Seto Kaiba

Sorry... I'm a perfectionist... and that was a grammatical nightmare. Yes, Robotech.com fan-fiction and fan-art submissions require the submitting party to agree to a legal agreement that gives Harmony Gold the royalty-free right to exploit submitted fan-art and fan-fiction however they see fit. The exact text of the agreement is: (I trimmed out the first bit about having to submit only original works)

I'm fairly sure that so long as the artists/writers waive their usual rights to control the use/misuse of their work like they have to do on Robotech.com there shouldn't be a problem. I could, of course, be wrong. I had a look at that Robotech Anthology website, and it looks like Harmony Gold hasn't given them the go-ahead yet anyway... it says they submitted a demo version of the first issue/volume and haven't heard back yet. I'd imagine if they decide to go ahead and add mecha and character stats to all that, it'll have to go through approvals again. EDIT: Torturous wording was torturous.

I'll agree that it is a better plan to see if Harmony Gold or the fans can contribute their own art, rather than attempting to persuade Palladium to let you use their art, or trying to copy art from the Japanese books. I wouldn't say it goes very far to counter the accusation that Harmony Gold is riding Macross's coattails though... as the plot on the ongoing story still revolves around Macross characters and new Robotech relatives thereof.

It wouldn't be a stretch to classify Robotech itself as a really awful Macross, Southern Cross, and Mospeada fanfic.

I doubt they'll go that far, especially since most of what's in the translation thread has no bearing on Robotech at all. Isn't that pretty much the definition of "a Robotech book"? A collection of Macross materials with the art traced and the names changed? I can't imagine they'd be able to glean much from Robotech Art 1-3, since all that amounts to is one big Carl Macek fan-wank. There's no such thing as a Robotech source publication that doesn't pilfer from Macross. The Palladium RPG only made it to press in the first place by stealing copiously from the Japanese artbooks... Kevin Siembieda admitted as much in an interview on Space Station Liberty. Likewise, the URRG is based extensively on Macross source materials. As is the Infopedia. Many other Robotech fansites pilfer from Macross sources without rhyme or reason. Ah, you've misunderstood... You aren't one of the many, MANY people who's been pestering me for information for various Robotech-related fan projects. You posted a public request for information on two message boards, that's about as polite and unobtrusive a request as it's possible to make. It's the ones who frequently e-mail me (as often as once a week) appealing for information for whatever Robotech fanart/fanfic/fansite they're working on that really hack me off.

I've been watching Mobile Suit Victory Gundam lately, and I can't shake the thought that the mega launcher used by Uso's LM312V04+SD-VB03A Victory-Dash Gundam looks and operates like a converging beam cannon... it even uses the same sound effect... the only difference is the beam is pink and not blue. The cannons on the overhang packs also do the same sound effect, and the hits are always animated like that one shot in the original series where the Macross's main gun cored that Zentradi cruiser like an apple.

Granted... while I appreciate the role it played in the formation of the American anime industry, I really can't muster a lot of respect for it anymore, because the creators of Robotech have illustrated time and again that they're terrified of the prospect of developing their own stories, characters, etc. Admittedly, they have good reason to be, as every attempt they made at tell a story of their own making met with spectacular failure. That's why they've fallen back on Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles, a pseudo-continuation of Robotech II: the Sentinels that would be more appropriately entitled Mospeada II: the Search for More Money. I'm waiting for the supposedly forthcoming Robotech live-action movie not because I think it will be good, but because I'm betting it'll be the Robotech equivalent of G-Saviour... or maybe we ought to call it Plan 9 from Harmony Gold. Ah... the "Einherjar" there was a Southern Cross fangroup. Admittedly, not a very big one (as even the average Robotech fan treats that particular show like an exceptionally odious piece of roadkill). You oughta read the Sentinels comics sometime... everything that's wrong with them can be neatly encapsulated in a eight-word phrase that seems to have been the Waltrip Brothers motto... "Let's be like a bad Star Trek fanfic". Then again, Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles can be neatly summed up with a very similar production motto... "Let's be like a bad Battlestar Galactica fanfic". Like I said to VFTF1, Harmony Gold seems to have a crippling fear of original ideas. Every new character seems to have to have an arbitrary relation to some previous character from the original series, no matter how minor. The ones that don't are clearly marked for death... evidenced by Marcus Rush and Alex Romero, the former being the never-mentioned brother of Scott's girlfriend Marlene, and the latter being his generic wisecracking best friend who dies as predictably as the sun rising. The only new Earth forces mecha designs are a comics-exclusive transforming jeep that I could swear I saw in an episode of one of the more recent Transformers shows, a "Super Shadow Fighter" that is visibly indistinguishable from the normal "Shadow Fighter", a Haydonite fighter that looks right out of Battlestar Galactica (apparently their resemblance to the Cylons is more than superficial), and an assortment of generic-looking boxes we're supposed to think are ships. The music has remained similarly unoriginal, relying almost entirely on remixes of music from the original series, and people are STILL warbling those horrible Minmei songs like "Stage Fright" and "We Will Win", though admittedly they sound even worse when performed by not-terribly-talented-anything Chase Masterson. Y'remember that persecution complex I mentioned a post or so back... For me, the hilarious part of this is that I am routinely pestered by the fans on Robotech.com to provide information and lineart for various unofficial attempts to provide a more comprehensive resource about Robotech's characters and mecha. In fact, not two days ago I was asked by one of the moderators to contribute information and art to what amounts to a Robotech imitation of Macross Chronicle. Out of sheer bloody-minded frustration with their incessant whining, and since I don't think I could get away with that many murders, I've even offered to update their Infopedia myself, just because I've gotten sick of the biweekly "update the infopedia!" threads and e-mailed appeals for more information. *looks over at Totoro242* I was wondering how long it'd take the Robotech apologists to get here and start picking nits in my post with all the speed and frenzy of an amphetamine-fueled chimpanzee... it took longer than I thought.

I wish I knew. I've been a regular on Robotech.com for something like six years now and I still haven't figured that one out. The fanbase there is mainly people who saw the show during the original run in the 80's, or on Cartoon Network in the 90's, mixed with some people from countries where it recently aired, and some people who've been introduced to it by friends. As to why they're so devoted to a franchise that has essentially been dead since 1987, I can't say. Many fans on Robotech.com are genuinely in denial about that fact, a problem exacerbated by Kevin McKeever's repeated insistence that the franchise is healthy and quite profitable. Of course, that is errant nonsense. Anybody with an ounce of common sense can figure out that it doesn't take a healthy franchise four tries and twenty years to produce its first viable sequel. A good portion of the fans there seem to be sticking with it out of nostalgia, while others are either obsessed with finding out what happened to the remaining Macross characters aboard the SDF-3, and a few others are clinging to it out of some bizarre persecution complex, since Robotech is generally not a welcome subject with anime or American animation enthusiasts, and a good number of them are hanging on because they're largely ignorant about anime, and haven't been introduced to something better yet. Some of the more "enthusiastic" Robotech fans have this odd tendency to take the matter of expanding the universe into their own hands, by "adopting" mecha from other shows and giving them new Robotech backstories. I've seen various Robotech fan-fiction groups and unofficial reference guides adopt mecha from both Macross timelines, Gundam, Patlabor, Outlaw Star, Full Metal Panic!, and even Neon Genesis Evangelion. A lot of it is done for the sake of the Robotech RPG, but some of it (like the URRG) seems to be collateral damage from using Macross artbooks to fill in the gaps in Robotech's mecha info. By the way, you wouldn't also happen to be a regular on RT.com? There used to be a group there called the Einherjar. Any connection?

Even bad cooking will be well received by a starving man. Likewise, the Robotech fanbase has a long history of eagerly snapping up any new release, no matter how awful, simply because it's something new. That particular tendency has only gotten worse in recent years, with the release of that bland-a-thon epic Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles. Perhaps my wording was a bit unclear... while the art quality of the Sentinels comics remained consistently mediocre, the average art quality in Robotech comics dropped with each change in publishers... a trend that only ended when Wildstorm got the license.

Sort of yes, sort of no... After work on Robotech II: the Sentinels was aborted in 1987, Harmony Gold more or less gave up trying to make new material on their own, so they attacked the only area where they showed a consistent profit... comic books. Of course, if you know anything about Harmony Gold's history... you'll know that they even managed to cock that up pretty badly. In 1988, Harmony Gold handed the Robotech license to Malibu imprint Eternity Comics. Malibu proceeded to pick up the Sentinels story right where it left off in the animation, and turned out a series of extremely poor comic books that didn't sell very well. They made a brief attempt to milk the Macross side of the story for cash with Robotech: Return to Macross. When Marvel bought Malibu Comics in 1994, they shut down the Eternity imprint, and the Robotech license was picked up by Academy Comics. Academy Comics, an independent publisher, unwisely attempted to pick up the Robotech II: the Sentinels comics right where Eternity/Malibu had left off, and managed to do an even worse job with the art and writing than Eternity did. Many of their comics, including Robotech: Destroid, Robotech: the Misfits, and Robotech: Mechangel frequently contained art blatantly traced from Macross animation, products, and publications. To give you an idea of how bad it was... Robotech: the Misfits blatantly traced the VF-4 from Flashback 2012, but rebadged it "U.S. Spacy", and also borrowed several characters from Macross Plus, including Captain Higgins. In 1996, after several writers jumped ship when their projects were canceled, Harmony Gold revoked Academy's license, causing the company to fold in short order. The next idiots to be given the license were perhaps the worst offenders prior to Tommy Yune... Antarctic Press, who had the Robotech license from 1997 to 1998. Antarctic had the unpleasant tendency to treat contemporary movies and TV shows like a free idea bucket. Much of their mecha art was blatantly traced from DYRL product boxes and artbooks, and many of their characters were traced from popular movies. One of their worst titles was a two-issue series called Robotech: Wings of Gibraltar which stole most of its mecha designs from DYRL, and most of its character designs from Independence Day (going so far as to TRACE Brent Spiner's character). These comics were received so poorly by the fans that there was actually jubilation when several titles were canceled early into their runs. Many of their titles were blatant attempts to milk the original Macross series for more money... and had the lamentable tendency to promise the moon with action-packed cover art, but incredibly boring and poorly drawn contents. Harmony Gold revoked their license in 1998 and never bothered telling them why. In 2002, when Harmony Gold decided to have another stab at comics, they contracted with Wildstorm and put Tommy Yune in charge. Naturally, with Harmony Gold having tighter creative control they stuck to what they knew would sell, endless retreads of Macross events, and side stories based on the Macross original series. In this case, the powers that be apparently were watching Macross Zero, because their first title was a prequel comic that was set during the development of the VF-1. For two miniseries, they milked Macross, then decided to have a stab at an artbook, then went to suckle the teats of Mospeada in preparation for the eminently craptacular Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles. Starting in Robotech: Prelude to the Shadow Chronicles, the last of Wildstorm's Robotech comics, an odd trend started with regard to Macross intellectual property... it started to disappear. Many of the Robotech equivalents of Macross characters either died, went missing, or were totally remodeled to the point where they bore no resemblance at all to their Macross origins. In the span of the five-issue miniseries, Breetai (Vrlitwhai), Exedore (Exsedol), and possibly Dr. Lang (SDF-1's chief engineer) were all killed, Lisa (Misa) was critically injured and spent most of her time uninvolved in the story, Rick (Hikaru) was completely remodeled to the point where he looks like Hideo Kuze from Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex 2nd gig, and Max and Miriya (Milia) mysteriously failed to appear. Minmay made a brief appearance, but was obscured from view in all but two panels, both of which were in the last issue. This odd trend of avoiding Macross intellectual property at all costs has led more than a few people to suspect that the powers that be at Harmony Gold might have been gently encouraged to stay the hell away from the character designs and other intellectual property from the original Macross series in their ongoing works. Either that or the powers that be at Harmony Gold have decided on their own power to avoid a potential lawsuit and accusations that all they know how to do is milk Macross to death by getting away from Macross. So yes, in terms of intellectual property usage... it's only very recently that Harmony Gold has loosened their death grip on Macross. Most of their toys are still either blatantly relabeled copies of Macross merch, or stuff they themselves have imported. (PS: If you actually read all that without needing to stop and take a breather... bravo...)

It's certainly implied in Macross Plus and Macross 7. By 2038, civilians were in possession of SW1-era destroids, and many had been converted for construction work, as evidenced by Macross 7. In 2040, New Edwards AFB was using 'em for target practice, as evidenced by Macross Plus. If they're using the newer SW1 destroids for target practice and selling the spares to civilians, it certainly doesn't look promising for the Cheyenne I, and makes it all the more illogical that the oldest known design (which never appears in the intervening time) would become the sole surviving destroid class by 2059. Still... I got my hopes up again for nothing. Wish the guys writing Chronicle would toss the Macross II fans a bone and cover ONE of U.N. Spacy mecha from the OVA already...

The design doesn't thrill me, but my problem with it is continuity based... (Why is a destroid not seen after 2008 suddenly showing up in 2059 with only minor cosmetic alterations? It'd be like having the U.S. Army suddenly deciding to re-adopt the M4 Sherman)

Don't knock it... it shows the quality of their writing has improved dramatically.

*raises hand* I know I'm late to the party, but Macross Frontier didn't thrill me either. I don't hate it, but it's a long way from being my favorite. From the start, it felt like a return to form, like they had decided to go back to the formula that had made Macross great. The story was pretty good, not fabulous... the core cast was pretty boring, the mecha was a mix of old, uninteresting designs and "new" designs made by haphazardly combining features from previous ones. For the above-stated reason, the main character mecha (VF-25 and VF-27) did not thrill me. It was nice to see some of the minor character mecha, like the VF-171EX and VB-6 get some love though. The core cast was a bore most of the time... Alto only really felt likable after he and Sheryl got together, Sheryl turned out to be easily the most likable cast member, and Ranka was every bit as pointless and offensive to the eye, ear, and most other senses as Basara was. Ozma was pretty awesome, though he got so little screen time that it was hard to think anything but "recycled footage time" whenever he got hurt. Bobby was, oddly, hilarious and awesome at the same time, and the bridge bunny banter was at least amusing. Really, the show could've been made a lot better with the excision of a single character... Ranka Lee. She was largely unnecessary to the plot, her role could've been easily filled by Sheryl, and the love triangle could've been Alto, Sheryl, and Brera. The Vajra need to win an award for all-time lamest Macross villain. You can't really relate to them in any way, because they're personality-less bugs. What made Macross's villains great was that you COULD relate to them, and they weren't unambiguously evil people... many of them were just soldiers doing their jobs, or just trying to survive another day, and were otherwise genuinely good people (see Vrlitwhai, Feff, Gigile, Sivil, etc). Without a personality or even a visible central intelligence, it's hard to really even consider the Vajra a threat until the very end, when Grace takes over the queen. On the whole, I think Macross Frontier had the seeds of true greatness. Everything necessary to make the show awesome WAS there, but it was buried in annoying characterization, pointless lolicon, and unnecessary side stories. As such, instead of being great, it's only "pretty good". A hell of a lot better than 7 was, but not nearly as good as the original series, DYRL, or even II.

Blech... it turned out to be the Cheyenne II... the most nonsensical and pointless destroid of all. I know they're trying to spread the good stuff out so they can cover ~50 issues, but it'd be nice if the Macross II stuff didn't always feel like filler, or an afterthought, when they've run out of stuff from Macross 7 to show us.

Aye, that'd be the one. I'd completely forgotten about that thread. Here's hoping Masaya comes through with some better-quality art for us so we can finally get a good picture of what the VF-4 Siren looked like in battroid mode. I'm trying to find contact information for the mechanical designers from the OVA, who can hopefully flesh out some more detail on VF weaponry for us too.

Maybe, since they're showing such little love for Macross II, they've decided to cram all five destroids from the OVA onto a single mecha sheet.

I'm hoping so too... FlamingGauntlet did a bunch of art for us as part of a "make your own color scheme" gimmick for the site, and for our mecha stats pages, and one of the most-discussed ones is his attempt to make sense of the various screen captures from Macross: Eternal Love Song and cobble together a VF-4S Siren from them. It actually leaked out onto 4chan a week or so ago, though how it got there is anybody's guess, since it was made specifically for us.

It's a nice theory, but it doesn't explain why Mardook technology is more advanced than that of the Zentradi (as explicitly stated by Kenichi Yatagai). About the only way I can see it happening is if the Mardook have been in control of a Zentradi faction for thousands or tens of thousands of years. Humanity's had direct access to Zentradi overtechnology and even a couple factory satellites for decades, and they still haven't gotten anywhere near that level of reliability. I've forgotten the exact date Misa cites, but according to her translation of the colony computer in DYRL, the Protoculture were still very much out and about in the galaxy only twenty thousand (or thereabouts, I've forgotten the exact number) years ago. It's equally possible that the Mardook are, like the Atlita colonists, survivors from both sides of the war who fled when the Zentradi and Meltrandi ran out of control. It accounts for a lot... their superior technology, their control over the Zentradi, males and females coexisting, their culture, their belief in their own superiority, etc. etc. etc. Of course, nothing's provable either way, because the only person involved in Macross II's creation who ever really talked about the origins of the Mardook was Kenichi Yatagai, who stops short of calling the Mardook the survivors of the Protoculture. I haven't gotten down to translating the Mardook article in Macross Chronicle yet, but I doubt it'll offer any new insights. One quick note to Zinjo... there is no Supervision Army in the DYRL-II continuity. They were replaced by the Meltrandi as the rival power opposing the Zentradi. This has been Seto, your friendly neighborhood Macross II expert... signing off and heading for the pub.

Hmmm... if you could scan that and send me a copy, I'll add it to the translation queue and see if it adds anything to our body of information (plz. be sure to indicate what magazine, volume, and issue it came from, for archival purposes). I've knocked together a script of sorts for Macross 2036 already, and I'm about to do the same to Macross: Eternal Love Song. I've been trying to contact Masaya for a while now to see if they've got any lineart of the VF-4S/SP/ST Siren from Macross: Eternal Love Song. All they printed in the game manual was the Flashback 2012 lineart of the VF-4, which is, oddly enough, labeled "VF-X4". In-game, there're a couple screens where the battroid mode is visible, but the shots aren't exactly the highest quality (sprite graphics and all).

Oh rest assured, I will. Right now my notes on the Macross II alternate continuity span something like twenty pages, and I'm not done yet. I'm still adding details from Macross 2036 and Macross: Eternal Love Song. There are a couple areas where not much detail is available, though only one of those is a major event: the 2054 Zentradi invasion, which led to the capture of another factory satellite, and the development of the VF-XX. B-Club really is the best of the three main sources for Macross II, because it doesn't just provide the whole universe backstory, it also goes into the minutiae of the mecha stats, stuff that isn't covered in TIAS 5 and EB51.

Really, I'm not surprised anymore by the mistakes people make about the date Macross II is set. After all, only those of us with access to the creator interviews in B-Club magazine and Volume 2 of the OST (which didn't come out in the US) had the information necessary to arrive at the correct date... 2092 AD. Remember, it was thanks to you that we finally got ironclad proof that the creators set the show in that year. B-Club 79 and the show's dialogue all indicated that year, but it's nice to have an explicit statement that we were right. Since I haven't done a thorough translation of that Mardook character sheet yet, I can't be sure that they're talking about the year the Mardook invasion took place. It might be referring to the state of the Mardook the year before the invasion, or it might be an error that'll be corrected later (like the Megaroad-01's size). Despite multiple inquiries, I have yet to find out who exactly came up with 2089 as Macross II's date, but it looks like it was somebody at US Renditions. It's not hard to guess how Macross Ace's writers came up with 2090... they added 80 to the year Space War 1 ended. I wish my translations of B-Club #79, Entertainment Bible 51, and This is Animation Special #5 could offer a definitive and lasting solution to the nagging questions of Macross II, but while I can easily bury you up to your ears in an excruciatingly detailed and annotated timeline of the events between DYRL and II, I can't do the same where the mecha stats are concerned... yet. B-Club has filled in a LOT of the gaps in TIAS5 and EB51, leaving only one real vague area behind... gunpods and the VF-2SS's big cannon. Some sources call 'em all beam weapons, some sources call 'em all railguns, and some sources don't give any detail at all.

Yeah, the occasional bouts of odd technical terminology do make the translations kind of a pain. It's not quite so bad in Macross II's artbooks though, though that's mostly because the show's creators pulled a Gundam and only really touched on the basics of each mecha's specs. Actually... that's exactly what my ongoing project is... collating all the information from the official sources into a single internet resource devoted specifically to the Macross II branch continuity. We started to build a new site design last year, but got derailed a bit by a major translation backlog and some personal crises, so as an interim measure I've been donating my findings to Mr. March for the Macross Mecha Manual.

It's nice to know someone out there will appreciate my hard work. Unlike my work in EB51 and B-Club #79, translating Macross Chronicle really feels like a chore, because it's not really adding anything to the body of knowledge I'd already accumulated by translating EB51, TIAS #5, and B-Club #79. I've already done partial translations of the SNN Valkyrie article, People of SNN article, and Macross Cannon article, but the translation work is currently sharing my attention with other projects... the lineart scans I'm doing for Mr. March, mecha stats I'm pulling together for Mr. March, and my attempt to sort out the contradictory accounts of VF weapons in the Macross II source materials. Well, for one, it's an interesting take on the future application of Zentradi technology in the U.N. Spacy. It is, for all intents and purposes, a transformable Queadluun-Rau. It's taking the VF concept to new and interesting places. It doesn't have to be flashy to be functional or interesting.

Unfortunately, it looks like the lion's share of information on Macross II will never see publication in Macross Chronicle, because they're only referencing Entertainment Bible 51 and This is Animation Special #5. They're not referencing the real mother-lode of information, B-Club #79. If they were, they'd have identified the SNN Valkyrie's model number, the design that preceded it, and its manufacturer, among other things. For the time being, it looks like I'm the only one translating the Macross II stuff, I'll post some links in the translation thread once I've finished, but it's gonna be a while, since my Japanese is not the best, and my free time is rather limited thanks to the economic downturn.