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Seto Kaiba

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  1. Seto Kaiba
    Finished Akashic Records of the Bastard Magic Instructor. Ultimately... not bad, but not great. Glenn is actually a reasonably interesting protagonist, as what basically amounts to a former military-run magical hitman who found a conscience, but it feels handicapped by the fanservice-y designs of the female cast. It definitely could've benefited from being longer than twelve episodes too. Leos is built up like he's going to end up being the antagonist of the final story arc [...] Decent story, but the ending's weak. Since I'm on a bit of a fantasy kick, I gave Isekai Cheat Magician another whirl and it's freaking terrible. Worse than I originally thought. The animation quality is awful... it looks like it's about ten to fifteen years old. The story is, if anything, worse. It feels like a madlib for a generic isekai fantasy story or a really awful fan fic for Slayers where Lina is a guy. About the only thing it seems to bring to the table so far is fanservice, since the main duo's magic teacher seems to have nicked her wardrobe from a Slave Leia cosplayer.
  2. Seto Kaiba
    IIRC, they did attempt to claim that one of their projects was meant to be essentially that... and that it would be sold in Japan under a different name. (I don't remember which one, though... it might've been Shadow Chronicles.) Possibly, given that Tatsunoko was willing to put Sukehiro Tomita on a new series codeveloped by HG in the 80's... they could've gotten something resembling a quality product if the budget hadn't been too small. Mind you, that would've been a lot of extra cost for Harmony Gold and they probably wouldn't have gone for it... studio time is expensive, and rewriting and redubbing a show like that is even more expensive than a regular dub. That extra cost is a big part of why Harmony Gold's approach to anime went the way of the dinosaur in the late 80's and early 90's. IMO, it wouldn't have done much to forestall the inevitable if they had had a fourth show made and edited it as a continuation of Robotech. It wouldn't have saved Robotech, and they'd have been taking flak for "ruining" four shows instead of three once the 90's rolled around and accurate dubs started to become the norm. On reflection, the biggest problem with the idea wouldn't have even been that Harmony Gold had insufficient funds to make a professional-looking series by 1987's standards. It would be that Harmony Gold's network partners were only willing to take shows long enough for first-run syndication. They would've needed to bankroll three new shows, or at least two new shows the length of Macross, to reach the necessary episode count of 65+. That's why Robotech II: the Sentinels was plotted as a 65 episode series... it needed to be long enough for the networks. That's years of time spent on development, and a LOT of money HG didn't have.
  3. Seto Kaiba
    My suspicion is it's likely a retelling/do-over, given that the full title was Genesis Breaker MOSPEADA 2083. The whole Inbit conflict was set in 2083, which makes a direct sequel seem unlikely. MOSPEADA: the Origin? Eh... even if it's just an updated toy line, it's nice to see the Ride Armors get some attention. This might've been a viable idea 33 years ago when MOSPEADA was still relatively new and Robotech was a fresh property in an industry that still tolerated rewrites... but not today. MOSPEADA was only ever a middling performer in Japan, it had just enough of a cult following to manage a wrap-up OVA in the golden age of the mecha genre. Tatsunoko would not have considered it for a sequel even at the height of its popularity, never mind the at-most trivial contributions of a third-party series in foreign markets. Now that MOSPEADA's a mostly-forgotten bit of 80's mecha esoterica and Robotech's even worse off, it's not a sound investment on Tatsunoko's part and their finances are shaky enough as it is. The painful irony here is you just described two failed Robotech projects... Robotech II: the Sentinels and Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles. Robotech II: the Sentinels was an original series that Tatsunoko Production codeveloped with Harmony Gold USA that used a few select MOSPEADA designs and had similar themes to the MOSPEADA series. It was a complete fiasco from start to premature finish thanks to its pathetically small budget, professional conflicts between the US and Japanese staff, and its creative direction being a mixture of naive ignorance and arrogance from Harmony Gold's side. It was already on the rocks before the sponsors bailed, the exchange rate fell, and the entire project ended up canned shortly after the start of production. IIRC Tatsunoko attempted to salvage some of its investment by reusing some of its original designs for the failed project in Red Photon Zillion. Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles was an attempt to develop an (unofficial) sequel to MOSPEADA with cooperation from Tatsunoko. The only problem being that Harmony Gold could not afford to hire Tatsunoko to do the animation thanks to the Robotech brand's decades of failures leaving them precisely zero investors, so its pathetic budget would only stretch to the point of hiring a pack of fifth string intern animators at DR Movie. For legal reasons, they had to call any old guy Rick Hunter... because they were afraid of getting sued for even an extensive redesign of the Haruhiko Mikimoto design. The problem with this reasoning being that the "long awaited sequel to Robotech" is only long-awaited by Robotech's fairly small - and shrinking - fanbase. Nobody else has been awaiting a Robotech sequel. To turn a decent profit on their dirt-cheap Shadow Chronicles movie, Harmony Gold had to try to compel fans to buy multiple copies of the movie by packaging the glorified DVD extra dub of Love Live Alive with it instead of as a stand-alone feature. There's no incentive for Tatsunoko to take that kind of risk working with HG, especially since if they DID develop an original mecha anime and/or a sequel to MOSPEADA and it was a hit they'd be able to keep the profits to themselves and market it as its own thing internationally. The idea of partnering with HG only makes financial sense if the show's a failure... and they're not quite to the point of deliberately setting out to fail. These days, if you put out a hardcore rewrite of an anime series you get sentenced to trampling under the industry brontosaurus, not rewarded. It's seen as a bad practice.
  4. Seto Kaiba
    ... beyond Frank Agrama's prior conviction for exactly that in 2012. The Italian prosecutors DID say it started out that way... that Frank Agrama and Paddy Chan Mei-yiu hatched a plan at a trade fair in Cannes in the late 70's to launder money by trading movie rights internationally at inflated prices. Agrama dodged a second conviction for money laundering and tax evasion largely due to the statute of limitations expiring. I posted pretty much exactly that in response to an earlier question asking why the Agramas wouldn't sell the company after Frank retires or snuffs it. Frank or Jehan will never sell, because a thorough inspection of HG's business will reveal it's one big Springtime for Hitler. It's not even that... the "35 more years" thing is Robotech fans misinterpreting a form letter "we look forward to continuing to work with you" statement as an indication of how long the license will last. When asked, HG refuses to give any comment on the duration of their renewal/extension.
  5. Seto Kaiba
    Slowly working my way through Kaguya Wants to be Confessed to: the Genius's War of Love and Brains. It's... adorable.
  6. Seto Kaiba
    Because he's an adrenaline junkie and she gets off on that? Well, Sharon had been dragooned into working with Havamal. They'd used her to mind control some of the more uncooperative time-displaced heroes from previous Macross stories (Max, Milia, Gamlin, SMS Skull Platoon excl. Alto, Klan, the crew of the Macross Quarter), so she had pretty extensive access to networks on Uroboros. Uroboros's government happens to have a factory satellite at their disposal, which was used to manufacture all of the VFs you use in-game... and had carried out the limited production run of YF-29B's for Havamal. It wouldn't take any great feat for her to pull a fast one and build an extra one or misappropriate one and cover it up, especially since she has mind control powers. Well, he kind of woke up in it... but wouldn't you? This version of Isamu was time-displaced during his fold jump to Earth. All he'd seen of Sharon Apple at that point in his life was the concert that Jan took him to and the results of Jan's attempt to hack Sharon's system. He hadn't seen her crazy side yet. (Due to the timeframe in which he was punted forward to 2060, Guld, who was following him, is also alive and present on Uroboros and as cheerful as ever.)
  7. Seto Kaiba
    By Harmony Gold's own account, the Tatsunoko-provided writing staff politely but firmly insisted that the Robotech adaptation was a heap of incoherent gibberish and tried to script a story based more on the originals instead. I wouldn't call it a clash of eastern and western storytelling so much as a clash between top-shelf writers and anime's answer to Ed Wood. Unfortunately for Harmony Gold, the hack prevailed through sheer arrogance and brought in more hacks to bring his hack vision to hack life... and a merciful premature death when the sponsors bailed, the exchange rate fell, and the hack's bosses canceled the project.
  8. Seto Kaiba
    Jeez... is there anyone Vic didn't sexually harass? Holy sh*t. The TL;DR version is that, after launching an internal investigation into the allegations of sexual harassment against him by a fair number of his coworkers and convention-going fans and finding out that "Bad-Touch Broly" has allegedly been behaving badly for over a decade with fans and coworkers alike, HR at FUNimation's parent company Sony Pictures ended Vic's employment with the company. Several other companies, including RWBY creators Rooster Teeth Productions, have similarly terminated their business relationships with Vic in response to the growing mountain of accusations against him. Basically, he got #metoo'd, but all the evidence suggests he f*cking well earned it many times over. Vic is suing FUNimation and the first few voice actors who accused him of sexual harassment (Jamie Marchi1 and Monica Rial2) for defamation, interference in existing contracts and business relations, and civil conspiracy. The TL;DR explanation of that being that Mr. Mignogna is suing them for, in short, conspiring to destroy his career and reputation with false accusations of sexual harassment. (Basically, he's claiming this is all made up to ruin him for... reasons? He's not super clear on that front, really. He's going to have some problems with the "made up" part, given the amount of testimony and video/photographic evidence.) 1. A prolific ADR script writer who is also known for voicing Mitsuko in A Certain Scientific Railgun, Rana Linchen in Freezing, Mikako in Heaven's Lost Property, Rias Gremory in High School DXD, Haruna in Negima, Panty in Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt, and Mexiah in Isekai no Seikishi Monogatari. 2. A VERY prolific voice actress who you would know as the dub voice of Misa Hayase in ADV's Super Dimension Fortress Macross, Tsuyu in My Hero Academia, Doll in Isekai no Seikishi Monogatari, Tsubaki in Soul Eater, Renge in Ouran High School Host Club, Kyoko in the ADV Full Metal Panic! dubs, and Bulma in several Dragon Ball Z features.
  9. Seto Kaiba
    Unfortunately the video doesn't show all the variant paintjobs. The default colors for the VF-0 are actually Shin Kudo's blue from Macross Zero. Most non-character VFs in Macross 30: Voices Across the Galaxy offer a choice of four different paint jobs, with a fifth (Havamal's) that unlocks in New Game+. The default YF-29 Durandal has some really trippy ones... two of which are plaid! (No, really!) EDIT: I guess that'd be how you know the YF-29 Durandal is capable of Ludicrous Speeds...
  10. Seto Kaiba
    I wonder if they would, though... since MOSPEADA was essentially a one-and-done entirely by Tatsunoko, so they wouldn't have had as big a stake in it due to its mediocre performance in Japan and they might've even been told by Tatsunoko what was happening to it overseas since it was a Tatsunoko property. I'd imagine they're probably pretty confused by what happened to it, though... especially Sukehiro Tomita, who was VERY confused by what'd been done to his story when Tatsunoko brought him in to help develop Robotech II: the Sentinels. Even Harmony Gold's heavily sanitized, rose-tinted account of the Sentinels creative process admits that Tomita more or less told Carl Macek that the Robotech storyline made no f*cking sense and tried to impose some sense on it himself before Harmony Gold had the Japanese writing team that Tatsunoko had generously provided removed from the project and replaced by Harmony Gold-supplied writers. Smart money says the Southern Cross development team's only reaction to learning about Robotech is "holy sh*t someone actually watched Southern Cross!".
  11. Seto Kaiba
    Accept no substitutes!
  12. Seto Kaiba
    That's a hell of a question. The TV and Movie versions of the SDF-1 Macross have essentially identical armaments, with the heavy converging beam cannon, the eight converging beam cannon turrets, the four high speed railguns, and the various point-defense weapons. The main difference, apart from the Movie version having been built with the city section where the TV version had to improvise it, would be in the implications of having a pair of Movie-type ARMD-class carriers instead of the Daedalus and Prometheus. The TV version SDF-1 Macross sailed with 212 VF-1 Valkyries and 120 QF-3000E Ghosts, in addition to various odds, ends, and auxiliary craft and inherited both the 587 Destroids that were embarked aboard the Daedalus and the remnants of the Prometheus's 150 Valkyrie complement. Not counting combat losses, that would've been 362 VF-1 Valkyries of various types, 120 QF-3000E Ghosts, and 648 Destroids counting the 61+ units built in the Macross's onboard factories. The Movie version SDF-1 Macross already had her ARMD-class ships docked when she set sail under enemy fire. It's not clear if she had fighters of her own, but each ARMD-class ship had 262 VF-1 Valkyries, 66 QF-3000E Ghosts, and various other odds, ends, and auxiliary craft. The Macross had an unspecified number of Destroids stationed aboard as well. If she didn't have the 212 VF-1 Valkyries and 120 Ghosts the TV version had based directly aboard her, then she definitely topped the TV version for VF-1s with 524 VF-1 Valkyries and 132 QF-3000E Ghosts. If she did have those 212 VF-1s and 120 Ghosts, she would've tipped the scales at a mighty 736 VF-1 Valkyries and 252 QF-3000E Ghosts, plus an unknown number of Destroids. The Movie version also left port with Super Packs for its VF-1s, where the TV version had to pick up most of the ones it used during resupply. ... only the one, AFAIK. The 30th Anniversary edition DX Chogokin YF-29 (Roy colors) was done for novelty's sake, but the Isamu Dyson YF-29 and Ozma Lee YF-29 were both created for the game Macross 30: Voices Across the Galaxy. When Isamu is originally encountered on the Sierra Desert map, he's flying his YF-19-2 Excalibur prototype and challenges Reon Sakaki to a race (which is the first look you get at the YF-30 you won't get until the final stage). Later, once he's been persuaded to join the local SMS forces in stopping Havamal and the Bandits, he winds up on a Vajra ship where Sharon Apple (who had been dragooned into helping Havamal control captured time-displaced characters and the Vajra) gives him his custom YF-29. That event got its own cutscene, and Isamu's YF-29 is present (kinda spoileriffically) in the game's opening animation. Ozma's custom YF-29 is something you get without any fanfare, it's just an upgrade given to you right before the end of the game, like Alto's YF-29. All told, there are six YF-29s you can obtain in Macross 30: Voices Across the Galaxy... In the order they appear in the video linked above, they are: the generic YF-29 Durandal that you get blueprints for once you reach a certain point in the game story, three character-specific YF-29 upgrades (for Alto Saotome, Ozma Lee, and Isamu Dyson, unlocked for anyone's use in New Game+), Rod Baltemar's Havamal-issue YF-29B Perceval (that is selectable, along with its pilot, in New Game+ only), and an Anniversary DLC YF-29 Durandal with the Ranka and Sheryl paintjob for which a code was provided in the premium edition (but was only redeemable with a Japanese PSN account). The Macross Chronicle coverage admits to four of them... Alto's YF-29 from Sayonara no Tsubasa, Ozma's YF-29 from Macross 30, Isamu's YF-29 from Macross 30, and Rod Baltemar's YF-29B from Macross 30.
  13. Seto Kaiba
    Yeah, Frank's gettin' up there (EDIT: he's turning 90 on 1/1/20)... I believe his daughter Jehan is the one currently holding HG's reins as President and CEO and pursuing the family business of film production tax evasion. I know she was investigated not too long ago for failure to disclose foreign income on her taxes, so she's clearly a chip off the ol' block. I think the odds are pretty poor when it comes to the idea of Jehan Agrama selling off the company or sell the Robotech franchise to someone. My guess would be she probably intends to continue using it as a means to launder money the way her daddy nearly went to prison for.
  14. Seto Kaiba
    Huh... so, does anyone here actually play this game? One of my coworkers put a lot of effort into convincing me to get back into PC gaming after giving it up like a decade ago, and he and several other members of our department apparently have their own group (is "clan" still the right word?) for Overwatch. I was rather surprised to learn that this kind of thing is now taken seriously enough for there to be televised professional competitions.
  15. Seto Kaiba
    Haruhiko Mikimoto made similar, but less direct, remarks back in '92 in his (English!) interview in Animerica's inaugural issue... he expressed some confusion as to why Robotech existed at all, and more or less called Robotech fans naive.
  16. Seto Kaiba
    YES. Mainly, this mindset is due to Robotech being the only title in Harmony Gold's profile that they can pretend is remotely relevant. The closest they've had to a truly respectable title is Shaka Zulu. They can continue pretending to be a production company and fondly imagine themselves to be influential in the anime industry while they maintain Robotech in its near-death state. Part of it is also that the people working on Robotech are themselves fanatical fans who believe their own hype about the franchise being popular, successful, and influential when it's really none of those things. McKeever is the worst of them, having once been a troll on various Macross forums.
  17. Seto Kaiba
    ... eh, I disagree with your assessment of Valkyrie aesthetics in Macross sequels. As to drawing Mobile Suits by hand, what does it matter if they're hand-drawn if the show they're in is just a badly thought-out commercial for MSV Gunpla? There is no longer any kind of thought to Gundam beyond "buy our crap".
  18. Seto Kaiba
    Ugh... 5x10^no thank you, Sunrise. It's like they've given up on trying to tell stories in favor of just making glitzy 22 minute commercials for toys.
  19. Seto Kaiba
    Macross Chronicle does cover the Ozma and Isamu YF-29s in the mechanic sheet that also covers the YF-30 and YF-29B, so they may be a thing. I haven't translated the Macross 30 novelization yet.
  20. Seto Kaiba
    ... now I kind of want an audio commentary of Super Dimension Fortress Macross by David Attenborough, narrated as though it were a nature documentary about the life and mating habits of the wild Regult. lol
  21. Seto Kaiba
    Footraces.
  22. Seto Kaiba
    I feel like this falls under the header of false advertising... this looks WAY more awesome than the admittedly pretty-awful game actually is.
  23. Seto Kaiba
    No... but then, this "aircraft" clearly keeps itself in the air through the ground's sheer unwillingness to touch something so profoundly ugly.
  24. Seto Kaiba
    True, landing on a copy of Titan Comics' Robotech is a dire fate even for bird feces... but gravity is a terribly harsh mistress who doesn't play favorites. It's not like the comic is fit for anything else apart from, perhaps, kindling. It's certainly not meant to be read, except outside of the countries where the constitution prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. Reminds me of a line from Blackadder Goes Forth... "Ah, yes, without question my favorite magazine; soft, strong, and thoroughly absorbent."
  25. Seto Kaiba
    Not after you've used the comic to paper the bottom of a birdcage, no.
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