Seto Kaiba

Well, I'm not sure if Mr. March intends to include the VF-1AR, VF-1JR, VF-1SR, VF-4S, VF-4SP, and VF-4ST in his site, but the games those mecha came from (Macross 2036: the Neld Fleet Incident, and Macross: Eternal Love Song) are a part of the Macross II timeline as published in B-Club Magazine. Entertainment Bible #51 overtly says as much, they even have a Macross 2036 section in that book, which is where MAHQ and GearsOnline got their VF-1AR/VF-1JR/VF-1SR art, as well as virtually all the other color art of the Macross II mecha.

Gentlemen, on the subject of the VF-2SS and other related mecha from the Macross Mecha Manual's Macross II section... By in large the information in the Macross II section of Mr. March's site there was provided by me. I went to great lengths to acquire print copies of Entertainment Bible #51 and This is Animation Special #5, as well as a number of old B-Club Magazine articles about the timeline and production of Macross II. Unfortunately most of my stuff is stilll all crated up from my recent move to a new house, or I'd source those dimensions on the VF-2SS for you straightaway. I suspect they're from the Palladium Macross II RPG books, but I'd need to dig into my Macross box to tell you where Palladium got that information. (I've had a few lengthy chats with Palladium about their RPG in the past, thanks to them being a very short drive away, and I took a LOT of notes on the subject) Aside from one or two minor transcription errors that I've already discussed with Mr. March (namely the introduction year of the VF-2SS, which is given in the B-Club articles as 2081, and that the same article states that a "VF-2" was introduced in 2072 and was the basis of the space-specialized VF-2SS, while no art of this "VF-2" is known to exist, I suspect that it might be the VF-2 with the one head laser that Nanashi's site had) the information on his Macross II section comes directly from Entertainment Bible #51, This is Animation Special #5, and B-Club Magazine's articles on Macross II's timeline. Incidentally, one thing I thought would raise a lot of eyebrows was our determination of the year Macross II: Lovers Again is set in. In the OVA, Silvie Gena mentions that it's been ten years since the last major Zentradi offensive, and Hibiki and Mash parrot the remark that "about eighty years" have passed since Space War 1 ended. Now depending on whether you put the end of the war at the official last battle in 2010, or the end of Quamzin's revolt, that gives us a very effective range of 2090 to 2092 if we're just adding 80 years exactly. 2089 is wrong for a number of reasons... for one it just defies logic that someone would measure time from the start of the war rather than the end of the war, and for two it contradicts statements made by Ken'ichi Yatagai (the director) and several characters in the series. In B-Club magazine's article on the Macross II timeline, it states that the last Zentradi offensive prior to the Mardook invasion was in 2082, one year after the VF-2SS's introduction. In episode 1, Silvie stated that the last Zentradi offensive was ten years ago, so 2082 + 10 = 2092, which is still within the allowable range from the end of Space War 1 (officially, or Quamzin's TV series revolt). 2092 also doesn't seem to be coincidence, since it's exactly 100 years from the date the OVA actually came out, which hardly seems coincidental. All that taken into account, 2092 AD is almost certainly the year Macross II: Lovers Again is set in.

I lol'd. My site got mentioned as a den of Macross Frontier haters. While I'm flattered that we're getting attention as a group that hate Macross 7 so much we'd happily hold Kawamori's head underwater until the bubbles stopped, we're not really Macross Frontier haters. I'll confess we didn't have high hopes for a series that was billed as a direct sequel to Macross 7, but most of us on Macross2.net actually don't find the series to be bad. It's not inducing the same euphoric state in us that it seems to induce in most of the people here, but hey, we're not lining up with torches and pitchforks to crucify it. I'd sum up my complaints about the series as a lack of originality in the mecha designs, and one or two genuinely one-dimensional characters, especially our One-Dimensional Cinderella Ranka Lee. My money's on Ranka Lee dying. Leon and Grace have been alluding to it nonstop. She's as good as dead, which is actually kind of a shame, because I was hoping she'd get at least a little more character development before she shuffled off this mortal coil. I totally think that Luca's on the chopping block too. He wears Kakizaki's colors, in any other Macross title that's an indication of being earmarked for a messy death. Ozma doesn't get enough screen time for anyone to have really empathized with him, and he's not a big brother figure to Altoh, so he's probably safe.

2JA head on 2SS body... epic win. I'm kinda defensive about my Macross II valkyries... have been for ages, since my own brother's a die-hard M7 fan.

dude... I can't believe I'm saying this, but that TOTALLY works.

Hmmmm... I'll admit the VF-1JR and VF-1AR heads work fairly well for the Icarus's body... probably because the JR head is so similar to the one that was already on the unit. And the A, well, it just seems to fit the more angular profile of the VF-2JA. The SR head and the art error R head just don't seem to fit... the SR head is too streamlined and just doesn't blend well, and the R head is just plain ugly. Though what the SR head would fit well on would be the VF-2SS.

Abandon your quest post-haste please. You were off to a promising start, but these are two ugly and downright awful designs. The "YF-1R" isn't even really supposed to exist, if memory serves... it was an animation mistake. Neither of these heads looks good attached to the body of the VF-2JA, they're both too busy, and frankly not nearly streamlined enough to make sense.

ROFL! Don't worry dude, I'm past that. Still, I'll agree that's nothing short of sacrilage, what you've done there. I hated Macross 7 but loved the YF-19 as a design, and seeing it mutilated like that with spirita weapons detracts from it by associating it with the VF-19 Kai, or "Ultraman Junior" as I like to call it. Grebo, I don't think there is such thing as a way to make the anima spirita weapons of Macross 7 credible from a tactical perspective, or even a common sense perspective for that matter. Pretty much the only way the "music attack" remained credible was as a strictly diversionary strategy like Global used in DYRL or the UN used as "Operation Minmay" in Macross II. Once you got to the magical healing power of music, music itself as a weapon and all that rot, the only real way to apply it that makes sense would be to loan Basara to the ATF agents next time they need to use music to force a hostage settlement.

Oh, let me explain... Nanashi, you're fairly new here (reg. 24 July '06), and your screenname is extremely similar to that of a popular and well-known member who also goes by the name "Nanashi." His actual screenname is "nanashino" (reg. 1 March '05) but pretty much everyone calls him Nanashi. He's a fairly well respected Macross authority, and he owns MacrossMecha.info, which is a site devoted to translations of hard-to-find schematics of mecha and weapons systems. His site's pretty well known, especially for esoteric stuff like Kazumi Fujita's VF-XS (prototype VF-2SS) lineart and comparisons of the various missiles from DYRL. From the conversations I've had with him, I'd say he's a pretty stern Robotech-hater. Since your screenname is so similar to his, and happens to be the name everyone knows him by, it's causing quite a bit of confusion. Particularly because you seem to be a pretty vocal fan of Robotech, since that show is a fairly unwelcome topic here. I'm sure the confusion increases even further because your website is Robotech themed and not at all up to the real Nanashi's rather low-key and professional-looking standard.

Grebo Guru, That's certainly an interesting take on the Valkyrie II you've presented here. I see you borrowed the gunpod from Kazumi Fujita's original concept for the VF-2SS. I always thought that the original gunpod concept looked more robust than the one that made it into the animation. Bravo on the photoshop job, it looks very good, and almost like it belongs on that arm. Can't quite say I agree with trying to put the Macross II valkyries into the Macross Plus and Macross 7 eras. The design methodologies just don't match gracefully. Granted there is a passing resemblance between the battroid of the VF-2SS and the battroid of the VF-11 in the torso. Tacking the VF-0's ugly-as-hell reactive armor onto it is doing it quite an injustice though. I always thought the battroid armor (Reactive Armor VF-0, GBP-1), affectionately dubbed the "Twinkie Suit" by a good friend of mine, was a bad design. I wouldn't quite say the VF-2SS looks like a cross between the YF-19 and the VF-1. I'd say it was closer to a cross between the VF-4 Lightning III and a more streamlined VF-1 Valkyrie. Nanashi, If you know your terminology is wrong, then you might want to double-check your posts before you make them. There are a lot of die-hard Robotech haters here, so the easiest way to avoid making lots of apologies and getting off track is to avoid even mentioning Robotech terminology. If you're looking for a half-decent english dub of Macross then you're in luck, ADV released one last year that's decent, but not fabulous. It's pretty cheap too, about $20 per volume. There's not a lot better out there, since it's remastered and the subtitles have actually been improved slightly from the AnimEigo edition. As far as finding any mechanical designs or art from Macross II on the net, yeah, you're in for a difficult hunt nowadays. Most of the major sites that hosted the good stuff are gone, mostly victims of neglect by the webmasters running them. Of the few left, there are very very few good ones. unspacy.de has a few good pictures of the VF-2SS, but they're pretty much the same lineart that's posted here. The real Nanashi's Macross Mecha Designs page has the original Kazumi Fujita concepts up, but not much beyond that. MAHQ has two or three color images, but they're pretty grainy. Same goes for Macross2Mechas, which has their watermark smeared over anything they post, ruining it. To the best of my knowledge, there are only two really good sites left... in the interest of fairness, I'll go in order of gallery size. McCain's UN Spacy Quartermaster's Tactical Database has a decent image gallery, maybe 200+ images of the various Macross II mecha designs. Of course, the site's webmaster has taken more than a little artistic licence with the mecha backstories and specs, so most if not all of the information presented there isn't canon. My own site, Macross II: A Century of War, is under pretty heavy construction after moving to a new server and domain name, so our gallery isn't currently online. Our gallery is quite extensive, approximately 10,000 images. Including screen captures, official lineart, magazine scans, model kits, and custom art done by artists on our site and MacrossWorld. It ought to be back online sometime in November. My site also hosts a modest RPG group. Just for kicks, here's a VF-2SS done in Cobra Squad's paint scheme, created by HelloHikaru specifically for my site. http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?...st&id=28024

5400m in cruiser mode eh? That's pretty close to the estimates I made after taking a closer look at the screen captures from Macross II for my website's mecha files about two years ago. I took some captures and crunched some numbers comparing the known features of the Macross Cannon to the Nupetiet Vergnitz, and then backtracking to the other visible ships in the screen captures. I came up with the ship being almost exactly ten times the size that Kevin Siembieda cited in the RPG (488m), setting the size at around 4950m. It looks like he made similar errors with the Gloria and Heracles as well. As far as the performance of the Macross Cannons, you can calculate just how punishing they were in the early moves of the battle. I'll go back to the DVD and double-check this, but if I remember right, they stated that the Mardook fleet was about 2000 ships, and that the four Macross cannons destroyed 60% of the enemy ships (1200 vessels). One simple division equation later, you've got an average kill ratio of 300 enemy ships brought down by each Macross Cannon per volley.

No need to worry, I isolated the issue, and it was on my end. My firewall's IP address filter is a little (okay a LOT) overzealous.

The quick summary goes something like this: We discovered the hard way that Internet Explorer has become a liability, rather than a useful tool in this little endeavor, as IE 6 doesn't quite support a lot of the CSS elements we're using. Everything seems to work in test for NS6+ and Firefox 1.5, so I'm going to go ahead and call that one a success. Flaming Gauntlet fired a few more artworks at us, namely for the Gigamesh I and II, and the Nosjadeul Ger and Nosjadeul Rau from Macross II: Lovers Again. We're still cranking on getting the site working, something that isn't exactly helped by the fact that I can't seem to get a day off. Once we get the main index up, we're going to announce it in our own thread.

Interesting skin for IPB. A little bland, but then again IPB was never easy to skin in the first place. I'm not sure if it was just me, but I had quite a bit of difficulty getting the page to load completely in Firefox and Internet Explorer. Mayhap a dead image link or two?

Interesting new index. Plain, a little on the bland side. You could consider doing a different set of effects for the left to right fade there, because on low contrast monitors that's going to be nearly impossible to read. I've got a freaking ultrapremium gaming LCD monitor and I can barely read the right side of most of those buttons. Also, you've got a few minor spelling and context issues there. For starters, the NERV slogan is "God's in his heaven. All's right with the world." See attachment for confirmation. Using the contractions is right and proper, and ironically saves you space so you can use a font that ain't so damn tiny. Also, that second line of text under "Assault on Reflex Point" is IMPOSSIBLY small. And you've got a typo in the Full Metal Panic one. "An" would need to be "A" to be the proper useage.

Yeah, fun times.

Y'know what the sad part is? I think I know the guy that did those.

Well you've been busy. I got a rank-and-file Gigamesh art of Luis's ready to go up on mine. I'm hoping to have something up Tuesday, if all goes well. It shouldn't be too hard, now that our problems with the Java Runtime Environment are solved. The first items up are going to be the main index and the squadron/RPG mecha pages. There will be a separate set of mecha pages for the galleries as well.

Seriously, what was so wrong about destroying a ship that had outlived its usefulness? Its a ship for crying out loud. 398273[/snapback] Well, it was also sort of the symbol of the UN government, the UN Spacy, and one of the more recognizable ships in anime. Still, it was just a ship.

Photoshop is workin fine now. The problem is the surface of this ancient desk (made in the 1940's) is uneven, and as such the monitor stand won't sit properly, so I have to prop one end of it up with some folded papers to get it to stop shaking when I type.

lol... I'm still working out here, PR work is the pits, especially when you're trying to put a favorable spin on the decisions of a bunch of elderly businessmen who have less common sense than my eleven year old brother. Website updates comin soon, I just got to make Photoshop cooperate with me, and my monitor stop wobbling when I type.

Pawn in my game? More like jewel in our project's crown. When it comes to some of these mecha, you're damn near our definitive source of art.

He's nothing if not inventive.

Yeah, it's a real interesting piece of work. Started it's life as a VF-2SS Valkyrie II, and Luis's crazed mechanical mind fitted it with a new head unit similar in design to the original VE-1 ELINT Seeker, stripped out the portable firearms in order to fit an updated version of the VE-1's sensor FAST packs and Radome, and changed the optical sensors in the head around a little.

Heh, while I've been busy, Luis turned up an original design specifically for use in the Macross II RPG that we run on my site. A new version of the VF-2SS Valkyrie II, built with Electronic Intelligence and Electronic Warfare in mind, just like the VE-1 ELINT Seeker from DYRL. The conjectural name is the VE-2IS ELINT Cipher at the moment, we might change it later.