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Cool. At least you'll put up where Keith refuses to. ok. sorry for the delay. First of all, we need to establish that MII follows DYRL and not TV-series, so the Supervision Army angle can be completely thrown out altogether since there was never a mention of SA in DYRL. There was never any mention nor hint of zentran-"Creation" by the Marduk in MII, nor was there any mention of Zentran attack on the Marduk. There was also no direct mention of the Marduk capture of Zentrans. However, it was strongly hinted (imho) within Ishtar's monologue that the Marduk somehow possessed Zentraedi warriors, even tho the Marduk was already a warrior-race as established by Ishtar. Here are the M-II sorted screen-caps links I did: Marduk's a warrior race. Ishtar's not a Meltran Controling the Zentrans Usage of Zentran by the Marduk Enhancing the Zentrans instincts Zentrans impelled to fight for the Marduk As per the dialogue-sequence of the pics above, it can be strongly inferred that some rogue Zentraedi-faction were captured by the Marduks somehow. So, is the Marduk the Protoculture then? Nope. The Protoculture race were all basically extinct way before the events of DYRL. The Marduk was just basically an altogether different warrior-class race who just happen to possess and use Zentran warriors as cannon-fodder, and who prolly uses Meltrans as emulators. Quite a clever take on DYRL stuff, actually. Afaic, MII as a parallel-story independent-sequel to DYRL. Just watch it and enjoy it as such.

Nope. There are no noticeable overlay nor any overlay side-effects on this movie, unlike the original vhs and first dvd-volumes of the TV-series. The video and the transfer are very sharp and very good. --trreatment--

Well, I enjoyed Macross-II better than I enjoyed the whole Macross 7 series (tv/movie/ova). Sure, MII fraked up the so-called "continuity", but that was never a problem with me. We're all exposed to Robotech's version of Macross prior to MII, anyway, so why griped about it. DYRL was not a viable option back then like it is now these days. The VF-2 mechas and action-sequence in MII was pretty kewl. Most of the character-designs of Mikimoto in MII were mediocre, except for Ishtar. Ishtar was just a really kewl anime-babe. The only bad thing I can say about it is that I completely hate the english-dubbing of Macross-II.

You forgot to add "In My Opinion" since there's no evidence one way or the other. Well if he can come up with that quote he said he heard, he might have something. I believe they were intended to fill out the SA role (from what little there was to go off of from SDF Macross and before the Protodevlin stuff all came out in M7). I'll take a screen-cap of it later tonite when I get home. If somebody doesn't do it before me today.

You forgot to add "In My Opinion" since there's no evidence one way or the other. Have to agree with Keith here. It's not an opinion. Ishtar directly revealed this to Hibiki in the MII series.

Ok. Fallen behind sharing some anime-reviews, so might as well do one on my newly-received Nadesico-movie region-1 dvd. This movie's been delayed from being released here in Region-1 territories for quite awhile now and this release was just recently review-slammed at www.animeondvd.com, so here' my own review on it to share with you Nadesico-fans here in MacrossWorld. image of the R1 dvd cover [*]Movie title: Martian Successor Nadesico - Prince of Darkness movie [*]dvd-region: 1 [*]screen: 16x9 theatrical-widescreen non-anamorphic [*]audio: English 5.1 and 2.0 / Japanese 2.0 [*]running time: 90 minutes [*]studio: XEBEC [*]distributor: ADVFilms [*]original-release (japan): 1998 [*]retail-release in US: 11/11/03 rankings: [*] Story-Content : C to B+ for series-fans. : D for casual fans and newbies. This is kinda tough to classify for content-review, as series-fans here in the States are primarily split on this, afaik. Some giving it a C and even D, while others like me gives it a B+ rating. [*] Art and Animation: B+ This was a 1998 release and it still looks gorgeous and vibrant. The 2003-transfer was pretty good. The art is of the updated Dai-Guard (another xebec title) quality and variety. Transitions are smooth and the animation was pretty much standard. The mecha fight-scenes were done very good. Links to images I captured are below: pic 1 pic 2 pic 3 pic 4 pic 5 pic 6 pic 7 pic 8 pic 9 pic 10 pic 11 pic 12 pic 13 pic 14 pic 15 [*] Voice-acting: : A for the japanese-dubs. : D for the english-dubs. With the exception of the excellent english-dubbing on baddie Hokushin, the rest of the english-voices were horridly mis-casted and painful to listen to. Better stick with the Japanese-dubs with the subtitles. [*] Subtitles: A Nadesico is primarily dialogue-driven and ADVFilms did a very good translation-scripting. The jokes/humor came across clearly with no typos or grammar-structure weirdness compared to some other ADVFilms titles. [*] Packaging: A Clear-case with reversible covers; default cover is the region-1 art, while the reverse-cover is the original japanese cover-art. [*] Menu and Extras: D The menu is simple and pretty much generic. No extras besides some ADVFilms dvd-title catalogue. I guess ADVFilms did not secure the rights for the region-2 extras such as the trailers and promo-clips of the sexy ending-song "Dearest". Check the pic below: R1 menu-pic [*] story-review: Ruri pic Synopsis: Two years after the end of the UnitedEarth-JovianFederation war that ended with the peace-alliance between them, another secret menace or two started wreaking havoc and destruction upon the alliance planets. The planets/areas being targetted and destroyed are all part of the Hisago Plan project. Nobody knows who this new enemy is until the just before the destruction of the station where the Hisago Plan was HQ'ed. The enemy calls themselves the Martian Successors. They possessed instantaneous accurate teleportation (called boson jumping) that is quite an advantage over the Alliance's militaries. and is led by the former Jovian leader Kasukabe. The Martian Successors successfully provoked a large defection to their side of governments and militaries from both the UnitedEarth and the Jovian-Federation . There's another group led by a black-mecha that is also fighting the Martian Successor besides the Alliance, but no one is certain if it's a friend or a foe. It's up to the Nadesico team to save the universe. Again. But the two main characters of Nadesico-TV series are presumed dead before the start of the Martian Successor revolt. It's now all up to Ruri, the captain of the Nadesico-B. Prince of Darkness is a tight and dark movie-sequel to the Nadesico-TV series. It retains the excellent humor and dynamism of the TV-series characters and sports updated animation and art sequences, alongside a couple of new characters. Be aware that very much like the TV-series was, this movie is also pretty much dialogue-driven, both in drama and the unique Nadesico humor. You need to pay attention to the subtitles, unless of course you decided for some odd reason to listen to the english-dubs. This is quite a busy movie, as well, with lots of goodly mecha-action. The central characters from the TV-series still plays a critical role in the very interesting overall plot and theme of the movie, even tho the two were presumed dead. Sufficed to say, you really just need a good background on the TV-series plots for you to follow what the movie was trying to present. It is quite a departure from the TV-series presentation, however, because of it's seriousness. Overall, it's still enjoyable to most series-fans, but casual-fans and newbies surely might have problems of getting what the movie was about. If you like an action-packed, dark, dialogue-driven, and giggle-to-lol humor anime, this movie is most likely a good rental for you. Try it before making a purchasing-decision. --treatment--

The Macross II english-dubbing is still one of the most horrible english-dubbing ever done in all of anime. You will most likely will hate it when they made Ishtar sing the "Mou ichido - love you" song in English. Talk about tragedy and travesty. Better re-watch it in japanese-dub subtitled-form. The japanese-voices clearly are infinitely better and gave the series some needed decency. --treatment-- All of the songs were in japaniese with english sub, I dont know why this was, but none of the songs are in english. Also, when the Zentradi spoke, it was in japaniese with sub's. This must be a diferent version? If I recall correcty, most of the MacII-songs in the Region-1 dvd and the old Mangle-vhs were in japanese, except specifically for the "Mou Ichido" song. It's the important climax-song Ishtar sang ala Minmay's Ai Oboete (dyrl). I'm not sure what version you have, but if that's the case, then consider yourself extremely lucky to have escaped the travesty of the Mangle-ing of the great song "Mou Ichido".

The Macross II english-dubbing is still one of the most horrible english-dubbing ever done in all of anime. You will most likely will hate it when they made Ishtar sing the "Mou ichido - love you" song in English. Talk about tragedy and travesty. Better re-watch it in japanese-dub subtitled-form. The japanese-voices clearly are infinitely better and gave the series some needed decency. --treatment--

I'm not sure if the hinge you're talking about broke the same way as mine did, but here's the hackjob I did when the hinge on one of my Strikes broke before. backpack-hack As you can see, I basically cut up two pieces of thin-but-tough plastic from a discarded id-card or something, and used it as a front and back binder-support on the already glued-in hinge-parts. I used an alligator-clip or something on it and let it the super-glues dry completely to properly bind it. Suffice to say, it works. Hope this helps.

From the sega-dreamcast DYRL game-intro that was in Macross 20th anniversary DVD, the Earth was attacked while the SDF-1 (and/or at least the Skull Team) was still on Earth. --treatment-- Saturn, not Dreamcast. It was also ported to the Playstation. Yup. My bad. It was the Saturn, not the Dreamcast. m_m

From the sega-dreamcast DYRL game-intro that was in Macross 20th anniversary DVD, the Earth was attacked while the SDF-1 (and/or at least the Skull Team) was still on Earth. --treatment--

imho, Hugh Jackman (wolverine) would've been a better fit as The Punisher. Despite typecasting.

The nameless hacks who "wrote" Macross 2. ... Exactly, they were hacks... They weren't going by Kawamori's direction, they might have had no idea what Kawamori had in mind for the protocluture to be... In fact no where IN M2 was the term "protoculture" used to denote a ancient race. I think the M2 writers knew much less about the original SDF-Macross, DYRL, and the Protoculture than we as fans do. well, fwiw, at least the MII team didnt redefined protoculture as a flower and brought in the Zor/Masters, Invid and stuff.

iirc, only Hal Mikimoto was the only one from the original Macross-team that was directly involved in MII. The rest were prolly mostly Gundam-people from Bandai/Sunrise or something. Studio-Nue was only given a credits-recognition, but never work directly on the MII project itself. --treatment--

Why does he turn purple if a girl other than Mariel touches him? Afaict, it's just regular boy-reaction, i.e. shyness, adolescence, innocence, etc. Iirc, in one or more scenes, he just couldn't pee coz of the triplet's presence and looking on. Just one of the hilarious stuff in the series. I like the way they portray it as part of his growing-up period. He's got more confidence with Mariel since Mariel's not as sexually aggressive as the triplets. fwiw, I couldn't believe Tanaka Rie (Chii of Chobits, for those that don't know, yet) sounded alot like Ikkoku Inoue (beldandy, etc) in the Mariel character.

I think that's a typo. I have the anime and Taro ain't allergic to girls. I don't read manga, however.

Yeah. That is quite arrogant of Yamato or whoever Rob spoke with. I don't appreciate it being told like that to buy another valk if I want replacement-parts. That's just bad customer-service. But this is the main problem with importing stuff. It just sux to have to be aware.

Yes. It has Japanese-2.0 stereo with subs setting, along with the English-5.1 and English-2.0 setting. You can even turn off the subs completely since it's not hard-subs like Mangle's Macross-Plus movie-edition. Fwiw the Japanese-cast sounds alot like the Macross-II Japanese-cast. btw, I think at least two of the episodes have split op/ed themesongs, i.e. the English-dubs have the updated female-singer techno-versions, while a couple or three episodes in Japanese-dubs have the original sucky op/ed male-singer version. Ala Funimation's DBZ dvd's. It's the mid episodes (2-4/5) where it happens iirc. I keep flipping the audio-setting on my remote coz I really don't like the original male-version themesongs. --treatment--

That's the whole damned problem. If Yamato would put out a TV Max and Milia "J" then I would spend money on those. THEN let Yamato rip the rest of you off with the "S" Hikaru (at least a customized Bandai has a different paint job for crying out loud). As it stands they'll waste money on this stupid ripoff and we'll never see the Valks that most of us really want: M&M, CF, Elint, etc. because they won't make money to spend on "new crap." I can understand your pov if you have bought all of the 1/48 models already and/or have bought extra 1/48 toys. It does seems like a rip-off at first take. But still... How is the Hikaru-1S a rip-off to some people who didn't buy the Roy-1S? or heck! To people who don't have any 1/48's at all, or at most, only have one 1/48 in their collection? fwiw, the Hikaru-1S will only be my second 1/48 toy, and most prolly will be the last. To each his own, I guess. --treatment--

Imode, you forgot the most important part of that... Please order only if you are willing to save the world with any of the possible figures!

Orguss-1 was Mikimoto designs and Orguss-2 was at least based on Hal's originals, i.e. Nataruma has some strong resemblance to Minmay. Even the hair-color. The only other anime I can think of that has Macross tributes and stuff on it is Nadesico. And Otaku No Video had more direct tributes/analysis to SDF-tv and DYRL. You really should get it when you can. It's old-school parody.

Guld has a pony-tailed buzz-cut in Plus. Without the ponytail we would be calling it a mullet... should've been a tell-tale sign of his unavoidable demise.... lol! at least he wasn't wearing a bandana or headband somewhere. Guld's still a bad-ass character, tho.

u know, Roy was sporting a full and kinda longish hair. he died, too.

Guld has a pony-tailed buzz-cut in Plus.

ok. let's try this again, since i posted it originally in the wrong forum. Fyi. The Orguss-2 six-episode dvd for region-1 area is now out on retail. Normally, I wouldn't buy a Mangle dvd, but it was priced at $15.99 at Fry's for the complete 180-minutes series. Couldn't resist since it's really a good and dark mecha-series. --treatment--