they were on the surface. All of the debris kicked up into the atmosphere by the blasts would've turned the atmosphere into an unbreathable mess full of dust, ash, and other unwholesome substances like organic decay products, smoke from burning toxic waste, and particulate radioisotopes from destroyed nuclear reactors. If that didn't get you, the ensuing dust storms and shortages of food and potable water would have in the space of a few short days if you didn't drown in a flash flood caused by the weeks of unbroken torrential poison rain caused by the bombardment. In short, Earth's surface was a distinctly unhealthy place to be. The Boddole Zer main fleet got the drop on Earth, and the UN Forces brass never did take Global's report about the size of the Zentradi fleet seriously, so it probably wouldn't have affected the final battle TOO much... unless a cannon was undamaged enough to fire and had a clear shot at Boddole Zer's mothership. THAT would have won the fight outright by removing the apex of the Boddole Zer main fleet's chain of command, forcing a retreat. Yes, the New UN Government did start a major project called the Nature Regeneration Project to mitigate the consequences of the orbital bombardment and begin repairing Earth's obliterated ecosystem. Macross Chronicle notes that the Boddole Zer main fleet's bombardment had pretty catastrophic consequences for Earth that are going to take a VERY long time and a downright colossal investment of time, money, energy, and technology to mitigate, never mind repairing. The bombardment destroyed Earth's ecosystem, resulted in a spike in global carbon dioxide levels and a decline in global oxygen levels, raised the average temperature all over the planet, caused a significant increase in humidity due to the mass vaporization of the world's oceans, and spread all kinds of nasty toxins and contaminants all over the planet. The New UN Government implemented a number of different measures to maintain Earth as a habitable planet. They erected a 500km-diameter sun shade to block sunlight to help mitigate global warming caused by increased atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. They deployed genetically engineered bacteria to contain and clean up radiological hazards caused by breached reactors and waste stockpiles, and engineered phytoplankton to stabilize the planet's atmospheric composition and start reversing the increase in carbon dioxide. Seed banks that survived the cataclysm were tapped and used to start rebuilding the ecosystem with support from cloning and genetic engineering tech. The manufacturing muscle from factory satellites was put to use providing materiel for the planetary terraforming work. All in all, they went to some pretty extreme lengths to keep Earth livable, but it's going to be thousands of years before the planet is restored to the point that it resembles our Earth at all. That damage is just THAT severe. Well, Alexi Kuryakin was one such individual, an engineer from the SV-51 project who defected from the Anti-Unification Alliance to the Unification Government when the Alliance started falling apart and was lucky enough to dodge the bullet by being on the moon when the Zentradi rolled up and flattened Earth. He seems to have been a pessimistic person given that he seems to have considered renewed civil war an inevitability and established a special design group within General Galaxy to focus on VFs designed to fight other VFs (the SV Works).
  7. Seto Kaiba
    Not that I'm aware... you'd have to track down a physical copy on Mandarake, Yahoo! Auctions Japan, or a similar site. Some, but not all, of the material from My Anime's June 1984 issue is in This is Animation 10, but the print quality is iffy and the size is poor in both. They're the same design, according to the OSM... just colored differently.
  8. Seto Kaiba
    Well, it will be my pleasure to put my skills to work providing clarity to all who wish it. Studio Ammonite created line art for six specific variants of the Zor Bioroid, but none of them have names or specific roles or anything along those lines. It's not even really clear why the Zor created different models and types of Bioroid, since nothing is said about how those models differ from each other in practical terms. None of them have built-in weapons or any obvious difference in equipment besides occasionally using different models of handheld gun. All the stuff about Soldiers, Leaders, Guards, etc. is Palladium Books embroidering the minimal official information to justify why there were different models in the first place. The six types of Bioroid are as follows (art sourced from My Anime June 1984 issue): Bioroid Type I (Early Period) Bioroid Type II (Early Period) Bioroid Type I (Middle Period) Bioroid Type II (Middle Period) Bioroid Type I (Late Period) Bioroid Type II (Late Period) Seifriet Weiss's Bioroid isn't a separate model, it's just an Early Period Bioroid Type II with a red paint job instead of green. At one point in This is Animation 10 it's referred to as Type II Custom, but with no indication given as to whether it's actually customized in any way besides giving it a different color paint (or why). The whole rationale for having the different types of Bioroid, including the bright red antagonist ace custom, seems to have been "Gundam did it, so we thought we should too", broadly mirroring the Zaku II's having a regular and "ace" version (with a red custom model for the main antagonist) followed by different-colored improvements like the blue Gouf, black Dom, and grey Gelgoog, etc. Most folks only really remember the Early Period Bioroids, since they're the ones that were used for most of the series. It did... it's the Bioroid Type I (Late Period). They kind of drew it wrong though, the eyes are supposed to be horizontal and farther apart.
  9. Seto Kaiba
    From what I've seen, most interest in Bioroids is firmly centered on the "Early Type" Bioroids that dominated the first two-thirds of the series. Mainly Seifreit's red Early Type II Bioroid, with the stock green Early Type II and blue Early Type I as a peripery interest. Most folks - including Robotech's official coverage - tend to forget there were four more models of Bioroid in the OSM. Kinda like how almost nobody remembers that there were actually multiple types of Spartas head. EDIT: To clarify terms, the Bioroids didn't have names in the OSM... they were just referred to as the Early, Middle, or Late type and Type I or Type II for that period. The model Robotech calls the Invid Fighter or the Armored Bioroid was the Middle Type II.
  10. Seto Kaiba
    I think the bigger issue there might be that the main character's fairly plot-critical internal monologue was axed completely... which kind of derails every aspect of the story.
  11. Seto Kaiba
    Not to mention that it wasn't drawn by anyone connected with the mechanical designs of the series either... it's fanart.
  12. Seto Kaiba
    So, I did a little digging into this based on what you said... and suddenly all of the problems with The Misfit of Demon King Academy make perfect sense. Both The Rising of the Shield Hero and The Misfit of Demon King Academy TV anime adaptations adapted the first five volumes of their respective light novels. Where Misfit starts to run into problems is that its light novel volumes are a good 25% larger than Shield Hero's, meaning the amount of content they're trying to adapt is more like six light novel volumes rather than five and they're trying to pack that material into half as much episode count. When you work it out, the adaptation density of The Rising of the Shield Hero is about 63.04 pages per episode. The adaptation density of The Misfit of Demon King Academy is about 149.54 pages per episode... well over double Shield Hero's. No wonder everything feels so rushed and poorly explained, this TV anime should only be half over it were being properly adapted.
  13. Seto Kaiba
    How many volumes is that? Ten? Eleven?
  14. Seto Kaiba
    Eh... yeah, they definitely flubbed the "big reveal" and left it feeling like a non-event. It kind of comes out of nowhere and ultimately doesn't mean anything, but it doesn't help that the main character receives this supposedly game-changing news with the precisely the same level of urgency, gravitas, or interest than he receives any other piece of news. It's rather difficult to remain invested in the story's big moment when the main character isn't. Ah, yes... I needed to watch that latest episode. Monster Girl Doctor at least did a better job of building up to its climax than The Misfit of Demon King Academy did, but not by much. Despite the dragon-loli in question's status as the lynchpin holding the town's mixed human-monster government together, there's very little urgency surrounding the supposedly life-saving surgery they're trying to talk her into having done. Instead, we get the better part of an episode devoted to some cheap drama and a girl's night out spent mainly talking about how they're all in love with the completely oblivious main character. I'm thinking about starting Re:Zero, though from what I've heard and read about it I suspect I'll find the main character rather obnoxious.
  15. Seto Kaiba
    It's not official art... but the design itself is from the series. I guess someone at Udon figured that they needed a cutaway for the cover because they'd already used the VF-1 GERWALK official one for the cover of the previous volume. Well, you get what you pay for... and Udon is very definitely doing these Robotech art books on the cheap. I expect the artist who drew it probably wasn't even familiar with the design. He/she was likely just given a silhouette and told "fill this with mechanical junk".
  16. Seto Kaiba
    8.55m/855cm has the most official support. That figure comes from the official biographical data that was published in a few different books that came out shortly after the series finished its initial broadcast run in 1983. Best Hit Series: Macross Graffiti has the most succinct version, packaged in a neat little data block on each character's bio page that contains their birthplace, age, height, weight, and the measurements of the women. Milia's data block on page 31 of Best Hit Series: Macross Graffiti indicates she was born in a Zentradi clone synthesis system, that she is 15, 8.55m tall, and a robust six and a quarter tonnes in her usual form with petite measurements of B415 W290 H420. Her miclone data from after the timeskip is also given, at which point she is 17 years old, 171cm tall, weighing a dainty 50kg, and measuring an eye-catching B83, W58, H84. (For those who don't do metric, that's 33-23-33... she's a petite little unrivaled engine of death and destruction.) Or is it? The direct source is likely the liner notes that Egan Loo compiled for the Animeigo remastered DVD release of Super Dimension Fortress Macross. Given the way he formatted it, I strongly suspect Egan Loo got it from Best Hit Series: Macross Graffiti.
  17. Seto Kaiba
    Did some catching up after work last night... The Misfit of Demon King Academy is feeling more and more like a HEAVILY compressed adaptation. They tried to have a climactic battle between the demon and human academy students, and the whole thing felt like they'd tried to compress an entire volume (or more) of light novel into two episodes. I feel like there should've been a lot more exposition going on, and probably was in its original format. It's still pretty disappointing as a series because there's zero dramatic tension. Nothing is ever at stake because the main character is a boring invincible hero. This feels like it could've been a compelling series despite the fact that death is VERY cheap with ubiquitous, consequence-free resurrection magic if not for the fact that the protagonist already knows everything better than everyone else and is so powerful he can beat the combined power of ten million people with nothing but an eight person cheering section (no really, this is a thing that happens in the story). He's a textbook Mary Sue and that's just killing the rest of the story.
  18. Seto Kaiba
    A lot of people don't give that one a fair shake because of how iconic the original Dirty Pair was... but IMO it was actually pretty good. Not great, but enjoyable enough that I didn't feel like I'd wasted my time watching it. (I also really like the first OP, Limitless Answer.) Patlabor's pretty damn great... the only real problem with it is that they reuse plots A LOT. Like, you'll see the same plot about the SV2 crew fighting a kaiju like four times including the movie. The Type-98AV Labor is one of the most beautifully detailed works of mechanical design ever created. It's a labor (lol) of love rivaling Shoji Kawamori's VF-1 Valkyrie or Yoshiyuki Tomino's RX-78 Gundam, design-wise.
  19. Seto Kaiba
    That price is in Hong Kong dollars, right? Even for $80 US, that seems like a pretty iffy-quality figure.
  20. Seto Kaiba
    Considering that the Robotech Masters Saga was essentially where Robotech tried to set up the foundations of a coherent original setting, albeit in a halfhearted and embarrassingly inconsistent way, being ratings-conscious was probably somewhat detrimental to the viewers since there wouldn't have been any real clue as to how they went from a desolate and barren planet to an overgrown one so quickly. Keep your expectations for this one low... by which I mean, "lower than the previous volume". Harmony Gold never did manage to get their hands on any proper information about Southern Cross in the last 35 years. For the most part, it's because there's simply no proper info to find no matter how thorough your search. Southern Cross's creators don't seem to have ever compiled anything like the detailed official setting material we're used to seeing from its contemporaries. I'm not sure if it's because Ammonite and the other teams taking creative leadership of the series just didn't have time with the show's rushed development after its late change of genres to mecha and/or its premature termination, or if they just didn't care. To a lesser extent, it's because Harmony Gold was never willing to actually pay anyone to do the research properly and instead relied on fan volunteers who weren't really equipped to do the necessary research and substituted their own headcanon. A lot of the contents of this book are, like the previous volume, going to be copypasta from the old robotech.com Infopedia section... which was rife with errors both factual and typographical. If they consulted the usual suspects, this'll be more someone's Robotech fanfic than a reference of any kind.
  21. Seto Kaiba
    That might actually be better... no offense to SEGA and Phantasy Star Crew, but going from the appropriately science fantasy-friendly backdrops of Naverius, Ambduskia, and Wopal to the planet of feudal Japanese cliches was a bit of a weird thematic jump. Doubly so since Dark Falz Gemini doesn't really fit the theme either with the toy-based gimmicks and an ending that isn't even on the same planet. I'll bump it up the queue then. I've been somewhat hesitant about watching it because of how ridiculously narmy the whole plot of Episode IV has been so far. It went full shonen anime, but with a dub that would've been terrible even by 90's standards. I played the first couple chapters on a Discord stream and my friends and I basically kept up a running MST3K-style commentary that was WAY more entertaining than the actual plot. The last bit I did in-game was the Episode IV boss fight with Esca Falz Mother, which I found amusing familiar since the design was based very heavily on the third/final form of Dark Falz from Phantasy Star Online episode 1. Kind of a pain in the butt as a solo Techter/Force. Yeah... no kidding. The dub is a real ear-bleeder.
  22. Seto Kaiba
    If anything, the epic crash-and-burn failure of Harmony Gold's rebooted Robotech has actually been a good thing for Southern Cross fans... at least in the short term. When Harmony Gold tried to relaunch Robotech and establish it as a credible anime property in the early 2000s, they secured licensing deals with actual professional toy companies that were too put off by Southern Cross's unpopularity with Robotech fans to give any serious consideration to making Southern Cross merchandise. Robotech's own creative staff didn't want to reference Southern Cross in new works for much the same reason. Now that Robotech has fallen on its hardest times yet, with all current and future development cancelled, all of their cautious professional merchandising partners have been replaced by small-time indie outfits willing to actually take a risk on Southern Cross for ultra-low volume collectibles. It only took 36 years and three separate total failures, but someone's finally developing Southern Cross merchandise seriously. How successful it'll be remains to be seen, given how the merchandise in question has gotten mixed/poor reviews, but it's more than Southern Cross has ever gotten before. Udon is even attempting to put together a Southern Cross artbook, though the content will mostly be reprints from the old Robotech official website. And just think... that was Southern Cross's best reception. There are overseas markets in SE Asia where they straight-up dropped the Robotech Masters Saga and went straight from the Macross Saga to the New Generation Saga.
  23. Seto Kaiba
    Nope, they do mention the QF-2200 series and the Superbird lifting body aircraft the Ghost was based on but it's separate from these remarks about the QF-3000's alleged combined-cycle conventional engine that somehow works in space. It appears to be an honest goof on the part of the writers.
  24. Seto Kaiba
    As we've noted on several previous occasions, your personal preferences are rather unconventional and at odds with the overwhelming majority of viewers. The whole reason for this thread is that there's very little love for the series because of how poorly it's been received by audiences worldwide. (I'm not saying you're wrong to be passionate about it, just that we should keep a realistic perspective.)
  25. Seto Kaiba
    Expecting corporations to exhibit the same level of moral behavior as a socially-conscious person on the street is definitely optimistic to say the least. Like so many other corporations, what they care about is profit first and very little else second. That's why practically every country has so many laws and regulations to police various abusive behaviors corporations engage in. It's not at all surprising Disney went chasing after ticket sales in the People's Republic of China. It's a BIG audience. What IS surprising is that they did such a poor job of it. Disney's original animated Mulan was extremely well-received in China, reportedly to the point where it caused some serious consternation over how westerners could create a better Chinese movie than China's own filmmakers. This live action remake seems to be universally poorly received. Taking out the actual message of Mulan's folktale in favor of making her an aloof superhuman Chosen One with magic powers with a rabid obsession with honor seems to have kind of killed it for Chinese audiences at least as much as the movie's collaboration with the Chinese propaganda organizations did in the west.
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