Seto Kaiba

Yeah this looks like it's going to go in the same category as the Doom movie with The Rock. Might be in so bad it's good territory, but definitely not good good.

I got my set direct from Animeigo and the cases for each disc in my set are black. I'd assume, based on that, that the color-matching cases are the leftover stock that was the repackaged leftover stock.

Yeah, I have no doubt that Joytoy's Horus Heresy line will expand further and will probably cover all eighteen of the Heresy-era space marine Legions when it's done. Joytoy definitely picked a good place to start and timed the release well. The last book of the Siege of Terra series and the overarching Horus Heresy series as a whole dropped a few weeks ago, and the XVI Legion Sons of Horus and VII Legion Imperial Fists are basically the poster-children for the entire Siege as the overall leaders of the traitor legions and loyalists respectively. I know I'll 100% end up buying at least a few. Ever since the main line launched, I've wanted a non-Primaris Raven Guard with the classic "beakie" helmet. With the Heresy on the table, I can get that... and a few other possibilities from my favorite bits of the novels present themselves too. Especially since this line includes canon characters. The Imperial Fists line has a pre-Emperor's Champion First Captain Sigismund.

Yeah, the Mark VI "Beakie" helmets are a classic from the earliest days of Warhammer 40,000. As a stickler for detail... it might be a deal-breaker for me tho. All the really iconic Sons of Horus art uses Mark IV and Mark V, and Mark VI was almost exclusively a loyalist thing since it was introduced by the loyalists after the Isstvan V drop site massacre and field-tested by the Raven Guard. Never did like the Sons of Horus's sea green paintjob either. The Luna Wolves white-on-black is so classic that even the Orks consider it synonymous with strength 10,000 years after the Luna Wolves wrecked their sh*t at Ullanor.

So I decided to watch another episode of Keijo!!!!!!!! over lunch. Honestly, the main thing standing between Keijo!!!!!!!! and being the single weirdest sports anime I have ever seen is that it leans so hard into its obsession with breasts and butts at every opportunity that the alleged sport the series is titled for feels very much like an excuse plot more than it does a parody. Keijo!!!!!!!! is a sports anime (parody) in the same way that Dead or Alive Xtreme is a beach volleyball game. In a way, it's kind of a great example of what I thought Iwakakeru was going to be a few seasons back. The promo art made it look like Armpit Fetish: the Anime, but it was a laser-straight sports anime about rock climbing that bordered on infotainment at points. Keijo!!!!!!!! IS Ass Fetish: the Anime. If it took itself seriously, I'd rate it even weirder than that absolute drug trip of a sports anime Birdie Wing... but this is the "when your parents walk in" half of the "What anime looks like" meme incarnate.

Some years ago, the MacrossWorld admins decided to clean up the community's image a bit and instituted harsher rules regarding the maintenance of civil conduct. So a number of long-time members who'd often gotten involved in heated discussions over one thing or another in years past - something I was no stranger to myself - were on thin ice going forward. You could say the ice gave out unexpectedly. It's a shame, really. We didn't get along back in the day, but once we met in person at SDCon and a mutual friend insisted we bury the proverbial hatchet I found him to be quite a pleasant fellow and of course he's very knowledgeable about Macross and vintage mecha anime. As far as I know, the technology is never mentioned again... so either it didn't work as well as expected, or Shinsei and General Galaxy found something more effective by the time of the VF-19 and VF-22. No excusing is necessary! This thread is for questions and wonderings and musings and so on. 😁 So... the reason that a few of the rebel Zentradi weapons appear on this chart and the simpler one in Macross Chronicle is that those specific models are derived from the New UN Government's Variable Fighter technology and are Variable Fighters themselves. The Variable Glaug and Feios Valkyrie are based on a stolen VF-4 and VF-11 respectively. Others like the Neo Glaug, Neo Glaug bis, and Queadluun-Alma are based on those designs. With respect to the technology used by the Zentradi forces themselves, there are a few remarks here and there that indicate that specific models of battle pod and battle suit were the latest models in their respective design series when the Protoculture's civilization collapsed. No guidance is given about what may have come before those designs. Whether the New UN Government has some classification system for reproductions of Zentradi mecha we do not know. There is a clear statement that there have been several sequential models of Queadluun-Rhea with the latest being the Rhea/56, but because Zentradi technology has been basically stable for 500,000+ years it's unknown if Humanity's finessing would be grouped into generations since the basic design isn't changing. (It's especially difficult to argue it based on the Queadluun-Rhea, since the Queadluun-series battle suits were known for their excessively high mobility and most of what we know General Galaxy did in terms of improvements was survivability focused or intended to support VF-like operations rather than improvements to their already impressive maneuverability and acceleration.)

Nah, more an early and alternative take on solving the g-force problem that was already starting to rear its head with the likes of the Gen 3.5 VF-16 and VF-17D/S/T. The VF-19 went with a movable seat that could change its position within the cockpit in order to mitigate some lateral g-forces and so on. The VF-22 went with the Quimeliquola special Inertia Vector Control System that has the side effect of shielding the cockpit from high g-forces. EX-Gear is more like the love child of a powered suit and the movable seat from the VF-19. Well... it's not licensed, there aren't that many fan translators working on Macross stuff, and those of us who are working on it are doing it pro bono in our free time. Gotta balance that stuff with our day jobs and families and whatnot, y'know? My output went to hell in the last few years because I've been working 70 and 80 hour weeks at my day job, and am only starting to get back to something like work-life balance. (So much so that I moved more than a year ago and still haven't finished unpacking.) Of course, we all also have our particular mediums and areas of interest too. The one person I know who's paid particular attention to the light novels is Gubaba, who unfortunately is no longer able to participate in this community. He's mostly done older stuff, IIRC, like DYRL? and Macross II's novelizations and short stories from the time of the original series.

The booster rockets built into the Super Pack do. The conformal fuel tanks that are used to supplement the internal tanks feeding the VF-1's thermonuclear reaction engines and its verniers are carrying hydrogen slush. The NP-BP-01 booster packs contain a hybrid rocket motor that uses a solid fuel and a liquid oxidizer... in this case, liquid oxygen and the aforementioned overtechnology-derived polymer solid fuel that's said to have the consistency of putty or clay.

Unfortunately, there is currently no art for either of them. The YF-26 is only mentioned in passing in Variable Fighter Master File: VF-25 Messiah as the third of three competing prototype 5th Generation main VFs that was produced under the "Project Triangler" codevelopment project between the Macross Frontier, Macross Olympia, and Macross Galaxy fleets. Each fleet used the YF-24 Evolution as a starting point and developed their own prototype based on a mixture of the fleet's proprietary technology and shared technology. The idea was that the winning design would become the Next Main Fighter of all three fleets. Macross Frontier produced the YF-25, Macross Olympia produced the YF-26, and Macross Galaxy produced the YF-27. Macross Olympia's YF-26 dropped out of the competition relatively early, and the Master File does not include any pictures of it. (The winning design was ultimately Macross Frontier's YF-25, though since Macross Galaxy didn't participate in good faith it was only Macross Olympia that joined Macross Frontier as the earliest adopters of the VF-25.) Whether there is a YF-28 at all is unclear. Much like the YF-26, the YF-28 is mentioned only in passing and in one book. In this case, the sixth chapter of Macross the Ride. In the scene in question, representatives of Macross Galaxy are mulling over the demonstrated performance of the YF-25 Prophecy and comparing it to the data leaked to them by LAI that they were using to complete the VF-27 and hypothesize (correctly) that there must be another model of fighter under active development in the Frontier fleet besides the YF-25.

The VF-15 is one of those designs that's only mentioned in passing and with almost no detail. It's only noted trait is that it was the first VF to incorporate a biological anti-g system. Its pilot seat can use lasers, infrared, and electromagnetic pulses to manipulate the pilot's metabolism to compensate for the stress of high g-forces. The Fz-109G Elgersoln Gustav is a reproduction of the Fz-109 Elgersoln used by the anti-government group Fasces in Macross the Ride. It's said to have performance comparable to the VF-171 and have been built at the same factory satellite that supplied the Varauta forces prior to Macross 7.

A Sign of Affection is great again this week... but still very much at "it tastes like diabetes" levels of sweetness. On a lark, I decided to watch something from Crunchyroll's recommendations... and after the first episode I am VERY curious what I watched that convinced Crunchyroll's system that Keijo!!!!!!!! was something I might like. All I can think of is that it must have been either Birdy Wing or Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, because Keijo!!!!!!!! evokes the same feeling that the show isn't so much a thing you watch as something you hallucinate in some kind of on-demand fever dream. (Either the author is putting his own personal fetishes on display for the world to see, or he's a BIIIIIG fan of that one Chorusline song "Dance: Ten; Looks: Three".)

Ah, yeah... all things considered, it was always an obviously foregone conclusion that Laplace's Box was going to be a massive nonevent in the Universal Century's history. The Federation's status quo was still very much in place for titles set after UC 0096 like Hathaway's Flash, Gundam F91, or Victory Gundam and there was zero chance they'd cut half the timeline loose for Unicorn. So a lot of the drama surrounding it falls flat because the audience went into it knowing there wouldn't be an Earth-shaking revelation at the end and that the world greeted the news with a collective "So what?". Yeah, I gather it drifted rather far from the original light novel it was based on... though since that was a part of Unicorn's tangled story I doubt it's any better than what we got.

Ended up fielding a bunch of different questions about the subject of VF generations last night on Discord and Facebook, so I figured I'd update this listing of mine with the latest information since I haven't touched it since December 2021. 😅 For the sake of convenience, the following rant will be color-coded! VFs that officially exist and have appeared in a Macross official setting work VFs that officially exist and have NOT appeared in a Macross official setting work. VFs that exist solely in non-official works like Variable Fighter Master File VFs whose placement is speculative. Last Edited: 11 Feb 2024 - Added VB-4, VB-5, revised Sv-154 Svard placement, added unmanned Neo Glaug, revised naming convention for Neo Glaug bis, revised Generation 5.5 and Generation 6 entirely. Generation 0 - "Prototype Generation" This generation is purely speculative and exists mainly to segregate designs that do not fully comply with the design qualifications for the First Generation Variable Fighter (e.g. thermonuclear reaction turbine engines) and were built principally for evaluation purposes rather than mass produced for actual combat service. YVF-X-0 VF-0 Phoenix (YVF-X-0B) VF-0-NF Sv-50 Sv-51 Sv-51Σ (Unmanned Sv-51) Generation 0.5 - "Upgraded Prototype Generation" This generation contains designs that exist only in Variable Fighter Master File. These VF designs are upgrades of the 0th Generation prototypes that were upgraded with technology from 1st Generation VFs or otherwise modernized to make them viable for long-duration operation. VF-0+ Phoenix Plus Sv-51Ω (Repurposed incomplete Sv-52 with conventional engines) Generation 1 - "First Generation" The defining traits of this generation are the adoption of Overtechnology, including thermonuclear reaction turbine engines, laser weaponry, energy converting armor, etc. in a production variable fighter. Sv-52 VF-1 Valkyrie VF-X-2 Generation 1.5 - "Upgraded First Generation" First Generation designs upgraded with Second Generation hardware drawn from the VF-4. Sv-51 Replica (Macross 30) VF-0 Phoenix Replica (Macross 30) VF-1 Valkyrie Plus (Blocks 6 and later, incl. VF-1X) VF-1P Freyja Valkyrie VF-1X++ Valkyrie Double Plus VF-1C Civilian Valkyrie VF-1EX Valkyrie EX VF-3000S Crusader VF-3000B Bomber Valkyrie Generation 2 - "Specialization for Emigrant Fleets" The hallmarks of the Second Generation designs include the adoption of Zentradi overtechnology, refinements for regime-optimized performance in either atmosphere or space, "lessons learned" from the First Space War, and optionally the adoption of particle beam weaponry. Most were intended for use by emigrant fleets, with low cost, simplified manufacturing, and parts-sharing. VF-X-3 VF-4 Lightning III VF-3000S Crusader VF-3000B Bomber Valkyrie VF-5000 Star Mirage VF-5 VF-6 VF-7 VF-9 Cutlass VF-X-10 V-BR-2 VA-X-3 VB-4 VB-5 Generation 2.5 - "Upgraded Second Generation" Second Generation VFs that were modernized to keep them in service alongside Third Generation VFs. VF-4G Lightning III VF-5000G Star Mirage VF-9E Cutlass Generation 3 - "Project Nova and Diversification" The Third Generation VFs are defined chiefly by the Project Nova design contest that decided the generation's main variable fighter as a true all-purpose successor to the VF-1 Valkyrie, but also by the continuing diversification of variable craft design into dedicated Attacker and Bomber roles. VF-11 Thunderbolt VF-14 Vampire VF-15 VF-17[A-C] Nightmare VA-14 VAB-2 VA-3 Invader VBP-1/VA-110 Variable Glaug VB-6 König Monster Generation 3.5 - "Upgraded Third Generation" Third Generation VFs that've been modernized or upgraded with technology drawn from Fourth Generation VFs to keep them viable or evaluate technologies meant for Fourth Generation implementation. VF-11MAXL Thunderbolt VF-11C Thunderbolt Interceptor VF-16 VF-17[D-T] Nightmare XVF-19 (a modified VF-11) Fz-109 Elgersoln Az-130 Panzersoln FBz-99 Zaubergern Generation 4 - "Project Super Nova: the Advanced Variable Fighter" The Fourth Generation's distinctive design traits are among the best known in Macross. The adoption of the next-gen ARIEL airframe control AI, thermonuclear reaction burst turbine engines, fighter-scale pinpoint barrier systems, and native compatibility for fold boosters. This generation was largely defined by Project Super Nova, the ultimately futile contest between the YF-19 and YF-21 at Eden's New Edwards Test Flight Center. The insurmountable technological and performance complications of the two designs led to a third design, the VF-171, becoming this generation's main variable fighter. VF-19 Excalibur YF-21 VF-22 Sturmvogel II VF-22 Sturmvogel II (SMS Type) VF/B-22 Jagdvogel II VF-171 Nightmare Plus (Blocks I and II) VB-171 Nightmare Plus (Blocks I and II) RVF-171 Nightmare Plus (Blocks I and II) Sv-154 Svard Feios Valkyrie Fz-109G Elgersoln Gustav Neo Glaug (Macross Plus Game Edition unmanned version) VBP-1/VA-110 Neo Glaug bis (Macross R/Macross F novel version) Generation 4.5 - "Upgraded Fourth Generation" The Generation 4.5 designs are few, and consist mostly of VF designs that were either upgraded to evaluate tech for eventual adoption by Generation 5 designs, or ones that were upgraded in extremis to make them more effective in combat against the Vajra. VF-19ACTIVE Nothung VF-19EF Caliburn RVF-19EF Caliburn VF-19EF/A Excalibur ADVANCE VF-22HG Schwalbe Zwei VF-22 Sturmvogel II "Manfred" VF-22 Sturmvogel II "Ushio Todo Custom" VF-171 Nightmare Plus (Block III and IIIF) VF-171EX Nightmare Plus EX VF-171EX Nightmare Plus EX Thrones Custom (Macross E version) RVF-171EX Nightmare Plus EX Queadluun Alma Generation 5 - "Project Evolution and Decentralized Development" The Fifth Generation of Variable Fighters started development as a response to the disastrous first contact with the insectoid alien race known as the Vajra. Existing VF designs proved utterly inadequate to rival the performance of Vajra drones, and new programs were launched to develop countermeasures for the high-g forces and other major problems with the newly finalized Fourth Generation. The design hallmarks of Fifth Generation Variable Fighters include the adoption of Inertia Store Converter technology to insulate the cockpit against high g-forces, Stage II thermonuclear reaction turbine engines, contactless Linear Actuator technology for transformation, the ARIEL II airframe control AI, Extender Gear (EX-Gear) user interfaces, Advanced Energy Conversion Armor (ASWAG), and heavy quantum beam weaponry. YF-24 YF-24 Evolution VF-24 YF-25 Prophecy VF-25 Messiah YF-26 YF-27 Shahar VF-27 Lucifer YF-28 VF-31 Kairos Queadluun Alma Generation 5.5 - "Upgraded Fifth Generation" The precise criteria for the Sixth Generation of Variable Fighters are still somewhat unclear in the absence of a true production Sixth Generation Variable Fighter. Materials from Macross Delta and its movie Absolute Live!!!!!! have offered some clues as to the defining features of the Sixth Generation that reframe several Macross Frontier-era designs as experimental or prototype Sixth Gen VF designs and offered some additional clarity for the intermediate Generation 5.5 designs. The foundational feature of the Sixth Generation is fold wave resonance technologies based on fold quartz which are used to boost the performance of systems that use fold waves natively (e.g. thermonuclear reactors, dimensional beam weapons) and to supplement a Variable Fighter's energy supply by extracting energy directly from higher-dimension space. Fifth Generation designs retrofitted with these technologies or scaled-down versions of these technologies are tentatively (or officially) now classified as Generation 5.5 designs. VF-31 Siegfried (Xaos Valkyrie Works custom) VF-31AX Kairos Plus Sv-262 Draken III Sv-300 Sv-301 Sv-302 Sv-303 Vivasvat Generation 6 - "Fold Waves for All" Until recently, there was no concrete information about the Sixth Generation of Variable Fighters other than its hypothetical existence based on one design being officially classified as a 5.5th Gen custom variable fighter. Materials published for the movie Absolute Live!!!!!! have offered more clarity on the matter and reassigned several Frontier-era VF designs that were previously treated as Fifth Generation "super prototypes" as Sixth Generation experimental or prototype Variable Fighters. Their key design feature is the adoption of fold quartz-based fold wave resonance technology that operates synergistically with systems that use fold waves natively like thermonuclear reactors, inertia store converters, dimensional beam weapons and the like to improve performance to a level beyond what is achievable with fold carbon or without fold wave resonance effects. Other new technologies suggested to be a part of the Sixth Generation requirements are the adoption of layered energy conversion armor as a material for the VF's structural frame, Ghost "parasite aircraft" wingmen, and next generation energy conversion armor, active stealth, and communication technology that uses fold waves in place of electromagnetic waves and allows the entire aircraft skin to function as a composite sensor. YF-28 YF-29 Durandal YF-29B Perceval YF-29C (Earth NUNS trial production version) YF-30 Chronos YF-30B Chronos (NUNS Version) VF-31AX Kairos Plus VF-31X (Experimental 6th Generation VF) Sv-303 Vivasvat

It's also probably not a real option under the global distribution agreement they struck a couple years ago. Apparently one of the concessions they made was that future Macross titles meant for the global market would refrain from using the original series characters.

Hard to say... it does show up on Macross Chronicle's Variable Fighter design lineage diagram (Technology Sheet 01Q), but it's not connected to anything on either side. Macross Chronicle Technology Sheet 01L mentions a VB-4 and a VB-5 that we know nothing about, so they may be unrelated or there may be some unknown models in the middle there somewhere.

To be honest, that's more or less how I'd describe Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn. My feeling on Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn was that its story was a jumbled excuse plot that was mostly built on fanservice. The main conflict between Banagher and Full Frontal was a repeat-by-proxy of Amuro and Char's final conflict in Char's Counterattack, and everything leading up to it was a meandering and largely unnecessary sightseeing tour that'd be unnecessary if anyone in the story had a functioning brain (Laplace's box is "hidden" in plain sight on Laplace station FFS) and was liberally infested with MSV designs that did not have official gunpla yet. The whole affair felt like it was written by the marketing department, even if I knew in advance it was adapted from a light novel. I have to admit, I do see where you're coming from on Mobile Suit Gundam Narrative though. It's Unicorn again, but worse in every way and they're not even putting in the effort to pretend otherwise. It's REALLY blatant on the Neo Zeon side thanks to... It just takes the worst aspect of Unicorn and makes that the whole plot. Namely, psycoframes are just straight-up magic. The Axis Shock was one thing, since that was supposedly the collective will of humanity acting on the psycoframe. Unicorn and Narrative have just made Newtypes into wizards. It's not surprising the ending has Mineva saying that it's her life's work to put the genie back in the bottle because these developments don't fit with any of the works set after UC 100. Banagher's cameo is also completely unnecessary. This movie really doesn't contribute anything meaningful or interesting to the story of Gundam Unicorn or to Gundam's Universal Century as a whole. More than anything, where Unicorn felt to me like a toy commercial... Narrative feels like a fanfic.

In some capacity, though they shared the role with the Valkyries stationed around Earth's fledgling cities until the New UN Government finally got sick of dealing with giant Zentradi violence and banned Zentradi from living as giants on Earth's surface in 2030. Most emigrant fleets don't permit giant Zentradi for resource reasons, with Macross Frontier being one of the few exceptions (presumably at the behest of its Zentradi financial backer Richard Bilra), so the problem doesn't seem to have popped up in many other places. There was some rioting on Uroboros, but that was apparently induced rather than a natural occurrance, and Master File suggests the aggression problem that led to rioting was first mitigated with medication and then cured with gene therapy.

That bad?

Thus far, the only case that's mentioned after the First Space War era in official publications is the defense of the interior of (very large) later-generation emigrant ships like the 5th Generation Island Cluster-class. Official publications for the Macross Frontier series and movies point to that as the main reason for the Macross Frontier fleet's use of the Cheyenne II Destroid. Its relatively small size and its ability to switch between walking and rolling on the wheels built into its feet allowed it to be highly mobile (for a Destroid) and go almost anywhere inside of the Islands without much difficulty without damaging infrastructure like the road system. Even then, Macross Chronicle suggests the main role of Destroids stationed inside emigrant ships is delaying tactics so the ship's Valkyries can return and mop up the intruders. (Their use on the exterior of ships like the Macross Quarter as anti-air defenses is noted to be support of the ship's fixed anti-aircraft defenses.) The Macross 7 fleet had something vaguely similar in the form of the Patroid, an armored car that could turn into a vaguely Zaku Tank-like robot form. The area where Destroids seem to really shine after the First Space War isn't in combat, but as larger versions of heavy machinery. In Macross 7, we see many old Series 04 units owned by City 7 residents that have been converted with things like cement mixers and trowels, cranes, and drills. Macross Frontier materials note that the civilian market version of the Cheyenne II (the "Destroid Work") was very popular as a piece of highly versatile construction equipment and for things like asteroid mining. Macross Delta shows us more of same (though it calls them "Workroids") with the Shahal City spaceport on Al Shahal making liberal use of Workroids for freight handling. The settings of those stories are very different. Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross never really explains why military robots are a thing in its setting. They seem to have them just because it's the spacefuture and because the show's premise demands them. The war is mostly fought on the ground because the Zor's objective is on Glorie's surface and because their more advanced technology gave them a decisive edge over Glorie and Liberte's fleets despite the inexperience in war that allows the Southern Cross Army to hold them off for a time planetside. Genesis Climber MOSPEADA had something vaguely akin to a Destroid in the form of the (backstory only) Armo-Soldiers... early robotic weapons that were used by the 1st Earth Descent Operation. There are a bunch of different types in the concept art, but the only model to actually appear (in a still shot) was the Condor. Like the more advanced robotic weapons in the 2nd Earth Descent Operation at the start of the series proper, they were wiped out by the Invit's superior numbers and their own lack of awareness that the Invit's energy sensors could track them as long as their powerplants were running. The fighting there is on the ground because it's the story of a small number of survivors waging the best little guerilla war they can on their way to the Invit's central hive and because the Invit don't really have space forces in the conventional sense and not even really being that interested in fighting except in their own defense. In both cases, humanity's tech level is a fair bit lower than it is in Macross since they had to come by it honestly instead of being able to copy the Protoculture's homework. The level of technological advancement is much closer to that of Gundam's Universal Century.

For anyone who missed it while it was on YouTube, Mobile Suit Gundam Narrative is now available on Crunchyroll both dubbed and subbed.

Gotta love the classics. 😁👍 I'm probably headed back in that direction myself... HiDive has Armored Trooper VOTOMS and Aura Battler Dunbine in its catalog, and I've never actually seen all of either so that's a treat I'm looking forward to. My watch group also veered backwards a bit, we're doing Kaguya-sama: Love is War. It's every bit as manic and madcap as I remember it being, with the warped perceptions of the main characters and the excessively dramatic narrator. Today's new episodes of The Unwanted Undead Adventurer and The Wrong Way to Use Healing Magic were pretty unremarkable. Nothing really interesting going on in either series right now. (Though I'll admit I almost feel bad for the demons in the latter case... imagine trying to build a bridge in the middle of a storm and someone just starts throwing whole trees at you out of spite.)

The animation is from a SANKYO pachinko cabinet called CR Fever Super Dimension Fortress Macross that debuted in late 2009. The new animation made for it was subsequently released as an extra feature on the JDM Super Dimension Fortress Macross Blu-ray Complete Edition. https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/超時空要塞マクロス#パチンコ・パチスロ As @Jeff J said, some wishful thinker saw it and replaced the original Japanese audio from the clip with the Robotech theme. It's been doing the rounds falsely labeled as a "remastered Robotech opening" ever since. Here's a re-upload of Sankyo's promotional video for the CR Fever Super Dimension Fortress Macross pachinko machine that the animation in question was made for. and someone operating one of the cabinets: That is almost certainly never going to happen. About the most you can reasonably expect is an updated Blu-ray re-release with AI tool-based cleanup and enhancement like what's been done for the soon-to-release Macross Zero "Premium Remastered Edition" that comes in Japan at the end of this month.

That's not from Robotech... that's animation made for a Macross-themed pachinko machine.

The Witch and the Beast had a new episode drop today that closes out the necromancy story arc. Despite its emphasis on action as a dark fantasy series, they managed a spot of thought-provoking drama as well. I may end up looking up the source material for this one if it keeps bringing interesting takes like that one to the table. Metallic Rouge also has a new episode out, and it's kind of a mess. I didn't realize this was Studio BONES's 25th anniversary celebration title. Feels as bad when Tatsunoko Pro did The Price of Smiles as their 55th. An original anime to commemorate your studio's anniversary is a fine idea... but at least think the plot all the way out? Considering that this latest episode focuses on someone digging through Rouge's memories, there's surprisingly little actual exposition and it does nothing to clear up either of the show's halfhearted plot lines. It just sort of intensifies the feeling that this is a "if you can't dazzle them with your brilliance, baffle them with your bullsh*t" moment from the writers. Bang Brave Bang Bravern still refuses to pick a lane. Trying to use an alien invasion that's explicitly carrying out global genocide as the framing device for a super robot comedy's not the best idea anyone's ever had, and as a result it's not doing the parody/comedy side of the series or the serious super robot side of things justice. It just feels inconsistent and leaves the humor frequently verring into "Dude, not funny" territory. Finished Tokyo-style Elf earlier today. It remained a cute, funny, and well-executed slice of life comedy 'til the very end. I ended up enjoying it immensely. The animation team made Elda so expressive that it's almost impossible to dislike her even when she's being a brat or a coward. The occasional historical infodumps related to her hobbies end up being an unexpected bonus too. All in all, from Crunchyroll's line up The Witch and the Beast and A Sign of Affection definitely feel like this season's standouts. HiDive's simulcast lineup is so unremarkable I kind of glanced at it once and just "eech... I'll go to the back catalog". Even there, they don't have a lot... but at least they've got VOTOMS and Dunbine. FYI, this is still a violation of the forum rules... While the old ADV Films Genesis Climber MOSPEADA box set is out of print in the wake of ADV Films's bankruptcy and the transfer of a fair amount of its assets to successor firm Sentai Filmworks, it's not difficult to find copies of the legitimate and licensed home video release w/ English subtitles. As much as I love the attention to detail that went into the design of the titular mecha, I have to admit I've always found Genesis Climber MOSPEADA to be a bit uninspired. It had an interesting premise but it definitely suffered more than a little at the hands of its sponsors and their desire for a Macross copycat series. The Legioss armo-fighter and TLEAD feel so much more generic than the more aesthetically pleasing Valkyrie, and they lack of the attention to detail that Arimaki put into the VR-052 MOSPEADA and other ride armor systems because of his passion for motorcycles.

Okay, a few episodes into The Witch and the Beast... and it's actually pretty darn good. I was right that it's doing kind of a Witch Hunter Robin-esque sort of story concept, but it has much more of an emphasis on action than on slow-paced character drama. That's not to say it doesn't do character drama reasonably well too. It's rather gory and violent when all is said and done, but there's some fascinating worldbuilding going on here underneath the "witch of the week" sort of dark fantasy detective story. The Witch and the Beast has grabbed my attention like no other title this season has.