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Seto Kaiba

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  1. Seto Kaiba
    Well, the new season's off to a meh start... Jujutsu Kaisen continues its headlong march into "Too Bleak, Stopped Caring" territory with a story arc that seems to exist for the sole purpose of having the villains massacre as many civilians as they can. It really feels like it's run out of things to show and is resorting to Gantz-style gore porn in an attempt to seem "edgy" and "mature". This series is a lot more fun when it's just Yuji and his classmates screwing around and loses a lot of what makes it fun and interesting when it gets into its action sequences. The Saint's Magic Power is Omnipotent got a second season this season, and it's pretty unremarkable just like the first one. It's not a bad series by any means, but it's clearly still taking the lion's share of its inspiration from Miya Kazuki's Ascendance of a Bookworm but without the sheer scale of that story's vision and worldbuilding. It follows many of the same plot beats, but because Sei seems to be the only character the story has any interest in developing she's left to trail an ever-increasing number of shallow stock prettyboys right out of any fantasy-themed otome game in her wake as she moves through her story. The story could be interesting if it made more of an effort to establish the other main characters a bit and get more into the stakes of her story, but it doesn't... so it's just Sei and like half a dozen palate swaps of the same generic bishounen love interest. I'm about to start I'm Giving the Disgraced Noble Lady I Rescued a Crash Course in Naughtiness... which seems like it'll be pretty dull. It seems like the longer a title is these days, the more form-letter its plot becomes. EDIT: It's pretty tedious. A self-professed Demon Lord living in a house out in the woods tries to teach an extreme doormat girl who's been framed for treason by her fiance as an excuse to dump her some healthy comping mechanisms, through his extremely hammy methods.
  2. Seto Kaiba
    Hey, someone rescued it... even odder, Netflix rescued it. The same Netflix that AGGRESSIVELY quit NuTrek because of Discovery. Will wonders never cease?
  3. Seto Kaiba
    Third book in the Dark Imperium series. Despite being an enormous Hope Spot for the Imperium as a whole, Guilliman spends a LOT of his post-resurrection time jobbing for Traitor Primarchs. He's actually died TWICE so far. The Lion, for his part, has gotten off comparatively lightly... introducing Angron to the Emperor's shield, face first, and generally having just woken up from an extraordinarily long powernap.
  4. Seto Kaiba
    Pretty much my reaction as well... Gundam SEED was a breakout hit that pulled some of the highest viewership numbers and merchandise sales in the franchise's history, rivaling the likes of Zeta Gundam, and I've read about how the studio was hoping the Cosmic Era could become a second Universal Century and hastily greenlit a sequel to capitalize on it. That said, I'd thought the relative failure of Gundam SEED Destiny had sunk those ambitions and that what followed was just to tie off the bloody stump left by Destiny's failure to stick the landing. A movie on top of that uninspiring ending just feels like closing the barn door after the cow's already in someone's burger.
  5. Seto Kaiba
    Oh, I'm sure there are more customers than just the Macross 5 fleet. It's just not particularly likely that those other emigrant governments, central NUNS fleets, and possibly private military companies had a large enough Zentradi population among their numbers for the preferences of the Zentradi to be relevant in selecting their equipment is another matter entirely... We've never even seen a VA-14, for that matter. Only the original "Spiritia Dreaming" VF-14 and the Macross M3 version... with many fans mistaking the former for a VA-14. An issue not helped by the Spiritia Dreaming VF-14 being an enhanced armament type. Probably not very... it's a highly specialized design, and each version of it is basically a one-appearance wonder. The original Variable Glaug and its (New) UN Forces miclone-suitable version only appear in Macross M3, the unmanned Neo Glaug only shows up in Macross Plus: Game Edition, and the manned Neo Glaug bis has a whopping two appearances: Macross the Ride and the novelization of the Macross Frontier TV series. Basically the one confirmed operator outside of the Special Forces are the Zentradi Marines, who are also a smaller group. It's possible the D-type is a locally-developed variant. We know those are a thing as early as the 2040s.
  6. Seto Kaiba
    There is some commentary here and there in publications like Great Mechanics G and the series artbooks. I'd assume a definitive discussion probably exists in the liner notes and extra features for the Macross Delta TV series and movies. Yeah... it's trying, though admittedly I'm not sure that part of the story really needed elaboration. It was unpleasant enough as it is. To be honest, I wonder to what extent they're actually favored by the Zentradi since a fair number of them are simply inferring they're favored by the Zentradi based on their only known users being the Macross 5 fleet. The VBP-1/VA-110 Variable Glaug is the only one that's really designed for Zentradi operation, because it was developed and built for a rebel Zentradi group and then independently reproduced by the New UN Government after capture. It's possible the VA designation is simply what they felt was the closest fit based on its gun-heavy armament, or it may have been intended to deceive since the designation's a clear nod to Project Constant Peg (which also used 110 numbers for flight tests of captured Soviet aircraft). I wonder how much of it is that the Zentradi actually favor these designs, how much of it is them simply gravitating towards designs optimized for deep space operations where they'd feel most at home, and how much is simply "solidarity" buying from a Zentradi-run company like General Galaxy.
  7. Seto Kaiba
    Hrm... from JOYTOY, and right now, sure. In the future, I'd wager we'll be seeing a few more Primarchs coming out of the woodwork in the not-too-distant future and TBH I do kind of suspect they're headed toward a quiet End Times sort of event and the setting is actually getting somewhat less grimdark.
  8. Seto Kaiba
    The Lion? Yup. He's pretty much guaranteed to sell well. Not just because the Dark Angels chapter are one of the most popular either, The Lion is a lot more likeable and heroic in the 41st millennium than he ever was in the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy. He also didn't do nearly as much jobbing as Guilliman did on his return. Kinda makes me wonder if we're going to get corresponding figures for the currently-active-in-the-story Daemon Primarchs like Angron, Magnus, Fulgrim, and Mortarion. (Probably won't be too long before Russ, Vulkan, Corax, Dorn, Jaghatai, Lorgar, and Perturabo get off the dime either. They won't ruin a good meme by confirming if Alpharius and Omegon are dead or not... even though the Heresy books kinda already did.)
  9. Seto Kaiba
    It's also worth remembering that Yoko Kanno is not always credited under her real name too. As a composer, she's credited under her real name. She's usually credited under a pseudonym ("Gabriela Robin") when she's working as a lyricist and mixing English and Japanese or performing her own compositions.
  10. Seto Kaiba
    While enjoyment of the music is subjective, this is pretty much an objectively incorrect statement. Especially considering that Frontier's music is some of the franchise's most popular and that both of its singers have had subsequent appearances and releases a solid decade after their series ended. Singles from both Frontier and Delta topped charts in Japan too. Not to mention the fact that the Yoko Kanno was both a composer and lyricist for almost every song from Frontier
  11. Seto Kaiba
    It's pretty firmly in the "sci-fi magic" category. Gravity control technology in Macross uses a form of exotic matter called heavy quantum that exists partly in three dimensional space and partly in fold space. Most of its mass is stored in fold space, and they control how much of that mass protrudes into three-dimensional space using fold waves. By doing so, they can control how much gravity the heavy quantum produces in three dimensional space and manipulate it to produce very localized artificial gravity. The same effect is also used inside thermonuclear reactors in Macross to compress fuel until fusion begins and contain the resulting plasma, and it's also used in thermonuclear warheads and super dimension energy cannons as well. It's not anti-gravity in the sense that it is not canceling out the planet's gravity. It's more like the ship is introducing a second, very localized gravitational field in order to make itself fall up at the same rate that it is falling down. A separate gravity field inside the ship prevents the crew from falling up. In the Macross the First manga, the malfunctioning gravity control system causes some of the ship's surroundings to fall up towards it while it is taking off. It's very different to the Gundam franchise's Minovsky Craft system, which uses the exotic Minovsky particles to produce an effect that is essentially a very localized and powerful form of magnetic levitation.
  12. Seto Kaiba
    So... that's not quite accurate. Development of the Evil-series started in 2865 PC (c. 497,135 BCE), but because they were unable to resolve the problem of the incredible energy demands that the biotechnology used in the designs called for they were never able to complete them. Three years later, the Protoculture developed the first prototype super dimension energy converter and they began considering the technology's potential to address the excessive energy requirements of the Evil series. Three years after that, in 2871 PC, the Protoculture completed their first seven Evil-series prototypes (one of each type/class) using the new biotechnological super dimension energy converters and the first practical tests resulted in disaster with the seven prototypes being possessed by energy beings from super dimension space that ultimately became known as the Protodeviln. The seven Protodeviln seen in Macross 7 are the seven original Evil-series prototypes and, as far as we know, there were no others constructed.* I have no idea why this fan theory comes back SO MUCH. This happened with Frontier too. For some reason, there's this part of the fandom that assumes that any remotely unconventional-looking character who isn't explicitly identified as a Zentradi or whatever is a Protodeviln. When Frontier was airing, people were assuming that Macross Quarter bridge operator Mina Roshan was a Protodeviln because her design had dark skin, dark eyes, and a red mark on her forehead. The actual explanation... she's just Indian. But they were CONVINCED she was a Protodeviln. It's like fans can't remember that there were only ever seven Evil-series, that four of them died in Macross 7, and the other three ****ed off to parts unknown at the end of the series. * Not by the Protoculture, anyway. The non-canon manga Macross Dynamite 7: Mylene Beat has a faction within the Macross 7 fleet's New UN Forces attempt to clone an Evil-series with an eye towards mass producing an Evil-series weapon for Humanity's defense. The prototype predictably goes out of control and becomes a battleship-sized space dragon, but thanks to Mylene's intervention its rampage proves to be short-lived and after gaining the ability to generate its own spiritia is promptly disappears into the deepest reaches of space the same way the Protodeviln did. The Fold Evil in Macross 30: Voices Across the Galaxy and the Birdhuman in Macross Zero are some kind of related development, but with a perfected version of the super dimension energy converter technology that doesn't result in a living weapon possessed by a starving energy vampire.
  13. Seto Kaiba
    They were basically useless on the ground, since the Zentradi didn't do ground warfare, but they found some utility as a long-ranged anti-capital ship turret able to deliver low yield thermonuclear reaction warheads.
  14. Seto Kaiba
    Only for the HWR-00 Monster, as it's the only one of the original Destroids that's truly configured for long-ranged engagements (excl. the non-canonical LDR-04 Maverick from the FamilySoft Macross games). The Monster's 40cm cannons are able to bombard targets up to 160km away in indirect fire under gravity. Its ground-to-ground missile launchers have a 300km+ range. For the most part, Valkyries are also set up for visual-ranged combat or very close to it because the Zentradi come in numbers far too great to rely mainly on beyond-visual-range engagement and a combination of passive and active stealth measures has reduced the effectiveness of long-ranged missiles.
  15. Seto Kaiba
    One thing that keeps me from rewatching Patlabor is how little effort went into the writing... there are whole plots that get recycled four or five times over in quick succession, the most blatant case being the "there's a manmade kaiju preying on Labors" that culminated in WXIII.
  16. Seto Kaiba
    Funimation Crunchyroll's dropped its lineup for next season. It's a pretty weak lineup so far, that's pretty heavy on isekai shovelware. The only standouts I can see are Jujutsu Kaisen's continuing 2nd season, Dr. Stone's second cour, Goblin Slayer II, and OVERTAKE!. There are still seven shows to be announced, though. I've caught up on a few titles... The Undead Girl Murder Farce still seems to be this season's standout for me, with one episode left to go and the promise of a season two on the horizon. The Misfit of Demon King Academy S2, Classroom for Heroes, Yuri is My Job!, and My Tiny Senpai have all limped to fairly sub-par finishes. I also finished Buddy Daddies, which was an absolute mess to the very end.
  17. Seto Kaiba
    Yeah, that's kind of the kicker... the difference between a passive sensor system and an active one. Active sensors like RADAR, LIDAR, LADAR, and fictional equivalents like fold wave RADAR work by shooting a beam of radiation into the surrounding area in the expectation that it'll bounce off of nearby objects and then looking for the reflected energy. They can examine the amount of reflected energy and the amount of time it takes for the energy to return to the receiver to estimate size and distance, and by tracking the object between sweeps of the radiation beam they can determine directionality and velocity. These systems can be defeated in a few different ways: Jamming: Essentially, barraging the receiver looking for reflected energy with energy of the same type and frequency so that the system and its operators can't differentiate reflected energy from maliciously transmitted energy. This blinds the sensor, but it also lets everyone know they're there just not specifically where you are. It's also rather unsafe to do if the enemy has anti-radiation missiles with track-on-jam capability, which will simply pursue the largest local source of radiation in the relevant spectrum and destroy it. Destructive interference: As described above, broadcasting a targeted antiphase wave to cancel out the reflected energy's amplitude. Still the realm of fiction as far as we know. Passive absorption and deflection: What modern stealth aircraft use. The airframe is shaped in such a way that it minimizes the amount of the radiation beam's energy that's reflected back towards the sender, and also coated in a material that absorbs that particular type of radiation and converts it into another form. Radar absorbant material (RAM) is a paint that is a suspension of fine metallic particles that absorb radar waves and convert them into heat. Another approach to deflection is chaff, an explosive-driven cloud of reflective fragments that interfere with the path of the radiation beam and may temporarily obscure objects on the other side of the chaff. Anti-radiation munitions: Blow it up using missiles that home in on radiation sources. Also lets the enemy know you're there, and very hard to pull off if the enemy has anti-aircraft defenses. Passive sensors, like optical cameras, infrared cameras, gravity wave detectors, and fictional equivalents don't send out any kind of radiation. They're just waiting to soak up any radiation they encounter in the target spectrum. Their ranges are generally more limited because the range of the sensor is generally directly related to its physical size and the sensitivity may be tied to size and other conditions like how cool the sensor can be kept (as on some high-end infrared setups). There are really only two ways around them: Emission mitigation: Don't get caught emitting the type of radiation they're looking for. Whether this means keeping radars off, having a low vis paintjob, or finding ways to avoid letting off a lot of waste heat, the goal is to avoid tripping the sensor for as long as possible. Distraction: Flood the area with so many emission sources that the system can't discern the legitimate/threatening detections from the distractions. This isn't often done with optical or infrared, except in the form of flares as a way of evading infrared-guided missiles. The infrared sensor in the seeker head is simply looking for the hottest object around, so flares serve to distract it by offering a moving object that's emitting more infrared radiation than the engines of the target aircraft in the hopes that the seeker will pursue the flare instead.
  18. Seto Kaiba
    Not an entirely unreasonable thought, since most sci-fi takes a more futuristic/less realistic approach to stealth. When most of us think "active stealth" we're thinking something like the thermoptic camo of Ghost in the Shell or the Predator movies if not something even more impressive like the eponymous "cloaking device" from Star Trek and so many other sci-fi titles that renders ships invisible to all forms of detection (and occasionally intangible in the bargain) through a variety of exotic means like gravitational lensing, dimension shifting, etc. Infrared can, to an extent, be manipulated the same way as the visible spectrum... but bending light waves out of the way of a fighter would require some pretty intense applications of gravitational force, which would probably run counter to the idea of remaining stealthy since ships are routinely scanning for dimensional faults and gravitational anomalies both because they can be damaging and because they can be precursors to a ship arriving by space fold, so it wouldn't be particularly useful for stealth purposes.
  19. Seto Kaiba
    Which was based on the depiction in the Robotech series by Comico Comics that depicted two Macross-class SDFs standing back-to-back in the lake. The Comico Comics series did that as a way to rationalize/explain away some particularly problematic dialog in the Robotech TV series. Robotech mentions the SDF-2 at the same point the original Macross does, but proceeds to conflate the command center built inside the SDF-1 with the bridge of the SDF-2 thereafter including when the Macross it hit and is listing, and is referred to as if it were the SDF-2 in the final episode. It's one of the all-time Robotech plot holes, so much so that it had its own section in the robotech.com FAQ back in the day.
  20. Seto Kaiba
    I am somehow not surprised that it was One Piece that ultimately broke the "western anime adaptations suck" curse... or that season two has been approved. I guess all it took was an author with sufficient clout to veto any of Netflix's attempts to Netflix up the series.
  21. Seto Kaiba
    That's the standard MO for Robotech licensees in general, TBH... they do the most popular/main character designs and move on. The farthest afield they've really gone is the "stealth" paintjob that was just Roy's VF-1S with the white swapped for black and dark gray for yellow. Or maybe that "YF-1R" that only got made by Toynami because it was the signature ride of the MC in a then-new Macross Saga videogame.
  22. Seto Kaiba
    Macross's active stealth technology is an anti-radar countermeasure only. It works basically the same as noise-cancelling headphones do. It leverages wave superposition principles to make the aircraft invisible to enemy radar through destructive interference. Basically, it analyzes the incoming radar wave, calculates how it's going to reflect off the airframe and back towards the enemy aircraft, then sends a precisely timed radar beam back to the enemy aircraft that has the same frequency and amplitude as the reflected radar beam but is 180 degrees out of phase with it. The enemy radar receives both its reflected radar wave and the active stealth system's antiphase radar wave at the same time and because those two radar waves have the same frequency and amplitude but opposite phases the two waves cancel each other's amplitude out and the total amplitude of the radar waves that the enemy radar receives is zero... making it look like there's nobody out there. Even if it's not perfectly aligned, it can still greatly reduce the amplitude of the radar return to the point of potentially being dismissed as noise on the signal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_interference?wprov=sfla1 Infrared emission mitigations would be binned under passive stealth, since the focus is on suppressing the aircraft's own emissions rather than evading detection by countering the emissions of enemy aircraft. VFs have a bunch of different passive stealth measures. The heat sequestration I described previously is one that's used to reduce the aircraft's infrared profile. Others include the use of radar-absorbent materials to absorb radar waves so less energy is reflected and the use of airframe shaping and internally stored weapons to minimize the amount of radar waves that can bounce back to an enemy radar or even deflect them off in a different direction. The VF-25 Master File mentions the addition of passive stealth coatings meant to defeat fold wave radar by absorbing part or all of an incoming fold wave radar pulse to prevent it from being reflected. The VF-22 Master File also makes mention of materials the VF-22 used in conjunction with its ability to freely change the shape of certain portions of its airframe in order to reduce light reflections and thus make it harder to detect using a LADAR system or optical camera.
  23. Seto Kaiba
    So, further to this... yeah, the next section of the book does mention (in passing) the (movie) Queadluun-Rau's (cybernetic) brainwave control system and video-brain feedback setup that General Galaxy's engineers were unable to analyze or reproduce at the time. It seems that they just straight-up used the system from the Queadluun-Rau for video-brain feedback setupi, since they were categorically unable to reproduce it satisafactorily themselves. The YF-21's BDI is subsequently explained as an attempt to speed up a Valkyrie's response time by making that VF an extension of the pilot's body directly controlled by the brain instead of routing control information through an airframe control AI. (Which explains why Col. Johnson said that the issue analysis on the YF-21 was problematic because half of the unit's computer was Guld's brain... it's not a figure of speech, it's literally true.) Apparently switching to the more reliable but less invasive Brain Computer Interface led to more than a 20% loss of performance in terms of system reaction time though it's said that it's considered easier to use by the pilots. (Which is perhaps understandable, given that the next section makes the BCS-based control setup sound twitchy as hell with an end-to-end reaction time of under 10 milliseconds and 200 hours of training required just to prepare the pilot and collect the data necessary to set up the brainwave control system for them to use!)
  24. Seto Kaiba
    So, there may be an explanation for that as well... admittedly in one of the sections I've only skimmed so far. Variable Fighter Master File: VF-22 Sturmvogel II makes several references to the YF-21/VF-22's origins as an outgrowth/rethinking of General Galaxy and the New UN Forces plan to restore the Queadluun-Rau's factory satellite and produce an improved version of the battle suit. While this much is also in the official setting, Master File adds a new aspect of the plan by suggesting that (in its version) the YF-21 grew out of plans for a Variable Glaug-esque miclone version of the improved Queadluun Rau. They make a couple mentions of the (movie) Queadluun-Rau's cybernetic control interface, which they describe as an unreproducable "black box" system at the time (the mid-to-late 2030s). I'll have to dig into that section properly to verify, but the implication thus far seems to be that the Brainwave Control System of the YF-21 is an attempt to reproduce that black box system from the Queadluun-Rau or at least duplicate its functionality using Human technology. Well, it was a prototype... those aren't generally known for being entirely stable or reliable. The intention was that the manual controls were there purely for emergency use, should something go awry with the Brainwave Control System. There's mention that the restraints locking the arms and legs in place automatically release if the BCS connection deteriorates to a certain level to allow the pilot to switch to the manual controls easily. However, it's definitely a testament to Guld Goa Bowman's physical and mental discipline that the first testing accident connected to the YF-21's BCS was the one in Macross Plus where Guld's YF-21 experienced a (recoverable) loss of control after almost colliding with Isamu's VF-11B. It's noted that they did address the alignment issues when they switched to a laser-based brainwave monitoring system for the reduced-capability Brain Computer Interface on the production VF-22. (Of course, that was also after the brainwave system was made a support system for the regular controls, so it was a lot more fault-tolerant anyway.) Nope... that's Fold Dimensional Energy Conversion. It's a technology the Protoculture probably developed by studying the Vajra and requires extremely high purity fold quartz to pull off. Some of the Protoculture's most advanced constructs had that ability - like the Birdhuman, the Fold Evil on Uroboros, and the Protodeviln's Evil-series bodies - but that's something that was beyond Human technology until the development of the Fold Wave System for the YF-29 Durandal in the late 2050s. We've previously touched on how even building a fold wave system is nearly impossible because the quantity and purity of fold quartz needed to make it work at an acceptable level are prohibitively high. The YF-21's about twenty years and two generations* before that technology became available. * The YF-29's Fold Wave System was such a massive game-changer that Master File reclassified the YF-29 as a 6th Generation VF prototype. Macross Delta's Blu-ray extra features appear to imply the same happened in the official Macross setting, with the VF-31 Siegfried being classified as a Gen 5.5 VF apparently because of its adoption of the Fold Wave System. Nope. Not aware of any VF that can do that. I haven't gotten far enough into the VF-22 book to see if it says anything about that, but in other Master File books the subject of waste heat management in space does come up (esp. the VF-25 book). The approach they describe involves the VFs using their cryogenic fuel slush as a system coolant, cycling that coolant back into the vacuum-sealed tanks where it's both less detectable and eventually dealt with when the fuel is used in the compact thermonuclear reactor or the verniers. Outside of combat, it's mentioned that they don't bother with heat sequestration and use the surface of the wings as a radiator for cooling the VF... assuming it's not equipped with FAST Packs that have their own heat sink systems like the VF-25's Armored Pack. I'm not sure it's even his ego... his hyperfixation on music makes me think he's just high functioning autistic and has trouble with social cues.
  25. Seto Kaiba
    I have to admit, the more I read of Variable Fighter Master File: VF-22 Sturmvogel II, the more I'm convinced I've done the book a disservice by describing it as one of the less-good installments of the series. It's got quite a bit of good material, it's just the original variants are largely stupid. The section on the VF-22's cockpit makes it sound like the YF-21 prototype would've been an absolutely miserable aircraft to operate. It describes the original BCS control system as having such tight tolerances that the pilot was basically not allowed to move at all. We're talking way beyond normal levels of restraints, to the point of immobilizing the pilot's entire body via a Houdini-like system of restraint straps and clamps in normal operation. All of that was in service of keeping the EEG sensor hood from shifting, since moving as little as 10mm from its ideal position would cause the system to lose 40% or more of its accuracy and send the aircraft to emergency recovery mode. The connected Brain Direct Image system required measures nearly as severe, basically requiring the pilot to fly with their eyes closed and wearing sound-damping headphones. The description of the Sync Pod chair that grips the pilot's entire body instead of using conventional restraints sounds uncomfortable as hell too. There's also a mention that the pilot suit also includes a version of the metabolic booster system that's the only mentioned feature of the VF-15, which uses lasers, electromagnetic fields, etc. to stimulate the body's metabolic stress responses as an anti-g measure. It's said that it can provide the wearer with the endurance to temporarily handle g-force load of +20 for nearly three minutes. The same system is also used for life support, slowing the pilot's life processes down in the event of an emergency escape of the aircraft to allow the pilot to survive up to 70 days in space.
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